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A review by jasonfurman
Six Faces of Globalization: Who Wins, Who Loses, and Why It Matters by Nicolas Lamp, Anthea Roberts
5.0
Rather than a familiar polemic for a perspective on globalization (e.g., it's good or it's bad), the Six Faces of Globalization is a polemic for simultaneously and sympathetically incorporating multiple perspectives on globalization. I would love to read books that take a similar approach to a range of other economic and non-economic issues.
The "Six Faces of Globalization" recounted in the book are:
1. The Establishment Narrative: Trade is good
2. The Left-wing Populist Narrative: Trade helps the rich at the expense of the working class
3. The Right-wing Populist Narrative: Trade helps poor countries (and immigrants) at the expense of the working class
4. The Corporate Power Narrative: Trade helps translational corporations at the expense of people
5. The Geoeconomic Narrative: Trade helps some countries at the expense of other countries
6. The Global Threats Narrative: Trade imperils us all through climate change or pandemics
(They also talk about non-Western perspectives like dependency where globalization hurts poor countries, the Asian narrative of globalization helping, the desire of China and Russia to set up alternative rules, etc.)
The authors do a good job of showing how different globalization policies are motivated by different perspectives, in some cases overlapping, but in other cases contradictory. For example, US policy towards China has elements of all of the above, even some of the tariffs were simultaneously motivated by the Establishment Narrative (opening up China to trade) and the protectionist narratives.
The authors do not choose between these perspectives but instead urge us to take a kaleidoscopic perspective that tries to make some alliances between the different perspectives.
In some ways the strength of the book is its sympathy for different perspectives. But at times it was frustrating. The left-wing narrative (trade helps the rich at the expense of the poor), for example, was stronger on facts about inequality increasing than it was on analysis linking this in any qualitatively important way to trade. Some of the zero sum perspectives in the different faces are clearly based on fallacies and misconnections that should be dispelled and not sympathized with.
But, overall the multiple perspectives is a strength. National security concerns (Narrative 5) can sometimes be a thinly veiled excuse for protectionism but can also be legitimate. There are good reasons to worry that corporations are overly influential in the way that "free trade" agreements are crafted (Narrative 4). Etc.
Finally I should say that this book is unusually well written. It is very well structured and organized. It takes a few metaphors (e.g., the Rubik's cube) and uses them really well. It organizes the arguments and sub-arguments in a way that is both logical and readable. All in all, both enjoyable and enlightening.
The "Six Faces of Globalization" recounted in the book are:
1. The Establishment Narrative: Trade is good
2. The Left-wing Populist Narrative: Trade helps the rich at the expense of the working class
3. The Right-wing Populist Narrative: Trade helps poor countries (and immigrants) at the expense of the working class
4. The Corporate Power Narrative: Trade helps translational corporations at the expense of people
5. The Geoeconomic Narrative: Trade helps some countries at the expense of other countries
6. The Global Threats Narrative: Trade imperils us all through climate change or pandemics
(They also talk about non-Western perspectives like dependency where globalization hurts poor countries, the Asian narrative of globalization helping, the desire of China and Russia to set up alternative rules, etc.)
The authors do a good job of showing how different globalization policies are motivated by different perspectives, in some cases overlapping, but in other cases contradictory. For example, US policy towards China has elements of all of the above, even some of the tariffs were simultaneously motivated by the Establishment Narrative (opening up China to trade) and the protectionist narratives.
The authors do not choose between these perspectives but instead urge us to take a kaleidoscopic perspective that tries to make some alliances between the different perspectives.
In some ways the strength of the book is its sympathy for different perspectives. But at times it was frustrating. The left-wing narrative (trade helps the rich at the expense of the poor), for example, was stronger on facts about inequality increasing than it was on analysis linking this in any qualitatively important way to trade. Some of the zero sum perspectives in the different faces are clearly based on fallacies and misconnections that should be dispelled and not sympathized with.
But, overall the multiple perspectives is a strength. National security concerns (Narrative 5) can sometimes be a thinly veiled excuse for protectionism but can also be legitimate. There are good reasons to worry that corporations are overly influential in the way that "free trade" agreements are crafted (Narrative 4). Etc.
Finally I should say that this book is unusually well written. It is very well structured and organized. It takes a few metaphors (e.g., the Rubik's cube) and uses them really well. It organizes the arguments and sub-arguments in a way that is both logical and readable. All in all, both enjoyable and enlightening.