A handy guide to the uses and abuses of capitalism.
A concise, well-researched argument against the dangers of unregulated capitalism.
In this brief but informative book, Gaasvig argues that America is a democracy only in name. “When any nation evolves to the point where the government and a majority of the wealth of the nation are concentrated in the hands of less than 1 percent of the population, no longer is that nation a democracy,” he says. In the age of the Occupy movement, that view isn’t exactly novel; indeed, many of the points made here will be familiar to even apolitical readers, anchored as those arguments are in the author’s standard progressive belief that unfettered capitalism is causing a divide in this country between the haves and the have-nots—a division, the author says, that is both morally and economically suspect. What makes this book unique, however, is its orderly, educational tone. In what amounts to a clear-cut guide to social democracy, Gaasvig makes both economically and politically based suggestions for how to rectify the situation. As for the former, he recommends a range of initiatives, from publically funded child care to nearly guaranteed employment to what he calls a “three-party economic partnership” among capitalists, workers and the government. Politically, he suggests disbanding the Electoral College system and imposing term limits on members of Congress, among many other ideas. He also writes eloquently about voting and education. Critics may accuse Gaasvig of touting pipe dreams, but he clearly knows his stuff. With even the most idealistic of his ideas—say, the implementation of full employment with livings wages and benefits—he actively addresses opposing views in a controlled, logical way. And he is not unaware of the task ahead, particularly when it comes to inspiring the masses to be involved in the process. However, it’s debatable whether the book will appeal to the American “majority” he references throughout, since this fairly erudite work can at times be a repetitive read. Nevertheless, for students of political and economic theory, it will serve as a factual, well-composed dissection of an extremely important topic.
A handy guide to the uses and abuses of capitalism.Pub Date: Aug. 13, 2013
ISBN: 978-1483980492
Page Count: 234
Publisher: CreateSpace
Review Posted Online: Oct. 24, 2013
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2013
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
For Howard Zinn, long-time civil rights and anti-war activist, history and ideology have a lot in common. Since he thinks that everything is in someone's interest, the historian—Zinn posits—has to figure out whose interests he or she is defining/defending/reconstructing (hence one of his previous books, The Politics of History). Zinn has no doubts about where he stands in this "people's history": "it is a history disrespectful of governments and respectful of people's movements of resistance." So what we get here, instead of the usual survey of wars, presidents, and institutions, is a survey of the usual rebellions, strikes, and protest movements. Zinn starts out by depicting the arrival of Columbus in North America from the standpoint of the Indians (which amounts to their standpoint as constructed from the observations of the Europeans); and, after easily establishing the cultural disharmony that ensued, he goes on to the importation of slaves into the colonies. Add the laborers and indentured servants that followed, plus women and later immigrants, and you have Zinn's amorphous constituency. To hear Zinn tell it, all anyone did in America at any time was to oppress or be oppressed; and so he obscures as much as his hated mainstream historical foes do—only in Zinn's case there is that absurd presumption that virtually everything that came to pass was the work of ruling-class planning: this amounts to one great indictment for conspiracy. Despite surface similarities, this is not a social history, since we get no sense of the fabric of life. Instead of negating the one-sided histories he detests, Zinn has merely reversed the image; the distortion remains.
Pub Date: Jan. 1, 1979
ISBN: 0061965588
Page Count: 772
Publisher: Harper & Row
Review Posted Online: May 26, 2012
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 1979
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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
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