Geoscience Reference
In-Depth Information
Joseph Stiglitz is a Nobel Prize-winning economist. He served on the US Council of Economic
Advisors under the then President Bill Clinton. In 1997 he moved to the World Bank where he served
as chief economist and senior vice president until 2000. In his best selling 2002 book, Globalization
and its Discontents, Stiglitz uses his unique insights into the operations of the global economy
to develop a critique of globalization. While Stiglitz recognizes the potential of globalization to
enhance the lives of people throughout the world, he argues that the form it is presently taking is
having a detrimental impact on the freedoms and lifestyles of many throughout the world. At one
level, Stiglitz notes how the trade agreements that form the basis for globalization tend to be forged
primarily in the context of the special interests of economically powerful nations and corporations.
This process tends to perpetuate unfairness in global trade relations and can be a real barrier to
development in many less economically developed countries. At another level, Stiglitz notices how
financial aid packages offered by organizations such as the International Monetary Fund to countries
that are in financial turmoil tend to be based on naïve and out-dated economic assumptions. In this
context, countries seeking financial aid are expected to go through a process of structural adjustment
in and through which their economies are made 'globalization ready'. The process of structural
adjustment involves the deregulation of national economies, so that they become more market-
oriented and efficient, and the opening up of these economies to the 'opportunities' of global trade
and investment. According to Stiglitz, these market-based ideologies tend to overplay the potential
of global markets to improve economic efficiency and social opportunities. Stiglitz also argues that
such market-based ideologies tend to down play the positive role that state intervention in the market
place can have.
Key readings
Harvey, D. (2005) A Brief History of Neoliberalism, Oxford University Press, Oxford
Peck, J. (2010) Constructions of Neoliberal Reason, Oxford University Press, Oxford
Stiglitz, J.E. (2002)
Globalization and its Discontents, Penguin Books, London
advantages. At one level, MNCs, like the fast
food outlet McDonald's, operate in a number
of different countries in order to expand the
consumer population that can purchase its fast
food products. Other MNCs, like the energy
giant ExxonMobil, operate globally because the
source of materials upon which this company
relies (in this case gas and oil) are concentrated
in certain countries and regions throughout the
world. MNCs such as the clothes manufacturer
GAP, have, by contrast, sought to globalize their
production of apparel as a way to exploit the
lower labour costs that can be found throughout
different parts of the world.
While MNCs are diverse, their significance
as agents within the Anthropocene should not
be underestimated. By 1995, it was estimated
by the United Nations Conference on Trade and
Development that 40,000 MNCs controlled two
thirds of all global trade in goods and services.
Perhaps even more telling than this statistic,
however, is the rising power of corporations
compared to nation states (see
Chapter 7).
Of the
one hundred most wealthy global organizations
(which include nation states), 66 are now corpora-
tions (Gray, 1998). In addition to this, by the late
1990s, only 57 nation states had budgets that
would have enabled them to be on the Forbes 500
