5 comments about A Consumers' Republic: The Politics of Mass Consumption in Postwar America.

1. To say you are an America is to say that you are, de facto, a consumer.

   This word is a defining aspect of our American world... Consumerism covers daily life, whether it be drug discounts, tourism, marketers, insurance, cars, homes, technology or just plain old product reviews. We Americans are defined by our consumption.
   
   Lizabeth Cohen has given us a thoroughly researched, readable history on consumerism, and how it came to be such a force and part of our lives in America. She argues that after WWII the "Consumer Republic" was launched, full force, affecting life styles, government and even belief systems. Though the beginning of a consumers movement had occurred before 1940, the "Consumer Republic" took form and force after the second world war.

   Cohen's writing style is informative, to the point of being academic. "A Consumers' Republic" is a history book. Thus, it may be a bit more pedantic than most general readers would like.

   I found a few omissions that distracted from the overall excellence of the book. One being that Cohen does not investigate how consumerism has been incorporated into, and seriously affected, American Christianity. She does not address how Christianity, especially considering the `Protestant work ethic', helped to shaped and drive consumerism into being. She does not explore `why' Americans live to consume, "shop til they drop." Neither does she reflect on the effects that unbridled consumption have on both the social fabric of our nation or the ecological impact on our land.

   That said, this book is a "need to read" for students of American history, marketing, those involved as consumer activists, and business. Recommended. 3.5 stars




2. Lizabeth Cohen's "A Consumers' Republic" does much to explain how citizenship has been significantly redefined by consumerism in postwar America. The thoroughly readable book is full of insights and should interest all readers of 20th century American history. It will also prompt many to ponder how America might try to heal its frayed society while there is time available to do so.

   In the Acknowledgements, Ms. Cohen explains that this impressive book was written over the course of ten years. Her thesis profited from audience feedback at numerous college lectures and presentations she made during this time and with able assistance from a number of talented student researchers. With over 400 pages of text and 100 pages of notes, the book represents a remarkable achievement and is a testament to Ms. Cohen's intelligent use of the academic research process.

   Ms. Cohen is in top form when she chronicles the struggles of women and African-Americans to assert their rights in what she calls the "Consumers' Republic" of 1945 to 1975. The author provides background material by documenting how a variety of bread-and-butter consumer issues mobilized millions into action from the Depression through WWII. Ms. Cohen then shows how power gained by women and minorities through their contributions to the war effort later found expression in the Civil Rights, women's liberation and other movements of the 1950s and 1960s.

   However, Ms. Cohen explains that policy makers in the aftermath of WWII were influenced and corrupted by, among other things, unparalleled levels of corporate power and ideological rivalry with the Soviet Union. Mass consumption was seen as a solution to help keep manufacturing profits high and was propagandized in order prove to the world that the U.S. was practically a classless society. The reality was different, of course. The author discusses how racial, gender and class biases were reaffirmed and institutionalized by the GI Bill and other legislative acts. As a result of Ms. Cohen's extraordinary research, the reader comes to understand that the increasingly stratified post-WWII American society that resulted was not inevitable but was shaped by powerful interests who privileged private sector solutions at the expense of the public.

   In my view, the only shortcomings in this ambitious book are Ms. Cohen's failure to discuss the environmental consequences of consumerism and her omission of the student revolt against the military/industrial complex in the 1960s. But overall, these are minor quibbles. "A Consumers' Republic" delivers plenty of thought-provoking material and is a pleasure to read. The book is highly recommended to everyone who might want to gain perspective on contemporary American society and further consider where it might be headed.




3. The above quote from the book reveals its fundamental problem. Consumerism is stretched to include (for example) racial equality, housing policy, and politics: this dulls any edge the concept might have as an analytic tool. What is a consumer? We're told "the word's original meaning" - - "to devour, waste and spend" - - but not its current one. The author tries to distinguish between the "citizen consumer" and "purchaser consumer". The supposed dichotomy between these roles was no more obvious to me than to those consumer advocates who - - to the author's apparent surprise - - "found it possible to endorse both simultaneously".
   
   So the book is a kind of grab bag of the USA's post-war social problems, often using the author's home state as an example. At times, she seems on the verge of dissecting New Jersey as Mike Davis does Los Angeles (high praise from me), but never quite sustains such a level. For example, there's a fascinating account of how policies of "upzoning" were used to create homogeneous suburbs of large, expensive, detached houses. But when explaining how this led to racial polarization - - in an era of supposed desegregration - - she can only show us the 'after' map, not the 'before'. However, the use of photos, advertisements, and newspaper cartoons is exemplary: often amusing, sometimes shocking.
   
   Towards the end of the book, the author finds it necessary to expand the concept of "consumer" to "consumer/citizen", and finally to "consumer/citizen/taxpayer/voter": a clear sign of a dead end. On the final page, her vision is vague and feeble: we "could reinvigorate the liberating aspects of the purchaser" and "could seek to reverse the trend toward the Consumerization of the Republic by not shrinking from articulating the important things that only government can do". Hardly a programme of action. But maybe that's too much to expect.



4. I defer to the thorough review titled "Consumption and Greed" below for a synopsis of this book.
   
   The subject matter of "A Consumers' Republic" is engrossing and the book reveals many truths that are now forgotten and swept under the rug. Cohen uses an impressive plethora of examples to demonstrate her points, and in the end I know much more about the United States' economic and social history from the 30's to the present.
   
   Unfortuntately, Cohen's writing often becomes convoluted and difficult to read due to frequent lengthy and difficult to follow sentences. While reading, many times I had to re-read a sentence or paragraph in order to grasp the author's intent. A few times I even wanted to put the book down and pick up a less academic book - perhaps some fiction - to give my eyes and brain a break. Much of the book is well written and flows well, but these occasional roadblocks require determination to get through and prove frustrating. However, having finished this yesterday, I'm happy I persevered. The incredible amount of research and well thought out and supported thesis' are worth five stars, but the writing brings it down to four stars.



5. "A Consumers' Republic" is one of those kinds of books that exists on the premise that it illuminates some previously unknown phenomenon. The book purports to be a "bold, encompassing, and profoundly influential book." I humbly propose that this book is none of the above. "A Consumers' Republic" is certainly not a "bold" book. Quite tepidly, actually, the author makes a weak case that is essentially a rehashing (and a mediocre one at that) of mainstream academic criticisms of popular market culture. Certianly nothing new, the ideas lamely presented by this author were actually prefigured by a factor of centuries by actual scholars such as Smith, Marx, and de Toqueville. Not bold for sure, but also lacking nuance; "A Consumers' Republic" condescends to its readers and its subjects alike. And is this book "profoundly influential," as the jacket pompously asserts? I hope not.

