False Dawn: The Delusions of Global Capitalism by John N. Gray

False Dawn: The Delusions of Global Capitalism Reviews

• 
  Szplug

  At times it can be hard to take John Gray seriously: he is prone to overstating his case, stretching a well-constructed and reasoned proposition to the very limits, making categorical contrarian rebuttals without fleshing them out with enough substance to allow them to compete beyond mere averment, and he repeats himself almost to the point of self-hypnosis—but when the man is on—which comprises a majority of this jeremiad—he is on, delivering a bracing and pertinacious polemic with which I often find myself in agreement, or at least strongly persuaded. I am a solid supporter of a market economy—I am more tentative about the free market implementations that have arisen again with the advent of globalized capitalism. When I see how many partisans of the free market treat it as either an economic element of natural law, a free-standing constituent component of the material universe that is meant to be, or with the fervid zeal of an acolyte who has found a religion of production and consumption that upholds the very heavens with the purity and sanctity of its revealed dogma, I become apprehensive and wary; Gray provides here a firm confirmation that such apprehension and wariness are quite appropriate responses.
  
  As anyone who has read John Gray knows, the primary target for his ire is the Enlightenment by way of what he has determined to be its transmitted and unflagging belief in both the improvability of the species and the inevitability of the progression of our disparate and variegated institutions into a cohesive, universal whole—the entire world dipping oars in rhythmic and measured strokes as we glide smoothly towards the Big U of whatever the field in question. Gray spies this Enlightenment strain within the newly arisen and spread Free Market and the Washington Consensus that upholds its implementation whenever an opening for such presents itself—usually by means of the implosion of a country's economic system, a crisis that allows the shock therapy of deregulation, tax cutting, union busting, privatization and reduced wages to be grafted into place. Gray repeatedly points out that the Free Market, no matter what its proponents might believe or proclaim, has never arisen naturally—an economic evolutionary endpoint, if you will—but rather been a purposeful experiment in social engineering that can only be implanted by the firm and reliant hand of a strong, centralized government—the very thing the adherents of the Free Market believe their ideal exchange institution allows them to keep from forcing its will upon its citizens. The government is required because no national populace would ever choose the Free Market on their own: although it has shown itself to be a wealth creator par excellence, it is very socially disruptive, requiring workers to forever labor in insecurity and be prepared to uproot their family and move to where the work is, the free flow of capital can hobble a business through no incompetence of its own, and the manner in which technology is harnessed and implemented by its racing engines works all manner of transformative memes upon the culture and politics and familial norms of a given society. What's more, because such a market structure encourages, even thrives upon speculative finance, its life-cycle is ever one of great booms and inflated values preceding devastating busts that destroy a significant portion of the wealth previously amassed, leaving families and communities in financial ruin. History has shown that wherever this Anglo-American creation has been implemented, it always engenders concerted efforts to bring it to bay, to increasing measures of control through regulation and reform.
  
  Another thing that regular readers of John Gray understand is that he is a promoter of and believer in value pluralism, that freedom and the good life can be realized under a variety of societal systems operating across a multitude of differing cultures; that there is no need for the adoption of an American style free market liberalism by the entire globe in pursuit of some chimeric civilizational acme. He writes at length about the home-grown flavors of capitalism that have developed in Japan, China, Singapore, Indonesia, Chile, Germany, and such, noting how they have adapted themselves to suit the particular realities and problems faced by each of these differing cultures. What's more, most of Europe resolutely rejects the neo-liberal marketization mania, preferring their modulated forms of social democracy. However, when Anglo-American style free markets have proliferated and are backed by the dominant global position of their chief proponent, Gray posits the occurrence of an economic version of
  Gresham's Law wherein bad capitalism tends to drive out good capitalism; that is, it proves increasingly difficult for these homogenized and socialized economies to compete with the ruthless down-spiral of the free market, and they end up distorted and/or displaced as certain free market memes are put into place. It is difficult to compete in a globalized market of deregulation, cheap taxes, and free-flowing capital and labour without adopting to their presence, and this adoption will drive out the beneficial components of the infiltrated system.
  
