ABSTRACT
This book began with a discussion of the effects on freedom associated with the distortions of political ecologies that result from the proliferation of high-intensity commercial gambling. I argued that the modern expansion of gambling can be likened to primary extractive industries such as native logging, large-scale mining, or other commercially driven extractive industries in which resources are tapped without needing to exchange resources in return. Whereas the target for logging and other primary extractive industries is the bounty offered by the natural world, the target for commercial gambling is the bounty offered within the systems of social and financial interchange. One is derivative of naturally occurring cycles of birth and death, whereas the other is derivative of processes for interchanging resources and values within social and economic systems. The book explored how, in accessing both these forms of bounty, the triple alliance among governments, multinational business interests, and local entrepreneurs creates a development momentum that is difficult to contain. As the scale of activity grows and the methods of extraction are refined, more and more people are drawn into roles derived from this industrial complex and they become embedded as an integral part of its social and political structures. Reliance on gambling activities grows incrementally and involvements disperse into strands of intensifying dependency that entangle themselves around larger societal structures, local communities, and individuals with key social responsibilities. The book focuses particularly on the subtle degradations of roles that occur for individuals (e.g., politicians, researchers, and reporters) who occupy critical positions in the maintenance of democracy. It concludes that for those nations choosing to embrace the new world of high-intensity gambling, they will need to consider strenuous and proactive measures that protect their democratic systems from moral and political degradation.
