The War for Wealth: The True Story of Globalization, or Why the Flat World is Broken

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Editorial reviews

Product Description

Globalization. The Flat World. Outsourcing. Free Trade.

Each of these phrases is a flashpoint in one of the most heated debates of our lifetime: Is globalization a force for good, or is it a policy that is sure to destroy the economic foundation of the United States and Europe while exporting our wealth and prosperity overseas?

In The War for Wealth, leading intellectual and agenda-setting journalist Gabor Steingart examines how globalization has affected the state of the world's economy and returns with a bleak outlook for the West: our prosperity and wealth are disappearing faster than ever, and with it our political power and our long-held democratic ideals. But all is not lost; we can still stem the flow of capital and jobs and once again restore the West to its respected position of global leader in economics and politics.

In this eye-opening and dramatic account, Steingart lays out the three potential scenarios the world faces - a “shock scenario” in which there is a global economic crash, an “Asia-over-all scenario” where the rising economies of Asia completely overtake the West, or the “American renaissance scenario” in which U.S. politicians unite with each other and with Europe, forming a pragmatic third way to bring the West back from the brink of destruction.

Compelling, controversial, and thought-provoking, The War for Wealth alerts readers to the crucial state of the Western economy--and shows how leaders can return the West to its position of power in the global arena.

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Customer reviews

review by: date: 2008-12-27 rating:
Ten Miles Wide and an Inch Deep
This book is worth reading simply for the pertinent information on world economic trends. I found it interesting and well written, though shallow. If you are a devotee of "realpolitik" this book will likely "fry your burger." If, however, you are looking for in-depth analysis of the forces driving globalization and are committed to the advancement of human rights you may be disappointed in this book. It is like a flyover of a landscape at a few thousand feet; it gives a nice overview of the topography but fails to seriously address the tectonics, climate, and plant and animal communities that shape it, to dangerously stretch the metaphor. His bottom line on globalization: You can't fight the future, but maybe the West can unite to fend off the economic warfare being waged against us by the yellow scourge. He sees the demise of the welfare state and labor unions as natural and not particularly lamentable outcomes of globalization. He advocates nationalized health care paid for by a national sales tax in order to unburden the flagging US corporations of their labor obligations. I think this is a splendid idea as long as the tax is levied on all sales at the same rate, including stocks and securities (that will be the day). One sub-text to be gleaned:If you're in the upper economic strata, relax; life will only get better. It's only the working stiffs at the bottom who will really suffer. The parasites at the top will always find plenty of fresh blood to suck (my terminology, not his).

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review by: date: 2008-10-24 rating:
Relief from the Globalization Propaganda
Globalization has had a strong, yet subtle, propaganda from both the "liberal" and conservative media in the last years. Just take a look at magazines Newsweek, Time and many others, but above all The Economist. They are always reminding us how important is that companies can freely operate globally. Fareed Zakaria, for example, wrote some weeks ago that while ipods are made abroad, most of the profits go to Apple. Good for Steve and Co. but bad for common people who don't own corporations. Instead, Mr. Zakaria chose to show off the startlingly low American unemployment statistics. As for web sites, go to the ultraconservative [...], which has a single one writer against free trade, Pat Buchanan.

Gabor Steingart is one of the few writers who goes deeper that and exposes what holds the terrific unemployment statistics: part-time jobs (no matter how few hours a week), minimum wages and plain unemployed simply masked. We can even say it is as hard to get in those statistics as getting into an ivy-league college. According to the US Labor statistics, the minimum wage jobs are meant to be the main jobs sources by far and large in the next years. There will be like 600,000 opening for college professors and many others for college graduates, which all in all won't take the whole youth needing jobs. Yet, most of the media (both "liberal" and conservative) remain simplifying the issue and keeping repeating the great unemployment statistics and Wal-Mart prices (which are not so great either), just like a nazi general used to say to keep lying until people believe them.

The news channels don't promote globalization as much, instead they distract us and focus on the oversimplification of the "culture wars" (both excessive liberals or conservatives, who are minorities in USA) , missing people (like 1 in 100,000) and most recently have only paid attention to the political campaigns and the financial crisis. These issues are surely important and still second in importance to the basic need of making a living, which globalization won't let us do. No matter how cheap a product can be as the propaganda always says, if you don't have a job you can't buy much, which is happening to more and more millions of people all over the 1st world, as Gabor well exposes.

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review by: CloudsWatcher date: 2008-10-18 rating:
a great book probably coming too late
I feel almost personally grateful to Steingart because he has written something I have always wanted to say, but couldn't possibly have said so well.

The questions he asks on page 227, for example, have been troubling me for years. I beseech every American to pause and respond to these buring questions.

"Did you really believe that you could live, in the long term, on borrowed money?
"Who actually claimed that such a large nation doesn't need an industrial base?
"Where are the men and women who made us believe that a negative balance of trade is a sigh of strength?
"Why did no one on Wall Street sound the alarm bell when the U.S. dollar became eroded and lost intrinsic value for such a prolonged period of time?
"Is it possible that no one could have noticed a country that was once the world's biggest lender selling off its assets to others?
"How could the entrenchment of economic inequality in a democratic nation have been tolerated for so long?
"What happed to the upward mobility that was once this country's trademark?
"And, last but not least: why did democracy, which is supposed to react more quickly to malfunctions than other forms of government, fail so miserably?"

As someone who genuinely wishes America well, it pains me to see this great country de-industrialized and become the biggest debtor in human history, reduced to begging more loans from foreign powers such as the Chinese Communist regime.

My gut feeling is that it's too late to remedy the dire situation. I pray miracle happens. I wish to be proven wrong.

By the way, Deng Xiaoping was never premier of China, as Steingart told us. His official position, when he did hold one, was vice-premier, though he was the paramount leader of the Chinese Communist Party from the early 80s. Chinese politics was bizare.

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review by: date: 2008-09-19 rating:
Must read
Every American should read this book; the author gives a broader view about the world economy, and how we got to this point, where we have been losing jobs to the Asian countries: the causes, the consequences and what we can do to revert it.


review by: RogueWino date: 2008-09-11 rating:
Reform tax policy
Among the fairly simple, but politically difficult recommendations is to eliminate income based taxes and instead tax consumption. The US policy of taxing income of individuals and, especially corporations, effectively makes US products gives importers a free ride and makes US exports uncompetitive internationally. Taxing sales not only levels the playing field for US producers domestically and internationally, but also greatly reduces tax fraud and black market free riders.

Eliminate the tax on savings and capital gains and odds are people would save and invest more.

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