Customer Reviews

Future Positive: International Co-Operation in the 21st Century

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Future Positive: A reason for Amazon to add a sixth star!

Future Positive does an outstanding job of summarizing the state of international development today, what brought us to this point, and a concrete roadmap for positive change in the future.

The author, Michael Edwards, hits the nail on the head again and again with insightful analysis of past events and creative, yet firmly rooted, stategies for the future.

I urge anyone that is interesting in the future of our world to read this book. It is what I call "International Development 101" for those seeking to understand the field. For those working in the field of International Development this is a must read.

I have made it required reading at our organization for all staff members and for every volunteer that goes to the field with our program.

Steven Rosenthal, Executive Director, Cross-Cultural Solutions steve@crossculturalsolutions.org

After over a decade of dealing with international co-operation in various capacities, in different locations and on many sides of the equation, this is the first time that I find a book that actually translates my experiences in a way that helps me deeply understand the reasons behind my successes and failures.

Would like to highly recomend this book to anyone who has lost faith in international co-operation, or who is looking for a compass to guide them through the complexities of such an art.

Insightful, inspiring, informed, committed, refreshing and very useful are some of the adjectives that come to me as I write this.

Happy reading

... Make no mistake, this is a rigorous treatment of the international cooperation debate, packed with detailed evidence that is all footnoted at the end. At times this makes for some heavy reading, but it is worth it, since the evidence and the argument all hang together to illumine what has gone wrong in the world since 1945 and what we can do about it. Yes, this does mean "re-balancing the competitive and co-operative rationalities that motivate each one of us" (from the Preface), but in the aftermath of September 11th you would have to be crazy not to understand the importance of global cooperation in addressing threats like terrorism, pollution and poverty. What Edwards shows, better to my mind than any other recent book I've read, is how the original ideals of "international community" after World War II were corrupted into a system of threats and bribes that can never be effective in eliciting real cooperation between countries. Some of his prescriptions for correcting this situation may sound idealistic, but better this than the emptiness and cynicism of much current political debate. Especially since September 11th, I do believe that the world is heading in the direction of a "Future Positive", and this book is a pretty good roadmap to help us along the way.

If good intentions were all that is required for an author, Michael Edwards would be a giant among policy writers. Unfortunately, having one's heart in the right place is not enough. Consider this passage on page 144:

"Does basketball player Michael Jordan have to earn 31,000 times more for advertising Nike sports shoes than the workers who produce them, despite the fact that should wages be doubled the cost of production would still fall below $1 a pair?... Inequalities [such as this] result from political decisions
about the distribution of gains arising from economic activity."

This statement betrays a profound ignorance of how markets work. Michael Jordan earns 31,000 times more than the factory workers, not as a result of any "political decision," but because there are apparently many people for whom $1.75 a day is preferable to unemployment or life in a poor rural village. On the other hand, there is only one Michael Jordan and Nike believes only an athlete of his caliber should represent its product. If Nike had to settle for a lesser player as spokesperson and sold fewer shoes as a result, at least some of the workers in the shoe factory would lose their jobs. So while it may seem frivolous or even outrageous that someone who throws a ball through a hoop earns thousands of times more than people who provide a basic necessity like shoes, the shoemakers themselves and those who care about their wellbeing should be happy Nike can afford to hire Michael Jordan.

This preachy litany of cliches, half-truths, and unsubstantiated assertions about evils of competition and laissez-faire is nothing more than warmed-over Fabian socialism. It didn't work in the 19th century. It won't work in the 21st either.

If good intentions were all that is required for an author, Michael Edwards would be a giant among policy writers. Unfortunately, having one's heart in the right place is not enough. Consider this passage on page 144:

"Does basketball player Michael Jordan have to earn 31,000 times more for advertising Nike sports shoes than the workers who produce them, despite the fact that should wages be doubled the cost of production would still fall below $1 a pair?... Inequalities [such as this] result from political decisions
about the distribution of gains arising from economic activity."

This statement betrays a profound ignorance of how markets work. Michael Jordan earns 31,000 times more than the factory workers, not as a result of any "political decision," but because there are apparently many people for whom $1.75 a day is preferable to unemployment or life in a poor rural village. On the other hand, there is only one Michael Jordan and Nike believes only an athlete of his caliber should represent its product. If Nike had to settle for a lesser player as spokesperson and sold fewer shoes as a result, at least some of the workers in the shoe factory would lose their jobs. So while it may seem frivolous or even outrageous that someone who throws a ball through a hoop earns thousands of times more than people who provide a basic necessity like shoes, the shoemakers themselves and those who care about their wellbeing should be happy Nike can afford to hire Michael Jordan.

This preachy litany of cliches, half-truths, and unsubstantiated assertions about evils of competition and laissez-faire is nothing more than warmed-over Fabian socialism. It didn't work in the 19th century. It won't work in the 21st either.