An enticing look at government reformation that manages to bring something new to the table.
This nonfiction book offers an exploration of a simplified American mode of government.
Wade and Herel invite readers to consider a reformed government they call “American Laborism.” American Laborism aims to forge a federal government that abolishes much of the bloat of the current system. While cuts are made, the model is not to be confused with libertarianism. American Laborism puts an emphasis on educating citizens in order to increase the value of their hard work. To start with, the federal government will be reduced to just three parts: the “Military Department,” the “Advancement Department” (sort of like the Department of Education), and the post office. While the roles of the Military Department and the post office are obvious, the Advancement Department would provide all Americans “unlimited, free, and lifelong education.” The beneficiaries include “people who have massive student loans, people who want to work for themselves, people who want to advance their education and then get a great job, and even people who want to stay in school forever.” The funding for this ambitious program would not come from a tax hike but in exchange for work. At a minimum, those seeking educational advancement would participate in one day of unpaid labor a week. The federal government would not be giving out money but rather opportunities. Many of these details are hammered out in portions of the volume where the authors engage in a dialogue with each other. In the world of books about how to fix America, readers will find it refreshing to come across something novel. Rather than clinging to far left or far right concepts, American Laborism creates something different. A system that aims to both lower taxes and create affordable education is one that certainly helps to bridge political divides. While this system provides much to contemplate, the presentation can at times get bogged down in finer points while neglecting larger issues. For instance, a discussion of what to do with excess federal employees after American Laborism is implemented may be relevant, but not much attention is given to what happens after beloved federal programs like the National Park Service cease to exist. Nevertheless, the concepts are well thought out and will spur further discussion.
An enticing look at government reformation that manages to bring something new to the table.Pub Date: Feb. 6, 2024
ISBN: 9781637632369
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Forefront Books
Review Posted Online: Jan. 16, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2024
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
Cogent, well-timed ideas for meeting today’s biggest challenges.
Helping liberals get out of their own way.
Klein, a New York Times columnist, and Thompson, an Atlantic staffer, lean to the left, but they aren’t interrogating the usual suspects. Aware that many conservatives have no interest in their opinions, the authors target their own side’s “pathologies.” Why do red states greenlight the kind of renewable energy projects that often languish in blue states? Why does liberal California have the nation’s most severe homelessness and housing affordability crises? One big reason: Liberal leadership has ensnared itself in a web of well-intentioned yet often onerous “goals, standards, and rules.” This “procedural kludge,” partially shaped by lawyers who pioneered a “democracy by lawsuit” strategy in the 1960s, threatens to stymie key breakthroughs. Consider the anti-pollution laws passed after World War II. In the decades since, homeowners’ groups in liberal locales have cited such statutes in lawsuits meant to stop new affordable housing. Today, these laws “block the clean energy projects” required to tackle climate change. Nuclear energy is “inarguably safer” than the fossil fuel variety, but because Washington doesn’t always “properly weigh risk,” it almost never builds new reactors. Meanwhile, technologies that may cure disease or slash the carbon footprint of cement production benefit from government support, but too often the grant process “rewards caution and punishes outsider thinking.” The authors call this style of governing “everything-bagel liberalism,” so named because of its many government mandates. Instead, they envision “a politics of abundance” that would remake travel, work, and health. This won’t happen without “changing the processes that make building and inventing so hard.” It’s time, then, to scrutinize everything from municipal zoning regulations to the paperwork requirements for scientists getting federal funding. The authors’ debut as a duo is very smart and eminently useful.
Cogent, well-timed ideas for meeting today’s biggest challenges.Pub Date: March 18, 2025
ISBN: 9781668023488
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Avid Reader Press
Review Posted Online: Jan. 16, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 2025
BOOK REVIEW
PERSPECTIVES
A moving meditation on mortality by a gifted writer whose dual perspectives of physician and patient provide a singular...
A neurosurgeon with a passion for literature tragically finds his perfect subject after his diagnosis of terminal lung cancer.
Writing isn’t brain surgery, but it’s rare when someone adept at the latter is also so accomplished at the former. Searching for meaning and purpose in his life, Kalanithi pursued a doctorate in literature and had felt certain that he wouldn’t enter the field of medicine, in which his father and other members of his family excelled. “But I couldn’t let go of the question,” he writes, after realizing that his goals “didn’t quite fit in an English department.” “Where did biology, morality, literature and philosophy intersect?” So he decided to set aside his doctoral dissertation and belatedly prepare for medical school, which “would allow me a chance to find answers that are not in books, to find a different sort of sublime, to forge relationships with the suffering, and to keep following the question of what makes human life meaningful, even in the face of death and decay.” The author’s empathy undoubtedly made him an exceptional doctor, and the precision of his prose—as well as the moral purpose underscoring it—suggests that he could have written a good book on any subject he chose. Part of what makes this book so essential is the fact that it was written under a death sentence following the diagnosis that upended his life, just as he was preparing to end his residency and attract offers at the top of his profession. Kalanithi learned he might have 10 years to live or perhaps five. Should he return to neurosurgery (he could and did), or should he write (he also did)? Should he and his wife have a baby? They did, eight months before he died, which was less than two years after the original diagnosis. “The fact of death is unsettling,” he understates. “Yet there is no other way to live.”
A moving meditation on mortality by a gifted writer whose dual perspectives of physician and patient provide a singular clarity.Pub Date: Jan. 19, 2016
ISBN: 978-0-8129-8840-6
Page Count: 248
Publisher: Random House
Review Posted Online: Sept. 29, 2015
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 15, 2015
PERSPECTIVES
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