A stimulating argument for interventionist government policy as a necessary element of a humane capitalist economy.
America needs a blend of free-market capitalism with government-regulated socialism to function best, according to this spirited case for a mixed economy.
Williams, a management consultant, argues that outright communism neglects the importance of individual self-interest and economic incentives—visiting the Soviet Union in 1988, he was dismayed by all the make-work jobs and lazy cab drivers who refused to take him anywhere—but he also asserts that unregulated capitalism leads to exploitation and grotesque inequality. The best option, per the author, is an economy that incorporates both market capitalism and socialist government policies, “mixed together in just the right amounts.” He concedes that America already has some socialism in the forms of Social Security, Medicare, farm subsidies, unemployment insurance, food stamps, student loans, and occasional bank bailouts, but he wants a bigger dollop. Williams offers a raft of left-populist proposals to that end, including raising the minimum wage, making public universities free, raising taxes on the rich (as well as corporations and capital gains), giving workers seats on their companies’ boards and capping CEO pay at one hundred times the wage of the lowest-paid employee, massive government programs to create jobs, and gargantuan public investments in renewable energy. Originally published in 2014, Williams’ slender treatise feels a bit dated in its Obama-era preoccupation with lingering high unemployment; it doesn’t acknowledge the recent phenomenon of inflation exacerbated by government spending, nor does it address the problem of judging what the optimal mix of capitalism and socialism might be. Still, the author covers a lot of ground in a cogent fashion and untangles knotty issues with lucid, down-to-earth language. (“If government comes up with a program to protect the health of all Americans, we call it socialized medicine. But if the government creates a program to protect all Americans from foreign invaders, we don’t call it ‘socialized defense,’ we call it the Defense Dept.”) The result is an incisive riposte to laissez-faire orthodoxy.
A stimulating argument for interventionist government policy as a necessary element of a humane capitalist economy.Pub Date: June 18, 2014
ISBN: 9781478733591
Page Count: 86
Publisher: Outskirts Press
Review Posted Online: Dec. 9, 2024
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
A powerful reiteration of principles—and some fresh ideas—from the longest-serving independent in congressional history.
Another chapter in a long fight against inequality.
Building on his Fighting Oligarchy tour, which this year drew 280,000 people to rallies in red and blue states, Sanders amplifies his enduring campaign for economic fairness. The Vermont senator offers well-timed advice for combating corruption and issues a robust plea for national soul-searching. His argument rests on alarming data on the widening wealth gap’s impact on democracy. Bolstered by a 2010 Supreme Court decision that removed campaign finance limits, “100 billionaire families spent $2.6 billion” on 2024 elections. Sanders focuses on the Trump administration and congressional Republicans, describing their enactment of the “Big Beautiful Bill,” with its $1 trillion in tax breaks for the richest Americans and big social safety net cuts, as the “largest transfer of wealth” in living memory. But as is his custom, he spreads the blame, dinging Democrats for courting wealthy donors while ignoring the “needs and suffering” of the working class. “Trump filled the political vacuum that the Democrats created,” he writes, a resonant diagnosis. Urging readers not to surrender to despair, Sanders offers numerous legislative proposals. These would empower labor unions, cut the workweek to 32 hours, regulate campaign spending, reduce gerrymandering, and automatically register 18-year-olds to vote. Grassroots supporters can help by running for local office, volunteering with a campaign, and asking educators how to help support public schools. Meanwhile, Sanders asks us “to question the fundamental moral values that underlie” a system that enables “the top 1 percent” to “own more wealth than the bottom 93 percent.” Though his prose sometimes reads like a transcribed speech with built-in applause lines, Sanders’ ideas are specific, clear, and commonsensical. And because it echoes previous statements, his call for collective introspection lands as genuine.
A powerful reiteration of principles—and some fresh ideas—from the longest-serving independent in congressional history.Pub Date: Oct. 21, 2025
ISBN: 9798217089161
Page Count: 160
Publisher: Crown
Review Posted Online: Oct. 21, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 15, 2025
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
PERSPECTIVES
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