  This applies even to the original neo-liberals: Gray believes that a free market economy is ever evolving, changing, in flux, altering the society in which it operates and, though it produces great efficiencies and productivity levels, and generates vast reams of wealth, it distributes it ever more unequally—destroying healthy middle-classes by re-proletarianizing them while developing a sizable underclass of poverty-level workers and the unemployed/unemployable and producing an engorged criminal element housed within an expanded prison industry, creating terrible wealth disparities while undermining the freedoms and rights of those not located within the relatively small group of super-winners. Worst of all, the author holds that such free market economies are one-way engines. Those economic systems they have superseded or displaced, the managed social democracies that arose with the welfare state, cannot be returned to. One Enlightenment economic philosophy, Communism, has had its own utopian drive and stalled out and crashed along the way; Gray asserts that Capitalism, Communism's Enlightenment sibling, is heading down the same path and liable for the same breakdown long before its paradisiacal end goal has been glimpsed, let alone reached. Any attempt to implement one form of free market economy upon the nations of the world will only result in that form mutating into something unpredictably different while spreading anarchy through its creative-destructive processes.
  
  Having grown up in Canada and lived here my whole adult life, the free market in its American laissez-faire configuration has little appeal to me to begin with. I'm comfortable in a regulated market economy with secure safety nets, universal medical insurance, and a well-ordered banking system—and I've never viewed my own government, which has figured prominently within and throughout Canada's economic history, as some form of hostile institution mere degrees from tyranny. Hell, our national motto is Peace, Order, and Good Government and that's just fine with me. What's more, I have little time for ideology, rigidity and armchair philosophy: an economic system that is pragmatic, can adjust as the present situation itself changes, accommodate itself to new realities, bend where needed and stand firm where required, that takes account of and operates within the real existing world and not some rationalized ideal where all variables can be known or accounted for, that is what I favor. My experience is that free market economies are risky and unstable, great wealth creators and destroyers, and destruction and instability are not conducive to the formation of enduring peaceful and well-ordered polities. They incite radicalism and resentment, polarization and revolution, they tear things down in order to build them back up again—and the rebuilding can move in directions little anticipated. Furthermore, I am agnostic on the ability of a Free Market to self-regulate, as its historical existence has been one where insider trading, security manipulations, corporate monopolies, illegalities, political corruption, and so on have stamped their imprint firmly upon the system—so it provides its wave-form economic upheavals in some variety of tainted implementation, even at the best of times. If such is the case, it only makes sense that an ordered regulation should be imposed in lieu of leaving it at the mercy of connected manipulators who will distort it in their own favor.
  
  Thus, much of John Gray's educated polemic appeals to me where it counts, strikes me as wise and truthful and well worthy of being read and understood. However, I also understand that the man takes things to extremes and can be prone to overstatement and contradictory conclusions. He is given to absolute statements, fully at odds with his own disdain of the universal underpinnings of the Enlightenment. He repeatedly avers that, once the free market has been initiated, it permanently relegates the system it has ousted to the ashbin of history—a conviction unwarranted in the face of the unknowability of the future and the limitless potential of humanity to retool and reseed its organized systems of operation. He deprecates the free market economies erected upon the United Kingdom, the United States, New Zealand, and Mexico in the eighties and early nineties before admitting that the existing systems of managed economies were stagnant and broken, and little else could have viably been implemented at the level required to reinvigorate and restart these moribund nations. Like most First World critics of the globalized free market, he cannot seem to grasp the concept that denizens of formerly poverty stricken and undeveloped countries may not find the risks and instability associated with a free market economy an undesirable trade-off compared with the transformative increases to their living standards, access to a regular supply of food and medicine, educational opportunities and infrastructure developments; for, as Gray himself admits, once the free market has worked its tendrils into the societal base and elevated it from its horizontal starting point, the opportunity for harnessing its power via political reforms and regulations unique to that particular realm becomes more readily available and possible. With that said, these are problems in his presentation that could be addressed or revised with further publication runs; his core point, his central opposition to the neo-liberal wish to impress the free market across the globe, is powerfully and clearly made and resonates strongly with this reader. Prescient in several of his forecasts for how the globalized economy would play out in the new millennium, Gray's voice is definitely one that should be added to those hearkened to as we try to find our way out of the current slump that has spread its shadow around the world.
• 
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  The underlying theme of False Dawn is that the US is deluded by its own 'Enlightenment thesis', believing that democratic capitalism will soon be accepted throughout the world, merging into a single universal free market. Although multinational corporations have become allies in promoting this 'unified theory' of a world civilisation, Gray believes it is desitned for failure, since it is based on the same flawed assumptions as communism: 'In their cult of reason and efficiency, their ignorance of history and their contempt for the ways of life they consign to poverty or extinction, they embody the same rationalist hubris and cultural imperialism that have marked the central traditions of Enlightenment thinking throughout its history.'
• 
  Philip Craggs

