STWR - Share The World's Resources

20th Nov 07 - Paul Ormerod, Adbusters magazine

At the forefront of economics, major changes are happening. And many of them are changes for the better. The old economics view of the world, in which everyone acts purely in his or her own self-interest, in which free markets are the solution to almost everything, has been abandoned.

20th Nov 07 - Mark Engler, Dissent Magazine

Joseph Stiglitz's lack of political savvy has produced both a withering critique of IMF-led corporate globalization and a failed vision for how to move beyond it.

13th Nov 07 - Walden Bello, Foreign Policy in Focus

Naomi Klein's The Shock Doctrine: The Rise of Disaster Capitalism is very impressive indeed. This is, however, not immediately evident, a sense that is confirmed by Joseph Stiglitz' review of the book. Even before I read it, I was certain that the Nobel laureate would highlight Klein's attempt to make a connection between the electric shock experiments performed by the notorious McGill University psychologist Ewen Cameron who was on contract with the CIA and the economic shock approach developed by Milton Friedman at the University of Chicago.

11th Nov 07 - Paul Rogers, Open Democracy

The destructive search for military control amid acute environmental constraint highlights the prescience of pioneering work on global sustainability. 

9th Nov 07, Jared Bernstein and Josh Bivens, Guardian UK

Last February, before the flurry of news stories about unsafe imports, a New York Times/CBS poll [PDF] found that 51% of respondents agreed the US had "lost more than it gained from globalisation." Further, while trade is not supposed to create political problems for Republicans, a recent Wall Street Journal poll of Republican supporters found that that 59% agreed that "foreign trade has been bad for the US".

29th Oct 07, John McMurtry, New Internationalist

At the end of 2006, the UK-based journal of world economic affairs, The Economist, produced a banner issue on ‘Happiness and Economics’. Not surprisingly, the magazine concluded that human happiness and market economies are closely linked. But in arguing the case the lead article unwittingly revealed the market’s Achilles heel. Orthodox economics has no means of separating the universal needs of human beings from junk commodities for the masses, or gold toilet-seats for the rich.

25th Oct 07 - Naomi Klein, naomiklein.org

On a recent visit to Calgary, Alberta, I was taken aback to see my book on disaster capitalism selling briskly at the airport. Calgary is ground zero of North America's oil and gas boom, where business suits and cowboy hats are the de facto uniform. I had a sudden sinking feeling: did Calgary's business class think The Shock Doctrine was a how-to guide - a manual for making millions from catastrophe? Were they hoping for tips on landing no-bid contracts if the US bombs Iran?

23rd Oct 07 - George Monbiot, Monbiot.com

Matt Ridley raged against the government - until he needed £16 billion.

“The little-known ninth law of thermodynamics states that the more money a group receives from the taxpayer, the more it demands and the more it complains.” Thus wrote Matt Ridley in 1994(1). He was discussing farm subsidies, but the same law applies to his chairmanship of Northern Rock. Before he resigned on Friday, the bank had borrowed £16 billion from the government and had refused to rule out asking for more. Ridley and the other bosses blamed everyone but themselves for this disaster.

12th Oct 07 - Leonard Doyle, The Independent (UK)

Fifty years after it was first published, Ayn Rand's most influential book offers a vital clueto why so many Americans vote against their economic and social interests.

6th Oct 07 - Andres Ortega, OpenDemocracy.net

If globalisation has made the world flatter, it has also fragmented it into crevices, mountains and a myriad of islets. The new media and the standardising technology favor the multiplication and radicalisation of identities. Today, minorities and fringe groups have a global reach. Against the power of the big ones, there is now the power of the few.