No comments about World Development Report 2009: Reshaping Economic Geography (World Development Report).

1 comments about Reinventing Foreign Aid.

1. This book is actually edited by William Easterly and with a forward by Nancy Birdsall (President, Center for Global Development)

5 comments about Innovation Nation: How America Is Losing Its Innovation Edge, Why It Matters, and What We Can Do to Get It Back.

1. 
   The title of Thomas Friedman's most recently published book, The World Is Flat, is explained by the author in the Introduction: his use of the word "flat" refers to "the flattening forces [that] are empowering more and more individuals today to reach further, faster, deeper, and cheaper than ever before...to connect, compete, and collaborate" innovatively. John Kao has these same forces in mind when suggesting that America is losing its innovative edge in the global marketplace. "Innovation has become the new currency of global competition as one country after another races toward a new high ground where the capacity for innovation is viewed as a hallmark of national success."
   
   Meanwhile, John Kao asserts that in the United States, "our national capacity for innovation is eroding, with deeply troubling implications for our future...In tomorrow's world, even more than today's, innovation will be the engine of progress. So unless we move to rectify this dismal situation, the United States cannot hope to remain a leader. What's at stake is nothing less than the future prosperity and security of our nation...While our competitor nations focus on educating and training engineers and inventors, our schools are turning out youngsters who are better consumers than they are creators."
   
   What to do? Kao proposes that the United States become an "innovation nation" by making a major commitment of resources, both human and financial, to rejuvenate our innovation age. "And the obvious first step is simply to acknowledge the challenges we face at a national level. After which we must develop a compelling vision and a blueprint for action that will reinvent the way we educate our children, marshal our resources, pursue our research projects, communicate and share our discoveries, and conduct ourselves in the world community."
   
   After first identifying the "what," Kao devotes the bulk of his attention to the "how" of achieving these and other objectives. He cites examples in the past when innovation in the U.S. unequalled (e.g. the Manhattan Project, Lockheed's "Skunk Works," and the U.S. space program's "Project Apollo") as well as examples of successful innovation initiatives in other countries, notably in China and India (of course) but also in Brazil, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, New Zealand, Singapore, and Taiwan. There is indeed what Kao characterizes as "the new geography of innovation" in a world that Friedman describes as "flat."
   
   Kao examines the four principal driving factors behind this "global evolution," noting that the globalization of innovation and of the capital to fund it "are, in my estimation, great positives overall for both the United States and the rest of the world. But the United States must begin ratcheting up its own innovation capacity to stay ahead of the curve."
   
   To me, one of Kao's most interesting ideas is what he calls an "Information Hub" such as the one in San Diego that demonstrates "how talent, investment, and creativity flow to places whose culture encourages the pioneer spirit, the search for open spaces, and the hunger to express itself as much by creating value in a place as through the ideas and ventures that are generated by it."
   
   Kao proposes a BHAG for the United States (Big Hairy Audacious Goal is a term introduced by Jim Collins): to establish twenty Innovation Hubs, each devoted to solving one "wicked" problem (e.g. climate change, environmental degradation, communicable diseases, energy sufficiency, water quality and sufficiency), with initial funding of at least $20 billion. One day, he hopes, "the catalytic nature of diversity and the power of innovation on a planetary basis will unleash the full potential of human beings to better themselves and to create a world well worth living in."
   
   Others may perhaps disagree with Kao's estimate of the nature and extent of the challenges that the United States currently faces. They may also disagree with the details of the response to those challenges that Kao recommends. However, there seems to be little doubt that innovation has not as yet become "the new currency" of U.S. participation in global competition nor is capacity for innovation as yet viewed as a "hallmark" of its national success. I agree with Kao that what's now at stake is "nothing less than the future prosperity and security of our nation."
   
   Those who share my regard for this book are urged to check out Friedman's aforementioned book as well as Competing in a Flat World co-authored by Victor Fung, William Fung, and Yoram (Jerry) Wind. Also, Richard Ogle's Smart World, Frans Johansson's The Medici Effect, Henry Chesbrough's Open Innovation and his more recent Open Business Models, and Seeing What's Next co-authored by Clayton Christensen, Scott Anthony, and Erik Roth.



2. Acknowledging the same reality, but offering a glimmer of National hope to Thomas Friedman's "The World is Flat" thesis, John Kao lays the framework for an "Innovation Solution" toward the vision of America becoming: "...accelerant for global innovation by steering the world toward addressing the formidable range of wicked problems we face..." It is a brilliantly written, comprehensive analysis; filled with possibility and promise, even as it accepts the reality of our shortcomings and the enormity of these "Wicked Problems".
   
   Defining innovation as, "the ability of individuals, companies, and entire nations to continuously create their desired future", Kao takes the reader on a quick trip around the globe to demonstrate how the key success factors for innovation are no longer domiciled within the U.S.A. He demonstrates how Talent, Capital, Government Investment, and the Silicon Valley concept are now everywhere - Bangalore to Singapore and Finland to Ireland. It is a shocking view of reality that will be shared by most readers who are regular travelers to countries abroad.
   
   The author then offers his proposal: "...the United States specialize in a more comprehensive, transformational style of innovation, one that allows for placing big bets on the future, deploying its enormous resources, carrying out ambitious and mold-breaking experiments, reinventing the way we educate our young, aligning our federal, state, and local agendas, and recharging the magnetism of openness and opportunity that has historically attracted the world's talent to our shores." And, chapter by chapter he demonstrates how the components of innovation work, and how the U.S. might re-create these components as the foundation for addressing what he has called the wicked problems we face.
   
   His chapter on "Making Talent" - it is leaving us and our educational system is broken - challenges not only the current educational system, but also the marketing of innovation and innovative educating of and to our young people. He argues that we must also continue to "Seduce Talent" from abroad thru offers of opportunities to specialize and the building of a reputation for diversity and tolerance. He shows how openness and trust are part, but only part of the environment for innovation that must be developed, and he suggests a "National Innovation Agenda" that includes the appointment of a National Innovation Advisor to the President. In all, it is a bold, but realistic approach to earn anew, America's, "...status of "indispensable nation" by using our mastery of innovation as a force for good in the world."
   
   The book's offering is far too comprehensive to be reduced to a single review and it will be well worth your time to read the ~ 270 pages. The stories are interesting and informative, and the logic is such that you can do a bit of skimming if you are short on time. I highly recommend this book.
   
