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8 of 9 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
A breathtakingly brilliant hatchet-job, 5 Jan 2005
Norberg's book is a carefully argued and meticulously sourced demolition of many of the myths and shibboleths that surround the globalization debate. For those of us, like me, who have grown up suffused with the anti-capitalist consensus of the left, this book makes for pretty devastating reading.The point of this book, as Norberg explains early on, is not so much to defend the status quo, but to argue passionately for a better future, especially for the poor and oppressed of this world. This vision is based on freedom. Freedom to vote, freedom to choose our leaders, freedom to travel, to work and above all to buy and sell without hindrance and without borders. For Norberg believes that only a system of willing buyers and willing sellers, operating without hindrance, can produce a just global trading system, which he argues can benefit the poor just as much as the rich.
The most noticeable thing about Norberg's book is how carefully he sources his material - no anecdotes or hearsay evidence here, everything is thoroughly footnoted and statistics put into proper context. For example, Norberg demonstrates how the West, then East Asia, and now India and China, lifted millions out of poverty by liberalising trade arrangements. Most startling of all, Norberg shows how world poverty and global inequality are actually decreasing. Until reading this book I, like most people, believed the exact opposite. Aren't rich countries GDPs pulling away from those of poor countries? But this analysis is flawed, as Norberg demonstrates. The key is that the statistics used by the anti-globalization movement to try to demonstrate widening inequality do not take account of the cost of living. Rather than raw dollar income, you have to factor in the "cost of living index". Once you understand this, everything slots into place. To put it simply, an income of $2,000 a year in low-cost India will buy you a better standard of living than one of $10,000 a year in expensive Britain. It's obvious when you think about it. Also, most statistics do not take account of where exactly poor people live. Poverty world-wide is decreasing because the huge populations of China and India now have such high growth rates. You can only "prove" that poverty is worsening on the planet by assigning countries like Haiti the same population as countries like China and then drawing a graph! Once you factor in these crucial requirements it is indisputable that inequality between the richest and poorest peoples on earth is narrowing. It really is simple, straightforward economics. Not that Norberg is an uncritical admirer of current trading arrangements. Some poor countries have remained poor or sunk further because of, he argues, political corruption and exclusion from free-trade arrangements. He attacks the hypocrisy of rich Western nations who preach free trade but fail to practise it by imposing tariffs and trade barriers on poor farmers and producers in (some) developing countries. As Norberg demonstrates, the restriction on wealth creation in some parts of the 3rd world is caused by their exclusion from free-market capitalism, not by an excess of it! Norberg deconstructs many other popular fads and myths of our time. He says that drug companies should keep their profits, Nike should open more factories in Asia, and all trade barriers should be abolished. He says that globalization is good because far from producing a bland, homogenized 'McWorld', it has given so many the chance to sample so much, from whichever country they like. Whatever your views, and I was unsure I agreed with some of his ideas, it is hard not to be impressed when his arguments are based on logic, facts and statistics not taken out of context or in isolation. Visit any bookshop and you will see a proliferation of works decrying the capitalist system, and globalization, as A Bad Thing. Naomi Klein, Noreena Hertz, William Stiglitz; the list is endless. As someone who approached this whole topic with an open mind, I am thankful that Johan Norberg has produced this very readable and accessible book as a counter-argument. Admirers of Naomi Klein's 'No Logo', for example, are in for a rude awakening if they read this book. With surgical precision Norberg picks apart her arguments and buries them beneath an avalanche of facts and logic. This book is mandatory reading for all those interested in global justice, poverty and globalization. I challenge anyone to read this book and not be rendered at the very least sceptical about the anti-globalization arguments. As Norberg says, he hates poverty - not wealth. His book presents a highly convincing manifesto for a just and better world.
