Received: from localhost (gimenez@localhost) by csf.Colorado.EDU (8.8.4/8.8.4/CNS-4.1p-nh) with SMTP id JAA14340 for ; Sat, 6 Jun 1998 09:11:20 -0600 (MDT) Date: Sat, 6 Jun 1998 09:11:19 -0600 (MDT) From: Martha Gimenez To: ppn@csf.Colorado.EDU Subject: John McMurtry,UNEQUAL FREEDOMS: THE GLOBAL MARKET AS AN ETHICAL SYSTEM (fwd) Message-ID: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit X-MIME-Autoconverted: from QUOTED-PRINTABLE to 8bit by csf.Colorado.EDU id JAA14341 Dear PPNers, I generally do not approve of crosspostings unless they are clearly pertinent to whatever issues are being discussed at the time. Given the on going exchange of views on issues of equity, the importance of institutions to understand the outcome of economic processes, imperialism, the market, etc., I concluded it was appropriate to forward this book review. Martha ---------- Forwarded message ---------- Date: Sat, 6 Jun 1998 06:18:36 -0500 From: "W. Robert Needham" To: WORLD SYSTEMS NETWORK Subject: John McMurtry,UNEQUAL FREEDOMS: THE GLOBAL MARKET AS AN ETHICAL SYSTEM Finally published. This book has it all. Destined to be a classic RE: NEW BOOK - May, 1998 by the author of "The MAI: The Plan to Replace Responsible Government" John McMurtry, UNEQUAL FREEDOMS: THE GLOBAL MARKET AS AN ETHICAL SYSTEM A complete guide to the theory and practice of the global market, with direct applicability to everyday life. Table of Contents below. Order from Garamond@web.net ISBN 1-55193-003-X Cdn.$24.95. "A devastating critique of market doctrine." - Gordon Laxer, University of Alberta "A brilliant, elegantly written exposé." - Harry Glasbeek, Osgoode Hall Law School "Some of the most exhilarating philosophy I have ever read." - G.A. Cohen, All Souls, Oxford University "Lays bare the foundations of a new economics ... bids well to become a classic." - William Krehm, Committee on Monetary and Economic Reform John McMurtry covers a broad range of important thinkers and major themes, from John Locke, Adam Smith, David Ricardo and Karl Marx to Friedrich Hayek, Milton Friedman, Robert Reich and the liberal contractarians; from human needs, national debts and environmental crises to issues of the global information economy and consumerism vs. citizenship. A path-breaking work, this book is essential reading for anyone attempting to come to grips with the crises of the contemporary world and the common ground of their solution. This book has been tested to ensure that every subsection can be taught or read as an independent debate site or explanatory critique, and at any level of instruction or understanding from first-year to PhD. At the same time, its 70 subsections connect together into a definitive, systematic deconstruction of the dominant paradigm of our epoch, and set out the clear coordinates of an alternative economics structured to serve rather than to consume and exploit human and environmental life-hosts. Student reasoning and analytic abilities have been shown to advance dramatically by the challenge of understanding the theoretical, practical and value premises and arguments underlying the contemporary world system, and its domination of social and ecological life-organization across the planet. An ideal textbook or sourcebook for any course in the humanities, social sciences, interdisciplinary or environmental studies. Courses and course topics in which this book have been or could be used as a primary or secondary text include social and political issues, ethics, world politics, value theory, international political economy, economic history, contemporary educational theory, cultural studies, international development, environmental studies, global ideologies, media and communications theory, labour history, structural social work, law and justice, theology and society, women and gender studies, sociology of politics, philosophy of the environment, Canadian studies, international relations and trade, peace and conflict studies, and informal logic. TABLE OF CONTENTS Foreword Introduction: An Overview Understanding How We Live: Recognizing Value Programs Distinguishing between Representation and Reality Part One: Behind the Invisible Hand The Problem: A Question of Freedom The Pursuit of Freedom: An Irony of History The Postmodern Response The Freedom of No Alternative The Pursuit of Freedom The Founders of the Theory and Their Revisionists: From John Locke and Adam Smith to "Value-Free Economics" The Moral System of a Market Exchange Individual Freedom and the Neutral Market State: Are These Coherent Norms? The Case of Friedrich Hayek The Market as God The Problem of Evil The Regulating Principles of True Belief The Confusion of Moral Commandments and Physical Laws since Ricardo >From the Market System to the Cosmic Order Punishments for Disobedience to Market Laws The Underlying Principles of the Market Theology The Place of Free Will in the Market Theodicy Robert Reich's Conversion The Doctrine of Infallibility The Invisible Hand Revisited Part II: Market Theory and Practice: Arguments Pro and Con Freedom, Private Property, and Money: From John Locke to the New World Order John Locke on the Right to Private Property The Problem of Private Property In Slaves How Do We Distinguish Buying Slaves from Buying Labour? The Free Contract Solution The Problem of the Propertyless Unemployed Justifications for Private Property in Money without Limit The Trickle-Down Theory Where the Rich Refuse Contract Private Property for and against Life-Interests Abstraction as Disguise for Special Interest Do Property Rights Have Property Obligations? Money Investment and Community Fetters The New Crusade for Freedom Private Profit, Competition, and the Social Good Adam Smith's Moral Revolution I Am Rational, Therefore I Self-Maximize Dehumanizing Adam Smith The Corporate Person The New Global Market Sovereign The Money Ground of Value The Logic of Comparative Advantage The Homogenization of Nations in the World Market The Free Market and Democracy Freedom of the Consumer - If You Can Pay The Question of Need Consumer Sovereignty or Infantile Demand? The Truth of Consumer Choice Freedom of the Producer or the Non-Producer? The Knowledge-Based Economy Six Ways in which the Knowledge-Based Economy Is Structured against Knowing the Truth Education and the Market Model Freedom of the Press - for Those Who Own One The Invisible Curtain of the Media The Grammar of Censorship The Market Metaphysic: Rallying Cries and True Meanings Getting the State off Our Backs Removing Barriers to Trade No Free Lunches Part III: Planetary Health, the Global Market, and the Civil Commons The Decoupling of Capital from Civil and Environmental Life Freeing Capital from Society: The Function of Free Trade Freeing Corporations from Workers' Demands Freeing Corporations from Governments Rootless Investors and the Age of Disposable Life Seeing through the Rich to the Value Program The Mutations of the Profit System and Their Cure >From the Life-Code of Value to the Logic of the World-System Crisis Sacrificing Life to the Money-Sequence Towards a Cure: Relinking Banks to the Public that Charters and Funds Them Money Creation and Public Accountability The Economics of Life and Death Growth, Development, and the Mutations of the Money-Sequence The Pathologization of the Money-Sequence: From Means of Life to Means of Life Destruction Banks for and against the Public Interest: The Market Lessons of the Asian Tigers Pension and Mutual Funds: A Hidden Market Keel Taxing Money-Demand: The Unseen Principle of Justice Beyond the Mega-Machine to the Civil Commons Confronting the Death Spiral of the System The Life-Ground of the Civil Commons The Civil Commons and the State The Civil Commons and Real Capital Conclusion: The Way Ahead Index »«»« »« »« »« »« »« »« »« »« »« »« »« »« »« »« »« »« »« »« »« »« »« »« »« W. Robert Needham Director, Canadian Studies Program St. Paul's United College University of Waterloo Waterloo Ontario N2L 3G5 http://arts.uwaterloo.ca/ECON/needham.html