The trend toward what we now refer to as "globalization" was interrupted during the nineteenth century by what the author calls the "Industrial Counterrevolution". World leaders, impressed by the productivity and efficiency of big business, began to apply the same techniques as those used in business. Merged with these techniques were different theories of collectivism which arose as a result of the apparent chaos of the marketplace.
Though the U.S. never plunged headlong into state control, political leaders of both parties were swept up by its own version of the Industrial Counterrevolution, the Progressive movement.
We now have over a century of experimentation in various social and economic policies in several countries. The evidence shows free market principles produce better results, but market proponents should not confuse a change in trend with victory in the battle of ideas. Those general principles - competition, choice, limited government, private property, sound currency, free trade - are now seeping deeper into more areas of society that had been impervious to them. The change could be seen in front of the Supreme Court building in Washington, D.C. recently when the Court took up the constitutionality of school vouchers. On one side were minority parents demanding educational choice who were pitted against public school teachers protecting the status quo.
Educational choice is one reminder that market proponents do not have a free ride. Laments Lindsey: "The defunct ideas of centralized control exert a waning but still-formidable influence on the shape of the world economy... The invisible hand of markets may be on the rise, but the dead hand of the old collectivist dream still exerts a powerful influence."
A belief in market economics is not simply the hope for the absence of government. Among government's most important responsibilities is maintenance of a legal order that protects property and enforces contracts to exchange that property.
Mr. Lindsey's entry is an easy reading but serious antidote to the double dose of hype from pro-globalization cheerleaders and anti-globalization protesters. I recommend it.
One of this book's great virtues is its broad sense of historical perspective. Lindsey describes the current trend of globalization not simply as an affirmative triumph of market ideology, but as an outgrowth of the collapse of the great collectivist ideologies of the past century: communism, fascism, and even FDR-style managed capitalism. In other words, free markets advanced primarily because the state receded -- not because political leaders had converted to some capitalist orthodoxy.
Yet the collapse of state economic controls was far from total. Even though faith in central planning and top-down economic control has waned in recent years, the "dead hand" of the collectivist past -- the "accumulated institutions, mindsets, and vested interests of state-dominated economic development" -- still exerts a powerful influence on world affairs. Burdened as it is by the dead hand of the state, Lindsey shows how globalization is neither as widespread as its critics claim nor as firmly entrenched as its champions believe.
The book concludes with a discussion of the events of 9/11 that draws connections between the current terrorist threat and the broader themes explored in the book. Specifically, Lindsey explores the ideological camaraderie evidenced by the more radical elements of the anti-globalization movement -- remnants of what he terms the "Industrial Counterrevolution" -- and the anti-modernist thought embodied in radical Islam. He convincingly argues that while many of globalization's critics sell themselves as friends of the poor, they are in fact enemies of prosperity. Feeling insecure and left behind by the modern world, they seek to stop it -- a goal they must not be allowed to achieve.
Whether you're a fan of free markets or not, this book is worth your time. It's not a sugar-coated view of globalization, nor does it reject the critical role that governments have to play as the world grows closer together. It is, rather, an unflinchingly clear description of where we've been on the road to modernity and the perils that yet lie before us. I highly recommend it.
It might be hard to see if Lindsey's heart is a youthful 16 or 20--he definitely doesn't come across as a socialist. But his principles have anecdotal, qualitative and quantitative truths from more than a century of history, so his brain is certainly working just fine. For example, Lindsey presents a compelling case on protectionism leading to trade wars and world war. His equating pay-as-you-go entitlement systems (legislated by leaders such as Bismarck, chiefly concerned with opiating the masses) with Ponzi or pyramid schemes (deemed illegal by the same governments) is unassailable.
If you care about shaping the socioeconomic world that our children and grandchildren will be inheriting, and if you are concerned about what fiction will be taught to them in most universities (e.g. liberally spun Keynesian economics, without contrasting neoclassical or monetarist economics, or even historical resultants of collectivist policies), this is a great book.
If you want to revisit the Dark Ages, then disparage this book and its commendable author.