Rating: 
Summary: A candid look into global capitalism
Review: As far as skeptics of globalization go, John Gray has to rank high. Formerly a Thatcher conservative and now a market skeptic, Mr. Gray's credentials alone take him a long way. It is no wonder, then, that what he has to write about globalization should be worth reading.All the same, "False Dawn" is likely to produce mixed feelings. Its eight-fold argument is hard to keep track of, rendering interesting observations seem like unnecessary transgressions. Mr. Gray's fluid writing style that consists of short paragraphs makes for an enjoyable read, but at times, speed and brevity come at the expense of depth; all too often, the reader is likely to demand more from the book. Still, the argument itself has merits, particularly in showing how free markets need a strong government to engineer them (as opposed to them springing naturally). Mr. Gray's continuous dialectic between the economic imperatives of a capitalist system and its social consequences is surely to excite skeptics of liberalism and trouble its supporters. From the perspective of political theory, Mr. Gray's contribution is invaluable. But as with the arguments of many skeptics, Mr. Gray's overlooks certain uncomfortable realities. At the heart of Mr. Gray's thesis is the tradeoff between the flexibility of markets and the human need for economic security. For Mr. Gray, capitalism's very dynamism is likely to lead to its fall. At the same time, Mr. Gray pays scant reference either to the need for security itself or to the political shortfalls of providing security and social cohesion. After all, the engineering of markets came to save failing economies. It is not at all clear where Mr. Gray would have us go if not towards free markets. As the argument moves from political theory to economics, its appeal lessens. The economics of globalization (bad capitalism driving out good capitalism) are at the center of Mr. Gray's thesis. What is absent, however, is a comprehensive review of the economic literature which takes issue with this position. Absent such a refutation of the opposite side of the argument, Mr. Gray invites his readers to dismiss his arguments all too easily. In the end, Mr. Gray makes a (stretched) comparison between Marxism and liberalism. It is true that they are both products of the Enlightenment whose belief in reason and progress is paramount; and it is true that both need strong governments to work. But the scope of government is different under them. What is also different is the benefits that each system gives to its people-both might bring dislocation, but liberalism has many merits, while Marxism had few. In fact, Mr. Gray's unwillingness to recognize how markets increase human agency more so than political participation surfaces as the primary drawback of his argument. And, Mr. Gray's overlooking of how the market too can provide for economic security might displease some forward-looking economic thinkers. But for all its shortcomings, "False Dawn" is as good a book as one can find about the potential drawbacks of the global economic system. Whether Mr. Gray's prediction that anarchy is the next stage in human development comes true is another matter; but, if anarchy comes, Mr. Gray will have told us why.
Rating: 
Summary: False Doom
Review: Author John Gray makes some astute and prescient points alongside others which are overwhelmingly brainless, in this wandering attack on global free trade ideologues which degenerates, at its low points, into a tiredly familiar attack on Western culture itself. Among the astute points is that classical free market economic theory presupposed immobility of capital, while today's global free trade ideologues, who invoke classical economics as a foundation for their "anything goes" trade policy, hardly comprehend how instantaneous, unregulated capital flow between countries not only violates the very theory upon which their free trade ideology sits, but brings disruptive havoc to developing nations not culturally armored with rugged Anglo-American conceptions of individual rights, property rights and entrepreneurial exuberance. Gray also remarks on how, in contradiction to the official government line, the rich are getting richer, the poor poorer and the middle-class more exhausted, in the many Western nations who've aggressively embraced the deregulation and free trade politics born, in their most contemporary incarnation, in the Thatcher-Reagan era. If he stopped here, and built his book around a sober exploration of these central ideas, the book would be a commanding and valuable contribution to global discourse. Instead, Mr. Gray, a Professor of what is called "European Thought" at the London School of Economics, mars the book with a rambling undisguised contempt, in that exhuasted European intellectual tradition, for all things American. Its divorce rate, its incarceration rate, its broken families, its crime, its dispossessed underclass become proof of the hopeless cruelty of its laissez-faire economic system. Yes, America does have serious problems. Our incarceration policy, in particular, is a national disgrace. But in his zeal to find fault, Mr. Gray doesn't make a convincing case that these problems result directly from the laissez-faire economic policies he attacks. Instead, by book's end, the two remain, like the sunrise and the rooster's crow, linked, but without any persuasive proof that the latter causes the former. Technological change, which he admits is global and independent of political economy, has been a huge factor in eviscerating industries, dislocating workers and by extension, families. The cultural changes of the 1960s and 1970s, in particular the large scale migration