Race to the Top

As people all over the world become more culturally and economically connected, a backlash towards globalization is developing. From Seattle to Genoa, protesters travel to every meeting of international economic institutions to denounce global markets. What's the real story of globalization? Is it a "race to the bottom," as the critics of capitalism insist? Or a race to the top, as Tomas Larsson suggests? Instead of debates among theoreticians and activists, it's time for some on-the-ground reporting about the effects of globalization.

Larsson, a Swedish journalist, spent ten years reporting from Bangkok. In this book he takes us to the slums of Rio, a bicycle factory in Korea, a brothel in a back corner of Thailand, and more. In all the places, he finds that the changes of the past ten years have given people tremendous opportunities. His perspective on globalization differs from those of Pat Buchanan, William Greider, or the Seattle protesters. And it's more vivid than econometric articles because it's on-the-spot reporting from all over the developing world. Tomas Larsson looks past the dry statistics and arid debates to examine real people around the world. He finds that, thanks to the spread of global markets, hundreds of millions of previously poor people have left poverty and misery behind them and taken their place among the global middle class. This is a book full of good news, more relevant than ever as the world's finance ministers cower behind chainlink fences, afraid to defend the economic system that is spreading wealth more broadly than ever.