  One of our wisest modern philosophers predicts the global banking crisis ten years before it happened. Fascinating (and highly frustrating) reading.
• 
  Wouter Zwemmer

  Erudiet pleidooi voor economische pluriformiteit en regulering van vrijhandel door overheden en transnationale organisaties. John Gray is emeritus hoogleraar Europese ideeëngeschiedenis (say what?) aan de London School of Economics - die zou er wat vanaf moeten weten, bedoel ik maar…
  
  Verval
  De kern van Grays betoog is dat mondiale vrijhandel niet bloeit, maar in verval is. Hij betoogt dat de VS en de EU in verval zijn. Terwijl ik dit boek lees, vindt er weer een schietpartij op een school in de VS plaats; dader is een jongen van 18, die overleeft het niet samen met meer dan 20 lagere scholieren die hij in zijn razernij doodschiet. En nog verdedigt de republikeinse politiek particulier wapenbezit en wijst links Amerika naar de wapenindustrie. Is dit een incident als gevolg van te grote persoonlijke vrijheid, is dit opportunisme van industrie en elite, of is dit één van de tekenen van het verval waar Gray op duidt?
  
  Onstabiel kapitalisme
  Al in het voorwoord doet Gray opmerkelijke uitspraken: “Regeringen mogen dan beter geïnformeerd zijn dan ooit tevoren, ze zijn niet verstandiger geworden.” En “Het kapitalisme mag dan het meest productieve economische systeem zijn dat tot dusverre is ontwikkeld, het is altijd bijzonder instabiel geweest.” En: “Niets wijst erop dat we onvermijdelijk afstevenen op een oorlog tussen de grootmachten (…)” wat met de inval van Rusland in Oekraïne en de toenemende geopolitieke spanning rond China en Taiwan en de Zuid-Chinese zee wel het geval blijkt. “Van de grote mogendheden- de VS, China, India, Japan en Rusland - zijn alleen de VS westers, en bovendien sterk in verval. (Het sterk uitgebreide Europa is onderling zo verdeeld dat het op het wereldtoneel geen rol van betekenis meer speelt.)”
  
  Rusland
  Ik lees de uitgave van 2009. In het voorwoord verwoordt Gray akelig helder Poetin-Rusland zoals we die nu denken te kennen door de oorlog in Oekraïne: herschrijving van de geschiedenis, een heersende elite van voormalige en actieve leden van de geheime dienst, gevaarlijk voor onderzoeksjournalisten, oliestaat met de verwachting van stijgende olieprijzen wegens toenemende mondiale industrialisatie wat Gray benoemt als de kern van globalisering.
  
  Intelligent improviseren
  Volgens Gray gaan vrijemarkteconomie, de verwaarlozing van familie- en gemeenschapsbanden en het gebruik van strafrechtelijke sancties als laatste middel tegen ineenstorting hand in hand. Gray stelt dat religieus fundamentalisme en groen optimisme als antwoord op het huidige wereldwijde crisis minder kans op succes hebben dan intelligent improviseren. “Maar realistisch denken ligt niet in de menselijke aard. Wonen in een denkbeeldige toekomst is gemakkelijker dan het hoofd bieden aan het weerbarstige heden.”
  
