Why Globalization Works

Why Globalization Works. By Martin Wolf. New Haven: Yale University Press, 2004. Pp. xviii, 398. Index. $30, cloth; $18, paper.

Why Globalization Works is not specifically about international law. It's about the world economy and the benefits of globalization for humanity. Yet Martin Wolf's tome can provide value for anyone engaged in the field of international law, particularly economic law, because of the keen insights he offers as to how states can succeed or fail internally and externally. The author is the chief economics commentator for the Financial Times.

Wolf sets his task as convincing skeptics that a global market economy is highly desirable. Although I was convinced before opening the book, I learned a great deal from Wolf's synoptic, persuasive, and balanced account of the superiority of open, liberal economies for individual freedom and economic growth. The book succeeds not in introducing entirely new ideas, but rather in helping the reader fit together what she already knows about transborder market failure, government failure, economic and social development, and international trade.

Quite rightly, Wolf commences his analysis of globalization with the individual. He declares that the "fundamental value that underpins a free society is the worth of the active, self-directing individual" (p. 24). To be free, individuals need protection by and from the state or, in other words, need to live under a strong, yet beneficent, government. Such a government can enable individuals, and the overall economy, to achieve higher income through long-term investments. Historically, Wolf explains, the beneficent state has most successfully emerged when three features are present-regulatory competition between states, constitutional democracy and the rule of law, and the symbiosis of merchants and rulers, with both groups accepting their distinct...