We are constantly being told that globalisation is good for the economy and good for us, but it’s actually the opposite, argues bestselling author Jeff Rubin in this provocative, timely book.
In the pre-coronavirus world, governments and economists bragged that GDP was growing and unemployment was down. But even then, real wages had been stagnant for decades, union membership had collapsed, and full-time employment no longer guaranteed you could pay the bills.
When we emerge from the virus, it would be nice to think that living in a country that’s getting richer means that you’re getting richer too, but that’s not the way it works anymore. Falling tariffs, low interest rates, global deregulation, and tax policies that benefit only the rich have all had the same effect: the erosion of the ‘expendable’ middle class. The result, growing global inequality, is a problem of our own making. And solving it won’t be easy if we draw on the same ideas about capital and labour, right and left, that led us to this cliff.
Articulating a vision that, remarkably, dovetails with the ideas of both Naomi Klein and Donald Trump, The Expendables is an exhilaratingly fresh perspective that is at once humane and irascible, fearless and rigorous.
About the Author :
Jeff Rubin is a world-leading Canadian economist. An expert on trade and energy, and former chief economist and chief strategist at CIBC World Markets, he recently served as a senior fellow at Canada’s Centre for International Governance. His first book, Why Your World Is About to Get a Whole Lot Smaller, was an international bestseller, and since then he has written two other bestsellers, The End of Growth and The Carbon Bubble.
Review :
‘A forensic study of globalisation … rigorous.’
‘[A] snappily written work.’
‘Rubin … leverages his firm grasp of geopolitics and economics to offer not only a primer on macroeconomics, but also on how globalisation — that is, the process of opening up international markets — has routed the middle class and propped up the elite.’
‘The latest from the author of Why Your World Is About to Get a Whole Lot Smaller continues his disruptive ways in this analysis of how the collapse of union membership and the near obsolescence of full-time employment is squeezing out the middle class … [Rubin] is a fiercely independent thinker.’
Praise for Why Your World Is About to Get a Whole Lot Smaller:
‘Rubin’s argument is powerful.’
—Newsweek
‘One of the year’s best.’
—Financial Times
Praise for The Big Flatline:
‘[Rubin] states unequivocally that the reason economists and politicians have failed to reverse the current recession is that they are relying on outmoded world views … Clearly written and smartly argued.’
Praise for The Carbon Bubble:
‘Jeff Rubin at his finest. Thought-provoking. Meticulously researched. Intelligent without pretension. I highly, highly recommend it!’