   Dennis DeWilde, author of "The Performance Connection"



3. The author's book offers what may be considered by Europeans as a curiously anomalous idea: that the United States's main problems stem from insufficient innovation. Can one describe as lacking in innovation a nation that produces out-of-the-box ideas like community colleges, sending a man to the moon, Borlaug's green revolution, Internet, web browsers, CD ROM and DVD, Amazon.com - including its revolutionary introduction of reader reviews (no, I am not a paid agent for Amazon), Ebay, blogging, Apple products, and endless Nobel prize winners in biology and medicine?
   
   Certainly, the nation's educational problem is dire. But does Kao really believe that innovation is the key to fixing the U.S.'s systematic deterioration in economy (deindustrialization), infrastructure, fiscal soundness, pension security; that clever ideas could deal with our anomalous levels of crime and violence compared with all nations of comparable GDP,political gridlock, or our degraded popular TV and entertainment media?
   
   I might hire Kao to rev up innovation in my company if I were an industrialist, but I would not elect or appoint him to advise on public policy issues. Instead, I suggest that Kao may be a symptom of the fragmentation and willingness to settle for superficiality that has developed in the U.S. over the past 45 years.
   
   The EU is not as flashy and exciting as the U.S. But it has evolved a civilized pattern of cooperation. It leads in environmental policy and acting on (not just writing or yelling about)global climate change. The Dollar is sinking ever lower with respect to the Euro (now trading at 1.55). Most citizens in European nations approaching or exceeding our GDP have greater security for the essentials in their lives than do a large fraction of Americans; and their industries are, by and large, outcompeting us, even buying out what remains in the U.S.
   
   I suggest that innovation is now limited from being applied to critical areas like those I mentioned above because many educated, bright, and influential Americans in academia, politics, and business have short-range focus in their thinking. We don't seem to have much interest in looking at problems holistically, having humility, learning from history or other societies. I'm not sure which author I'd recommend instead of Kao, but I'm looking (and also writing, myself).



4. For a book about Innovation, there is nothing Innovative about this book. The stories about Singapore, Finland and Ireland are well known and can be found in Business Week or Wall Street Journal. Yes, and well read readers will know that we are losing our innovation edge to China and India. No new information there. And, his answers are not new - use the internet, improve our education systems, entice outside talent, better offices, etc. In fact, I would even question his definition of innovation - jazz is innovative but classical music is not? He starts with the assertion that innovation is not just about technology and science and then labors onto technology and science. Further, at the end of this book, he used the "I" word so many times to emphasize his opinion, that I lost count of it. I can go on about this book, but let me leave it with this - this is the worst book on innovation that I have read. A lot of borrowing from others, a lot hype on what he will provide for solutions and then NO delivery. Don't waste your time on this book.



5. I found this book personally stimulating in terms of what the innovation process entails and what gets it going. I read it more for the ideas that I can apply to my personal and professional life, rather than as the call to innovation arms it's supposed to be.
   
   I imagine that Kao is generally right: we are poised at the fork on the innovation road, with a major decision to make as to which road we take - do we proactively marshall the ingenuity of this nation, the political will, and everything else that's needed to make the United States a co-leader in an Innovation World, or do we move passively along with the flow, hoping that our werewithal and past successes will help us thrive?
   
   Kao provides ample evidence that the US is losing its innovation edge. I just don't know how realistic his proposed solutions are. It's one thing to rally the country and its resources around a critical goal, like the Manhattan Project, or a laser-focused goal, like landing a man on the moon. It's another to ask the same about a goal that is harder to get your arms around, and where the potential for conflicting agendas is not completely teased out. Also, to some degree not all Kao's models may be replicable - Singapore and Denmark may accomplish national innovation goals because of their small size and/or homogeneity; China, obviously huge, may be able to accomplish its goals because of the authoritarian government that can force everyone to march in lockstep.
   
   I do think thought that Kao has done a valuable service by opening the discussion and throwing out trial balloons that may get key actors to begin moving in the right direction.

2 comments about Rulers and Ruled in the US Empire: Bankers, Zionists and Militants.

1. This is the second book that I have read by James Petras- the first was 'The Power of Israel in the United States'. I enjoyed his first book as well as this one. He is quite an academic virtuoso providing a sociological, historical, organizational, and political perspective as to whom controls the world and its money, resources, and, of course, politicians. Mainly, he points the finger at MNC's (Multinational Corporations) that are quite effective at neutralizing any dissent, exploiting indigenous populations, and bribing politicians. He discusses somewhat the influence of Zionists in their quest to control the Middle East and the influence of money interests, i.e., hedge funds, equity firms, and investment banks, in capturing world industry and rsources. Moreover,Petras argues that China is simply a puppet of the Central Imperial Power- the United States given the amount of foreign investment in the country. I enjoyed this book very much - he is indeed thought provoking, challenging, and difficult read due to his complex and academic writing style. I think this book should be viewed as an academic reference- this is definitely not simple casual reading. The only few criticisms I had of the book was at times, he would have emotional outbursts against the Zionists and Capitalism in general- personally, I would refrain from this because I believe it leaves less room for credibility. Moreover, I do not agree with his idea that nationalizing industries is the way to go when it comes to foreign trade. Nevertheless, I recommend anybody read this book if your up for the challenge.



2. This title lingered for a long time on my Amazon.com "wish list". Somehow, with all of the reading I was doing, I couldn't find the time for this book. Perhaps I had some doubt as to its importance. If that was the case, the doubt was confirmed, having purchased and read this book. It was a very big disappointment.
   
   Given the title of the book, I had looked forward to an exposition of the role of international banking and Zionism in the American Empire. And there was some of this contained between the covers of this work. But, mostly the book consisted of Marxist rhetoric, which is long on volume and sadly short on cogent reasoning.
   
   The few sections of the book that actually dealt with Zionism and militarism were well done. But this was far less than half of the total contents. Most of the book had to do with a Marxist analysis of class struggle. And this is pretty much useless for those who honor sound reasoning.
   
   In summary, we cannot highly recommend this book of Dr. Petras. Those sections on Zionism and militarism are worthwhile. But the bulk of the book is not. God bless.

3 comments about Sustainable Landscape Construction: A Guide to Green Building Outdoors, Second Edition.

