The Cult of Impotence: Selling the Myth of Powerlessness in the Global Economy

by Linda McQuaig

Book Overview

No Synopsis Available.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0670872784
• ISBN13: 9780670872787
• Release Date: January 1998
• Publisher: Viking Books
• Length: 313 Pages

Customer Reviews

Last review is a grotesque distortion of McQuaig's argument

The last review utterly distorts McQuaig's argument, which if anything, favours a dynamic relationship of balance and counter-balance between the public and private sector. McQuaig's argument is fundamentally based on a belief in democracy, and in the role of government to act as the people's representative, and in the people's interest. This view is perhaps misplaced, given that many or most Western governments in recent years have been co-opted and effectively act as agents for large corporations, which represent at best the interest of their shareholders. Since, despite myths to the contrary, a relatively small number of interests still hold the bulk of share equity, this co-opting of government has resulted in governments that superficially bear the features of democracies, but effectively represent an oligarchical form of governance. McQuaig's argument is that government does at all times have the tools necessary to re-invent itself, and legislate on behalf of the populace at large, and that the oft-bandied claim that government is helpless in the fact of "inevitable" trends such as globalization amount essentially to a self-serving abdication of responsibility.The problem with the review below, other than its intellectually dishonest misrepresentation of McQuaig's argument, is that it takes a stereotypically Manichean view of the universe. Any government regulation or, indeed, governance per se is inherently evil (or "communistic", which is much the same thing), and destroys wealth and prosperity; by the same token, absolutely unfettered capitalism is the Archangel of goodness, and the guarantor of prosperity for all. Tell that to the former employees, shareholders and pensionholders of Enron. From where they stand today, a little judicious, and uncorrupted governance would have saved their security, and kept a huge amount of wealth from being destroyed by uncontrolled rapacity. Tell that, also, to the millions of working poor in the U.S., with dead-end jobs, zero prospects, lousy inner city educational facilities and no health insurance. Boy, it sure is paradise! You know, the Scandinavian countries have, for several generations, maintained capitalistic systems (with no shortage of productive private enterprise), while ensuring a good quality of life for all their citizens: health care, education, day care, a sound social safety net, generosity to less developed countries, and microscopic crime rates. Maybe we North Americans should put aside our arrogance, show some willingness to actually investigate what others have achieved (without assuming that our way is inherently best, simply because it is ours), and learn what the models of these little countries have to offer us. Their governments are hardly impotent, yet I suspect that their high per capita incomes and fairer distributions of wealth will ultimately prove more stable than the boom-to-bust model we pursue with such blinkered certainty.