Michael Moore, former prime minister of New Zealand, was a socialist who ended up fighting for free trade. While he hasn't abandoned all errors of socialism, his new book, Saving Globalization is a passionate defense of international economic freedom.

Globalization is not new, nor is it a policy; it’s a process that has existed as long as man looked over the horizon, traveled and traded. It can’t be stopped, but can be slowed. It came to a grinding halt in August 1914. The Marxist detour cost millions of lives and in many countries lost opportunity and hope for three generations. More wealth has been created in the past 60 years than in all previous history. After the most successful decade of sustained economic growth ever, this progress is threatened.

Extreme inequality, corruption and environmental degradation threaten stability and legitimacy of many developing countries’ regimes. Anti-globalization and anti-capitalist campaigners’ confidence has been emboldened due to the present economic crisis. Protectionist rhetoric is growing, as are arguments to control and regulate markets. Leaders are meeting to discuss how to face these problems and create a new international architecture. How did we get into this position? What should we do? What is it that determines why some contemporary states are successful while others have failed?

Saving Globalization departs from its analysis of the globalised economy in the twenty-first century to answer these questions by tracing development of what Moore considers to be ‘the big ideas of history:' democracy, independent courts, separation of church and state, property rights, a professional civil service, and civil society. Democratic capitalism has worked for most people. Why? It is a remarkable story, from the Greeks to the Geeks, encompassing technological progress and the corrections and contradictions between liberty and equality, technology, growth and the environment. In defense of the many virtues and opportunities that globalisation offers, Mike Moore makes the case for a fresh and new approach to our international Institutions and for domestic policies that promote equity and fairness.

The book controversially attacks the new enemies of reason and evidence. The threats now come from all sides, especially workers in developed countries who fear for their jobs. Mike Moore is a political practitioner turned theoretician. Hardback, 320 pages.