1. an excelent overview of the sustainable approaches to landscape design, a good basis to start thinking and acting sustainably in the landscape



2. Time has changed. A few years ago, few people knew about sustainable design and construction, green buildings or LEED. Today, sustainable design and construction has gone mainstream. How do we know? We actually have clients asking us to design a LEED certified building or do a sustainable landscape design. Architecture and landscape architecture are knowledge-based, service-oriented professions. Architects and landscape architects have to catch up and become experts in sustainable design and construction, green buildings and LEED to be able to provide the necessary professional service to the clients.
   
   "Sustainable Landscape Construction: A Guide to Green Building Outdoors" is one of the best books on sustainable design and construction. It covers 10 principles of sustainable landscape construction: keep healthy sites healthy (preserve topsoils and existing trees, minimize construction damages, etc.), heal injured sites, favor living, flexible materials, respect the waters of life (understand, protect and restore wetlands, restore rivers and streams to full health, collect and conserve water, reuse gray water, etc.), pave less (reduce paving, reduce runoff from paving, use porous paving, etc.), consider origin and fate of materials (Use local, salvaged or recycled materials, avoid toxic and non-renewable materials, etc.), know the cost of energy over time, celebrate light, respect darkness (lighting efficiency and light pollution control), quietly defend silence (various ways of noise control), and maintain to sustain (alternate to mowing, bio-based maintenance products, etc.). Each principle is demonstrated with case studies and followed by resources for further studies.
   
   "Sustainable Landscape Construction: A Guide to Green Building Outdoors" has 416 pages and many line drawings and interior black-and-white photos. It is one of the most comprehensive books on sustainable landscape construction.
   
   Gang Chen, Author of "LEED AP Exam Guide" & "Planting Design Illustrated," LEED AP, AIA



3. This book is very lengthy and full of information, but unlike typical textbooks, it is not overly 'heady' nor boring... Each chapter is quite long (50 pages approx.) and the words are quite small, yet you can sit there for four hours straight and still be interested in what is on the next page!? The only thing that would make this book better would probably be color pictures (there are a good amount of informative pictures, yet they are all black and white). Great book for anyone in the construction industry...very interesting!

5 comments about From Third World to First : The Singapore Story: 1965-2000.

1. I thoroughly enjoyed this book by Lee Kuan Yew. Besides being a genious at governing the man is a gifted writer. The book is full of information for those, like me, that were curious about how this gentleman, along with his associates, pulled out the feat of transforming an underdeveloped society into a model society. He, almost singlehandedly, achieved what other countries and societies with far more resources only dream of. Pick this book if you wish to learn and, at the same time, be entertained.



2. I loved this book. Lee is insightful and a great writer.
   
   His chapter on Taiwan, however, was mad hypocrisy. He critices Taiwan for "pulling away" by teaching in schools primarily the history/geography of the island instead of China, as before. Funny this is coming from a guy known for getting rid of all Chinese-language universities in Singapore. He spoke about ensuring he brought Malays along in his trip to China, and conducting meetings in English, to ensure China recognizes Singapore's unique identity.
   
   Also funny was Lee KY's attributing Lee Teng-hui's provocative behavior to Lee TH's Japanophilia and being "powered" by the spirit of the Bushido warrior." Yet throughout the book Lee KY talks about how British he is, e.g., his habit of drinking tea in the morning! Furthermore, he spoke of the great sentiments associated with attaining British knighthood, which according to him, was the greatest honor he had ever received. I couldn't help laugh when reading the British knight accuse the Bushido warrior of Japanophilia, when he himself is brimming with Anglophilia.



3. great book. lee is the most impressive character i've ever read in history book.



4. This book is a detailed account of Singapore's history beginning from its independence and its development to a first world country under Lee Kuan Yew's leadership, and the second part is Lee's diplomatic relationships with different nations and his dealings and views on their leaders.
   
   It is a very entertaining and insightful read, Lee goes deep into details in problems looming over Singapore in its infancy and in developing the nation to feed its population. How he tried to persuade the British to maintain its military base there to protect Singapore from its two dangerous neighbours and communism from China and in within, and when failed how he placed utmost importance in building a working army to defend itself.
   
   Lee realizes the importance of a clean and competent government, whereby he believes a good paycheck would help curb corruption and an anti-corruption agency with a high degree of power was formed to further prevent it. He was able to gather a group of honest and able people to form an efficient government, which was vital in building any nation.
   
   He created a safe and secure environment through the rule of law and honest public administration to attract foreign direct investment to build up factories in Singapore, this was essentially the main driver behind Singapore's phenomenal growth. Through this he created thousands of jobs and gave the Singaporeans adequate livings.
   
   He knows the importance of human resources given that's the only resource Singapore has, he stresses on education and the English language to effectively connect Singapore to the world. He had to close down the Chinese-speaking Nanyang University because most graduates had a hard time finding job.
   
   He also gave explanations on some of his rather controversial actions in suing newspapers and political opponents, which seem reasonable.
   
   Overall, he has done a remarkable job in creating an honest and efficient government, a sound legal system with the rule of law, excellent infrastructure and he was able to provide jobs and a good living to his people. All these are the factors to Singapore's miraculous transformation. And on top of that, he retired from his prime ministerial post and passed on the baton, albeit still holding a senior minister post.
   
   All in all, Lee has done a spectacular job in transforming Singapore to the only other first world country in Asia aside from Japan, heads off to him.



5. The book is very good in its sincere attempt to delivery the story on how Singapore was built. Perhaps with an intention, on the side, to 1) lay down guidelines that other asian countries could follow, and 2) further promote Singapore to foreign investors. His emphasis on discipline and strict public policies--that may be deemed oppressive in other countries--to jumpstart progress could be well-intentioned points as well. The reader cannot miss the pride on every passage that highlights the successes of Singapore as a small state-country.
   
   But not everyone can agree with Lee Kwan Yew's setting-aside, for example, of a free press. Freedom of expression is a right; the fruits of progress is not complete without it.
   
   An authoritarian government cannot hide, as well, the hypocrisy that is probably vital to compromise certain liberties, in exchange for a 'highway' towards progress. Sometimes one can also see how money is used in Singapore to discipline, and as a only parameter in decision. One case in point: a young professional Singaporean shared a story that Lee Kwan Yew once pompously said that as long as he is alive, there will be no casino in Singapore. Well, yes, he is still right, there are two casinoes now being built simultaneously in the Marina area! And what with the Geylang red-light district that the government has to acknowledge quasi-legally? Is the rationale for both of these is that they are still business ventures that Singapore will still profit from in the end?
   
