Atelier n°. 1, article 1


© Susan George :

What would you recommend if you wanted to preserve capitalism in the 21st century? A multidisciplinary Working Party convened by world leaders to consider the future of the world economy concludes that it is grossly undermanaged, gravely threatened by its own excesses, prone to ecological collapse and an unlikely candidate for long-term survival. How, then, can the winners in the globalisation game guarantee their own comfortable future? There is a way, but one which may be too to contemplate. The Lugano Report stakes out new territory and proceeds with relentless logic from uncompromising diagnosis to chilling cure.

If this is the future, you will be moved to seek out a different one. In her appendix and afterword, Susan George challenges the conclusions of the Working Party and offers alternative solutions. 

Pluto Press is pleased to annouce the publication of Susan George's new book The Lugano Report - On Preserving Capitalism in the 21st Century. It is available directly from Pluto now or in bookshops from September 1999.

The Lugano Report is conceived as the product of a multidisciplinary Working Party conceived by powerful corporate leaders to consider the future of the world economy. The group concludes that it is grossly undermanaged, gravely threatened by its own excesses, prone to ecological collapse and an unlikely candidate for long-term success. How, then, can the winners in the globalisation game guarantee their own comfortable future? There is a way, but one which may be too awful to contemplate.

The Lugano Report is Susan George's most ambitious book to date, staking out new territory and taking an entirely different, riskier, approach from her previous work which includes such classics as How the Other Half Dies, A Fate Worse than Debt, Ill Fares the Land and The Debt Boomerang. Advance praise for The Lugano Report tends to show that she has succeeded:

A brilliant, terrifying book which should be on the bedside of every policy maker in the West... This book deserves to be a bestseller and our common future might be safer as it was Victoria Brittain 

With acid wit and somber truths, The Lugano Report brilliantly portrays, through the eyes of its imagined but all too realistic planners, a world that may be heading for deep trouble.
Noam Chomsky

An extraordinary and original book of exquisite irony, a kind of Catch-22 of capitalism, The Lugano Report is a stunning achievement.
John Pilger

Rigorous and innovative... Guaranteed to enthral the reader and galvanise us to challenge the received wisdom surrounding the globalised economic system which is exposed so brilliantly in The Lugano Report
Glenys Kinnock, MEP

The Lugano Report is brilliant and innovative... A compelling satire, packed with information, this is the work of an author in complete control of her subject. All Susan George's books are incisive and engaging, but this one is even more powerful than its predecessors.
George Monbiot

We believe other readers will agree with these assessments

YOU CAN ORDER THE LUGANO REPORT DIRECTLY FROM PLUTO PRESS:
www.plutobooks.com/order.shtml
or through TNI: How to order

Book Review, New Internationalist, No. 319, December 1999
In The Lugano Report, Susan George approaches this doomsday scenario from a novel direction. Assuming that the managers of globalization are well aware of the catastrophic consequences of their policies, she imagines that a secret Working Party is convened to consider the crisis and suggest ways in which capitalism – and the beneficiaries of the globalization swindle – can be preserved in the next century. The opening chapters reveal the timebomb created by the IMF, World Bank, World Trade Organization and all the other embryonic elements of a 'world government' designed to protect capitalism against people.

Forced by sheer weight of evidence to accept the unsustainability of global capitalism in its present form, the report's authors pursue their argument to its logical conclusion: if global capitalism is unable to meet the needs of the projected 8-12 billion world population, then steps need to be taken – in secret, of course – to ensure that the population does not reach 8-12 billion. By happy chance (or perhaps not), this Grand Population Reduction Scheme can be set in motion using the very levers and tools of control of globalization. Thus, for instance, higher death rates in countries subject to structural adjustment are a welcome contribution to the reduction of the population and the international financial institutions are to be vital collaborators in this war of a system against humanity. 

This is grim and terrifying stuff indeed; all the more so in the light of its presentation as an inevitable and desirable cure for the endemic ills of the global economy. Susan George’s intimate knowledge of the bureaucratic mindset means that the book works superbly as a satire – following the example of Swift’s Modest Proposal – but her greater aim is to show that there are viable alternatives to this nightmare. The answers to the baleful questions posed by the Working Party lie, as always, in places they choose not to look: the removal of sovereignty from corporate hands and a resolve to build on the network of local organizations outlined by John Madeley to create a 'co-operative globalization' in which the world economy is founded on healthier, more equitable societies. We can still build a system in the service of people rather than sacrifice untold millions in the preservation of the system. That is the challenge that awaits us in the twenty-first century.
Susan George

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