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20 of 24 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Excellent, readable rebuttal of the anti-globalisation lobby, 11 Jun 2002
By A Customer
Johan Norberg is a 28 year old Swedish academic and policy wonk who has come up with the inspired idea of attacking the anti-globalisation movement using their own statistics. He takes on such myths as free trade leading to greater poverty and inequality, arguing that, contrary to popular belief, globalisation has led countries like India away from the dire poverty it was experiencing 30 years ago. He also makes the point, probably considered heretical by the average man on the street, that multinational corporations are actually improving wages and working conditions in the third world. According to the back cover, Norberg changed the whole tenor of the globalisation debate in his native Sweden and you can see why. A young man and a former anarchist he is able to attack his opponents on their own level and writes about what is often a technical and off-putting subject in a fresh, well-argued, easily readable style. I think all students of economics and politics should read this book.
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3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Good News, 18 Mar 2007
In this informative and accessible book, Norberg offers a systematic, detailed and complete rebuttal of the claims of the enemies of capitalism and globalization. Backed up by verifiable facts from a huge variety of reputable sources, he demolishes every lie of the leftists and environmentalists. He also investigates the other side of certain half-truths and gives an optimistic assessment of how capitalism, freedom and globalization are improving lives around the globe.
Norberg looks at certain deceptive ideas, for example the one that claims the rich are getting richer and the poor poorer, giving us the good news of rapidly diminishing poverty and pointing out that the measure should be how well one is doing, not how well situated one is in relation to others. He investigates the facts on issues like hunger, education, freedom and equality. Improvements have been particularly spectacular in China and India since these countries started reforming their economic systems.
He shows how the walls against ideas, people and goods are collapsing with dictatorships and how women benefit from the spread of capitalism. The best cure for poverty is growth; prices and profits serve as a signalling system in the market economy whereby the worker, the entrepreneur and the investor all benefit. The importance of property rights are pointed out, with reference to the work of De Soto, and the author compares the success of the Asian Tigers with the sorry state of Africa, although even here the open societies like South Africa, Mauritius and Botswana are doing well.
Norberg dismisses the hoary old argument that western countries are rich because they stole the resources of Third World countries in colonial times. The affluent world has grown faster since shedding its colonies, many rich countries (like Sweden and Switzerland) never had any colonies, whilst some of the world's least developed countries (Nepal, Liberia) have never been colonies. Nor have countries with natural resources as a rule grown as fast as those without, for example Singapore. A brilliant example of free trade success is Estonia, which soon after independence in 1992 abolished all tariffs.
The 20 economically most liberal countries have a per capita GDP of approximately 29 times that of the economically least liberal. The uneven distribution of wealth in the world is due to the uneven distribution of capitalism and the losers of the world are those that have been left out of globalisation.
The author attacks agricultural subsidies in the affluent countries, showing that this ridiculous practice harms those countries themselves and the developing world. He demonstrates the absurdity of Europe's Common Agricultural Policy, a bureaucratic nightmare that channels nearly 40% of the entire EU budget to less than 1% of the population. Latin America still suffers from decades of privilege and protectionism, but Chile is a good example of how quickly a country can transform itself with the right policies, to create a high standard of living.
Norberg investigates a vast range of issues, from development assistance (It is wasteful in that it normally involves the transfer of money from poor people in rich countries to rich people in poor countries), child labour and working conditions. He argues convincingly that free trade and capitalism alleviate social problems. He also proves that prosperity is beneficial for the environment, refuting the spurious claims of environmentalists and quoting from Bjorn Lomborg's remarkable book, The Skeptical Environmentalist.
The author considers every angle, including issues like "cultural imperialism" and the risible notion of the "dictatorship of the market", showing how capitalism and democracy go hand in hand in creating a better world. The book includes an index and 14 pages of notes. The text is enhanced by graphs demonstrating the facts and arguments. He concludes the book on an optimistic note, i.e. that people are beginning to wake up to the fact that they aren't just the tools of society but ends in themselves and that freedom and democracy will spread and continue to improve the lives of everyone on the planet.
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