   Lee's omission of his own compromises/hypocrisy in fact weakens the book's commentary and criticism of other countries' priorities. (He has tons of advise and lay downs on neigbors in southeast asia--taiwan, philippines, malaysia). Singapore is known as a good place to work at, but not to live in.
   
   The book is very thick. Ive concentrated most of the history on early Singapore (good read!) and some opinions on the state of asian countries today. There are some repetitions and convolutions as well. I think this book could have used a good editor before publishing.
   
   Still a good buy, but 3 stars only for not being as in-your face that I would have personally wanted. Hypocrisies that he should still acknowledge (and explain).

5 comments about Seeing Like a State: How Certain Schemes to Improve the Human Condition Have Failed (The Institution for Social and Policy St).

1. Brad DeLong's featured review is basically correct - Scott is treading ground remarkably similar to Hayek's. But I don't think that Scott is ignorant of Hayek. Rather, Scott is attempting to explore the same territory, but without coming to the same political conclusions. Early in this book, Scott makes clear that he is not advocating libertarianism (I am told that Scott calls himself an anarchist). He is aiming at a deeper critique of planning, one which is not merely about prices or information, but about metaphysics, epistemology and phenomenology. Scott never makes it explicit, but throughout this book, I got the sense that he is doing continental philosophy. This is a Heideggerian critique of planning - one that just happens to cover some of the same ground as Hayek.
   
   Scott's focus is on "seeing" like a (high modernist) state; the question this book asks is: how does such a state see, and what does state-like perception systematically miss? Scott argues the state's vision is limited to the conscious, the rational, and the abstract - it cannot see beyond what Nassim Nicholas Taleb has called "the Platonic fold." This vision is identical to what continental philosophers refer to as the "objective gaze." The unconscious, the organic, the ecological and the folk-wise are invisible to the modernist bureaucracy. To make these invisible elements rationally "legible," the state reaches out and actively reduces them to known quantities. This allows the state some limited control over them, but in the process any emergent systematic properties are destroyed.
   
   It is tempting to conclude that this book is a generalized critique of government. It is not. The mistakes Scott identifies are characteristic only of a certain type of regime, the high modernist state. High modernism, as Scott identifies it, is a sort of irrational confidence in objective rationality. It becomes possible on a large scale only after the Enlightenment, and especially after the advent of "scientific" management. It is epitomized not only by Stalin, but by Robert McNamara's Department of Defense, and the US Bureau of Reclamations. Nor is it limited to states. Systematic flaws exist in the perception of any large hierarchical organization that makes decisions on the basis of abstract calculative rationality. As such, this is ultimately a much more profound critique than Hayek's.
   
   DeLong is right that this book is not as well-written or organized as it could have been, but the synthesis of Hayek and Heidegger is absolute genius. It makes the book a classic in my view.



2. I got this book because it was recommended as background reading for a local debate about CAFOs. I like the meticulous detail in this treatment of social engineering by governments. That is not a liberal/conservative issue, but one which is worth looking at wherever there is a risk of social control that can lead to inequality and injustice.



3. 
   I've found this book useful, breathtakingly so, in so many ways these days; Scott raises a question at the heart of almost all our current civic debates, even in my own micro-field of schooling and education. I find myself saying, time and again, "she's thinking like a state", and it fits and helps me resort out the arguments. Thank you thank you, Prof. Scott.



4. This book is probably best summarized by its moral: The most successful systems are those that exploit the knowledge of all their people, rather than assuming that society can be changed from the top. All the knowledge of how the world actually works, and the actual complexity of getting things done, resides in the people who need to do it, rather than in the minds of planners far from the action. Beware of those who believe that the people's indigenous ways are backwards, pre-scientific and ignorant; in reality, though the people's methods may not have all the rigor of the latest scientific theories, they are likely to be precisely adapted to all the complexity of the world around them.
   
   But Seeing Like A State is much more than that. It is a thoroughly documented attack on high-modernist thinking. This is the mindset of a Le Corbusier, who comes in for a thorough lashing at Scott's hands. Le Corbusier and his disciples decided that modern cities were all wrong: their "chaotic" layout must indicate that they were corrupt and unworkable within. Jane Jacobs most famously tore into that fundamental confusion in The Death and Life of Great American Cities : surface chaos actually conceals remarkable underlying purpose and form. Scott takes a lot from Jacobs. Along with the classical anarchists, she seems to be his biggest inspiration.
   
   The high-modernist ideal is at its worst when it's combined with infinite state power. Combine these two and you get the evils of the former Soviet Union: shift peasants off their plots into "modern" industrial agriculture and force them to adhere to the latest theories of geometric crop planting -- theories like monoculture, identically spaced crops ... all very geometrical and orderly in the mind of someone who's not imaginative enough to see past the surface. And this mindset assumes throughout that the people must just be ignorant: they mustn't want to live in crowded cities; they mustn't know what they're doing when they farm their polycultured, "chaotic" crops. When combined with state power, the expert is the designated local god. That way lies ruin.
   
   In a lot of respects, this is not an argument against experts, though it could be misconstrued that way. For one thing, scientific experts really do have a lot to contribute to, say, peasant agronomy, and they really can contribute a lot to improving (say) rural sanitation. The trouble is when a few threads come together:
   
   1. Ignorance of local conditions.
   2. Confusing the thing being modeled with the model itself.
   3. The desire to make the world look like the laboratory
   4. The power to turn items 1 through 3 into reality.
   
   Item 4 is what makes Seeing Like A State into an argument for anarchism. States get most of Scott's ire, because they do bequeath this power onto dictators. But industry comes in for a spanking, too. In fact chapter 8 of Seeing Like A State is the next logical thing to read after The Omnivore's Dilemma: it explores at a slightly different level the problems with scientific farming as it's practiced in the United States. Rather than adapt farming to local conditions, American agriculture bends the natural world to its particular model of how farming should be done. This includes monoculture, whose predictable consequence is the rise of pests that are adapted to eat that monocultured crop. The next step in the game, if you're an American agricultural conglomerate, is to spray loads of pesticides on your fields. Evolution can play the game too, though, so it responds by building pests who are better adapted to those pesticides. And so the arms race continues. And so the soil erodes, the pesticide runoff blackens, and so forth.
   
   The root of that whole war is the assumption that nature should play the game our way, rather than that we should bend to it. In turn, this monomania is a consequence of straight-ahead economic logic that asks what a profit-maximizing firm (farm) would do, then produces an unambiguous answer: maximize output. When cost and output are the only variables, the model is very clear. It's only clear, of course, if you ignore other things, such as long-term soil degradation. Including these other variables would complicate the model. And, again, if you confuse the model with the thing being modeled, you come to believe that maximizing output is unambiguously and objectively good, rather than being the result of a fixed set of assumptions.
   
