Customer Reviews

The Fight of My Life: Confessions of an Unrepentant Canadian

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While other reviewers are certainly entitled to engage in ad hominem attacks, I think they are ridiculous and counterproductive.

This book is very engaging and stimulating. Ms. Barlow expresses complex ideas with ease. She conveys her passions rather convincingly! No easy matter when most people don't have a clue about trade issues, or the collective relinquishment of national sovereignty to all-powerful WTO bureaucrats! Please read this book, and decide for yourself! Don't listen to reviewers with an ax to grind!

The corporate propagandists who have been selling the world on "free" trade have done a good job of branding their agenda as having something to do with liberation. "Free" trade - who could be against that? - we're all for "freedom." But as Maude Barlow points out, "free" trade is actually about imposed markets foisted upon populations by transnational private tyrannies accountable to no one. These mega-corporations have been buying off legislators the world over, manipulating the hearts & minds of people, decimating local economies, destroying communities and ecosystems, and creating an ever-larger gap between the rich and poor.
Among other issues, Barlow has been a leader on the issue of water privatization Blue Gold: The Fight to Stop the Corporate Theft of the World's Water. Water, once a free resource, is being claimed as another product through which stockholders can enrich themselves. The corporation Bechtel tried to privatize the water supply in Cochabamba, Bolivia - even going so far as to declare capturing rainwater a crime. The Bolivian people fiercely opposed this attempt at corporate colonization and drove Bechtel out of their country. It was a heroic struggle that is discussed in the film The Corporation. "The Corporation," incidentally, will answer the negative reviewers questions as to why corporate control of human society is not such a good idea.

"Fascism should more appropriately be called corporatism because it is a merger of state and corporate power." - Benito Mussolini

For over 200 pages Barlow repeats every single argument against free trade that she has stated in all of her other works. The difference this time is that she's decided to call it an autobiography.

If you've read any of her past work, Parcel of Rogues or Class Warfare, there is no need to read this book. She trots out her tired old arguments: corporations are bad, markets are bad, foreign ownership is bad. At one point she states that her nationalism is not xenophobic despite the fact that she constantly rails against foriegn ownership: foriegner ownership is bad because the owners are not your own nationality and therefore cannot be trusted, if this isn't xenophobic and potentially racist I don't know what is.

Another odd characteristice of the book is that any proponent of free markets is presented as fools, but any of Barlow formers colleagues who turned their back on her causes are pretty much forgiven.

National Socialists like Barlow should learn some economics and history before they write drivel like this and contribute to deforestation.

Maude Barlow does not like free trade. Why she has written so many books about hating free trade, and by extension freedom to associate and contract with other people, is a mystery. If she could state just what is so bad about free markets perhaps some meaningful dialogue could take place. Barlow main point is that it is bad if people who run corporations make money, but it is okay is labors make money. What does she favor one group of workers over the other? Well, firstly she does not consider managers to be doing any type of meaningful work, yet she gives no reason for why she believes this. Secondly, like the previous review her dislike of foriegn corporations borders on xenophobia, Barlow knows this and actually states that she is not xenophobic, but making such statement is meaningless given the position she has staked out.

In voluntary economic transactions one person's gain is always another's loss. That is the lesson of Maude Barlow. It's a compelling argument until you think about a bit. If a foreign company sells goods in Canada at a price lower than that of Canada firms, Barlow would have you believe that all Canadians are worse off. After all, the competition is destroying Canadian jobs. However, while there may be job losses, all Canadian benefit from the lower prices of the imports, allowing us to purchase more goods.

Would the world be better off if the government required all buildings to board up all their windows? After all, the sun "unfairly" competes with the producers of lightbulbs and candles, thus requiring all windows to be boarded up would stimulate these industries. Within Barlow's, and others, such as Linda McQuiag, this is a logical premise. Go read Frederic Bastiat before reading Barlow's book, in simple language he shatters all of her arguments.