Whose Crisis, Whose Future? [Paperback]

It is a huge shame to me that someone as passionate, knowledgeable and experienced as Susan George could have been allowed - so often - to shoot her own arguments in the foot with glaring contradictions and inaccuracies. I strongly disagree with other reviewers who think her arguments are well structured; I have rarely come across a book so conflicted and confused.

It was really difficult for me to read. Not because of lack of interested in her subject matter, and not because I disagree with her point of view but because I have a background in science and engineering where peer review and a decent (firm-handed!) technical editor would have pulled this text to pieces and given Susan George a chance to turn this into a truly excellent book. Instead we have a book where I literally had a smile on my face after one excellent explanation or revelation only to have it wiped clean away on the next page by a statement that just irritated and bemused me.

First the plus points. This book pulls together the interconnected crises (environmental, sociological and financial) and treats them as they rightly should be under a common lens. George really does have an excellent overview of the geopolitical landscape and her belief that the spheres of existence are given the wrong order of priority is spot on. In fact there's so much to learn from this book - even if you've seen it before in other works - by way of harmonising and converging of ideas. As I said above, this could have been an outstanding book.

I also like the fact that despite her revulsion at the wealthy powers behind governments, George retains some positivity and feels that democracies can work with these individuals in the long run. Despite all she has seen and the opinions she holds, she has not given up on humanity's capacity to heal its self-inflicted wrongs.

But then there's the conflict. The French title of this book was `Leurs crises, nos solutions' which would give the prospective reader a much better idea of George's standpoint. THEY (the Davos `class', global financial institutions...) made these crises; WE (the enlightened `normal' people) have the solutions. While I'm not sure it really helps advance an argument to point out what monsters the other side are, that's not really the problem here. As, fortunately, I wasn't the editor I shall just focus on one chapter to illuminate what bothered me about this book... needless to say there are examples like these peppering the whole text.

So we look at one example from the `The Most Basic Basics: Part 2: Water'
The chapter begins by explaining what a `wet' dream water is for the ideal capitalist.

"Price is a way of rationing scarce resources, so, the scarcer the good, the higher the price - for classical theorists this is the vital function of the market."

George then states:
"Saying that water should be a universal public good does not mean it should also be free... its price should escalate fairly rapidly with consumption levels. Its price, however, should be determined politically, not by purely economic forces of supply and demand."

She then comments on China's massive overconsumption in relation to GDP generation compared to developed world nations, blaming the `completely unrealistic' water prices in China (set, let us remember, politically if not democratically). "They [the prices] do not reflect scarcity, so they encourage further waste and depletion".

A few pages later she commends the municipal government of Grenoble, for supplying water "at the lowest cost of all French cities with a population over 100,000" !!!

I'd love to be able to work out what on Earth George is trying to say in these comments. Should China be chastised for (politically) setting water prices so low as to encourage waste; or should that fall on Grenoble for doing the equivalent. Remembering, of course, that Grenoble lies at the meeting of two major rivers fed by glacial melt-water from the Alps... a short-term beneficiary of climate-change induced receding glaciers if ever I saw one!

Others have laughed at her use of the rat anecdote concerning privatisation of British water but this is just one example out of a book-load of statistics and accounts devoid of context or missing the fundamental scientific understanding to back them up. Her closing chapters remarks on self-organising criticality are bordering on farcical from someone who seems devoted to the concept of top-down democratic hierarchy sustained by increased taxation. Biological and `lifeless' chemical self-organisation works without (and probably thanks to a lack of) top-down instruction and all evidence I've ever seen points to the conclusion that the more humans meddle with such systems the more fragile they become.

I find it hard and almost worthless to rate this book out of five stars. There is plenty of five-star material in the book; and plenty of one-star dirt smeared all over it! If you want a rational book to understand the scope of the energy crisis facing Britain, then I'd steer you straight to David MacKay's Sustainable Energy Without the Hot Air. If you want a book to inspire you about the power of biological self-organisation and humanity's place in the grand scheme, then get hold of a copy of Tim Flannery's Here on Earth. Susan George holds many opinions; some of which I agree with - others of which I contest. But I always believe it is healthy to read a variety of opinions and challenge your own beliefs. If you can keep your wits about you and avoid treading in the dirt, Susan George's WCWF does have a lot to recommend it.

