De-globalization

De-globalization
Ideas for a New World Economy
Walden Bello
Zed Books, 2002
HbISBN 1 84277 304 6
PbISBN 1 84277 305 4

More information from Zed Books

Will the world economy be forever more market-oriented and dominated by transnational corporations? This short and trenchant history of the organizations promoting economic globalization - the World Bank, IMF, WTO, and Group of Seven - points to their manifest failings. Recurrent financial crises, a yawning gulf between developing and industrialized countries, gross inequalities within all countries and mass poverty. Bello reviews these institutions' crisis of legitimacy and examines the major new ideas for reform - the Commission on Global Governance's suggestion of an Economic Security Council; the US Congress's Meltzer Commission proposals; and the ideas of financier, George Soros.

Walden Bello sees these ideas as mere tinkering with marginal policy changes; the world requires a radical shift towards a decentralised, pluralistic system of economic governance allowing countries to follow development strategies appropriate to their needs and circumstances. This 'deglobalization' means radically reducing the powers and roles of the existing TNC-driven WTO and Bretton Woods institutions. And requires the formation of new institutions helping to devolve the greater part of production, trade and economic decisionmaking to national and local level.

Contents

• Introduction

1. Evolution of the Current System of Global Economic Governance
2. Decision-making Structures of the Multilateral Agencies
3. Crisis of Policy, Crisis of Legitimacy
4. The G7 and Reform, 1998-2001
5. Proposals for Reform of Global Economic Governance
6. An Alternative System of Global Economic Governance