A thought-provoking, hope-inspiring manifesto.
Forceful argument for a new politics modeled on the structure of the Internet.
As the title suggests, bestselling science writer Johnson (Where Good Ideas Come From, 2010, etc.) is a proud optimist. He believes that most problems facing us are soluble and only becoming more so, thanks to new patterns of social relations that increasingly mirror the organization of the Internet. Johnson coins the term “peer progressive” to describe an outlook that favors building the kind of society where power is distributed more or less equally among a self-regulated network of peers, who are free to contribute to the greater good according to where their strengths lie. (Think Wikipedia writ large.) Borrowing from Frederick Von Hayek, Johnson views heavily centralized organization as the enemy of progress. He cites Hayek’s critique of the star-shaped rail system of 19th-century France as an example of raw power put to poor social use; on the other hand, Prussia’s organic weblike system enabled it to efficiently transport troops and materiel via rail, without fear of the bottlenecking that plagued the French system. But unlike Hayek, Johnson argues that capitalism is prone to its own failures (a prime example being its inability to produce cheap HIV/AIDS drugs), particularly when practiced by top-down, hierarchical corporations that are just as self-deluding and corruptible as centralized government. The greater part of this slim but idea-packed book looks at how, even as older institutions with concentrated power are failing us, peer-to-peer networks are already having positive impacts on local politics, activism, journalism, education, elections, businesses and even the arts. Johnson praises new approaches to problem-solving like Kickstarter, which enables artists to connect with patrons willing to contribute small amounts en masse; Whole Foods and employee-owned businesses that spread power and rewards throughout the organization; and New York City’s much-imitated 311 telephone service, a virtual two-way problem-solving system between citizens and public officials.
A thought-provoking, hope-inspiring manifesto.Pub Date: Sept. 18, 2012
ISBN: 978-1-59448-820-7
Page Count: 272
Publisher: Riverhead
Review Posted Online: July 29, 2012
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 2012
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
The value of this book is the context it provides, in a style aimed at a concerned citizenry rather than fellow academics,...
A provocative analysis of the parallels between Donald Trump’s ascent and the fall of other democracies.
Following the last presidential election, Levitsky (Transforming Labor-Based Parties in Latin America, 2003, etc.) and Ziblatt (Conservative Parties and the Birth of Democracy, 2017, etc.), both professors of government at Harvard, wrote an op-ed column titled, “Is Donald Trump a Threat to Democracy?” The answer here is a resounding yes, though, as in that column, the authors underscore their belief that the crisis extends well beyond the power won by an outsider whom they consider a demagogue and a liar. “Donald Trump may have accelerated the process, but he didn’t cause it,” they write of the politics-as-warfare mentality. “The weakening of our democratic norms is rooted in extreme partisan polarization—one that extends beyond policy differences into an existential conflict over race and culture.” The authors fault the Republican establishment for failing to stand up to Trump, even if that meant electing his opponent, and they seem almost wistfully nostalgic for the days when power brokers in smoke-filled rooms kept candidacies restricted to a club whose members knew how to play by the rules. Those supporting the candidacy of Bernie Sanders might take as much issue with their prescriptions as Trump followers will. However, the comparisons they draw to how democratic populism paved the way toward tyranny in Peru, Venezuela, Chile, and elsewhere are chilling. Among the warning signs they highlight are the Republican Senate’s refusal to consider Barack Obama’s Supreme Court nominee as well as Trump’s demonization of political opponents, minorities, and the media. As disturbing as they find the dismantling of Democratic safeguards, Levitsky and Ziblatt suggest that “a broad opposition coalition would have important benefits,” though such a coalition would strike some as a move to the center, a return to politics as usual, and even a pragmatic betrayal of principles.
The value of this book is the context it provides, in a style aimed at a concerned citizenry rather than fellow academics, rather than in the consensus it is not likely to build.Pub Date: Jan. 16, 2018
ISBN: 978-1-5247-6293-3
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Crown
Review Posted Online: Nov. 12, 2017
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2017
BOOK REVIEW
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