Transcript of the proceedings

This inaugural IMF Book Forum is free and open to the public. Please send an e-mail to IMFCenterBookForum@imf.org or call 202-623-7394 if you would like to attend.

Featuring Jerry Z. Muller, author of The Mind and the Market: Capitalism in Modern European Thought, Ann Florini and Johan Norberg.

Did Adam Smith launch the anti-globalization movement? Not quite, but he and other political economists throughout history have tackled many issues on the agenda of today's anti-globalization movement. That's the thesis of Jerry Muller's new book The Mind and the Market: Capitalism in Modern European Thought (Knopf, November 2002).

A review in Foreign Affairs says that "Muller's masterful sketches of intellectuals from across the political spectrum help put today's battles over globalization in proper historical perspective." Muller shows that these great thinkers worried—just as present day anti-globalizers do—that global markets might destroy local cultures; that corporate greed would breed poverty; and that the championing of self-interest would erode any sense of the common good.

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Jerry Z. Muller is Professor of History at Catholic University of America, Washington D.C. His previous books include Adam Smith in His Time and Ours: Designing the Decent Society (Princeton University Press, 1995).

Ann Florini is Senior Fellow at the Brookings Institution. She is an expert on the anti-globalization movement and the author of a new book on transnational governance, The Coming Democracy: New Rules for Running a New World (Island Press, 2003).

Johan Norberg is a Fellow at the Swedish think tank Timbro. His book In Defense of Global Capitalism was just published in the United States after receiving rave reviews in Europe. His previous books include The Resistance Man Vilhelm Moberg, The History of Swedish Liberalism, and State, Individual, and Market.

Prakash Loungani, Assistant to the IMF's External Relations Director, will serve as moderator.