False Dawn
-The Delusions of Global Capitalism
Professor John Gray (2002)
London School of Economics
In this short extract from John Gray's book 'False
Dawn' he develops a powerful analysis of the
deepening instability that global free-market capitalism creates.
Gray's central message is that the break neck pursuit of
American-styled laissez-faire free market capitalism with its emphasis on
highly deregulated markets engineered and supervised by weak nation states
is based upon a number of false premises and half truths. It will not lead
to the utopia of a single, super-efficient, wealth-generating global
market that the free-market fundamentalists promised, but its opposite: a
sort of permanent anarchy.
Gray's analysis shows how globalised markets throw all types of
capitalism -not least the free-market varieties - into flux. This creates
anarchic global markets that destroy old capitalisms and spawn new ones,
while subjecting all too unceasing instability. In concluding his thinking
on the current state of global capitalism Gray considers that 'like
other twentieth-century utopias, global laissez-faire - together with its
casualties - will be swallowed into the memory hole of history'.
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Source:
John Gray
False Dawn - The Delusions of Global Capitalism
Granta Books, London, 2002, Price UK£8.99
Pages: 211 - 218
ISBN
1862075301