  Verschillen
  Een mondiale vrijemarkteconomie veronderstelt dat economische modernisering overal hetzelfde betekent: westers kapitalisme, de Amerikaanse vrijemarkteconomie. In werkelijkheid verschillen bijvoorbeeld Japans, Chinees (geleid door de centrale partij), Russisch (anarchistisch met oligarchen) kapitalisme van het Amerikaanse. Paradox: economische globalisering ondermijnt globaal laissez faire vrije handel vanwege de ongelijke ontwikkeling van samenlevingen in de wereld en de sociale en politieke tegenbeweging die dat veroorzaakt. De huidige wereldwijde vrijemarkteconomie ontbeert politieke beteugeling waardoor er geen evenwicht ontstaat. Nationale markten worden gereguleerd door nationale overheden, maar voor internationale markten bestaan die niet; die worden gereguleerd door transnationale organisaties zoals de World Trade Organization. Mondiale vrijhandel leidt tot een geopolitieke strijd over schaarse natuurlijke hulpbronnen.
  
  Maar twee ideologieën?
  Na WO2 leek de wereld verdeeld in twee ideologieën: liberalisme en sovjetmarxisme. Met het uiteen vallen van de sovjet unie leek het liberalisme te hebben ‘gewonnen’. Helaas is de werkelijkheid niet zo eenvoudig: oplaaiende religies, oude ethnische vijandschap, territoriale strijd en nieuwe technologieën voor oorlogsvoering conflicteren met de utopie van vrede en welvaart door handel; etniciteit, territorium en godsdienst versus homo economicus.
  
  De acht stellingen van Valse Dageraad
  Valse Dageraad van Gray bevat een aantal stellingen die de auteur zelf in zijn nawoord samenvat:
  - Het inzicht dat kapitalisme overheid nodig heeft om de dynamiek van het kapitalisme in overeenstemming te houden (te beteugelen) met maatschappelijke stabiliteit is al van Joseph Schumpeter. Dit is ook de eerste selling van het boek van Gray: “Vrije markten zijn scheppingen van een sterk bestuur en kunnen daarzonder niet bestaan.” - en dus geen natuurverschijnsel.
  - De tweede gedachte van Gray’s boek is: “democratie en de vrijemarkteconomie zijn geen partners maar concurrenten. (…) Het normale nevenverschijnsel van vrije markten is niet een stabiel democratisch bestuur. Het is de grillige politiek van economische onzekerheid.”
  - Het derde idee: “Ten derde, socialisme als een economisch systeem is onherstelbaar afgebroken. (…) voor de toekomst kunnen we voorspellen dat er in de wereld niet langer twee economische systemen meer zullen zijn, maar enkel variëteiten van het kapitalisme.”
  - Ten vierde: de meeste voormalig communistische landen hebben nog niet het westerse economische model aanvaard.
  - Het vijfde idee is dat het marxistisch-leninisme en de vrijemarkteconomie veel gemeen hebben: negeren van natuur en weinig sympathie voor de slachtoffers van economische vooruitgang; beide willen culturele diversiteit vervangen door een enkele universele beschaving.
  - De zesde these van Gray’s boek is dat de mondiale vrijemarkteconomie een Amerikaans project is. Het is echter geen samenzwering van het Amerikaanse bedrijfsleven maar een “overmoedige ideologie”.
  - These zeven: “de chronische onzekerheden van het laatmoderne kapitalisme, in het bijzonder in zijn meest uitgesproken vrijemarktvariant, tasten enkele van de centrale instituties en waarden van het burgerlijke leven aan.” Bijvoorbeeld een carrière gebaseerd op anciënniteit is vervangen door economische onzekerheid en verminderde opwaardse sociale mobiliteit. “Wereldwijde mobiliteit van kapitaal en productie veroorzaakt een ‘race naar de bodem’.”
  - These acht: de Verenigde Staten hebben niet de macht om een universele vrijemarkteconomie tot stand te brengen, maar wel de macht om hervormingen van de wereldeconomie te vetoën. Gray voorspelt het uiteenvallen van de wereldeconomie in regionale blokken en hegemonieën; en hij voorspelt het toenemen van autoritaire regimes en gewapend conflict met vml Joegoslavië en Milosevic als voorbeeld.
  
