RECLAIMING THE FUTURE: NEW ZEALAND AND THE GLOBAL ECONOMY.

• Author: Humphries, Maria
• Position: Review

RECLAIMING THE FUTURE: NEW ZEALAND AND THE GLOBAL ECONOMY By Jane Kelsey Bridget Williams Books Ltd., Wellington

Many a silent chant of gratitude to Jane Kelsey has been uttered over the past two decades as I have hunted for information about contemporary social, economic and political changes in New Zealand with which to inform my teaching and research. A Question of Honour (1990), Rolling Back the State (1993) and The New Zealand Experiment (1997) remain valuable books on my shelves. Over the years, each book has provided an excellent starting point from which to search out emerging issues, historical details, interesting anecdotes and useful leads to other points of view. In short, I am an appreciative reader of Kelsey's scholarship. I am also inspired as a citizen by Kelsey's passion and social activism for a future that "still rests largely in our hands" (1999:385). The opportunity to review Reclaiming the Future: New Zealand and the Global Economy was a welcome summer task.

Kelsey makes her position quite clear. The book intends to challenge "the policies, laws, and international agreements that have exposed New Zealand to the global economy and the belief that New Zealand is leading the world towards some global free market nirvana"(ibid.). She "sets out to expose the orthodoxy of the 1990s -- that globalisation is irresistible, inevitable and desirable" (Preface). Intentionally, this book is not about the global economy. Rather, it is about "the choices that have been made on behalf of New Zealanders since 1984, sometimes without our knowledge and often without our consent" (ibid.).

Economic liberalisation, as a method of participating in the global economy, has made a significant imprint on our social, economic and political landscape. The Introduction to Reclaiming the Future sets in place various positions regarding the effects of globalisation -- or rather, "a vision of a global economy built on `free' markets and `free' trade" (p.1). Expectations of limitless wealth production by Fukuyama (1992) are contrasted with the warnings of increasing corporate control of the world, risking environmental and social security and overtaking the local control of the institutions with which we organise our lives (Korten 1995). The concomitant notion of "the nation state" is somewhat "thin" and the robustness of democracy is under threat.

Such critics of globalisation as there have been appear to be limited to two positions. Both groups share...