(7)The bestselling author of No Logo shows how the global "free market" has exploited crises and shock for three decades, from Chile to Iraq
In her groundbreaking reporting over the past few years, Naomi Klein introduced the term "disaster capitalism." Whether covering Baghdad after the U.S. occupation, Sri Lanka in the wake of the tsunami, or New Orleans post-Katrina, she witnessed something remarkably similar. People still reeling from catastrophe were being hit again, this time with economic "shock treatment," losing their land and homes to rapid-fire corporate makeovers.
The Shock Doctrine retells the story of the most dominant ideology of our time, Milton Friedman's free market economic revolution. In contrast to the popular myth of this movement's peaceful global victory, Klein shows how it has exploited moments of shock and extreme violence in order to implement its economic policies in so many parts of the world from Latin America and Eastern Europe to South Africa, Russia, and Iraq.
At the core of disaster capitalism is the use of cataclysmic events to advance radical privatization combined with the privatization of the disaster response itself. Klein argues that by capitalizing on crises, created by nature or war, the disaster capitalism complex now exists as a booming new economy, and is the violent culmination of a radical economic project that has been incubating for fifty years.
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“Dell, the company, seems to have been born and evolved with an anticipation of the Internet age. Michael Dell walks us through how he turned his prescience into a powerful reality-and an outstanding example of the companies of the future.” - Andrew S. Grove, Chairman of Intel Dell Computer Corporation is an $18 billion company and the second largest manufacturer and marketer of personal computers in the world. Founded on a deceptively simple premise - to deliver high-performance computer systems directly to the end user - Dell Computer is the envy of its competition, consistently growing at five times the industry rate, and a perennial darling of Wall Street. In Direct from Dell, Michael Dell himself tells the incredible story of Dell Computer's successful rise, which began in his college dorm room with $1,000 in capital. You'll encounter a young visionary who, upon witnessing the inefficiencies of an exploding industry, challenged conventional wisdom, and set out to do nothing less than beat IBM at its own game. In so doing, Dell forever changed the way things “had always been done” in the computer industry. Not just for CEOs or those in high tech, the strategies revealed in Direct from Dell are invaluable to managers across industries. From starting a successful business to his pioneering use of the Internet, Dell shares his perspectives on:
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(1)The growth of technological and scientific knowledge in the past two centuries has been the overriding dynamic element in the economic and social history of the world. Its result is now often called the knowledge economy. But what are the historical origins of this revolution and what have been its mechanisms? In The Gifts of Athena, Joel Mokyr constructs an original framework to analyze the concept of "useful" knowledge. He argues that the growth explosion in the modern West in the past two centuries was driven not just by the appearance of new technological ideas but also by the improved access to these ideas in society at large--as made possible by social networks comprising universities, publishers, professional sciences, and kindred institutions. Through a wealth of historical evidence set in clear and lively prose, he shows that changes in the intellectual and social environment and the institutional background in which knowledge was generated and disseminated brought about the Industrial Revolution, followed by sustained economic growth and continuing technological change. Mokyr draws a link between intellectual forces such as the European enlightenment and subsequent economic changes of the nineteenth century, and follows their development into the twentieth century. He further explores some of the key implications of the knowledge revolution. Among these is the rise and fall of the "factory system" as an organizing principle of modern economic organization. He analyzes the impact of this revolution on information technology and communications as well as on the public's state of health and the structure of households. By examining the social and political roots of resistance to new knowledge, Mokyr also links growth in knowledge to political economy and connects the economic history of technology to the New Institutional Economics. The Gifts of Athena provides crucial insights into a matter of fundamental concern to a range of disciplines including economics, economic history, political economy, the history of technology, and the history of science.
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Unorthodox, devastatingly straightforward and more provocative of actual thought than 90% of books said to be "thought-provoking". If happiness isn't a political issue, what's the point of politics? (Andrew Marr )
A remarkable book ... which effectively trashes the claim of economics to guide policy for a good society ... read it, and take heart (Simon Caulkin Observer )
Fascinating ... argues that we should make happiness, not growth, the object of our economic policies (John Kay Financial Times )
