Patomaki Heikki

The last couple of years have seen the eurozone lurch from crisis to calamity. With Greece, Portugal and Ireland already driven to the brink of economic catastrophe, and the threat that a number of other EU countries are soon to follow, the consequences for the global economy are potentially dire. In The Great Eurozone Disaster, Heikki Patomäki dissects the current crisis, revealing its origins lie in the instability that has driven the process of financialisation since the early 1970s. Furthermore, the public debt crises in the European deficit countries have been aggravated rather than alleviated by the responses of the Commission and leaders of the surplus countries, especially Germany. Providing a captivating narrative about how Europe ended up in its present predicament, Patomäki presents a radical new vision for 'global economic democracy' as the only viable way out of the current crisis.

The last couple of years have seen the eurozone lurch from crisis to calamity. With Greece, Portugal and Ireland already driven to the brink of economic catastrophe, and the threat that a number of other EU countries are soon to follow, the consequences for the global economy are potentially dire. In The Great Eurozone Disaster, Heikki Patomäki dissects the current crisis, revealing its origins lie in the instability that has driven the process of financialisation since the early 1970s. Furthermore, the public debt crises in the European deficit countries have been aggravated rather than alleviated by the responses of the Commission and leaders of the surplus countries, especially Germany. Providing a captivating narrative about how Europe ended up in its present predicament, Patomäki presents a radical new vision for 'global economic democracy' as the only viable way out of the current crisis.

As globalization proceeds apace international law, and the scope and powers of international institutions - the United Nations, the Bretton Woods institutions, the World Trade Organization - continue to grow. If democratic values are still an aspiration of the 21st century, then their deficit at international level must be addressed. Patomaki and Teiveinen survey the range of proposals now on the table. Ruling nothing out, they emphasis feasibility. While democratic advances do not come without political mobilization, there is little point mobilizing people for the utopian and unrealizable.This informative, thought-provoking book will be of use both to students of International Relations and Political Science, and also to campaigners concerned with the existing inequitable and unaccountable international arrangements.

In the 1970s Professor James Tobin proposed a very modest tax on currency transactions. This would make much speculative movement of funds unprofitable and the world financial system less volatile. The Tobin tax, if implemented with other regulatory measures, would be emancipatory. Global finance would be subjected to a process of deliberate control. It would bolster the autonomy of states. And it might transform the politics of globalization in the direction of more democratic control, social responsibility and justice. But, the major problem has aways been the lack of political will. Tobin and his supporters have always assumed that the only feasible way to implement the new tax would be for all major financial centres to agree to it simultaneously. Dr Patomäki demonstrates that it is possible to proceed without universal consensus, and develops the idea of a Tobin tax organization (TTO) that would implement and supervise the process. The potentially huge annual revenues - eventually as much as $1 trillion - could be used for economic and social purposes determined globally, reviving the prospects of humanity moving towards a more just world order.