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Rating: 
Summary: A critique of market ideology, with positive alternatives.
Review: This is a very thoroughly researched book with an impassioned social message on money, ethics and human values. The author's arguments are complex and any serious critique of the author's arguments requires upon a reading and analysis of the book itself.McMurtry is Professor of Philosoophy at University of Guelph and has been an active thinker and leader in analyzing and opposing the Multilateral Agreement on Investment (MAI). His book provides a comprehensive account of the economic and social history which underlie these modern trends, and the errors and problems involved. The question of freedom and its nature is basic to life and society, and conventional market theory is very superficial and self-serving in this regard. The Market is an abstract entity with powers as formerly ascribed to God, and belief in market absolutes ("there is no alternative") is based upon ideologies and rationalizations not fully grounded in real-world human and ecological v! ! alues. The basic problem lies in a value system for which money (the services and goods it commands by social agreement) is seen as the only practical measure, and is treated as absolute. Values attached to meeting human needs for development and well-being, including sustainable ecology, are given short shrift. The problems are deeper than those of class structures, for the values held do in fact condition views of what constitute reality itself. Minds are programmed by such values to perceive the system as commanded by nature as laws of nature and of God. However, the problem is not "human nature". It is rather the inertness and habituation of the mind, a condition that does not question or allow the reevaluation of socially conditioned and programmed values. People thinking within this closed order do not recognize what they are part of, and see things as "the way things are". Beliefs are seen not as values but as realities. Such value systems unde! ! rlie the global market. (In a similar way, theology underla! y the world view of the Middle Ages, and provided the logical ground and justification for procedures of the Inquisition.) We may think that a value system goes wrong because there is a gap between what its proponents claim to adhere to as values, and what they in fact do. that is not the problem here. The problem is that the market metric does not include natural resources or human needs (as contrasted with economic demands) as values in its calculus. What the market designates as value is all that counts. Externalities and side-effects or human and ecological devastation are not considered. The problem is, such is the trust in the "invisible hand", that relevant questions are not asked, not conprehended, and ruled out of order. Also, the global market is not the same as the classical capitalist market, and has little even in common with a *producer's* market. The process of confining consciousness within the closed loop of a social value regime continures unt! ! il it is recognized to be in clear contradiction to reason and the senses. It is necessary, for survival, to open the old mind-set to question, in order to adjust to life realities that the value system has excluded from view. McMurtry deals with many issues: the distinction between reality and representations; historical backgrounds; Adam Smith, John Locke and the development of economic theory and practice; the market and faith in its "invisible hand" as God; sin against market laws and punishments; money and private property; profit, competition and the socila good; free markets and democracy; market metaphysics (and true meanings); global markets and planetary health; the decoupling of capital from civil and environmental life; mutations of the profit systems and the logic of the world-system crisis; and the economics of life and death. Changes in the direction of life values are outlined. In my view this is a book that deserves a lot of close attention and ! ! discussion.
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