of women into the workforce, still play far and deep into the patterns of our economic and cultural life. American's hard-core individualism, which certainly contributes to our social challenges, arose long before any notion of a global free market. Nor does Mr. Gray acknowledge our successes--our rapidly declining crime rate, our relatively clean environment (by global standards), our multi-racial (I'd argue "uni-cultural") society which, unlike the sorry 3rd world tribal states which are now imploding around the globe, exists peacefully as one nation under God, indivisible. Nor does he admit that the U.S. with it's constitutional and political philosophies, and despite its flaws, still stands as a beacon of hope and freedom for much of mankind, amply proven by the millions who risk their lives each year to get to our shores, legally and illegally, in hopes of finding some sanctuary from the hell of their third world despotic gangster ruled homelands where justice is, in Plato's immortal phrase, simply "the advantage of the stronger," and opportunity is defined by having enough money to mount an escape. There's a lot of improving that needs to be done to the financial and legal mechanisms which lubricate global trade. Mr. Gray is right about that. And he rightly points to Russia as a disaster of misguided Western economic advice. But global free trade is a big tent, not a monolith. It has many critics and would be reformists of its past excesses, even amongst its own ranks and practitioners, who see it's shortcomings, and are hard at work on the messy business of making it work better for all nations. A little ink on their efforts and ideas would have been a welcome addition to this book.
Rating: 
Summary: a sober critique of american chauvinism
Review: For most of the world, this book is unnecessary for the simple reason that the hollow ring of the self-congratulatory rhetoric of unitedstatesian freemarketeers has always been apparent to those who exist on the poorer borders of its rule. The WTO and World Bank protests in the US echoed what so much of the developing world already knew for so long. It's rare that someone who is so critical of contemporary capital formations -- and american triumphalism -- is heard, let alone promoted in mainstream bookstores, as well as Gray seems to be. I found much to admire in this book -- in particular, his insistence that economic markets have historically always been, and still are, embedded within social institutions -- it's just that freemarketeers have a real interest in concealing the particular social vision they're promoting with their claptrap. It is this vision, the central lie of freemarket ideology, that Gray is interested in pointing out: he convincingly argues that freemarket ideology relies heavily on a strong state and is really aimed at eliminating those vestiges of civil society which still exist that have the power to check the ambition of corporate capital. For those of us who still promote the idea that some aspects of human activity should not be subordinated to the profit motive, this book provides some analysis and some comfort: as Gray points out, this moment of American hegemony is not destined to last forever (as Greenspan's followers would believe) -- global capital in the american mold? This too shall pass! My only complaint is that much of Gray's argument is repetitive -- perhaps a habit of working for Thatcher for as long as he did?
Rating:
Summary: Strong and timely words
Review: Gray argues that the attempt of global hegemons to bring about a single global market is largely the political project of a few planners. Gray asserts that power-based free-marketeers have a compelling interest in concealing the particular social vision they are promoting within their discourse. It is this "vision" that Gray points out as the central "lie" of "free market' ideology. Gray argues that free market ideology relies heavily on a strong state with the aim of eliminating those vestiges of civil society which still exist that have the power to check the ambition of corporate capital. He states that it is intolerable for the West to entertain the thought that "countries can achieve modernity without revering the folkways of individualism, bowing to the cult of human rights or sharing the Enlightenment superstition of progress towards a world civilization." Gray very pointedly asserts, "Global laissez-faire is an American project," that in reality is "a mere nationalization of American corporate interests." Gray's deepest concern is over the long-term impact of this American action on international political stability. Even so, Gray asserts that, because of the power-based manner in which America wields its project upon others, it is "destined to fail," though not without costs. He states that, "In this, as in much else, it resembles that other twentieth century experiment in utopian social engineering, Marxian socialism [...]. Each was ready to exact a large price in suffering from humanity in order to impose its single vision on the world. In line with this argument, Gray further contends that the attempt to impose the Anglo-American-style free market on the world will create a disaster on the scale of Soviet communism. Even America, Gray asserts, the supposed flagship of "the new civilization," is doomed to moral and social disintegration as it loses ground to other cultures that have never forgotten that the market works best when it is embedded in the roots of their societies. And Gray is no jello-head. He was an operative in the Thatcher Administration who is now Professor of Economics and European Thought at the London School of Economics. Strong and timely words from a man with the perspective to back them up.