  Gedoemd te mislukken
  Op de laatste pagina’s van dit boek stelt Gray: “In de mondiale vrijemarkteconomie zijn de instrumenten van het economische leven gevaarlijk losgeraakt van de maatschappelijke controle en politieke beheersing.” En: “Een wereldwijde vrijemarkteconomie belichaamt het westerse verlichtingsideaal van een universele beschaving.” Echter: “Een toenemende mate van verwevenheid van de wereldeconomieën (globalisering, red.) betekent niet de groei van een enkele economische beschaving. Ze betekent dat er een modus vivendi gevonden moet worden tussen economische culturen die altijd verschillend zullen blijven.” Gray stelt dat zowel de mondiale vrijemarkteconomie als het marxistische socialisme de overtuiging hebben dat menselijke vooruitgang een enkele beschaving tot doel heeft, en alletwee bereid zijn tot een hoge prijs in de vorm van menselijk leed. Volgens Gray is dan ook niet alleen het marxistisch socialisme maar ook de mondiale vrijemarkteconomie een “(…) project dat gedoemd was te mislukken.”
• 
  Ezreal

  False Dawn: The Delusions of Global Capitalism is a 1998 book by political philosopher John Gray that argues that free market globalization is unstable and is in the process of collapsing.
  Gray notes how the economic shock therapy in post-Communist nations has resulted in "the resources of the vast Soviet war machine ... sold to the highest bidder ... non-state forces that were waging unconventional war ... terrorist networks." Also, the resource-scarcity from global industrialisation is contributing to resource wars and a revival of The Great Game.
  In chapter one, Gray groups together thinkers such as John Locke and Karl Marx on the basis of striving for an Enlightenment Utopia in which "a diversity of cultures.
• 
  Ben

  In this dense and dull read, Gray puts forward the idea that global free markets are an ideology based on faith without any redeeming feature, and that the implementation of free markets is irreversible.
  
  This early work from Gray is not as clean and fresh as his later more philosophical works. False Dawn suffers from the academic language, and also from Gray's tendency to declare a fact without supporting it with example or evidence.
  
  I wasn't able to finish the book, but skimming the pages ahead of where I finished showed the relentless dense prose continued.
• 
  Yanick Punter

  Prophetic.
• 
  Ayu Ambarini

  Pada awalnya saya membaca buku ini membingungkan, tetapi akhirnya saya memahaminya; Apa yang benar-benar diinginkan Gray adalah menghentikan banyak hal agar tidak berubah; beliau ingin memastikan kemajuan ekonomi terjadi untuk tatanan sosial yang lebih stabil. Tetapi kebanyakan orang, dihadapkan dengan ketidakyakinan, hanya berpikir ke pakaian yang nyaman yang dipakai dan bahwa masyarakat sudah memiliki cukup materi. Gray melihat pasar bebas bagaimanapun juga buruk untuk beberapa kemajuan dan perubahan di dunia ini.
  Buku ini juga melihat bahwa sistem ekonomi global tidak bermoral, tidak adil, tidak dapat dijalankan, dan tidak stabil. . . Gray mengatakan bahwa gerakan menuju pasar bebas, barang dan ide bukanlah proses yang terjadi secara alami melainkan sebuah proyek politik yang bertumpu pada kekuatan Amerika.... Membaca buku ini membuka wawasan ttg ekonomi global yang terjadi di era ini !
• 
  Lynn

  Economic analysis is important but not, to me, incredibly interesting. The book is prescient in some places, but, written before 9-11 or the 2008 crash, it’s also out of date.
• 
  Oolalaa

  9/20
• 
  Scott

  Published in 1998, It shows its age but I wish I read this 20 years ago.
• 
  Rafael

  Interesting insights but weak at times.
• 
  Babak Fakhamzadeh

  I'm not an economist and since Gray assumes the reader is knowledgeable in several complex economic theories, the book is hard to follow at times. But it's worth it.
  Despite the rather complex nature of the material, Gray paints a lucid picture of the current state of global economic affairs and is able to show that, indeed, global capitalism as projected by "the Washington Consensus" (USA, IMF, World bank) is a farce. Gray points out that the world is on the verge of turmoil on a scale not unlike the world wars of the previous centuries and that we're on the eve of the start of a new "Great Game" (the struggle for power in central Asia). Given that the book was written in 1998, Gray has already had his thesis proven.
  
