Global Trap By Hans-Peter Martin and Harold Schumann. London: Zed Books Ltd., 1997

Abstract

This book presents a most readable perspective on economic and social trends
in the coming century. Though retaining a European focus throughout, the material
spans the world and supports arguments that are of relevance to individuals
in whichever continent they may live. The authors describe an incessant march
toward globalization in finance and industry, a march that is forcing political
change upon a Europe that is simply unprepared, a march toward the Global
Trap.
Opening the book, the reader finds himself in San Francisco’s Fairmont Hotel,
an oasis of luxury in a desert of mere wealth, where the world’s leading thinkers
and elder statesmen have gathered to discuss the future of our planet for an
appropriate fee. A most plausible economic horror story follows. In the not-toodistant
future, machines will replace humans in so many spheres of industry that
there will be sufficient work for only 20 percent of the developed world’s population.
In this 2080 society the 20 percent shall surround themselves with electronic
security and wire fences and the 80 percent will be doped with welfare
payments, trivial game shows, and other such “tittytainment.” Amusing catchphrases
spice Global Trap, trivializing yet somehow succeeding in summarizing
a whole worldview. One immediately recognizes “MacWorld versus Jihad”
as the much predicted confrontation between free market capitalism and Islam.
The authors’ main concerns are expounded in a serious manner. They discuss
the nature of the massive modem conglomerate whose control lies beyond the
reach of national government. Moving their production to the least expensive
locations, these seemingly anonymous entities by default produce their wares in
those countries where environmental protection and employee rights are at a
minimum. In another discussion, one’s attention is turned to the speculator
whose activity impacts upon so many significant areas of modem life.
Much attention is paid to the rapidly widening gap between the rich world and
the poor world, a gap which threatens the survival of both. In a sobering portrayal
of one possible European future, the barriers are raised against floods of
cheap imports and of immigrants wishing’that they too could share the living
standards of the rich world. But the immigrant finds himself in the midst of a
different kind of economic nightmare, a world in which life on a human scale is
no longer possible or profitable. in which the individual is enslaved in mortgage
debt, works at maximum output, or, does not work at all. Feeling that they no
longer have a voice in their own destiny, the indigenous population turns toward
radical political solutions, toward the protectionist, the xenophobe, and the fascist
Does any of this sound familiar? Of course, the genre of doom and gloom has
a long pedigree, but this is not intellectual pornography for those awaiting the
end of the world. There is little, if any, wild extrapolation of current trends in
order to predict future despair. Instead, the authors present well-researched fact
to support their forecast of what might be if solutions are not found in time ...