Rating: 
Summary: The contradictory character of free-market economy
Review: John Gray's book represents a forceful attempt to point to the 'fictional' character of global markets as part of a self-regulated economic system. What I find intersting is the fact that this is a bold, well-documented and argued attack on liberal markets from a non-Marxian scholar who takes seriously a society's overall fabric and the relations of economy with other institutions (family, education, state etc). The main virtue of the book lies in the author's use of Polanyi's argument in "The Great Transformation". Gray mobilizes a normative-functionalist argument in order to show how unregulated markets undermine both the social institutions that render their operation possible (e.g. democracy, environment) and their own development and expansion. To his credit, he envelops in his argument normative frameworks within which are embedded local value-systems. For example, unregulated markets are contained within economically advanced societies, such as Japan, due to specific local values which cannot be disembedded by global capitalism. He also discloses global capitalism's consequences for global crime, pauperism and environmental destruction (perhaps the most important reproach against the defenders of laissez-faire). However, certain aspects of his theoretical arsenal need to be developed further. Gray's attack on global capitalism, despite its impressive arguments is impaired by the author's insistense to criticize global markets from the perspective of 'difference' and local value-system which cannot be absorbed by Enlightenment's universalism as this is most problematically represented by American neo-conservatism. What Gray understands as Enlightenment is basically "instrumental reason" as this has been theorized since Weber through Adorno, Horkheimer and Marcuse. Although aware (p.124) of Enlighetnment's project to secure as a universal human condition, a life of dignity, health, peace and material well-being, Gray retreats from a more adequate conception of Enlightenment which contains within it the criticism of its own tendency to become tyrranically imposed on other cultures (Lessing, Kant and Hegel testify to the complexity of Enlightenment thought and its attempt to safeguard -universally- the right to 'difference' which Gray passionately defends against the perils of capitalism). The second shortcoming, seems to me to be located in his problematic understanding of Marx (Marx actually defends the same principles as Gray who fails to understand that Marxian theory has little to do with Sovietism or Maoism). Despite these shortcomings, this is an excellent, undogmatic and very-well structured argument against stubborn followers of Hayekian liberalism. Should be read by anyone intersted in the deep-rooted divisions and exclusions of our times!
Rating:
Summary: The Case Against Globalization in the Post-Cold War World
Review: John Gray, professor of European thought at the London School of
Economics, describes and analyzes the contemporary trend toward a
global free market in this an exceptionally provocative book. Unlike
Thomas L. Friedman's The Lexus and the Olive Tree and A Future
Perfect: The Challenge and Hidden Promise of Globalization by John
Micklethwait & Adrian Wooldridge (both of which I reviewed here in
July), this book is highly critical of the unrestricted expansion of
the international economy and integration of its markets. Indeed,
Gray begins by warning: "The Utopia of the global free market has
not incurred a human cost in the way that communism did. Yet over
time it may come to rival it in the suffering that it inflicts."
That is a very harsh indictment! One of the great intellectual
debates of the coming decades may revolve around this question: Does
the global economy meet human needs? According to Gray, the answer is
"No." For instance, he writes: "In the United States
free markets have contributed to social breakdown on a scale unknown
to any other developed country. Families are weaker in America than
in any other country. At the same time, social order has been propped
up by a policy of mass incarceration." Gray acknowledges that,
"[t]he world-historical movement we call globalization has
momentum that is inexorable," but inexorability is not
desirability. Globalization may not be desirable because, according
to Gray: "The late-twentieth-century free market experiment is an
attempt to legitimate through democratic institutions severe limits on
the scope and content of democratic control over economic life."
Gray then asserts: "The free market is not...a gift of social
evolution. It is the end-product of social engineering and unyielding
political will." If Gray is correct, what is globalization's
political objective? I do not believe he ever makes that
clear. According to Gray: "Free marketeers tell us that the
unprecedented productivity of a rational economic system will remove
the causes of social conflict and war." But Gray counters:
"Throughout nearly all of human history, wars have arisen from
territorial and dynastic conflicts, from religious and ethnic
enmities, and from the divergent economic interests pursued by
sovereign states." Contrary to many predictions following the
collapse of the Soviet Union, according to Gray: "The threat to
peace has not disappeared with the end of the Cold War. The nature of
war has merely mutated. One consequence of an anarchic global economy
has proved to be a world awash with weapons." Gray asserts that
there is a risk "that sovereign states will be drawn into a
struggle for control of the earth's dwindling natural resources. In
the coming century ideological rivalries between states may well be
succeeded by Malthusian wars of scarcity." Gray is especially
concerned about the expansion of the global free market and threats to
the environment. In both Russia and China, according to Gray,
"partly as an inheritance of central economic planning and partly
as a consequence of market reforms, environmental degradation is
cataclysmic." Furthermore, Gray asserts: "If advanced
societies are able to protect their environments...it will be partly
because they are able to export pollution by moving production to
Third World countries where environmental standards are looser."
