If working towards the above goal is idealism, then I am happy to be an idealist; however, it is by no means laissez-faire, given the amount of time, energy and money which have been devoted in recent years to language revitalization and related matters. Ad-mittedly, the progress which has been made is tiny compared with the disastrous effects of globalization on global diversity. But to place all the blame on English, and to ignore the more funda¬mental economic issues that are involved, is, as two recent com¬mentators have put it, ‘to attack the wrong target, to indulge in linguistic luddism’. Solutions are more likely to come from the domain of economic policy, not language policy. As Lysandrou and Lysandrou conclude:
If English can facilitate the process of universal dispossession and loss, so can it be turned round and made to facilitate the contrary process of universal empowerment and gain.