The developed world has a vast choice of consumer goods, but most markets are controlled by two or three companies who bought out their competitors and diversified to produce thousands of different items.

GROW OR DIE shows how these consumer goods multi-nationals, many with origins in the production, trading, and marketing of single commodity such as coffee, tea, or sugar, are now complex players on a world scale. These giant corporations, such as Unilever, the world's largest, need to ensure a constant supply of cheap raw materials, and will often switch suppliers, even though their actions disrupt producer economies. And as consumer markets expand beyond Europe and North America, GROW OR DIE shows how companies are shifting their focus from the Atlantic to the Pacific Basin.

The U.S. and Europe thus face a crisis in employment, and traditional producers of raw commodities also suffer as prices fall and their terms of trade worsen. GROW OR DIE concludes by showing how some countries, caught on the treadmill of rising debt, falling prices, and stunted growth, have attempted to overcome this situation by adopting policies of self-sufficiency, through commodity agreements, or through producer-country cartels like OPEC.

"The historical footage of early advertisements, factory production, and consumer products from the United Kingdom are most interesting."—Library Journal

"Choice Pick... [Curling's and Clayton's] curiously effective amalgam of actuality and simulation reveals some unsuspected truths about the way the wonder bean has also kept commerce and politics in a state of maximum alertness ever since the first revivifying cupful of the brew was swallowed."—The Times (London)

"College courses in international economics and business would find these materials of interest, especially those dealing with problems of emerging economies."—Library Journal

"COMMODITIES delves deep into the quagmire of the World Debt Crisis, providing a powerful argument against the depoliticisation of events like 'Feed the World,' which insists on treating famine relief as an issue unrelated to the politics of inequality."—New Music Express

"Recommended for all libraries."—Choice