Customer Reviews

Economic Democracy: The Political Struggle of the Twenty-First Century

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A professor of economics once told me that "mainstream economics is 95% ideology and only 5% social science." This wonderful book by J.W. Smith shows why that is true. I found it utterly complelling and could not put it down. By exposing the macro-economic mechanisms of the past five centuries, Smith blows neo-liberal ideology right out of the water. This book should be required reading everywhere in the world. It points the way toward a liberated and decent world-order and shows that a just world-order would not be that difficult to achieve. This book lays the foundation for a new global economics of freedom and prosperity. Thank-you Dr. Smith!

Awe-inspiring. I don't know any other author who can match the trifecta that Smith pulls off in Economic Democracy, as economist, historian and political scientist rolled into one. On top of a world-class documentary unmasking of the brutal nature of occidental ascendancy, both in past history and in current events, he also presents a coherent and original model to replace it.

Dr J W Smith's magnum opus will one day be heralded as the seminal work debunking Adam Smith's Wealth of Nations and "unequal freetrade". Dr Smith painstakingly traces the history of Plunder by Raids to Plunder by Trade and suggests simple and subtle changes in the free trade theory to make it equitable and just, while retaining all the advantages of the competitive instinct. He tells the Developing world to stop competing agaisnt each other for Developed world markets and instead to co-operate with each other to exchange resources equitably to build the infrastructure we so woefully need. Dr Smith's documentation is copious, exhaustive and unrefutable.

It would be the greatest shame of our new Millennium if we do not act on his advice as a matter of urgency. Part of Dr Smith's thesis is that unless the Developed Countries join in the restructuring of the economic system of the planet, the Developing nations unilateral restructuring will cause unnecessary economic distress. One way or the other, the developing nations are not going to be patsies forever and there need not be the violent reactions that we are seeing.

Human beings naturally co-operate in their common interest and when one gets right down to it, if the majority of humans were not co-operating now, by subscribing, albeit unknowingly, to indoctrinated Social control belief systems, the fraud that is perpertrated against us would not be possible.

When I learnt the secret of poverty creation and maintenance I just started to cry at how simply avoidable it could all have been. This is a book we ignore at our peril.

Essentially this book is an extremely in-depth deconstruction of neo-liberal economics/politics. I had long thought myself almost unique (outside Academia) in the depth and breadth of my reading, but after having read this book, I realized that I understood very little about what was really going on. It was a humbling experience, to say the least. But it was also liberating, in that for the first time in my life, the opaque inconsistencies between what I had been taught in university and the realities I saw happening in the news became transparent. The author additionally offers many progressive ideas for a more just, efficient and ultimately sustainable economic system, which in my experience is very rare indeed. If you are looking for something more substantial than Michael Moore's often inarticulate rants - albeit less entertaining - than this is the book for you. BE WARNED: once you read this book, nothing will ever seem quite the same.

I've searched my whole life to the reasons for and the solution to world poverty and hunger. This work offers both in a well reasearched and thought out, realistic approach. The reasons for poverty become obvious after reading Dr. Smith's book. The posibility of ending poverty by building buying power in the Third World while improving the standard of living in the developed world is as brilliant as it feasible. I highly recommend this book to anyone looking for answers to solving the world's ills

I rate this book as amongst the most influential in my life. The author spends the first half of the book explaining why even though things may look much more advanced and different now than 2000 years ago, the same underlying forces are at play. The powerful are in control and we live under a system of mercantilism and not anything resembling the free trade we are taught at school.

I have read widely and believe that the solutions proposed by Dr Smith in the second half of this book focus too narrowly on the economic aspects of peoples lives and tend to be very prescriptive such as specific taxation reforms. I prefer the writings of Noam Chomsky who is less proscriptive but generally has more the right idea - that as human beings our main goal should be to let everyone live in freedom and peace where everyone is able to be himself. People just want to be free to control their own destiny and economics is only one part of this solution.

Despite not agreeing with all the solutions posed by Dr Smith I still fully rate this book because it is the first half that will blow your socks off. You do not have to agree with the second half and can pick and choose which reforms should be implemented as I did. This book changed my thinking forever and I now realise and understand the real forces at play when I see news items and read books.

It helped me shed many illusions and come to understand our history and why many in the world fear and hate the USA.

Economic Democracy is the best of its kind. Past evaluation of economic efficiency has been faulty for not calculating exogenous (other generated) factors. When we are trying to understand sustainable development it is crucial that we recognize that our western model of economics is based in exogenous exploitation of foreign cultures.

JW Smith provides us material from a thousand sources which quote articles of international trade treaties all the way from "The Evolution of City States and Plunder by Trade" to global conventions. If you want to see it all together this is the book.

As well indigenous (self-generating) economics are described in sustainable how-to format so that we can all apply these principles to our individual and hence collective lives. This book breaks the exogenous spell.

I was first impressed by JW Smith's book, The World's Wasted Wealth 2, filled as it is with ideas about how to reduce waste. His Economic Democracy book exposes the roots of world poverty and identifies how all people everywhere can become truly wealthy while respecting and conserving the world's ecology. I use several chapters in the undergraduate sociology course I teach called, Cooperation and Conflict. Every chapter is packed with information that we all need to know in order to participate responsibly in redirecting government policies.

"I feel that this scholarly work will be viewed in the future as a milestone of the new Millennium. It is a work that turns the corner from the mode of thinking of one era to the mode of thinking in the next." -- WM. H. Kotke, author of The Final Empire

"This book constitutes an incisive review and analysis of the post-war political economy. J.W. Smith carefully integrates geopolitical, strategic, institutional and human rights issues into the understanding of post-war economic change and transformation." -- Michel Chossudovsky, University of Ottawa, Professor.

Review(s):"With an unusual flair for historical prototypes, Smith strips the Washington Consensus to its underclothes and beyond. A dazzling performance." -- William Krehm Editor, Economic Reform.

Smith's exposure of how conscientious professors and reporters are the unwitting carriers of disinformation, and thus unwittingly misinform their students and audience, provides researchers with an invaluable tool for unearthing truth." -- Ralph McGehee, originator of the database, CIABASE, and author of Deadly Deceits: My 25 Years in the CIA.

"The Introduction through Chapter Three turns the world's power brokers' fundamental philosophy to dust and the rest of the book turns it into powder."-The Author.