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Budapest W1 - Academic Writing: 'Coping with Antiglobalisation: A trilogy of discontents'

Coping with Antiglobalisation: A Trilogy of Discontents by Jagdish N. Bhagwati

"Globalisation's enemies see it as the worldwide extension of capitalism"

"Capitalism is a system that, paradoxically, can destroy privilege and open up economic opportunity to many - but this fact is lost on most pf the system's vocal critics"

Derrida deconstructs capitalism and not Marxism - "the paradoxical result that many of its followers now turn to anarchy" - Is that really so bad? Anarchy literally means to not adhere to the rules of the controller - the controllers are currently caring about themselves and leaving a lot of people behind - surely that allows for new systems to be followed through disorder, and potentially create a more equal society?

"as economists they choose the means for harnessing humanity's basest instincts through appropriate institutional design to produce public good" - But this infers that there is someone who knows how to do this more than another - who is that person? Why do they have that authority? How can it be misdirect? (Needs interpretation)


“the interpretation of people’s needs is itself a political stake, indeed sometimes the political stake.” P.104 Nancy Fraser 

"when today's young people see and are anguished by poverty, civil wars, and famines in remote areas of the world, they have no way to cope with it in terms of rational, appropriate action" - how patronising - what denotes rationality? What denotes appropriate? It is arrogant to assume that every young person has the adequate level of education to respond what the writer would assume is rational and appropriate, they are acting from emotion, which is their truth.

Summary writing

Jagdish Bhagwati writes a critique of the anti-capitalist, anti-globalist movement, that is mainly spearheaded by naive young adults who are, in his opinion, led astray by education, arguing that lack of thorough understanding of economics and the actions of corporations, leads to holes in their movement that ultimately renders their argumentation moot.

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