False Dawn: The Delusions of Global Capitalism (Hardcover)

Writing with great economy and accessibility, Gray's argument is concise but portentous: the unfettered global free market economy will not spawn a self-regulating utopia, but increasing social instability and economic anarchy. With an impressive breadth of economic and social history, False Dawn convincingly argues that "the free market is a rare, short-lived phenomenon", a specific product of English nineteenth-century social engineering, from whose cycles of boom and bust we still have much to learn. Even more provocatively, Gray argues that "democracy and the free market are competitors rather than partners." The failures of the free market, from pre-war Europe to the collapse of the Mexican economy in 1994, have persistently shown that democratic state intervention is required to place checks and balances upon the erratic cycles of boom and bust which has characterised the relatively short history of the free market.

Arguing with great passion and conviction, Gray explores the emergence of the belief in the global free market, via the increasingly discredited philosophy of the European Enlightenment, through the rise and fall of the free market in England from Palmerston to Thatcher. The book then analyses the potentially catastrophic investment in the free market coming out of the USA, the recent "Anarcho-capitalism" of post-communist Russia, and the crisis in the markets of Southeast Asia. Avoiding calls for a return to socialist planning, False Dawn is a refreshing and challenging polemic. Nevertheless, it offers few solutions to what Gray sees as "the deepening international anarchy" as free markets spiral out of control. While False Dawn may expose the shortcomings of contemporary global capitalism, it remains to be seen whether or not its arguments provoke more concrete solutions to the chronic instability of the free market. --Jerry Brotton --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

Synopsis
This is an analysis of an important issue facing the world in the 1990s, whose outcome will determine the kind of world in which children will grow up in. John Gray argues that societies and peoples all over the world are being forced to participate in an experiment in liberal social engineering. The new world order created by the fall of communism has given birth to its own utopian delusion: the idea that only the complete freeing of the market in all areas of human life, from global trade to private health, can deliver prosperity and stability. This dogma, energetically promoted by institutions, such as the World Bank, the IMF and the US Government, would have people believe that only the most radically libertarian version of capitalism can work. Anglo-American capitalism, as perfected Thatcher and Reagan, is seen as the only possible model for the coming century. In Gray's view, this cult of the unfettered free market will result, in most countries, in a mixture of anarchy and squalor on the one hand, and concentrated wealth and irresponsibility on the other.

By ignoring the peculiarities of different cultures, the global utopians will dissolve the very networks that made the civilization possible in the first place.

• Books > Business, Finance & Law > Economics > Political Economy
• Books > Business, Finance & Law > Economics > Theory & Philosophy

• Would you like to update product info or give feedback on images?
• I am the Author, and I want to comment on my book.
• I am the Publisher, and I want to comment on this book.