Customer Reviews

The Trap

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Mr. Goldsmith was a private equity billionaire who made his fortune buying companies and assets from developed and developing countries around the world. Yet despite this success, his book openly questions the notion of unfettered global markets.

He describes how the shift from locally produced goods to goods produced anywhere in the world could destroy the prosperous economies of the developed world that were built up over centuries. This will happen, according to him, because global free trade will create unbridgeable divide between the rich over the ordinary people.

The rich will stay rich by investing their capital into Multinational Companies. In order to compete and make profits, these companies will exploiting ever cheaper sources of labour in developing countries.

In the other hand, the ordinary people in developed countries will lose their jobs because the cost of their salaries are too expensive in a global economy that include 4 billion people wiling to work for "almost nothing".

Mr. Goldsmith not only lays out arguments against global free trade. He also gives his rationale for why industrial agriculture and nuclear power are bad ideas. While many see these three issues as defining visions of modern progress, Mr. Goldsmith, suggests that there is a dangerous "inversion of values" behind these three issues. Instead of measuring progress in term of mankind's well-being and social stability, our modern industrial society has made economic growth and the development of new technologies the key goals for society. This "inversion of values" is the root cause for modern problems such as urban slums and enviromental deterioration.

"Rising long-term unemployment, increasing violence, growing proverty in urban slums, environmental deterioration and a general realization that something fundamental has gone wrong..."

Despite the gloominess of the message, reading Sir James Goldsmith's book, The Trap, originally published 1993 is both an educational and entertaining experience. Check out this Charlie Rose interview with James Goldmith on Youtube, which including a lively debate with Laura Tyson, President Clinton's Chair of the Council of Economic Advisors, and I think you'll see why!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HdwmI9O4LEA

In "The Trap," Goldsmith points out the moral bankruptcy of the neo-right's "every man for himself" (particularly men, particularly white and wealthy) world-view, and also provides a vision for the future of compassionate *and* workable politics, economics, and community. Like Robert Theobald's "Reworking Success," or Thom Hartmann's "The Last Hours of Ancient Sunlight" (all highly recommended and available on amazon.com), Goldsmith courageously confronts us with the problems we face and offers realistic solutions. Highly recommended!

The book was written in 1994 and everything in it has either come true or is still becoming true. Really quick read to get insight into why our would is the way it is.

Goldsmith saw the economic storm coming but we didn't listen. I recently discovered this book after watching a 1995 Charlie Rose interview with Goldsmith. I had never heard of Goldsmith and his name and work were never discussed when the collapse of 2007/8 began.
Watch the interview (on YouTube), read the book, and then ponder how blind many were to the implications of GATT or the cost and risk of nuclear energy. His ideas seem romantic within the context of today's economic mess, but when you see Goldsmith face off with Laura Tyson it is apparent this was a very thoughtful man.

Sir James knew a thing to two about business.

He warned free trade would decimate american and british workers.

Since 2001, how many manufacturing plants do you suppose have uprooted
in the United States to manufacture in Mexico and overseas ?

About 40,000 !!

Not jobs, but plants !!!
That's almost 1,000 plants per state.

Unreal ....

And Obama thinks tax policy is going to turn it around.
Need to restore american manufacturing base.
AFter WW2, there were 250 plants in the NE making shoes.
Today ? Very few.

Sad, sad situation.

God is judging the nation.

Time to repent, and seek the Lord.

Sir James explains the way the world economy should run.Read his ideas and see if you agree.

An excellent format where conventional wisdom on many of our society's complex problems and their popular solutions are de-bunked by an eloquent criti

It is indeed a sign of divine grace that Goldsmith's book was ever published; of course, had he not been a millionaire, this tract would never have been given a second look. The fatuity of the economic arguments presented on "The Trap" are nothing short of amazing; indeed, any undergraduate economics student could probably expose most of them. One particularly egregious example: Goldsmith's argument that foreign competition is unfair and harmful when beased on low wages, i.e., that companies should not be forced to compete against less efficient foreign economies that pay lower wages. Of course, David Ricardo thoroughly smashed this argument in 1817 when he elaborated the concept of comparative advantage -- but Goldsmith nevertheless resurrects protectionist drivel, 180 years later. This book is nothing but an uninsightful, grossly fallacious, hackneyed polemic by a writer that should know better.