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 | | What the Market Does to People: Privatization, Globalization and Poverty by David MacArov ISBN-10: 9780932863386 ISBN-10: 0-932863-38-8 ISBN-13: 9780932863386 ISBN-13: 978-0-932863-38-6 Paperback 2003-07 Clarity Press Find Lowest Price |
Editorials | ||
Product Description This book is a description, explanation and expose of the poverty that currently afflicts large swathes of people in both developed and less-developed nations. It examines and illustrates the shocking extent, the kinds and the results of poverty from both societal and individual perspectives. The origins of poverty in attitudes and ideologies, and the societal norms and structures that currently keep billions of people poor, are examined. Methods of determining statistical poverty lines, and their uses in hiding the extent of real poverty, are explained, as well as some little-known aspects of the poverty lines used in various countries. The subterfuges used by most governments in counting the poor are also examined. Particular attention is paid to the most recent and widespread causes of poverty, namely, privatization and globalization, with their emphasis on the need for a market-driven economy, in which greed is posited as goal, guide and god. The market-driven society that they serve to strengthen is discussed in terms of its effect on medical services, education and social welfare, usually resulting in two-tiered systems, one for the rich and the other for the poor. The social results of privatization and globalization – including lack of accountability, wage depression, corruption, and the growth of inequality – are also outlined. Efforts to reduce or eliminate poverty are illustrated, ranging from international activities to local programs, including efforts to achieve full employment, better and wider education, social welfare reform, microenterprises and a guaranteed minimum income, none of which seem to work to any significant degree, since inequality within nations and between nations is demonstratedly growing. The possibility of widespread changes leading to a drastic reduction in worldwide poverty is examined, including charismatic leaders, unforeseen crises, rising popular discontent, a civil society, and world government. Using various accepted methods of prediction, the future of poverty is postulated. | ||
Reviews | ||
Useful Poverty persists despite a rising GDP. How can this be. David Macarov's heavily footnoted work attempts an answer to the conundrum in a relatively short space of 170 pages. Basically, he attributies aggravation of problem to institutional frameworks undergirding globalization and privatization, or, put another way, to those institutions processing the resurgence of laissez-faire capitalism. Thus, the work contains considerable data with which to challenge what some like to term The New World Order. Not only has neo-liberalism failed to improve the lot of the poor, he points out, but statistics indicate their lot has worsened as a result of heralded neo-liberal programs. So there is much here to digest. Nonetheless, the historical aspect is not neglected. Chapter VI deals explicitly with previous programs aimed at easing or eliminating problems of poverty.That these have largely failed comes as little surprise, since Macarov occasionally asserts there can be no wealthy class without a poverty class to exploit. Yet the work contains very little economic theory, contrary to what some might expect. Rather the slender volume functions best as an overview of the problem, replete with facts and figures, and as a clearing house for related literature. Its breadth may also work well as an introduction if the reader is not expecting a treatment that popularizes. (I like the way he illustrates the slippery nature of defining "poverty", and how statistics, particularly "averages", can be manipulated.) Two noteworthy reservations. I think Macarov feels the root cause of poverty resides in capitalism itself, with its dynamics and exigencies. But this is never made clear. Thus readers can't be sure whether poverty is an inevitable consequence of the market or merely an unrefined byproduct -- surely a key distinction for addressing the problem. Also -- and less significantly -- Clarity Press did readers no favor by using what must be a size 6 font to print the text. So please pass the bifocals! | ||