   This is a relentlessly powerful and unbelievably sad book: it picks off, one by one, the forces that made the twentieth and early twenty-first centuries look grotesque. It suffers from some verbosity; like Robert Caro's biography of Robert Moses, though, it always manages to save itself within a few paragraphs of where your patience starts to wear thin. The sections on Russian collectivization, the Tanzanian Ujamaa, Le Corbusier, and the creation of Brasília, in particular, are worth the price of admission on their own. In all these cases, the thing that the experts created was meant -- quite consciously -- to negate the society around it. Brasília was the anti-São Paulo, for instance. Only by relocating to an unoccupied spot in Brazil and starting afresh could the experts create the world as "science" told them it was meant to be made. The consequences were predictable: starvation in Tanzania and in Russia, and a city in Brazil that only survives because people color outside the lines.
   
   Rather than go theoretically very deep, Scott insists on painting the details vividly; I assume this was a stylistic choice, in keeping with the theme that all the intelligence in a system is at the "edge of the network." Don't write like someone positioned at the center, I imagine Scott saying to himself; write like you're at the edge. And so he does. This is where a lot of his verbosity comes from.
   
   I have only two wishes for this book:
   
   1. I wish it gave some more criteria by which to judge modern-day schemes organized by experts. As luck would have it, for instance, my roommate pointed me to a video of William McDonough describing his plans for new Chinese cities -- McDonough being one of the Cradle to Cradle guys. The Chinese government has asked McDonough to apply cradle-to-cradle principles to city design; it looks like he's building a number of 400,000-person cities for them. If you watch the video, and you have the "beware experts with unlimited power" principle in mind, you'll wonder whether McDonough's work is another Brasília. His model city surely has the geometric perfection and cleverness of a Brasília or an Ujamaa village. Should I be scared of it?
   
   Probably the answer is simple, if we're listening to Scott. We need to ask McDonough, "Did you consult with residents to ask how they feel about this city? Or did you impose it from on high, using seemingly perfect principles of architecture and resource conservation?" Like all principles, Scott's are guidelines rather than rules, but it stands to reason that the people who know how to live are the people who'll be doing the living, not their overlords.
   
   2. I'd like more examples of successful scientific interventions. Without them, Scott's book occasionally sounds anti-scientific. Surely it's not that, but the absence of positive examples makes that a sensible interpretation.
   
   The $100-billion development question is: how do we combine expert scientific research with indigenous experimentation? How can the West bring its science to nations that could really use the help, without being scientific imperialists about it? What could Western science bring back from Africa and Asia? The Western model of industrial agriculture is really broken, or so it seems to a lot of knowledgeable folks; it would be really helpful to get a rigorous scientific understanding of sustainability from people who've sustained their agriculture for thousands of years. I would have liked Scott to provide examples of fruitful two-way collaboration.
   
   This book will appeal to a lot of people. It'll appeal to those who have already taken Jane Jacobs's messages about cities to heart. For that matter, it'll remind a lot of people why they love cities. It goes into more depth on Soviet collectivization than many of us will have encountered. And it will make us think twice before we allow experts to reshape communities from on high.



5. Scott's work is a meticulously-detailed analysis of the blinding effects of big-picture macro-economics. There's nothing radically new here - remember the old adage that the "slave sees the master, but the master never sees the slave." And he buttresses his standard, post-Communist negativity toward state-ism with well-chosen examples which it's hard to deny - Stalinist collectivization being a standard of this genre. I'm reminded of the old Estonian Communist who said there were "two ways to build the road to socialism: one is that of a highway that cuts straight ahead, blasting through mountains and draining swamps. The other follows the natural contours of the terrain. It might be a little devious, but it arrives at the same destination." (This man was unsurprisingly purged from the ECP in 1950 for "nationalist deviationism.") I'm reminded also of Rene Dumont's and K. S. Karol's critiques of 1960s Cuba, when Fidel was obsessed with creating a "New Man" marching "not just to socialism but communism."
   
   Yet societies like 1920s Russia, or Cuba, or Tanzania did not have the private capitalization necessary for modern development; without the state they could not possibly have been anything other than colonial appendages of those who did. Stalin said in 1931 that an undeveloped Russia was always "beaten for its backwardness; we must catch up to the developed nations or we will be crushed." This was borne out by WW II. Even if Stalin did much "beating" of his own, the NEP-peasant society of the 1920s could not have possibly stood up to Hitler's invasion. Would a victorious Third Reich in the east have given Scott any better example? The state-minimizing model has worked best only in the Atlantic states, and with good reason: only the trans-Atlantic trade created the concentrated capital that could invest in independent development. This was not a viable path for Russia, or any Third World ex-colony.
   
   Another point not addressed is that the masses oif eastern Europe did not joyously celebrate their alleged "emancipation" from collectivist serfdom in 1989; to the contrary, workers clung to their dinosaur factories and peasants to their collectives because these structures, no matter how resented in the past, had come to provide a social security lacking in the new free order. Even Sheila Fitzpatrick, whom Scott quotes at length, admits as much at the end of her book on "Stalin's Peasants."
   
   One case Scott probably dared not touch in his paradigm is American school consolidation/integration, with its centralization, massive bussing of children, and all-around disruption of community life. This surely is a pointed example of "seeing like a state;" but how to deal with those who resisted such "collectivized education" sympathetically? Looked at objectively, the outraged parent who overturned "invading" buses of black schoolchildren in Boston is morally equivalent to the revolting kulak who took up arms against Bolshevik collectivizers of his land. Scott nicely sidesteps this unprogressive example which by itself pulls much of his moral argument out from under itself. What would be Scott's answer to the general shabbiness and disfunction of the US public school system? To go back to "community education"? - which, public or private, would re-enforce all the old inequities of geography, class, and race.
   
   To Scott's credit, he critiques the trendy neo-liberalism built around von Hayek and Friedman, and warns against private corporate equivalents of blindness. The current craze for "eminent domain" decrees that condemn small property in favor of big investors carries his analysis one step further, where the state - in that exemplary democracy, the United States - becomes as purblind as Julius Nyere when allied with corporate power.

5 comments about Good Capitalism, Bad Capitalism, and the Economics of Growth and Prosperity.

