This book has been an extraordinary critical success since its first publication in German at the end of 1996. By 1997 some 250,000 copies had been sold and it remained constanly in the country's top ten bestseller lists. Currently, it is being translated into some 20 languages.
Public debate around this book has been
intense in each country where it has been published
because of its authors' provocative views on
globalization, its implications for the future of
national sovereignty and the alternative the authors put
forward.
- Table of Contents
- The 20:80 Society
- World rulers en route to a different civilization
- Everything is Everywhere
- Globalization and global disintegration
- Dictatorship With Limited Liability
- Playing pool on the world money market
- The Law of the Wolves
- The job crisis and the new transnationals
- Comforting Lies
- The myth of locational factors and the fairness of globalization
- Sauve qui Peut: but who still can?
- The disappearing middle classes and the rise of radical seducers
- Perpetrators or victims?
- The poor global players and the welcoming back of compulsion
- Who does the State belong to
- The decline of politcs and the future of national sovereignty
- An End to Disorientation
- How to get out of the dead end
- Ten Ways To Prevent the 20:80 Society
POLITICAL ECONOMY / BUSINESS
256 pages, bibliography, index
Paperback ISBN: 1-55164-114-3 $24.99
Hardcover ISBN: 1-55164-115-1 $53.99
1997
Highly informed, and extremely readable, it opens at a private seminar attended by 500 chief executives of major corporations, leading politicians and intellectuals in San Francisco. Discussing the 21st century, the assessment of these worldshapers is devastating. It revealed that the biggest manufacturers are not simply relocating their production activities away from the industrial countries, but foresee manufacturing heading rapidly in the same direction. The result will be what the authors call the 20:80 society, with unimaginably high levels of unemployment; social peace maintained via the modern equivalent of bread and circuses but without nearly so much bread.
The result of this global economy out of control is not simply the destruction of democracy as we know it, but inevitable social upheaval and in the end, war.
"Exciting and powerful." Barbara Pyle, Executive Producer, CNN Center, Atlanta
"A stunning book." Michel Rocard, Le Nouvel Observateur
"Probably the most important book of the year." Suddeutsche Zeitun
"A really major work with huge explosive force." Gunter Walraff
"The book to top all other non-fiction books." Die Zeit
About the authors
Hans-Peter Martin is an experienced Austrian political journalist and author. Educated in both Austria and the United States, he was awarded a doctorate in law and political science at the University of Vienna in 1984. By this time he was already a bestselling author in German with books focusing on the pharmaceutical industry. In 1986 he joined the leading German news magazine Der Spiegel where he worked as a foreign correspondent in Latin America and elsewhere. Currently, he is their bureau chief in Vienna. An associate member of the Club of Rome, he broadcasts frequently, including on the BBC World Service.
Harald Schumann is a respected German journalist and writer. He was educated in social science and environmental planning at Marburg and subsequently at the Technical University in Berlin. After working on the staff of the Berlin daily Tageszeitung, he published the book Food and World Hunger. In 1986 he joined he staff of Der Spiegel. In 1990 he moved to become deputy head of the German daily, Der Morgen, before eventually returning to Der Spiegel where he is now deputy bureau chief of the Berlin office. Together with Hans-Peter Martin, he was awarded the Bruno Kreisky Prize for the best political book of 1997, The Global Trap.