He does not recognize the distinction between 'power and market' and thinks the IMF and WTO are free market institutions. He even says that European countries embrace free market capitalism while maintaining large welfare states. He views volatility in global financial markets during the past two decades or so as a consequence of the youth of new system. These occurences would be lessened when governments learn to regulate more efficiently. According to the author,
"If the defining economists of the Cold War system were Karl Marx and John Maynard Keynes, who each in his own way wanted to tame capitalism, the defining economists of the globalization system are Joseph Schumpeter and Intel chairman Andy Grove, who prefer to unleash capitalism. Schumpeter, a former Austrian Minister of Finance and Harvard Business School professor, expressed the view in his classic work Capitalism, Socialism and Democracy that the essence of capitalism is the process of "creative destruction" - the perpetual cycle of destroying the old and less efficient product or service and replacing it with new, more efficient ones. Andy Grove took Schumpeter's insight that "only the paranoid survive" for the title of his book on life in Silicon Valley, and made it in many ways the business model of globalization capitalism"
Judging from the above, he apparently doesn't mind (at least not too much) the business cycle as this is only inherent in globalization. This is related to another idea of his which he refers to as globalution. Globalution is when pro-democracy changes in the political system are promoted by the Gordon Gekkos and Micheal Milkens of the world (what he terms the 'electronic herd') rather than the 'common man'. Seriously, this is the closest thing to Art Carden's defense of financial markets [in the audio clip "Short Selling: Explanation and Defense" (the title is misleading as the lecture covers a broader range of topics)] that I've read from somebody in the mainstream.
Those are the more quirky parts. What's interesting is that he's an environmentalist but pro-market. He comments that corporations cannot get away with harming the ecosystyem because the internet is enabling activists from around the world to unite.
What I value most from the book is his 'on the ground' anecdotal observations drawing from his numerous travels. Those are just some thoughts I have on it. It would take too long to read if I continued.
Please share your thoughts.
Kenneth:He does not recognize the distinction between 'power and market' and thinks the IMF and WTO are free market institutions.
If these are free-market institutions how then is government in general not a free-market institution in his eyes? And if that is the case what does he advocate that is not free-market? Circularity at it's finest.
Furthermore the distinction between these institutions and regular market institutions doesn't necessarily have to do with power.