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GLOBALIZATION AND ITS DISCONTENTS REVISITED: ANTI GLOBALIZATION IN THE ERA OF TRUMP by Joseph E. Stiglitz, W.W. Norton & Company, Inc, 2018, xv + 472 pp., ISBN978-0-393-35516-1
The victory of Donald Trump as President for United States and UK vote to leave the European Union, signals the growing dissatisfaction on globalization at the international level. In Trump's inaugural address, for example, he said it loud that "Protection will lead to great prosperity and strength" (Trump, 2017). Based on the careful analysis on the current global landscape, this book is published as an update and expansion of the Stiglitz's previous book, "Globalization and Its Discontents " (GAID) that played an important role in the debate over globalization. As compared to GAID which the author explained about the unhappiness with globalization in many developing countries, in this book, the author argued the discontents on globalization result in the arising of new protectionism.
Joseph E. Stiglitz is a Professor at Columbia University and the winner of the 2001 Nobel Memorial Prize in Economics for his contributions on the impact of asymmetric information on economic behavior and institutions. He was chairman of the US Council of Economic Advisors under President Clinton in 1995 to 1997 and former Senior Vice President and Chief Economist of the World Bank from1997 to 2000. His direct involvement in both White House and World Bank provides an opportunity to analyze the issue of globalization and its discontents based on his experience as it has been reflected in his previous publication which is GAID published in 2002 as well as "Making Globalization Work" published in 2007.
The main thesis in this book is the globalization, as it has been mentioned, results in discontent among both developing and developed countries due to the rising of inequality, economic crisis and growth of the powerful Multinational Corporation. In the introductory chapter, the author summarized his argument that has been presented in GAID as the starting point to look into the dynamics and impact of globalization, and the response towards it. The author stated that although the focus in GAID is on the developing countries, it is also equally applicable to the developed countries. It is because the benefit of the globalization has been oversold, huge distribution on income,...