Early reviews
Wednesday, November 25, 2009 at 11:30PM Reviews of The Price of a Bargain have been so far encouraging and usually pretty generous. It took me the better part of 10 years to complete the book, so yes, it is nice that it is getting noticed.
Most recently, in Canada's national newspaper, The Globe and Mail: "Gordon Laird's important and timely book lays bare the planet's foolhardy hunger for getting a deal"
"In a masterful blend of facts and metaphors, Laird tells a story of bargain retailing that is interesting in its own right: its history from the first mall, “a pleasure palace with parking,” to no-frills box stores and the 200,000-plus dollar stores popping up everywhere in recent years; the massive scale of shipping today, with one container ship likened, in Laird's evocative prose, to “a motorized island,” and total investment in global transport and logistics approaching 14 per cent of the world economy.
The review is a pretty excellent summary of the book too. Reviewer Heather Menzies understands that this book isn't just about bashing Wal-Mart. In some surprising ways, we have become virtual captives within our own economy at a time when we also face profound environmental and geopolitical challenges.
"The end of globalization, you ask? On top of evidence linking an over-extended global economy to possibly catastrophic climate change, in addition to the rising costs of globalization's most critical inputs – energy for the machines and food for the workers – some see the credit crisis as a final blow bringing globalization to a righteous end.
If you think so, think again. Laird has sifted the evidence well, and the scenario he depicts is this: Wal-Mart will enlarge on the 100 stores it already has in China as the government, noting that domestic consumption (at 37 per cent of gross national product) outpaced exports (at 21 per cent) in 2007, moves to raise minimum wages and ameliorate environmental and working conditions in a bid to sustain its growth through local market demand.
It doesn't herald the death of globalization as much as a repositioning, focused increasingly on the developing world. It leaves the challenges of resource depletion and climate change unmet, and adds the urgent challenge of deepening inequalities in the developed world being felt that much more acutely as bargains, and the distraction of bargain shopping, disappear.
Reader Comments (1)
Actually,good post. thx