Reviews for The global class war

The average rating for The global class war based on 4 reviews is 3 stars.

Review # 1 was written on 2010-08-06 00:00:00 Manh Nguyen In this book Jeff Faux of the Economic Policy Institute, who was heavily involved in the fight against NAFTA in the early 1990's, surveys the state of the US and global economies in light of the trade liberalization of the past couple of decades. Not surprisingly he finds that trade has benefited corporate CEOs and investors at the expense of workers. This has been accomplished, he argues, not only by moving production to countries with low-cost labor but by outlawing individual countries from placing labor and environmental constraints on investment. Faux skirts the edge of conspiracy theorizing, stating (correctly, I think) that no explicit conspiracy is needed when global elites already communicate in their preferred media (The Economist, anyone?) and at meetings like Davos. His analysis is depressing and sometimes long-winded, but mostly accurate. It's interesting to test the author's predictions of declining living standards and spending in light of the five years since he wrote them. The US military has already pulled back slightly from its role as the world's policeman, abolishing the Joint Forces Command earlier this month and pulling out of Iraq last week without a clear victory (not that such a thing could even be defined). There has, in fact, been talk of raising the retirement age to 70 (ha, ha) to keep the Social Security system solvent. Living standards have fallen, in ways that are visible and benign (the de-escalation of the luxury-bling arms race in favor of beards, folk music and bicycles) and less so (the growing number of families making hardship withdrawals from their retirement funds to pay mortgages and tuition). And immigrant-bashing has, in fact, exploded. But there have also been a few changes for the better since 2005: one is the health-care reform bill that does something (not a lot, but something) to control costs; another is a cultural and political backlash against Wall Street and its interests--American voters finally realize that what is good for General Motors is probably the opposite of what is good for America. Now that GW Bush is out of the White House at least we no longer have to cringe from the eyes of the world. The increased class conflict predicted by Faux has so far been masked by Tea-Party stupidity and Muslim-bashing. But it's early days still. Toward the end I had to skim a bit because I found the author's proposed solution of making NAFTA into an EU equivalent, as a way of suddenly taking on European social-democratic political values, to be a loopy exercise in wishful thinking. A values transplant would be nice, but I'm not holding my breath. One final note: I live just outside Washington, DC, and I couldn't help noticing that my library copy of this book had business cards in it for Rep. Bill Pascrell, Democrat of New Jersey, and an aide of his named Kristen. So the author has the ear of Washington--at least two (or four?) of them.

Review # 2 was written on 2012-04-09 00:00:00 David Goeldi Faux is not an academic--he is an anti-globalization activists although he would not be found in the streets of Seattle or Toronto during an archetypal clash between police and demonstrators as the G-8 comes to town. The story he tells isn't new--finance capital is loyal to itself and not to any of the states in which it may have branches. Risks have been socialized and profits privatized throughout the world and there is little ultimate difference between the privatization of the Mexican telephone system (Carlos Slim), Foxconn moving iPad production from China to Brazil or forced child labor on cocoa plantations in Sierra Leone. "The Global Class War" focuses on the North American Free Trade Agreement. Faux is an expert on the politics of its passage in Canada, Mexico and the U.S and the dismal economic returns in each of these countries after the implementation of NAFTA and he tells the story very well. It is a bleak tale. One of the difficulties in writing a more or less ripped from the headlines book is that events after it is published can make much of it invalid or at least suspect. This happens here in the second part of the book where Faux makes some policy recommendations, chief among them the creation of a true North American union much like the European Union with its common currency, open borders and strict rules regarding safety and health of workers, environmental protection and even a bit of human rights. While this looked great in 2006 when the book was published, trying to copy the EU and the Euro is a non-starter today, something like moving into a house that is on fire.

Review # 3 was written on 2010-08-06 00:00:00 Joshua Rodriguez In this book Jeff Faux of the Economic Policy Institute, who was heavily involved in the fight against NAFTA in the early 1990's, surveys the state of the US and global economies in light of the trade liberalization of the past couple of decades. Not surprisingly he finds that trade has benefited corporate CEOs and investors at the expense of workers. This has been accomplished, he argues, not only by moving production to countries with low-cost labor but by outlawing individual countries from placing labor and environmental constraints on investment. Faux skirts the edge of conspiracy theorizing, stating (correctly, I think) that no explicit conspiracy is needed when global elites already communicate in their preferred media (The Economist, anyone?) and at meetings like Davos. His analysis is depressing and sometimes long-winded, but mostly accurate. It's interesting to test the author's predictions of declining living standards and spending in light of the five years since he wrote them. The US military has already pulled back slightly from its role as the world's policeman, abolishing the Joint Forces Command earlier this month and pulling out of Iraq last week without a clear victory (not that such a thing could even be defined). There has, in fact, been talk of raising the retirement age to 70 (ha, ha) to keep the Social Security system solvent. Living standards have fallen, in ways that are visible and benign (the de-escalation of the luxury-bling arms race in favor of beards, folk music and bicycles) and less so (the growing number of families making hardship withdrawals from their retirement funds to pay mortgages and tuition). And immigrant-bashing has, in fact, exploded. But there have also been a few changes for the better since 2005: one is the health-care reform bill that does something (not a lot, but something) to control costs; another is a cultural and political backlash against Wall Street and its interests--American voters finally realize that what is good for General Motors is probably the opposite of what is good for America. Now that GW Bush is out of the White House at least we no longer have to cringe from the eyes of the world. The increased class conflict predicted by Faux has so far been masked by Tea-Party stupidity and Muslim-bashing. But it's early days still. Toward the end I had to skim a bit because I found the author's proposed solution of making NAFTA into an EU equivalent, as a way of suddenly taking on European social-democratic political values, to be a loopy exercise in wishful thinking. A values transplant would be nice, but I'm not holding my breath. One final note: I live just outside Washington, DC, and I couldn't help noticing that my library copy of this book had business cards in it for Rep. Bill Pascrell, Democrat of New Jersey, and an aide of his named Kristen. So the author has the ear of Washington--at least two (or four?) of them.

Review # 4 was written on 2012-04-09 00:00:00 Darian Gregory Faux is not an academic--he is an anti-globalization activists although he would not be found in the streets of Seattle or Toronto during an archetypal clash between police and demonstrators as the G-8 comes to town. The story he tells isn't new--finance capital is loyal to itself and not to any of the states in which it may have branches. Risks have been socialized and profits privatized throughout the world and there is little ultimate difference between the privatization of the Mexican telephone system (Carlos Slim), Foxconn moving iPad production from China to Brazil or forced child labor on cocoa plantations in Sierra Leone. "The Global Class War" focuses on the North American Free Trade Agreement. Faux is an expert on the politics of its passage in Canada, Mexico and the U.S and the dismal economic returns in each of these countries after the implementation of NAFTA and he tells the story very well. It is a bleak tale. One of the difficulties in writing a more or less ripped from the headlines book is that events after it is published can make much of it invalid or at least suspect. This happens here in the second part of the book where Faux makes some policy recommendations, chief among them the creation of a true North American union much like the European Union with its common currency, open borders and strict rules regarding safety and health of workers, environmental protection and even a bit of human rights. While this looked great in 2006 when the book was published, trying to copy the EU and the Euro is a non-starter today, something like moving into a house that is on fire.