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Book Reviews
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Understanding the Global Economy: the Solution to the Failure
by Howard Richards
(Peace Education Books; 2nd edition; 311 pages, index, notes, review questions; $14.95; 2004)
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The book title names the first step to alleviate the damage done by the failed global economy. For that goal, the author outlines the economic theory, social science, and thought that formed the basis of the global system. Applied to the sense of our current crisis, this book gives readers the chance to see what makes our economy tick.
Most of the books about global capitalism focus on the issues in the current crisis; they give a mere glimpse at other economies and efforts of reform that have failed, and what might unseat globalization. This book gives us a balance of: 1) the historical basis for the global market, which includes the economic theory, ethics, and ideology, 2) the current issues of the crisis, 3) the failed solutions, and 4) the solution the author advocates via his: a) analysis of the history from the roots to the present, b) observations and research of the active solution, and c) proactive work to help implement the solution.
Cultural economics names the new economic paradigm, which, as the author points up, is really very old. He describes the traditional paradigm in the global South and ethnic indigenous Europe and Asia. Further, he cites some of the urban inner city poor and counter-culture of the U.S. who have arrived in the new paradigm. Beyond this, it is the author’s hope that more than just the most severely afflicted in the global South and inner city North will see the pressing need for cooperation and care for others as for oneself. Therefore, the book tours through the millennia of theory, history, and social science to arrive at the issues and crisis. The author states the dimensions of the crisis within his preface and intro; he then weaves the issues into his expose of theory and historical trends and events.
Readers might puzzle that the author, a professor of Peace and Global Studies would start with background and not jump right into the issues and crisis. Instead, he takes us back to Aristotle’s Metaphysics to show us the functional roots of economy in the West. Thus, for example, Part 1: Comparative Advantage—the essence of neoclassical trade theory—gives us the core of the root from which the modern system sprang. He even uses the classical method of analysis: as the outline form of Part 1 through 6 affirms that the basis of the modern system as morphed from the classical Aristotelian into a neoclassical form. For this 2nd edition, Part 10: A Vision of a World Free of Poverty and Economic Insecurity dawned as the next conclusion for a just economy of peace. This is the vision that comes through the study of Gandhi, M. L. King, Day, and others. Part 11: A Logical Plan for Peace brings the book to its ultimate purpose: an economy of justice as part of the social science of peace studies. Questions for hearts and minds abound throughout this sensitive and sincere book that invites us back to our tribal indigenous roots of security through care.
David Faubion can be reached at peacebooks@global-economy.info
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