Some of the most interesting and provocative passages in this book
concern Russia and China. One chapter is entitled title:
"Anarcho-capitalism in post-communist Russia." In it, Gray
writes: "The anarchic capitalism which replaced Soviet central
planning is surely a developmental phase, not an endpoint in Russian
economic development." According to Gray: "In less than a
decade Russia has moved from a functioning totalitarian regime to near
anarchy....The species of capitalism that is emerging in Russia today
is deeply marked by its Soviet antecedents. The criminalized markets
that flourished in the recesses and interstices of the Soviet state
thrive now in its ruins." Gray also is concerned about
globalization's impact on international political stability.
According to Gray: "In a world in which market forces are subject
to no overall constraint or regulation, peace is continually at risk.
Slash-and-burn capitalism...kindles conflict over natural resources.
The practical consequence of policies promoting minimal government
intervention in the economy is that, in expanding regions of the
world, sovereign states are locked in competition not only for markets
but for survival. The global market as it is presently organized does
not allow the world's peoples to coexist harmoniously." Gray
frequently compares the first two decades of the 20th century, in
which fierce competition for markets and colonies led to two world
wars, to our own time. Although I find this comparison somewhat
extreme, it is a chilling thought. Some readers will find this book
unfair in its extended attack on American economic, political, and
cultural values. Gray asserts that the "global free market is an
American project," and he predicts that is "destined to
fail. In this, as in much else, it resembles that other twentieth
century experiment in utopian social engineering, Marxian
socialism.... Each was ready to exact a large price in suffering from
humanity in order to impose its single vision on the world. Each has
run aground on vital human needs." Gray quotes Lee Kuan Yew,
formerly Prime Minister of Singapore and now that country's Senior
Minister: "Americans believe their ideas are universal - the
supremacy of the individual and free, unfettered expression. But they
are not - never were." Without agreeing with Gray, I believe his
larger point is that the people of the U.S. may be too optimistic
about the long-term, far-reaching effects of globalization, and this
point should be well taken. In summary, Gray's critique of
globalization asserts that the global free market contributes to
international economic inequality; that increased international
economic competition is likely to result in serious environmental
degradation; and that international tensions, especially those arising
from divergent economic interests, could result in war. If Gray is
correct, the next two decades could be very unpleasant. Readers may
not agree with Gray, but all of us should give careful thought to the
concerns which he articulates here.
Rating:
Summary: A powerful book the brings globalization to close scrutiny
Review: One of the more interesting thing about the London School of Economics Professor is that his writings have encompass many fields. In most of Gray's writings you see him as a philosopher and a political thinker but this books break ground as it enters into economic fields. If you were to go to a bookstore you would more likely find this book in the economic section. False Dawn provides a precise view of what globalization is. Gray's book is important such that what runs throughout the course of his book is that he constantly reminds us what globalization is and what globalization is not. To put this more clearly globalization is not as Gray contends a default arguement after the collapse of the Soviet Union but more so mankind's careless approach and domination of the environment and the continued promotion of the so-called Enlightment Project. As a matter of fact it is this book that was credited for Asian economic crises in the late 1990s. This is a must read book and I strongly recommend that you purchase it.
