From New Left Review, Perry Anderson on a reckoning of global shifts in political and economic relations, oppositions, and theoretical visions that offer exits from the perpetual free-market present. A review of Vermeer's Hat: The Seventeenth Century and the Dawn of the Global World by Timothy Brook. A review of Power and Plenty: Trade, War, and the World Economy in the Second Millennium by Ronald Findlay and Kevin H. O'Rourke. Buy some stuff, enslave somebody: Why are we so disconnected from the slave labor that produces so many of our products? Anarchists in the aisles: Shopdropping is the practice by anti-consumerist artists of leaving fake products with political messages on shelves. Reverend Billy's crusade against "shopocolypse": A homespun preacher, equal parts Borat, Jimmy Swaggart and Michael Moore peddles his anti-consumer message to Mall America. Outlet for exclusivity: How a "premium" brand manages the dance with the mass market. From The University Bookman, a review of Understanding the Process of Economic Change by Douglass C. North; and a review of The Pro-Growth Progressive: An Economic Strategy for Shared Prosperity by Gene Sperling and The Moral Consequences of Economic Growth by Benjamin M. Friedman. A look at how morality – defined as individual values and convictions about the scope of application of norms of good conduct – is an important factor in individual behaviour and thus economic outcomes.