1. I thought that this book was an interesting take on how government policy can promote or hinder economic growth. I like how they combine together developed countries with undeveloped countries (although there is far more focus on the former). Most books on this subject focus exclusively on the one or the other.
   Others have summarized the book well, so I will cover only a few points. I like how they show that there is not one type of capitalism, but many. I would have liked it if they broke down the State-Guided Capitalism a bit more. It seems to me to be a little broad a generalization to lump Japan, Denmark, France, Greece and Poland all into the same category.
   A little more analysis of the Oligarchic capitalism would also be nice. It is not clear to me what metric was used to show that economic wealth was concentrated in the hands of a few and that government policy is only for their benefit. Some people claim that USA and Japan also have that problem, so how do we differentiate.
   And their focus on USA as the form of entrepreneurial capitalism (mixed with big corporation) makes the book a bit lopsided. It is not clear that there are really other nations in that category, so how do you know how much of it is American culture and how much is institutions.
   What I like best about this book is how they offer different perscriptions for different countries based on their category. And they also tailor their advise to reform around the margins and to avoid taking on powerful interests with radical reform.
   Overall, I would recommend this book.



2. Good Capitalism, Bad Capitalism offers a very informative and easy to read approach to economics. I have a much broader understanding of economics after reading this book. It was interesting and the authors' are incredibly thorough at describing the various aspects of economics. As a person who had a very minimal understanding of the economic world this book provided the basics. I can now appreciate the issues that are faced in the economic arena. I am able to state my opinion relating to economic issues with confidence now. This book offers a nice transition into the world of economics. It is painless and interesting. I highly recommend it to anyone who needs to learn the basics.



3. This book makes a persuasive argument why "entrepreneurial" capitalism yields faster growth than "big-company" capitalism. For the true believers, it doesn't contribute much to the debate, but if you haven't read a textbook on the economics of growth, it provides a concise summary of the many factors affecting growth.
   
   The core of the book argues that Europe and Japan focused on big-company capitalism after WWII as a logical way to rebuild their war-torn economies and as a result, this form of capital still dominates these economies. It also postulates that cultures can likely be changed over the medium term (ten-ish years, perhaps). This leaves unaddressed the question why then haven't European and Japanese cultures evolved into faster growing "entrepreneurial" capitalism as the US appears to have over the last 15 years. (Prior to that, all three economies were growing at similar growth rates; if anything the US was growing slightly slower as the other economies caught up.)
   
   I suspect the reasons are threefold. First, IT opened up a target rich investment environment. Second, both Europe and Japan face high costs to redeploy workers from old sectors of the economy to new growing sectors. The opportunity cost of leaving resources employed suboptimally (and the productive thinkers who guide them) significantly holds back these economies. Third, more equal income distribution substantially reduces risk taking as the propensity to save and invest grows significantly with income. The first dollars of savings are used primarily for housing (really a consumer good), then safe (big-company) financial investments (to stockpile for retirement) and lastly to underwrite entrepreneurial risk. As a result, the real cost of redistribution is its toll on risk-taking. By and large, only the very rich can afford to underwrite/finance the latter. These factors are given short shift by the book.
   
   In fact, the book argues for more equal distribution while ignoring the very different but critically important causes of unequal distribution - economically misguided oligarchs who misappropriate it vs. successful entrepreneurs who rightly earn it. The book devotes all of 2 pages to taxation.
   
   (My guess is that there are also positive feedback loops at work culturally where success causes others to desire success which in turn leads to a culture that embraces (business) success rather than shunning/criticizing it. And where critical masses of creative cutting-edge thinkers yield real synergies.)
   
   In my opinion then, the book comes up short. It identifies the fact that entrepreneurial capitalism is desirable; but its prescriptions for how to achieve and sustain it are not very profound. Only a comparison to Europe and Japan that reveals why these cultures haven't evolved toward higher growth, like the US, can reveal the truth. Most of the prescriptions, such as protecting intellectual property, enforcing anti-trust laws, reigning in unmeritorious litigation, etc. are largely identical between the 3 societies and hardly "ground breaking."



4. Good Capitalism Bad Capitalism is an excellent book which provided the beginner economic student with an open and informative view of capitalism.
   The body of the book presented the reader with a view of capitalism, which enabled one to better understand what is needed to succeed in the American economy today.
   I would highly recommned this book to anyone interested in learning more about capitalism and economics.



5. This book is a description of the different ways in which advanced and emerging economies include the concepts of capitalism in their policies. There is really nothing new in it, but it is a convenient guide to economic policies in the selected countries. Lacking is a description of Classical capitalism, which would permit the reader to assess the aberrations adopted by each country.

5 comments about High Wire: The Precarious Financial Lives of American Families.

1. This is a GREAT book and I would encourage every citizen of America to read it, young or old. It's actually a hair-raising book. Well researched and each chapter has a personal, true life story of a family or individual that has been challenged with the topic being discussed.
   
   Since the other reviews to date go over the book, I want to share what I took from it. First, I got out all my insurance policies after reading the chapters on how the insurance industry has slowly & slyly sandbagged us consumers. I read them with a fine tooth comb and voila! wouldn't you know it - just like the author said they were doing, well that is what they are doing. Sneaky company (and this is one of the Big Three property/casualty companies in California and the rest of the country) well guess what, they did exactly what the author said they were doing - changing the terms of the policy in such a way that the ordinary consumer, you & me, who (unfortunately) trust our agents so well ... are/were clueless that this got by us. Yep they changed me from the Guaranteed Replacement coverage on my home to the Limited Replacement + some percentage of cost overrun. And it got by me and I'm pretty smart (at least I thought I was). Just as it has probably gotten by most of you too. I called my agent last month and he told me it was the best policy money could by, Limited but with a 150% total replacement ratio, and furthermore the company I was considering replacing them with, well they had a reputation of quoting low and then next year WHAM they would sock it to me. I don't think so because that company is the one used exclusively by AARP and I just don't think AARP would stand for that kind of treatment. But back to my agent .. funny, but my policy said ... 125%. My agent disagreed with me and spoke to me in such a way that I would never want to go look further. But I did look further and HE WAS WRONG. I called the Home Office and got clarification and it is 125%. MY AGENT DIDN'T KNOW WHAT HE SOLD ME and my agent has been my agent since 1988 - or my agent wants that commission. He's a nice guy, I really don't know. But I'm not asking him. I got very angry when I realized that I had been sandbagged and g-d forbid if my house did burn to the ground, I would end up paying out of pocket over $200,000 to rebuild it just as it is.
   
   Just as many of the Oakland/San Diego and other parts of California that have faced total losses have had to do.
   