Rating: 
Summary: Bad assumptions, bad results
Review: The Economist is quoted on the cover of my copy as saying: "This book is teeming with arguments and ideas...it is hard to put down, and economic liberals would do well to test their ideas against it." But I think that when the basic premises are misleading, how can the tests be valid? The so-called "laissez-faire globalisation" model that Gray rails against is about as laissez-faire as Stalinism. As an ex-neo-conservative, he wants the celebrity of Nixon going to China in his attack on globalisation. But he advocates the same incorrect assumption he originally held as a neo-con, that liberalisation occurred at all levels. He fails to note, despite bringing up frequent relevant examples, that top-to-bottom laissez-faire is not the cause of the social and financial dislocations attributed (rightly) to globalisation. It does not exist. What is being globalised is a corrupt collusion between big business and statist governments. Big business is disposing of the vast economic assets and power gathered by statists for their own benefit. Hence the concentrations of wealth and the inequalities the author cites. Big business is being given privileged access to human and governmental resources, at fire-sale rates, under the disguise of a "laissez faire" that does not apply to themselves. Gray makes the valid point that any kind of market, socialized or free, depends on strong government intervention. But unlike the author, I would argue that REAL fair play, choices and opportunities are not uniquely Western desires. What is now being (rightly) resisted by other cultures is not fair play or free choice, but just the opposite. It is laissez-faire for workers and small business, and a comfortable US-centred corporate welfare for the guys in charge. Free roads, cheap land and resources, the IMF bailouts, and defence spending are concentrating wealth and power as never before. This is the author's laissez-faire? I'd at least respect his argument as a stimulant of debate, but he confuses billions with millions (once even with thousands!) that I wonder why I should bother debating in my mind with such a sloppy thinker.
Rating:
Summary: The contradictory character of free-market economy
Review: The problem with this book is that it doesn't make sense. By claiming, somehow, that global capitalism is responsible for the destruction of all 'better' socioeconomic systems, Gray fails to realize one thing:
That the international capitalist order is participated in at the behest of all its component nations. Each of these nations has, sometimes begrudgingly, admitted to itself that there's something to the American contention that laissez-faire (in the broader sense which Gray fails to note) is the most efficient way of achieving economic prosperity. While it could be argued that various 'cultural' models of economic development are suffering from this self-selection to enter the global capitalist order, I don't really buy it (I fail to see what's so culturally wonderful about top-down control, corruption, or the variety of other things that go wrong in almost any governmental attempt to control the economy).
While redistribution itself could be justified on certain moral grounds (it depends if you're a conservative or a liberal), the shackling of economic forces cannot be. Incentives must be properly laid out for individuals to take advantage of; if these are distorted by poor governance, inefficiencies will occur, and create less wealth overall. Whether this extra wealth would have gone to the rich or the poor is immaterial; you've already destroyed it by messing with the economy. SO...at least as I'm concerned, wealth is good, no matter who has it. It is important for people to realize that economics is not a zero-sum game; something often forgotten by radicals is that both people in a transaction tend to benefit from it. Nike, for example, while demonized around the world for its practices in its shoe factories in Vietnam, pays approximately twice the prevailing wage and has better working conditions than the typical local state-owned outfit. Nike could afford to pay these people even more if the government didn't interfere with the free operation of their business (and pay various 'incidentals' such as corruption). This is something that liberals often fail to mention in their indictments of global capitalism; that we will actually end up hurting the desperately poor if their arguments are taken too seriously, and end up discouraging 'exploitative' corporations from investing in third world countries. (Which tends to increase productivity, and thus wages, etc.) Look at the NIEs in SE Asia and China if you don't believe this; it's incredibly obvious that economic liberalization and globalization have increased the economic well-being of these countries, regardless of how well-distributed it is. EVERYONE has benefitted, although admittedly this has not been entirely equal. So, keep this in mind when you discourage MNCs from investing in third world countries through your boycotts and complaints. You're only hurting the little guy.
Rating:
Summary: Shattering the illusions
Review: This book is an must-read for those who:
a) are not familiar with the concept of globalisation
b) need to understand the pros and cons of globalisation
John Gray does an excellent job examining global capitalism in detail and its consequences. Since this author had worked closely with the Thatcher govt in finance (plus the fact that he is one of the leading economists in europe) added credit goes to his opinion. Gray wastes no time shattering the illusions of those who think globalisation is the way to go, and explains in depth how globalisation and liberal (see: uncontrolled) capitalism is leading to the widening of the gap between the rich and the poor and the total destruction of the social web around the globe.
This is probably the most important aspect of this book as the author doesnt stand only on the financial side of this issue but tackles the sociological side of it as well which is probably if not more important then just as important as the economic issue at hand.
He looks with an investigative eye inside societies such as the anglosaxon ones, the japenese and the latin americans, and of course, americans themselves, and opines with crystal clear arguments about where these societies are heading if they get on the globalisation band wagon.
This book is definately one of the most important books currently on the market, especially when one considers how capitalists are pushing for the globalisation agenda and how uninformed the public is on that issue. Media deception hasnt helped at that either and John Gray is great at clarifying "foggy issues" for the uninitiated. You care about the future of your society? Buy this book.
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