An intriguing, somewhat philosophically tinged attack aimed at showing a certain ideological view of economics as “religious...
Another book sets out to explain some of the mechanisms behind the current financial situation—but with an interesting twist all its own.
Going from the roots of the Evangelical movement through Puritanism in America and up to the current state of economic thought, Brody presents an engaging read about how much of what is being passed off as economics today, rather than being actual economics, is what he calls (following Des Gasper) “economism.” A subject distinct from economics, economism is about economics as a disguised religion. From the Irish Potato Famine through today's public policies, our current economic situation, the role economism played in the 2008 recession and even a detour through Intelligent Design (used primarily as an analogy for economism), Brody paints a picture of economism as a religious cult disguised as economics. Which is, after all, his goal for the book—to show economism as a “category mistake,” or a mistake of using one logical category where a different category should be used. Various themes are brought up and woven throughout: religion, poverty, layoffs and health care, to name a few. Notable among the recurring themes is Brody's issue with supply-side economics, particularly Milton Friedman and the “Chicago Boys.” And though he is not himself an economist, his writing reveals an understanding of the principles behind economics and public policies, using analogies throughout to give substance to his thoughts. Almost every chapter starts with some sort of anecdote that highlights a mistake that has been made by economists or politicians and ends with a plethora of notes and sources.
An intriguing, somewhat philosophically tinged attack aimed at showing a certain ideological view of economics as “religious faith, dressed up as if it were science.”Pub Date: Nov. 3, 2011
ISBN: 978-1463762759
Page Count: 240
Publisher: CreateSpace
Review Posted Online: Jan. 9, 2012
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
BOOK REVIEW
If the authors are serious, this is a silly, distasteful book. If they are not, it’s a brilliant satire.
The authors have created a sort of anti-Book of Virtues in this encyclopedic compendium of the ways and means of power.
Everyone wants power and everyone is in a constant duplicitous game to gain more power at the expense of others, according to Greene, a screenwriter and former editor at Esquire (Elffers, a book packager, designed the volume, with its attractive marginalia). We live today as courtiers once did in royal courts: we must appear civil while attempting to crush all those around us. This power game can be played well or poorly, and in these 48 laws culled from the history and wisdom of the world’s greatest power players are the rules that must be followed to win. These laws boil down to being as ruthless, selfish, manipulative, and deceitful as possible. Each law, however, gets its own chapter: “Conceal Your Intentions,” “Always Say Less Than Necessary,” “Pose as a Friend, Work as a Spy,” and so on. Each chapter is conveniently broken down into sections on what happened to those who transgressed or observed the particular law, the key elements in this law, and ways to defensively reverse this law when it’s used against you. Quotations in the margins amplify the lesson being taught. While compelling in the way an auto accident might be, the book is simply nonsense. Rules often contradict each other. We are told, for instance, to “be conspicuous at all cost,” then told to “behave like others.” More seriously, Greene never really defines “power,” and he merely asserts, rather than offers evidence for, the Hobbesian world of all against all in which he insists we live. The world may be like this at times, but often it isn’t. To ask why this is so would be a far more useful project.
If the authors are serious, this is a silly, distasteful book. If they are not, it’s a brilliant satire.Pub Date: Sept. 1, 1998
ISBN: 0-670-88146-5
Page Count: 430
Publisher: Viking
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 1998
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK TO SCREEN
This a book of earlier, philosophical essays concerned with the essential "absurdity" of life and the concept that- to overcome the strong tendency to suicide in every thoughtful man-one must accept life on its own terms with its values of revolt, liberty and passion. A dreary thesis- derived from and distorting the beliefs of the founders of existentialism, Jaspers, Heldegger and Kierkegaard, etc., the point of view seems peculiarly outmoded. It is based on the experience of war and the resistance, liberally laced with Andre Gide's excessive intellectualism. The younger existentialists such as Sartre and Camus, with their gift for the terse novel or intense drama, seem to have omitted from their philosophy all the deep religiosity which permeates the work of the great existentialist thinkers. This contributes to a basic lack of vitality in themselves, in these essays, and ten years after the war Camus seems unaware that the life force has healed old wounds... Largely for avant garde aesthetes and his special coterie.
Pub Date: Sept. 26, 1955
ISBN: 0679733736
Page Count: 228
Publisher: Knopf
Review Posted Online: Sept. 19, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 1955
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