Book Review of People Before Profit, by Charles Derber

The New Globalization in the Age of Terror, Big Money and Economic Crises

As economists and the business world rave about the profit potentials of globalization, activists and scholars rage over its hidden agenda. Professor of Sociology at Boston College and author Charles Derber assembles a visionary argument for a new globalization within his book People Before Profit (Picador, 2003). Dispelling the common belief that globalization is a force that shapes our lives, he shows a history where it is shaped by a powerful few at the expense of many. In a clear, intelligent, yet impassioned voice, Derber exposes the dynamics between imperialism, whether economic, military or cultural, poverty, terrorism and democracy. All converging together to create the globalization changing our lives, but seemingly out of reach to much of the world.

A large part of Derber’s work focuses on redefining globalization by infusing it with true democracy in all aspects of our lives. He is part of a growing choir that sees a society operating from localized democratic ideals as the only future. In a phrase, it is People Power that this enlightened choir sings of, including scholars such as John Cavanagh, Naomi Klein, Noam Chomsky, Vandana Shiva, Lori Wallach and many other scholars. Not to mention the thousands of grassroots protestors Derber lionizes in their effort to rattle the powers of world bodies like the World Trade Organization, International Monterey Fund and World Bank. Derber is hardly the detached academic who watches the world through statistics from Ivory towers. His presence is on the ground with activists and through travels to Bangladesh to hear the plight of workers in sweatshops.