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Dying For Growth: Global Inequality and the Health of the Poor

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The previous reviewer, unfortunately, fails to understand much economics and likely rated this book for his own Republican purposes. As a Yale economist, I place my full support on the economics in this book. Unfortunately, the previous reviewer misses the point altogether, which has little to do with economics--it is a point about humanism. Not only are these authors qualified to draw the conclusions they do--their heavily documented and outstanding conclusions present a fresh analysis for those who have heard about global equity problems but need the details fleshed-out in an interesting and accurate manner. It is clear that this text is grounded in strong scholarly research while maintaining its voice to the common reader. Definitely a read for anyone interested in equity issues, global problems, and health care.

In a time of unprecedented prosperity, Dying for Growth provides a rude yet crucial wake up call about how the other half lives. Through balanced analysis and powerful narrative, the book's authors make a compelling case for understanding how current forms of globalization benefit some while simultaneously make others much more vulnerable. The case studies in the book provide rigorous and vivid evidence of how the neo-liberal approach to solving the international health crisis is failing to meet the rights of poor, and why thousands die needlessly each day, despite lofty commitments to the contrary.

Importantly, the book does not simply rage against current trends or advocate for an uncritical return to a romanticized past or puritan future. Instead it makes the case for immediate practical action on measures that will bring significant relief -- such as debt cancellation for the world's poorest countries -- while advocating the need for taking a critical approach to prevailing wisdoms. Its greatest strength lies in its dogged focus on the fundamentals for the poor -- by asking how does growth help improve the lives of real people, how can globalization create real opportunity for people on the margins and what sorts of economic policies need to be in place to achieve health for all.

There are many important books on international development and global health. But every now and then one comes around that frames all the key issues in a powerful and accessible manner and has the capacity to inspire practical action. Dying for Growth is one of those, and couldn't have been more timely.

This book provides a very thorough examination of how unequal patterns of growth and social inequality on a global scale have resulted in dire consequences for those many unfortunate who cannot afford health care. Many individuals, especially those residing in the United States, are already aware of the growing costs of health care. But imagine what it is like to live in a developing country where medical care is rudimentary at best and you're at the mercy of industrial pollution from the nearby TNC factory?

Using health as an indicator of social inequality, the authors examine the connections between poverty and illness. Aggregate statistics depicting the health status on a global scale are improving is debunked. Rather, there is an uneven distribution of health improvements: the wealthy have access to comprehensive medical care while the poor are dying from preventable diseases. Access to resources is restricted, even in the midst of technological advancements in medicine. The goal of this book is to examine how international organizations such as the World Bank, IMF, and WTO along with TNCs influence political and economic structures of nations which in turn affect the accessibility , cost, and quality of health care provided (if any). The central question raised concerns what pattern of growth will benefit those in need the most? How can we redistribute global resources from the powerful few to the many of the world's poor?

There is no doubt that the subject matter of this book is very extensive and the book itself is pretty thick, but reading this book will enable one to gain a better understanding of how recent trends in globalization have had devasting effects on the world's population. The authors provide good case studies that illustrate their main arguments. This book continues to serve as a vital reference source for my studies.

If the poor were to benefit from neoliberal policies, Dying for Growth argues, Mexico should provide an exemplary case. With constant encouragement from the United States, Mexico has aggressively implemented neoliberal policies for more than 20 years. The maquiladora sector of the economy, industrial plants owned by transnational corporations (TNCs) manufacturing products to export primarily to the United States, has grown quickly since the implementation of NAFTA, but this has been at the expense of other sectors of the economy. Competition with TNCs has undermined 30 000 small businesses and millions of subsistence farmers. Millions of permanently displaced peasants have made their way to urban shantytowns or tried to immigrate to the United States.
Read what does it mean to privatize health care system and industry in many countries around the world.
Learn how rich get richer and poor get poorer virtually everywhere, including USA and other developed nations.
How realy "free" is trade, market and for whom ?
Who controls "New World Order" - politicians elected by citizens or corporations ?
If you are not sure what is the answer - get this very interesting and disturbing research/analysis coming from Institute for Health and Social Justice.

This book is amazing. I'm a college student and would love for professors to include this book and books like it in their curriculums. Also, after the world bank/IMF protests in Seattle and D.C., this book provides some very thoughtful background which should inspire everyone to work against the rampant corporatization of our lives.

The 27 coauthors of this giant book chronicle the downside of globalization. They give a voice to the world's poor, those at the margins, those who are not benefiting from the greatest peacetime boom in history.

Although the developing countries carry 90 percent of the world's disease burden, they have access to only 10 percent of the resources that go to health. And, to compound matters, many of those sub-Saharan and Asian countries are overwhelmed by Aids and similar blights. There is a lot of preventable misery in the world.

This book works best when it describes those at the receiving end of that misery and our concomitant apathy. The authors begin with the photo of an impoverished child, who scrapes a living in a Guatemala garbage dump that is home to her, her family and thousands of other unfortunate people we will never meet. Because the dump is a cesspit of infectious air and water borne diseases, the pretty little girl will probably be dead before too long.

Nsanga, a 26 year-old Zairian mother of two, is already dead. When her family fell into debt, she resorted to prostitution to keep them alive. Now Aids - and the poverty that reduced her to renting out her body for 50 yen a time - has killed her and millions like her.

What is to be done? Well, we can blame the World Bank, the International Monetary Fund, the world's wealthiest people, Nike, Shell and other multinational companies - the usual suspects, in other words. That, at least, is what the authors do. And it is comforting that someone else besides ourselves, Fidel Castro and the authors are to blame.

It is also good to read that economic growth is not the miracle drug economists crack it up to be. Like steroids, growth has its considerable downsides and the authors are to be commended for giving us the stories of the casualties of globalization. They are to be commended for showing how the policies of the World Bank sparked the Rwanda genocide. The World Bank, the IMF and companies like Disney, Shell and Nike do have a case to answer.

But so too do Fidel Castro, Western Christians and Western liberals, the book's target audience. Any book that praises Cuba's health system runs the risk of losing all credibility. A tin-pot dictator who cannot even supply his people with bars of soap should not have his health policies put on a pedestal.

Nestlé's should be much more responsible in selling powdered milk to African mothers. The IMF and the World Bank should make some belated restitution to the people of Haiti for supporting the Duvalier kleptocracy. The mining companies, which gave the Navajo the highest cancer rates in the United States, should do something similar.

But what should the good guys do? It is interesting, for example, to note that, of the 26 countries with the highest percentage of smokers, only one, Japan, is not a developing country. More Colombians die today from diseases caused by American tobacco than do Americans from Colombian cocaine. The book has a large number of such disjointed facts. Ultimately, however, those facts and the economic preaching get in the way. This book, though very informative, only points the finger of blame; it does not really point a way to the future.

Contrary to the opinions of the previous reviewer, I found this book unhelpful in its analysis of the relationship between globalization and poverty. None of the editors has any economics credentials, which shows throughout in spotty analysis and the itch to leap to conclusions. The book glosses over the ways that free trade have helped lift much of SE Asia out of poverty, and instead indicts the "sweatshops" that have sprung up (as though these countries were thriving with economic opportunity before the fact). A subtle theme that is nonetheless evident in some of the articles is the pervasiveness of some sort of conspiracy by the rich and powerful: the World Bank, Transnationals, and Investors. The informed reader will find this approach in fact IS "the usual liberal rant." To be fair, these essays are at times descriptively informative, nonetheless the quasi-protectionist views that come out are ill-conceived and not borne out of any nuanced understanding of economics.