   The case studies in the book are all the same - about how the families of Oakland and San Diego fires really took it on the chin. The losses above the policy limits were/are staggering. Guess what, with rare exception, I'll bet you a zillion bucks that if you are reading this review or the book, chances are you are grossly underinsured.
   
   I changed that. I changed companies and policies in the last 2 weeks. And surprisingly, between my car, home and umbrella policy, I went DOWN $600/year in premium along with going up from $1M to $2M in my umbrella. That was worth the book right there.
   
   Then on to the ERISA chapters. What a shocker. I really was stunned at what I read. Imagine this law, passed to protect US the workers, in reality does not protect anyone except the insurance companies. Coincidentally there was a story in the LA Times last week about a woman whose 30-yr old husband died and was covered with $400,000 in his group life policy through his job. Guess what, the company and the insurance company refused to pay the death benefit even though the deceased employee paid the premiums for over the 3 years he worked there. The widow sued in state court, the insurance company knows its rights and got it into federal court (because this is ERISA) and the grieving widow was ordered by court to get the premiums paid returned to her and no payment for the policy. And it is not appealable. Who in the world ever knew that? Did you? I didn't. Does this mean that all life insurance policies through your job won't get paid? I guess I was lucky when my dad died 21 years ago because his group life policy did pay me. But then again my dad owned the company so suspect they didn't want to futz with that claim. However the gall of the company to deny the claim and then the courts, under ERISA precedent rulings, denying the payment. I almost fell off my chair. This is just as the author described is happening in the book.
   
   So if ERISA is undermining employee's benefits (and this includes health coverage too, not just pensions, IRA's & other employer provided plans, employer offered disability and the rest of the benefits of the job) and if ERISA is stripping all our rights of we workers, what is left?
   
   The chapters and stories on employeer provided disability coverage almost left me in tears. I usually shed tears only when reading fiction. This was just a scandalous nightmare to read. But I believe it. And the reason I believe it is that my former husband went blind in his last job due to a detached retina-like condition and his privately held disability company policy (coincidentally the same one talked about in the book) denied him his benefits for close to 4 years. Good thing my ex is an attorney and could take them on. 4 YEARS. While my ex is an attorney what he wasn't able to do was to pull money for living expenses out of a hat along with a few rabbits. He ended up on the brink of bankruptcy with this stunt the company pulled. How an attorney that goes blind can continue to be a litigator and read his briefs is beyond me - and the disability company plays the 'let's see who can hold out the longest' game.
   
   This really is sick stuff.
   
   I realize this is a long review. But I decided to list real life stories to support exactly what this book is all about. I have to say, anybody reading this review that is thinking about buying the book, STOP NOW and buy this book. I came upon it at Borders by accident, it was shelved under Economics and not my favorite category which is Investments - and I don't really like economics, but this is an easy & engrossing book to read. And the time has now come at this passage of time in our history that the public, ALL OF US, need to get our heads out of the sand and meet these challenges head on, informed, and not stupidly ignorant. Ignorance costs and at this point of our historical times, NOBODY can afford to be ignorant anymore.
   
   Please read the book. And thank you for reading this review.



2. I read this at work. Mr. Gosselin's descriptions of the displaced "c class" executives shows an expanded view of how so many of us may be going to the dogs. I am just wealthy enough to be able to cruise through the rest of my life, if nothing bad happens. By the way, the book arrived quickly and in excellent condition.
   jb



3. Wow, what a fantastic book! In my quest to understand the financial workings of American society, I came across this book. What an education. As a British expat now living in the US, I have been shocked by just how insecure I feel in my financial life here. Attempting to build an element of security into my family's new life, I am faced with insurance companies that no longer keep their promises, pensions that no longer exist and a host of eager sharks fighting to get me to invest my meagre savings with them. College costs are exorbitant and the economy so fragile that even a masters degree is now more of an albatross around the neck (debt) than a guarantee of a stable income.
   Peter Gosselins book confirmed what I was beginning to realise myself. I'm caught in a game that I have no chance of winning. It is a call to arms; a warning shot across the bow of the presidential campaigns to ensure that the real issues facing this country are included in the ballot. These are the issues that affect Americans every day, so 'Excuse me, Mr. President. In your run for the White House, could you please remember the electorate.'



4. I don't think this book will get much notice or have much impact. Sure, it will encourage those who agree with its points, but I can't imagine that it will reach the general population in a big way. The idea of the book is that Americans, all but the very richest, are being sacrificed on the alter of private ownership that only benefits that thin upper crust of wealthy people. The rest are losing their ability to retire, to have health care, to securely own their homes, provide college educations for their children (or get them for themselves), or even have a job with a good company.
   
   The author does point out the very interesting idea of the "unjob" where many of us work because the traditional career is closed to us for a variety of reasons, yet we can't start our own profitable company (or are working towards that goal), and we scrape by making a living and providing our own benefits with consulting, contracting, or other short term work. Usually we have multiple gigs running at the same time.
   
   My own view is that our system does put too much of the burden of dislocation and disruption on the workers and too little on the companies and executives who either create or decide to use these dislocations as part of their business strategy (even if that is bankruptcy). However, many of the examples Gosselin cites in his book, while unfortunate, are also fairly well to do people who chose to live a life of consumption rather than with prudence and thrift and now want someone to bail them out of their difficulties. Sure, some of them got some very bad breaks in health or dishonest companies. And others did not read their insurance policies closely enough. Still, there is no doubt that some insurance companies push those with expensive claims into court hoping that either the claimant will die before they can collect or that the legal approach will simply be more costly than they can bear.
   
   I thoroughly disagree with Gosselin's notion that somehow we need to turn back the clock and go back a few decades to large corporations that employed people for life and provided pensions. We can't go back because the world has changed, people live too long after 65 to have that be the retirement age. Do you realize that when Social Security was first created only about 3% of the population lived to collect it? We would have to push the retirement age up past 72 or more to achieve similarly "secure" retirements that would not bankrupt companies or society.
   
   While I appreciate Gosselin's good heart and like some of his observations, his prescriptions are faulty and too nostalgic to be taken as a serious prescription for what ails us.
   
   Reviewed by Craig Matteson, Ann Arbor, MI



5. Book arrived just days after I ordered it. Great service from seller. Everyone should read this book to understand exactly what has happened in the past 30+ years that has weakened the economic security of middle income and low income American families. It is frightening and it is happening because so many of us are too busy to keep up with what is going on politically at the national level. No wonder we are in the economic crisis we are because the big corporations have been allowed to run amuck (and over us) for so long.