Susan George has written an excellent study of our present state of affairs. She notes that the EU "seems bent on destroying as many public services as possible and rejecting democracy at every turn." Its austerity measures are bound to cut economic activity and therefore jobs. It prioritises privatisation, opening all services, including water, to penetration by EU companies. In recent years it has shifted 10 per cent of its GDP from wage-earners to the owners of capital.

As George notes, "the EU systematically blocks the avenues to economic success in poor countries through its agricultural policies, subsidies and dumping, which ruin southern hemisphere farmers; its industrial fishing fleets that rake the sea beds and leave no catch for local fisher-folk; and its trade policies, which have often destroyed infant industries in developing countries." It also promotes biofuels, even though growing and using biofuels emits far more greenhouse gases than fossil fuels do. Biofuels divert 15 per cent of world corn production to fuelling cars.

British, French and German banks made huge loans to Portugal, Greece, Ireland, Iceland and Spain, so EU `aid' to these countries is a disguised bail-out of these banks. Eurozone banks still hold $1500 billion worth of dodgy claims. Countries in debt need to borrow, so they have to borrow at high rates, so they spend more on paying back the debts than on investing in growth, so they get deeper in debt ... a vicious circle.

Only 2 per cent of financial transactions are to do with the real economy, yet we have already given the banksters $14 trillion so that they can carry on exploiting us all.

The USA's Commodities Futures Modernization Act of 2000 allowed uncontrolled speculation in foods, raw materials and energy. In 2003, commodity index fund investors had put $13 billion into these exchanges, by 2008, $260 billion. The same years saw the price of wheat rise by 314 per cent.

Between 1969 and 2004, Africa's leaders stole $420 billion, two-thirds of Africa's capital. Capital flight from the developing world is $1 trillion a year. In 1997, 31 very poor countries owed $102 billion. By 2005, after suffering eight years of Structural Adjustment Programs, they owed $100.6 billion. In 2001, these same 31 paid $2.87 billion in debt service, in 2006, $3.29 billion. In 2007, sub-Saharan Africa paid $17 billion in debt service. We must cancel third world debt.

At every turn, finance capital fights the measures we need to improve our lives and secure a future. As Adam Smith wrote, "All for ourselves and nothing for other people seems in every age of the world to have been the vile maxim of the masters of mankind."

We need to nationalise the banks and make them serve industry. But to do this, we have to defeat finance capital.

Susan George is an uncompromising critic of the IMF, World Bank and the current conventions of the Financial World, a political scientist of world standing and author several books on world social justice, Third World underdevelopment, poverty and debt she comes to this book with an impressive cv of experience and credentials.
This is no polemic rant; it is a cool uncompromising and sustained criticism of the organisations and conventional wisdoms which she identifies as gave rise to the finical crisis which we are still living with. There is no doubt in my mind that most people reading this book will end up angry; either nodding their heads in fierce agreement, in fury at discovering what had taken place, or in apoplectic disagreement depending upon the political outlook and fiscal up-bringing.
The style is easy to read and understand, despite the complexities of the circumstances; economic and financial jargon being laid bare and in some cases examples of doublespeak being dissected and the bits swept away with and notable theme dismissal. There are a formidable amounts of footnotes to back up her arguments which had me wandering over websites I would not have thought to look at simply to follow up.
One of the impressive aspects of this book is that Susan George does not go for the particularly personal invective, although `names are named'. It is her contention that the financiers and their clients simply look to make money because that's the way they are, even if the individuals might be nice folk they are still looking out to maximise their own fortunes, it is what they do. Our politicians and their advisors should have been more wary and paid attention to the lessons of history. She asserts, therefore under heavy and sophisticated lobbying and other means of influence the financial interests have dismantled the safeguards carefully put together after the 1930s, and thus history repeats itself. The tragedy this time, Susan George states is that we have unprecedented access to wealth and resources to turn this around.
Anyone can criticise, mock or rant, it takes much more to offer counter-arguments and solutions, which are based on sensible and workable premises and these, are offered in the final chapter and the conclusion. Most of these would cause vascular problems to those who subscribe to the free market; stronger legislation, more public spending of the available wealth and the encouraging of ordinary people to become involved in the political and financial world with a view to replacing of Economics by Social Policy as the main driving engine of political decision making.
A most impressive and thoughtful contribution to the debate on the future of an increasing complex and interlinked world. I would recommend this to anyone with an interest in either side of the argument because of the wealth of information and history. In particular if you have been confused and overwhelmed by arguments spoken in `econ-speak' this is ideal as it is written in plain English.