MARKETS IN THE LOOKING GLASS

About the Book

Here the author of Unfettered Globalization (1999) provides a fast-paced primer on how markets contribute to wealth creation by boosting our natural trading instinct, and how the same markets may turn dreadful without a minimum of social oversight.

Using simple language and analyses, he debunks the ideological predilection of the theory of markets, dots the i's and crosses the t's. He also shows how the international economic institutions have been corrupted and transformed into markets enforcers, uncovers the political dimension of "free trade," and exposes the potential dangers of an uncontrolled international capital market. More specifically, the author provides a lucid, step-by-step account of the Asian currency debacle of 1997, and argues that the Argentine meltdown in 2001, the dot.com and telecom bubbles, and the debt overhang of developing countries, etc., are simply natural outcomes of unfettered markets.

This means that globalization cannot be a viable programme in the absence of a global institution empowered to stabilize, to control, and to legitimize its outcomes.

About the Author

C-René Dominique is formerly Professor of Economics at Canada?s Laval University. He has worked in the private and public sectors and at the United Nations. His areas of specialization include industrial studies, planning and policy analysis, and systems dynamics. Professor Dominique is the author of many books and has published extensively in Industry and Development, IEE Transactions, The Australian Society for Operations Research Bulletin, The UNCTAD Review, Economics Letters, Journal of Economic Development, and the Journal of International Economic Integration, among others.