A study brimming with altruism but lacking in technical sophistication and analytical thoroughness.
Liu’s fourth book is a spirited argument for the global adoption of universal basic income as a means to relieve the economic inequalities of capitalism.
As the author, a retired research biochemist, points out, a version of a universal basic income was first proposed by Thomas Paine in 1817 and has again become a hot political topic since Andrew Yang made it the centerpiece of his presidential campaign in 2020. The crux of the idea is alluringly simple: a uniform sum of money is directly disbursed monthly to every citizen above a certain age, a payment that is entirely unconditional and enough to ensure an individual’s basic needs. According to the author, UBI is necessary as a corrective to our “world of miseries,” which includes the rise of crushing poverty, suicide, crime, homelessness, and mass incarceration. Liu’s worldview is hyperbolically bleak: “The present state of civilization is as odious as it is unjust.” For Liu, the principal culprit of this pervasive wretchedness is capitalism, a form of systematic selfishness that “has generated the Poverty that we observe worldwide to this day.” The author argues that UBI is easily implementable given the sophisticated banking technology available today and that it could be easily financed by making strategic cuts to wasteful spending. Moreover, he furnishes powerful evidence that UBI would not undermine economic incentives; in fact, he cites numerous studies and pilot programs that suggest the exact opposite. The central strength of Liu’s study is his foursquare confrontation with the classic objections to UBI: its cost and the possibility that it will sabotage people’s will to work. He adds a moral argument as well: UBI is a basic human right and a necessary response to the inequalities predictably produced by capitalistic competition—which is so often fundamentally unfair.
Yet the author is not an economist, and this lack of technical expertise shows in the way he glosses over so many complex details. For example, he never argues convincingly for the fiscal viability of UBI—he simply assumes its efficacy. Moreover, he is indifferent to the many ways in which UBI might impact different economies of scale across vastly different cultures. Liu’s characterization of capitalism is closer to political sloganeering than a philosophically rigorous critique; he completely ignores capitalism’s power, for all its real shortcomings, to lift people out of poverty. Liu’s monograph is less a scholarly study than an impassioned manifesto; as a result, he has a tendency to exaggerate. For example, he claims UBI is a “panacea” for all that ails the world, a declaration as dubious as it is unsubstantiated. Similarly, he claims it will establish a “paradise on earth” and embodies the essence of Daoism (“Dao prevailing in the world,” as he deems it). The author dismisses all counterargument in his claim that it’s “criminal for anyone to oppose Universal Basic Income payment.” For all its real virtues—Liu makes many reasonable and even persuasive arguments—this is not a rigorous enough examination of UBI and fails to confront the great complexity of its advantages and disadvantages. A study brimming with altruism but lacking in technical sophistication and analytical thoroughness.Pub Date: Nov. 13, 2022
ISBN: 9789811859953
Page Count: 188
Publisher: Self
Review Posted Online: Jan. 25, 2023
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
BOOK REVIEW
A short, smart analysis of perhaps the most famous passage in American history reveals its potency and unfulfilled promise.
Words that made a nation.
Isaacson is known for expansive biographies of great thinkers (and Elon Musk), but here he pens a succinct, stimulating commentary on the Founding Fathers’ ode to “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.” His close reading of the Declaration of Independence’s second sentence, published to mark the 250th anniversary of the document’s adoption, doesn’t downplay its “moral contradiction.” Thomas Jefferson enslaved hundreds of people yet called slavery “a cruel war against human nature” in his first draft of the Declaration. All but 15 of the document’s 56 signers owned enslaved people. While the sentence in question asserted “all men are created equal” and possess “unalienable rights,” the Founders “consciously and intentionally” excluded women, Native Americans, and enslaved people. And yet the sentence is powerful, Isaacson writes, because it names a young nation’s “aspirations.” He mounts a solid defense of what ought to be shared goals, among them economic fairness, “moral compassion,” and a willingness to compromise. “Democracy depends on this,” he writes. Isaacson is excellent when explaining how Enlightenment intellectuals abroad influenced the founders. Benjamin Franklin, one of the Declaration’s “five-person drafting committee,” stayed in David Hume’s home for a month in the early 1770s, “discussing ideas of natural rights” with the Scottish philosopher. Also strong is Isaacson’s discussion of the “edits and tweaks” made to Jefferson’s draft. As recommended by Franklin and others, the changes were substantial, leaving Jefferson “distraught.” Franklin, who emerges as the book’s hero, helped establish municipal services, founded a library, and encouraged religious diversity—the kind of civic-mindedness that we could use more of today, Isaacson reminds us.
A short, smart analysis of perhaps the most famous passage in American history reveals its potency and unfulfilled promise.Pub Date: Nov. 18, 2025
ISBN: 9781982181314
Page Count: 80
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: Aug. 29, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 1, 2025
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
SEEN & HEARD
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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