Citation
(2004), "Fortune Favors the Bold: What We Must Do to Build a New and Lasting Global Prosperity", International Journal of Productivity and Performance Management, Vol. 53 No. 2. https://doi.org/10.1108/ijppm.2004.07953bae.002
Publisher
:Emerald Group Publishing Limited
Copyright © 2004, Emerald Group Publishing Limited
Fortune Favors the Bold: What We Must Do to Build a New and Lasting Global Prosperity
Fortune Favors the Bold: What We Must Do to Build a New and Lasting Global Prosperity
Lester C. ThurowHarperBusinessISBN: 0 060 52365 4$26.95
Business is increasingly global – this means that all global economies are linked. Not always, though, to mutual benefit. The “old rich” often subtly, find ways of preventing the poor from getting richer. They want them as customers not competitors.
However, the result seems to be a growing instability. The US and many other first world economies are finding it hard to recover after the boom of the 1990s and the bust of the early twenty-first century. Financial crises in the third world come frequently and are increasingly severe. Terrorism, riots, civil disobedience are all laid at the door of globalisation.
Thurow argues that this situation need not necessarily remain – that we have an opportunity to do something about it. All we need is the collective will to shape globalisation into what we want it to be – before it’s too late. Today, he explains, we are at a critical crossroads in the development of the global economy. We can sit back and let it grow as it will, or we can seize the moment and build economic systems that will minimise instability, allow second and third world countries to thrive, and protect and enhance existing (American) interests. In short, he suggests that it is possible to build a win/win global economy that benefits all participants.
In the book, he tackles subjects such as:
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the dangers of the burgeoning US trade deficit and the falling dollar;
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solving the problem of intellectual property rights violations;
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restarting Japan’s stagnating economy;
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how best to help underdeveloped countries enter the global economy; and
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reforming the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund.
He suggests that the economic successes of Ireland and China provide a model for other countries to follow. He even proposes creating a new role for a “Chief Knowledge Officer” to help guide companies and governments in the developing global knowledge-based economy of the twenty-first century.
Globalisation will continue whether we like it our not. If we act, we can make it more possible that we will like it!