Dreadful Catalogue (2005)

Book Review from the November 2005 issue of the Socialist Standard

50 Facts that Should Change the World by Jessica Williams (Icon £6.99.)

 

The obvious reaction to the title is to say that it’s people that change the world, not facts. But Jessica Williams begins by claiming that the facts she has assembled can change the way people think. The information gathered here does indeed provide many reasons why the world needs to be changed. Much of what is said will probably be familiar to readers of the Socialist Standard. One in five of the earth’s population go hungry each day, for instance, while one British child in three lives below the poverty line, and life expectancy is strikingly low in many countries, especially in Africa. Others are perhaps not so appalling: is it really so bad that Brazil has more Avon ladies than members of its armed forces?

 

But many will find much that is new and enlightening here. For example, far from slavery having been abolished, there are more slaves in the world today (27 million) than at any time previously. More people die from suicide than from armed conflicts: in 2000 around one million people killed themselves and at least ten times that number tried to do so. What sort of world is it in which so many find their lives insupportable to this extent?

Or where over two hundred million child labourers exist? In nine countries, same-sex relationships are punishable by death, while over 150 states make use of torture. One third of the world’s population live in countries involved in armed conflict, and black American men stand a one-in three chance of going to prison at some time in their lives. Two million women are subjected to female genital mutilation each year, while over one million people are killed in road traffic accidents.

The book presents a dreadful catalogue of poverty, violence, degradation and waste, a vivid picture of 21st-century capitalism, all backed up with useful references. Williams adds commentary of her own, together with ideas for solving the problems. Some of this is OK – she recognises that famine and malnutrition are not caused by food shortages. But far too much of it is concerned with what governments should do and how ‘we’ should influence them. The real lesson to draw, though, is that we truly do need to change the world, not just get the rulers to behave in a more enlightened way.

Paul Bennett