Casino Capitalism [Paperback]

Susan Strange (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: June 1983

The games being played, day and night, in the unsleeping capital markets of the world resemble nothing so much as one vast global casino. The prices of currencies and commodities of corporate stocks and other financial assets fluctuate wildly, not in response to real market forces but a the whim of professional gamblers. The consequences for us all, if the system should collapse, would be complete disaster. This provocative book explores the unstable and largely uncontrolled system which is deliberately perpetuated.

Editorial Reviews

About the Author

Susan Strange is Professor of International Political Economy at the University of Warwick and Emeritus Professor at the London School of Economics --This text refers to an alternate Paperback edition.

Product Details

• Paperback: 220 pages
• Publisher: Blackwell Pub; illustrated edition edition (June 1983)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0631150277
• ISBN-13: 978-0631150275
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #5,647,564 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Most Helpful Customer Reviews

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars An era of non-decisions, June 2, 2008

By 

Luc REYNAERT (Beernem, Belgium) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Casino Capitalism (Paperback)

Susan Strange covers in this book the international economical and financial situation in the 1970s and 1980s.

basis (partially flawed)
For her, `mismanagement of money and credit was more dangerous than protection in trade policy.'
This is only true for the Western World, not for the Third World. Protection (and adding insult to injury, export subsidies) is a matter of life and death for Third World countries (with no adequate social protection system). Massive dumping (nearly for free) of agricultural products provoke there massive unemployment (W. Bello).

an era of non-decisions
In the 1970s and 1980s no country wanted or could take leadership in international financial affairs.
There was a refusal to device a standard process for the provision of credit and the handling of bad international debt, the permissiveness towards Eurodollar lending and the proliferation of speculative instruments (derivatives), the refusal to manage competition for export contracts or to install stable exchange rates.
Susan Strange points her finger at the US: `the US is more aware of the costs and difficulties of taking his responsibilities than of the rewards and benefits.'
The wild swings in currency exchange rates lead to the creation of the Euro, a big challenger of the dollar as world currency.

fall of the gold exchange rate, oil shock (author's analysis is flawed)
As W.Engdahl masterly explains in `A Century of Wars', the US government created the oil shock in order to counter the feared massive devaluation of the dollar after its unilateral repeal of the gold exchange standard.
Making the whole world pay a higher oil price in dollars, constituted a major support for the US currency. Moreover, the dollar surpluses amassed by the OPEC countries were transferred into US bank accounts providing a bulk of new working capital for them.

recommended policies
Susan Strange doesn't agree with the `determinists' that nothing can be done against wild business cycle swings. She is still a Keynesian, but at an international level, because individual governments don't have the clout anymore to impose efficient measures within their own borders in a world dominated by transnational corporations.
She wants a return towards greater stability and order, `at a time when the most secure of jobs are apt suddenly to vanish and still more people are made redundant.'
The trouble is that there is no international leadership, only special- and self-interests.

This analysis of the `no-policies' of the 1970s and 1980s is a must read for all historians and a very worthwhile read for laymen in order to understand the world we live in.