THE ECLIPSE OF MODERN ECONOMIC GROWTH

Global Disparities, Colonial Legacies, External Interventions and Extreme Climate

Clarity Press

 

What’s the common denominator underpinning ongoing global turmoil: affordability crises, youth protests, proxy conflicts, trade protectionism, populism, migration crises, and extreme weather? Simply put: The end of modern economic growth.

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In the 15th century, colonization opened the world markets for the nascent West's plunder. But without systematic technological innovation, per capita income remained low. With the rise of capitalism, the constraints on growth were dismantled. But this familiar story of modernization has a darker side.

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With the rise of Western modernity, inequality soared within and between economies. The first countries to colonize were the first to industrialize, and the early industrializers were the first to globalize. Conversely, those areas that were colonized in the Americas, Asia, the Middle East and Africa have been late to industrialize and only a few have begun to globalize.​​

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The net effect has been an immense net transfer of wealth from the Global South to the West and huge disparities between these regions. To sustain this supremacy, the West has consistently used external interventions to undermine sovereign states and extract their resources, in both processes unleashing extreme climate change.

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This book connects the unacknowledged dots behind the standard narratives.

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“A grand effort to tie the sweep of classical economics and the soaring narratives of Cold War growth and development theory to the grubby realities of exploitation, subversion, violence, climate change and artificial intelligence..” -- JAMES K. GALBRAITH, author of The Power to Destroy: How Bad Economics Drove America’s Decline

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“The full ledger of modern economic growth — the wealth transfers, the interventions, the climate costs — has never been assembled in one place with this rigour and this range.” -- YOUBA SOKONA, Former Vice-Chair of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC)

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This book is a remarkable synthesis of practical engagement with the most pressing problems facing humanity in present times, backed by relevant statistics and by deep dives into historical and theoretical scholarship. A book which is not only to be read and pondered over but is a call to the exercise of praxis.” -- UTSA PATNAIK, Professor Emerita at the Centre for Economic Studies and Planning, Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi

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“Securing a return to economic growth is at the top of government agendas across the globe. With a stunning, sweep of modern economic history, Dan Steinbock explains the origins of low productivity and disappearing growth and explains the stark reality of the options we face to stand up to this threat.” -- JOHN MCDONNELL, British Labour Party politician, Member of Parliament (MP); and former Shadow Chancellor

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"The author manages a tour de force: to cover in great details and with impeccable sources almost five centuries of development and underdevelopment in the North and in the Global South. He shows how much the North benefited from the exploitation of the Global South but he also shows how this process runs now into insurmountable contradictions."  
-- JEAN BRICMONT, theoretical physicist, Professor, Université de Louvaine author of Humanitarian Imperialism: Using Human Rights to Sell War.
 

“Dan Steinbock has delivered us a riveting account of the rise and fall of modern economic growth... Part prognosis and part warning, erudite yet accessible, this tour de force on the future of the global economy will be of great interest to economists, social scientists, and policymakers." -- WILLIAM I. ROBINSON,  author of Pax Silica: The New Ruling Class

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“Dan Steinbock has written a monumental study of the disastrous implications of economic stagnancy in the West as aggravated by climate denialism, militarist geopolitics, polarizing anti-internationalism, and a warmongering post-colonial world order. The stark message of this brilliant historical treatment of modernity should be read as an extended sermon imploring cooperative relations of West and South to avert a catastrophic future for humanity.” -- RICHARD A. FALK, Professor Emeritus of International Law at Princeton, former UN Rapporteur on Palestinian human rights

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“Chock full of facts and authoritative insights, turn the first page and you won’t put this book down!” -- RICHARD WESTRA, author of The Political Economy of Post-Capitalism: Financialization, Globalization and Neofeudalism.

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“A fundamental and much-needed analysis of the shuddering slowdown in global economic growth trajectories and the associated economic and geopolitical implications. Analysing modernisation, globalisation and historical development theories the author shows how, in an age of severely mal-distributed abundance, colonial legacies, climate change and enduring hegemonic practices, the slowdown in growth is shaping the modern world. The appeal for multipolar modernisation based on reinvigorated peace and development strategies is powerful and necessary.” -- RICHARD SAKWA, University of Kent

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“A welcome and important contribution towards bringing humanity back from the brink of catastrophe... It is also of great value to historians and to all those activists on global inequality, human rights and crimes against humanity, still being perpetrated by Europe and the West against the Rest.” -- DR EDWARD HORGAN, former UN peacekeeper, active member of World Beyond War.

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“A comprehensive tour de force of both the assembling of the modern project of economic growth and its unravelling through social conflict, economic inequalities and ecological collapse – all of which undermine the prospects of future growth” -- Prof. PETER NEWELL, University of Sussex.