  The book holds eight major arguments:
  
  1. Free markets are creatures of strong government and cannot exist without them. The natural tendency of society is to curb markets and free markets can only be created by a strong centralized state.
  2. Democracy and the free market are competitors rather than partners. The normal concomitant of free markets is not stable democratic government but the volatile politics of economic insecurity.
  3. Socialism as an economic system has broken down irretrievably. In both human and economic terms, the legacy of socialist central planning has been ruinous, both in Russia and in China.
  4. Though the implosion of Marxian socialism (which in itself is a western orthodoxy) has been welcomed in western countries, especially the United States, as a triumph for free market capitalism, it has not been followed in most formerly communist countries by the adoption of any western economic model.
  In Russia and China, as well as the Asian "tiger" economies, indigenous forms of capitalism have been created that take into account local, historical and social elements that shape specific societies.
  5. Marxism-Leninism and free market economic rationalism, though they support different economic systems, have much in common.
  Both adopt a Promethean ("use it as much as you can") attitude to nature and exhibit scant sympathy for the casualties of economic progress. Both are varieties of the Enlightenment project of supplanting the historic diversity of human cultures with a single, universal civilization.
  6. The (American) idea of American exceptionalism has fused with free-market ideology. Americans view the global free market as an American project. However, by its nature, the American economy as a free market cannot be a winner in a global free market (think of high tech jobs moving to India).
  7. The chronic insecurities of late modern capitalism, especially in its most virulent free-market variants, corrode some of the central institutions and values of bourgeois life. The free market neglects the need for security and social identity that used to be met by the vocational structures of bourgeois societies.
  Examples for this argument are the non-existence of the extended family in the US and the high incarceration rates.
  8. The US does not have the hegemonic power needed to make a universal free market a reality, even for a short time, but it has the power to veto reform of the world economy. As long as the US remains wedded to "the Washington consensus" on global laissez-faire, there can be no reform of world markets.
  
  An additional problem for ensuring hegemonic power is that globalization does not spread the free market; it spreads high-tech knowledge and machinery across the globe, allowing for organizations that are not managed by nation-states to wage war on their perceived enemies (Al-Qaeda, etc).
  
  Gray concludes that "The Great Game" in which world powers struggled a century ago for control of oil in Central Asia might well recur soon enough (as it has!) and that as global laissez-faire breaks up, a deepening international anarchy is the likely human prospect.
• 
  Rhys

  A prescient deliberation on neoliberalism / global free markets, and the untruths that act as its foundation: “Since the natural tendency of society is to curb markets, free markets can only be created by the power of a centralized state. Free markets are creatures of strong government and cannot exist without them.” Free markets are not natural – they are created by us, “devices contrived by human beings for human purposes.” As such economic philosophy can be changed.
  
  Gray also nails the political situation for recognizing and reacting to the limits of a finite environment: “Greens pin their hopes on political change, but in a world of nearly two hundred sovereign states, many of them failed or criminalized, others locked in intractable conflict with one another, environmental policies are not globally enforceable.”
  
  My only concern with False Dawn, as well as his other books, is his quite narrow range of political options between global free-market capitalism and Soviet/Chinese manifestations of communism: “Both Marxism-Leninism and free-market economic rationalism adopt a Promethean attitude to nature and exhibit scant sympathy for the casualties of economic progress. Both are variants of the Enlightenment project of supplanting the historic diversity of human cultures with a single, universal civilization. The global free market is that Enlightenment project in its latest – perhaps last – form.”
  
  Are there no other options? This could be better thought out – though this may disturb his nihilist-curmudgeon reputation.
  
• 
  Adrian

  This book examines different modes of economic organization around the world. The social or even socialist capitalism of the E.U., the gangster capitalism of Russia, the state driven economy of China and the consensus based capitalism of Japan are compared with the Free Market Fundamentalism of the U.S. and Britain.
  The purpose of the book is to examine how the economies of these countries actually work, not how their policies fit into theoretical models of economic behavior. The U.S./British model comes off looking very inadequate by comparison, not so much because of its ineffectiveness as a wealth or productivity increasing mode of organization, but because of the parallels with religion that Free Market Economies show. Gray is highly critical of Free Market Capitalism because of its fundamental irrationality. Our economy is based on the belief that markets work better than any other system, on faith that the market can solve any problem, improve any inefficiency. Other methods of economic organization are dismissed in the US because they pose a challenge to orthodoxy, to religion, not only to our elite classes.
  The biggest problem with the book in my mind is that it is rapidly becoming out of date. The world economy has changed so much since the book was first published and a comprehensively updated edition would be very welcome.
  
