Is Trade in Turmoil a Change for Justice?
While trade liberalization was a boon for big business, able now to chase cheap labour and exploit newly opened markets, it has been bad news for many millions of ordinary citizens around the world.
globalization
Connected and vulnerable: Climate change, trade wars and the networked world
The increasing connectedness of the global economic system has long been touted as the path to greater prosperity and peaceful relations among nations and their peoples. There’s just one hitch: Complex systems have more points of failure and also hidden risks that only surface when something goes wrong.
Britain’s Fault-Lines
I argue here that these fault-lines originate in real and deep differences that have emerged in Britain over decades rather than in the few years since the financial crisis.
Think Globally, Eat Glocally!
Can a new ethic about “ethnic” foods transform our food system to be more diverse, inclusive & local? Can heritage Mexican, African or Chinese foods be grown in a cold North American or European climate — enough food at a good enough price to meet food security, multicultural, sustainable and affordability needs of a modern cosmopolitan city?
The global village and the surveillance society
The global village has many similarities to an actual village or small town. Fellow villagers and small town neighbors are much more likely to know about each other’s personal lives (often including many of the intimate details) than those who live in a large city. As McLuhan wrote in 1962: “unless aware of this dynamic, we shall at once move into a phase of panic terrors, exactly befitting a small world of tribal drums, total interdependence, and superimposed co-existence.”
The World in 2018 – Part Four
In the modern world, our perceptions of reality are largely shaped by economic and financial considerations, and our policy conversations are largely built around intellectual categories and evaluative criteria that pertain to the economics discipline. Yet a long-term view shows that ‘The world in 2018’ is in a significantly different place than what economists typically claim, and than what many of us want to believe.
Can We Cure the Global Eating Disorder?
We often fail to realize that food is also ubiquitous in our modern society, not only providing nutrition, but also a strong determinant of most aspects of the economy, society and culture.
Globalization’s Deadly Footprint
A global perspective – where true costs cannot be fobbed off on the poor and colonized – is necessary for gaining a meaningful and accurate picture of the relationship between wealth, growth, development and environmental integrity and sustainability.
The World in 2018
New Year predictions are getting more and more popular. In a world that is growing ever more complex and confusing, we seem to be increasingly eager to get some hints about what lies in the fog just ahead of us. Yet what we need is probably less to get some clues about what might be coming up next than to acquire a more acute consciousness and comprehension of the road we are travelling.
Why are my Highly Educated Friends so Ignorant about Trade?
Why are so many young people – even those with the “best” educations – almost completely ignorant about a huge ongoing threat to human rights, democracy and the climate? Well, I guess it’s not surprising.
Richard Heinberg on ‘America First’
From a Transition perspective, a shortening of trade distances has to be a good thing, right? Bringing manufacturing back closer to where people live, thereby reducing carbon emissions, enabling more money to cycle within the national economy rather than globally? So far, so Transition… And yet.
Neoliberals know the price of everything and the value of nothing
My father likes to say that some people know the price of everything and the value of nothing. The same could be said of the neoliberals of the world, who–in case you missed my previous piece–are now transcendent in most policy circles across the world.