All You Can Eat: Greed, Lust and the New Capitalism

Gordon C. Shaw is professor emeritus in the Faculty of Administrative
Studies at York University.

All You Can Eat expresses the author’s strong concern that individual
greed for material things is taking precedence over broader community
needs. Her first two chapters describe how the NAFTA agreement permits
multinational industry to override the policies made by the elected
representatives of local communities. For example, one U.S.-based
courier service used the NAFTA agreement to object to Canada Post’s
provision of parcel service. Might U.S. medical interests, McQuaig
wonders, one day oppose the Canadian universal medical program on the
same grounds? While she does not oppose free trade, she shows that the
Canadian negotiators of the agreement failed to recognize its broader
implications in areas of government and community concerns.

Greed was not always a leading human priority, McQuaig argues. She also
shows that profit maximization is often inconsistent with community
well-being. And she provides an interesting chapter on the life and work
of the philosopher-economist Karl Polanyi, who sought a new
community-oriented organization based on neither capitalism nor
communism. For anyone concerned with public policy, her book offers much
food for thought.