One of the great challenges facing the transnational anti-corporate
globalization movement is finding an effective means by which to convey the
negative impacts of international financial institutions' (IFIs) policies and
transnational corporations' (TNCs) actions on the lives and life courses of
individuals. Dying for Growth achieves this goal by presenting a
systematic analysis of the effects of transnational institutions on national
development trajectories, regional political economies, local socio-economic
structures and the constraints and opportunities facing people in their daily
struggles for survival. Another challenge facing those whom fight to create a
socially just and ecologically sustainable global development path is the need to
overcome the general public indifference to the conditions and needs of the
world's poorest inhabitants. Dying for Growth makes an important
contribution to that effort by using the health of the poor as a measure of the
success or failure of the global development project. It is perhaps hardest to
turn a blind eye to the suffering of children, especially when that suffering
results from lack of access to the basic requirements of life. Clean water,
adequate shelter, sufficient nutrition and basic health care are amenities that
the world's consumer-class often take for granted. Exposure to the realities of
denial of these necessities to hundreds of millions of children may prove to be
an effective mechanism to generate the pubic empathy and subsequent political
pressure required to reorient transnational development policy.
The
primary health threat examined in Dying for Growth is the ascendancy of
the neo-liberal economic paradigm. This voracious social affliction was spread by
Ronald Reagan, Margaret Thatcher, and Helmut Kohl in the 1980's and has globally
metastasized by the dawn of the 21st Century. The primary vectors of this
pernicious pathogen have been the IFIs and trade liberalization agreements. The
introductory chapters of this volume do an admirable job of tracing the origin of
these growth-at-all-costs policies from Bretton Woods through the Uruguay round
of GATT negotiations, examining each element of neo-liberal ideology and their
direct and indirect impacts on public health. Privatization, "free-trade", the
dismantlement of the welfare state, debt servicing, the rise of TNC autonomy,
and the removal of national economic policy from the sphere of democratic
decision-making are explored and linked to a wealth of empirical data indicating
the cost of these policies in terms of human lives.
One of the strengths
of this volume is its ability to link analyses of macro-structural processes to
an impressive collection of public health data by maintaining a deep dialogue
between theory and evidence. The emotional impact of that dialogue is heightened
by the presentation of testimonials which illustrate the experiences of the poor
as they seek to sustain their children. Those testimonials appear in the second
part of Dying for Growth which offers detailed case studies of health
decline from Haiti to Russia to Sub-Saharan Africa. The chapters on TNC power
which open part three of the volume offer a comprehensive overview of the means
by which corporations emerged as the dominant political actors on the face of the
earth. The analyses of the social impacts of the corporate takeover of public
policy is one of the most compelling features of the book. One of the most
interesting chapters comprises part four of Dying for Growth which focuses
on the "war on drugs", accurately conceptualized here as a war on the poor. That
analysis draws important policy linkages between the attack on the health of the
poor in the United States' urban centers, and the attack on peasant aspirations
worldwide. Most significantly, the chapter specifies precisely how TNCs and
national and transnational elites benefit from the repression of the poor under
the guise of anti-drug activities while clearly illustrating that drug
eradication is neither an intention nor an outcome of such initiatives. The final
substantive section of the volume offers hope through the examination of other
development options. A refreshingly uplifting analysis is provided by Aviva
Chomsky's chapter on public health in Cuba. Offered as a contrast to the tales of
erosion of public health in the "free-trade" world, the chapter provides an
overview of Cuba's stunning achievements as one of the last alternative
development models to survive the neo-liberal onslaught. "The threat of a good
example" is testament to the quality of life achievements in a poor nation made
possible by state-socialism. The book closes with a most useful directory of
non-governmental and social movement organizations focused on public health,
human rights, social justice, and anti-corporate globalization issues offering
brief synopses of their activities and contact information. After reading
Dying for Growth it is hard to imagine that even the most cynical of
readers would not feel somewhat compelled to offer assistance to one or more of
these organizations in their struggle to foster a more socially just,
ecologically sustainable and humane world order.
In short, Dying for
Growth is highly recommended. If you've been looking for an empirically
grounded book that you could recommend to colleagues, friends or family members
to help explain why you went to Seattle or Washington, DC to get pepper sprayed
by agents of the state, Dying for Growth would be an excellent choice. For
your courses on globalization, development, corporate power, or public health,
Dying for Growth could serve as an important core text. Although the sheer
size of the volume may prove daunting for some, a strategic selection of specific
chapters could convey much of the theoretical and substantive ideas without
scaring off the more skittish members of a "post-literate" society. It is neither
a quick read nor a fun read, but it is an essential read for those interested in
the rise of corporate-driven neo-liberal ideology and its implications for the
fate of the two billion members of the worlds' "underclass", as well as that of
the global working-class facing the abyss if they are so unfortunate as to fall
ill.
Kenneth A. Gould
Department of Sociology
St. Lawrence University