Another World Is Possible IfÂ…

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Summary: Must-read, for all interested in globalization & justice.
Review: If you've felt uncomfortable about the extreme inequality in the world, about the enormous power wielded by a few corporations, if you've suspected that trade rules between the rich and poor worlds are severely rigged in favor of the rich,...

then maybe you have also wondered if the world could be a bit different? Is another world possible?

A rousing slogan of the anti-corporate, pro-people movement (often mis-named the "anti-globalization" movement) is just that: "Another world is possible." In Brazil, where scepticism of rich countries' corporate interests is very strong, they made a samba around the declaration: "Um Outro mundo e posivel."

But is it really true? Is a better world actually possible? Or should we just get used to being pushed around by corporate power? And should peoples of the Third World simply be resigned to poverty, Yankee imperialism, and perpetual peripheral status?

Or can we hope?

Susan George sets out to answer this question in this marvelous book, "Another World is Possible if..."

Partly, it's a manual for the anti-corporate activist, an exposition of the author's ideas of what conditions need to be fulfilled for the movement to be successful, what the short-term and long-term goals should be.

The book is also a beginner's introduction to the anti-corporate movement. Ms. George identifies the main actors in the corporate globalization process: the IMF, the World Bank, the Word Trade Organization, multinational corporations, lobbying groups. Methodically, she exposes the role each of these have played, in forcing exploitative trade rules, distorting democratic processes, increasing inequality and poverty.

Often, the anti-corporate movement is referred to as "anti-globalization." This is a rather vicious distortion, because the movement is far more internationalist than its antagonists. The "globalization" of multinationals, international banks and their 3rd-World elite partners, is only interested in squeezing dry what's left of the 3rd World. On the other hand, the internationalism of the movement is a struggle to give a fair chance to all.

This book contains a lot of detail on corporate control over the governance of the European Union. European citizens who might think that the EU should work for European peoples, rather than multinationals, will find information here worth losing sleep over. In very readable prose, Ms George tells of the power wielded by lobbying groups in Brussels. Of the trans-Atlantic big-business coalition and its successes in bending and shaping national laws, at the expense of people and the environment.

Ms. George is an American-born woman who settled in France. Her view is Eurocentric, in a way that both Americans and 3rd-Worlders might find annoying. But to this 3rd-World reviewer, much (though not all) of her arguments for Europe made sense.

Ever wondered what those sceptics of corporate globalization are so rattled about? Wondering if your government works for you, or for the corporate guys in suits? For pointers of such questions and more, this book is thoroughly recommended.