Niall Ferguson is without question one of the great public intellects of the world. His books on empire, war, currency, and civilization show an incredible range and depth of perspective in the man. I don’t agree with all of his ideas, but they must be considered. He has been especially prolific on world finance these days. His book The Ascent of Money is a best-seller, and has been made into a great television program as well.

In preparation for my next book, and in consideration of the incredible change unfolding daily, I am returning through the writings of many of the propronents of this Gordian knot of failure in which we find ourselves. A couple days ago, I picked a copy of Why Globalization Works, a 2004 book by Financial Times economic correspondant Martin Wolf. The author’s goal is to give an impassioned defense of global free-trade capitalism, showing the benefit to all involved, demonstrating the suffering of those who do not participate, and silencing definitively those who oppose it. The enemy to trade and progress, it seems, are misguided liberal optimists who imagine some vague and muddy local economy, one which the author sneers at on virtually every page.

However, what is immediate evident about the work is the highly detailed use of statistics on most every page, a really elegant technocratic argument that shows the plus-side of global free trade. Here’s where our friend Mr Ferguson comes in:

“No one has summarised more coherently the recent, voluminous research… Elegantly and persuasively, Wolf marshals the facts.” Niall Ferguson, Sunday Telegraph

I’m assuming here that Ferguson put his name on the front of the dustjacket because he believed in the books central argument – that communists in favor of centrally-planned economies are wrong, and free trade is right and holy. My problem is that my head has been filled with this screeching question while reading it: Who in the hell is still arguing for centrally-planned Soviet economies?

Many of the arguments about globalization and free trade were that speculative, uncontrolled global financial schemes were quite dangerous – and lo, behold, they are. Many of the arguments were that the only organizations able to straddle nation-states were corporations, groups not necessarily designed to make conservative fiscal policy decisions, and holy Moses, they aren’t. The advocates of runaway global finance ignored their critics and derided them as throwback socialist cranks, even those critics who believed in free trade, but had issues with the uncontrollable howling chaos of it all.

Perhaps I’m being unfair to Mr Ferguson, who seems to understand better than most what is happening to us. But media seems to be rife with people who six months ago told us Bear Stearns was fine and stocks were a great buy.

I would just like some of the people who cheerled the management of this system to come clean and pause for a moment to explain what they didn’t understand about globalization before setting themselves up as experts in the “next economy.”