(Ticket appeared in The Bookseller )
THE FUTURE GLOBALIZATION OF WORLD
Economics is a social science, singular.
There is to begin and sophisticated mathematical models of enormous complexity that give his analysis and predictions unprecedented accuracy among the social sciences.
Boredom, and that's a little secret badly ranking since everyone can quickly find out, the trouble is that these models are often based on assumptions and idealizations that are as analyzes and forecasts that sometimes n'entretiennent a tenuous link with reality.
Moreover, in space public, sometimes the speech given on behalf of the economy is deeply ideological and serve as nothing more than a weapon in the service of certain interests, it would be superfluous to mention here.
front which is advanced in the name of economics, sound caution should be exercised.
What mean the end of oil
This reminded, I come to the book by Jeff Rubin.
This is an economist who worked at the highest level (namely at CIBC), which became famous for a few predictions that were made (including the fall Toronto real estate market). He is now writer and speaker on the issue of oil and the impact the outbreak announced its price - Rubin predicted in 2000 to $ 100 a barrel, he predicted it will soon be $ 200, or more.
His thesis is simple. Demand for oil continues to grow, driven as everyone knows by countries like China and India, but also by the OPEC countries, Mexico, Russia. The oil that remains, as it remains, will cost more and more expensive to extract (think of the oil sands of Alberta).
But it is oil that served as fuel to globalization and enabled by the low cost of transportation, travel to places where resources and labor cheap. These opportunities are closing, the world will soon change radically.
Mr. Rubin is an author pleasant to read and who knows to tell a story, which is quite rare among the authors of tests: we have no difficulty understanding why there is a much requested speaker on the circuit where he is a strong demand for remarks like his. With him, economic issues and concepts are clarified and embodied.
should read these pages, for example where he describes the economic system that makes salmon fishing in Norway, transported to China to be filleted and then sent to your local supermarket before arriving on your plate at a restaurant (pp. 12 - 14): it makes miles and liters of oil and Rubin argues that while perfectly understandable.
The best part of the book seems to be in the final chapters, the author argues that our world will shrink as we live and consume more locally. I confess that I liked it lingers longer in this aspect. In any case, it would be the finish of strawberries from the end of the world in January, finished live far from work, and air travel would be drastically reduced. In this sense, our world, dwarfing, would again become too great. "It's back to a new world [...] much larger, in which we are much smaller," he writes. (P. 368)
Possible limitations of a thesis
however, and further that this view of the end of oil is definitely not new, the main defects of the book, in my opinion are those of the profession of the author I mentioned at the beginning. The globalization of the world is indeed a political phenomenon, historical, ideological and social absolutely can not be reduced to economics, much less on oil and its price.
Its fuel was also and remains a deadly ideology implementation services institutions with incredible power, sometimes hidden and democratic legitimacy questionable or nonexistent. In the case of oil, for example, these multinationals were unlawfully appropriating resources, that as part of an international order maintained by force.
If what Mr. Rubin is too massive to ignore all this, is that it readily accepts the ideological frameworks that unfolds and our economy can not imagine that could change.
The author's second book which I mean do not share the assumptions of the economist.
Bet Chomsky
People who read elsewhere in these pages know, but I made clear, honest: I am a great admirer of Noam Chomsky.
eminent scientist, the man was at the heart of the establishment of the cognitive sciences, a major scientific event of the last century. He reiterated linguistics and philosophy provided the essential contributions, including reviving the traditions of rationalism and nativist. Who reads or talks to him, I had the chance to do recently, no doubt to be a mind of extraordinary power. And that everyone agrees, at least when it comes to cognitive science, linguistics and philosophy.
But there is a second Chomsky openly anarchist and he also authored a major work, but this time often received with hostility, and in which he has repeatedly denounced U.S. foreign policy and globalization world led by the dominant institutions and for their benefit.
If you are not familiar with one or other of these Chomsky, the talks between him and Jean Bricmont (it is indeed that of the famous Sokal affair) are an ideal opportunity to get acquainted.
Bricmont therefore questions Chomsky deftly and without fear sometimes push its limits. In two interviews, the territory covered is vast: philosophy, science, social change, human nature, imperialism, recent political history, anarchism, and others.
Chomsky is perfectly lucid on what globalization meant the world the last twenty years and what has fueled. What he has to say about it converges to what he calls a "Pascal's wager", that he has done throughout his life: "If we abandon hope and resign ourselves to passivity, we ensure that the worst will happen and if we keep working hard and hope that these promises are fulfilled, the situation can improve. " (Pp. 29-30)
soon we will put in the perspective opened up by Chomsky, one begins to imagine other avenues for Globalization and say, among many examples, that the abolition or decrease military spending (and a thousand other destructive economic activities) are also simple ways to change the entire economy ...
Structures identified
RUBIN, Jeff Tomorrow, a tiny world. How oil will cause the end of globalization Éditions Hurtubise, Montreal, 2010.
Chomsky, Noam and Bricmont, Jean, Reason cons power, Pascal's wager , hernia, Travel Collection, Paris, 2009.
0 comments:
Post a Comment