• 
  Alex

  
  
  John Gray is at his best when eviscerating the assumptions of Global Capitalism. That this book was written in the early 90s merely makes it seem all the more prophetic. Of particular value are the sections on Asian capitalism and the idea of classical Japan as genuine, successful no-growth economy with high standards of living and services. Interestingly, Japan's protracted economic 'slump' may be a return to this culturally unique form of capitalism.
  
  Some of Gray's economic analysis is a bit lacking - he seems to at times confuse or mis-characterize many aspects of trade or economic theory - then again, Gray is a philosopher, and his most trenchant points hold. What Gray does do is an alternative and equally valid way of looking at market interactions, as noted above. The idea of "species" of capitalism is critical to an understanding of Gray's overall analysis.
• 
  Manuel J.

  It's a book a little difficult to classify. In a sense, it's a call to look at things economic from a different perspective. It peruses different economic regimes in different countries/cultures, making clear the perspectives behind them. The author does not assume that there is one solution for everybody, quite the contrary. The best way to describe it is by a citation from the page before the last (234):
  
  "A basic shift in economic philosophy is needed. The freedoms of the market are not ends in themselves. They are expedients, devices contrived by human beings for human purposes. Markets are made to serve man, not man the market. In the global free market the instruments of economic life have become dangerously emancipated from social control and political governance."
  
  As I like to say, Economy is a social science. We must not forget that.
• 
  David

  John Gray is a brilliant Brit who dissects globalization and the free market to the detriment of new-conservatives. He sets the historical context of Enlightenment-based economic concepts (Marxism, classical economics)and explains how the free market with its rapid capital flows is disconnecting social,local contexts from economic relations. It was published in 1998 so it is clear that his predictions are right on. The future of the global economy looks fairly bleak (big surprise).
  BTW, this John Gray is not the eejit who wrote "Men Are from Mars, etc..."
• 
  Brian Collins

  Well delivered argument. Clear, bracing, and knitted together to be quite pessimistic - this book is ideological, polemical and in its time was prophetic.
  
  I found it to be an exciting read and very quotable (for essays and the like) but I wouldn't take its arguments to the fullest extent, personally.
  
  It comes together as something quite sound and is meant to challenge the reader. Weather I agree fully with the argument or disagree is beside the point, its well put together and is a good read.
• 
  Gill

  This book is like reading Karl Polanyi... wait a second, it is reeeeeally like reading Polanyi. Way too similar. Hmmmm.... Did Gray get his hands on Karl Polanyi and figure that he could republish Polanyi's ideas by applying them to Margaret Thatcher?
  
  While I agree with many of the ideas herein, I think the more redeeming point of this book is that it is written by a former champion on the free market.
  A bit too polemical to be useful.
  
• 
  Darran Mclaughlin

  This is the 5th John Gray book i've read and it's the 5th straight work of genius. Once again, I must reiterate, this man should be advising the government. The Germans, the French and the Americans have all had serious intellectuals advising or on their governments so I don't see why we shouldn't.
  
  
  
  The only issue I have with this book is I don't think his assesment of 'The Clash Of Civilizations' is fair.
• 
  Andrew

  You know, if you really want to know what is going on in the worlds economy today, you probably cannot find a better book. It amazes me the clarity with which this vast subject is covered off in a way that you can understand and see the scale of the thing. The author is truly a spectacular intellect, but also has a unique ability to communicate in a way that is clear and understandable.
  
  Well worth a read.
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  P.G. Meyer

  I read the book ,it was very drool ,it does have some insight into the short future .This is one of those books that was suposed to be exciting ,but all that it could muster is ,droolness.By the way most of his predictions did come true.
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  Sam

  John Gray is no communist, but he still provides a stern critique of the fundamentally flawed logic behind so-called "laissez-faire", "small-government" capitalism. I'll give you a clue: it really has nothing to do with laissez-faire or small government.
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  Gsmalz

  Wow! I was very impressed with this book and I am seeking out more Gray to read. A insightful and I think honest appraisal of the modern state of the world and the West in particular. Perhaps I sense a kindred spirit--it seems Gray has little use for "isms"- a view I largely share.