Greed Is Dead
Politics After Individualism
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3.0 • 1 Rating
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- $15.99
Publisher Description
Two of the UK's leading economists call for an end to extreme individualism as the engine of prosperity
'provocative but thought-provoking and nuanced' Telegraph
Throughout history, successful societies have created institutions which channel both competition and co-operation to achieve complex goals of general benefit. These institutions make the difference between societies that thrive and those paralyzed by discord, the difference between prosperous and poor economies. Such societies are pluralist but their pluralism is disciplined.
Successful societies are also rare and fragile. We could not have built modernity without the exceptional competitive and co-operative instincts of humans, but in recent decades the balance between these instincts has become dangerously skewed: mutuality has been undermined by an extreme individualism which has weakened co-operation and polarized our politics.
Collier and Kay show how a reaffirmation of the values of mutuality could refresh and restore politics, business and the environments in which people live. Politics could reverse the moves to extremism and tribalism; businesses could replace the greed that has degraded corporate culture; the communities and decaying places that are home to many could overcome despondency and again be prosperous and purposeful. As the world emerges from an unprecedented crisis we have the chance to examine society afresh and build a politics beyond individualism.
Customer Reviews
Thought provoking but not coherent or convincing
While there are lots of interesting ideas in this book, there is not a lot of evidence to support the theory and the theory seems somewhat patched together. For example, decentralisation appears to be a panacea when actually there are examples around the world of decentralisation worsening outcomes: after the fall of the Soeharto regime in Indonesia, the centralised state was decentralised, which just led to decentralised (and rampant) corruption (many more hands in the till). Another example: Australia has 25 million people, a federal government and 8 state and territory governments - are the latter really needed for a population that size? The arguments about individualism ring true and everybody (except economists it seems) intuitively knows that humans are naturally social and not purely self-serving, however the arguments which flow from this don’t seem to be supported by much. There is even less to convince us that the proposed way forward (a return to community based organisations) will work any better than the centralised model. I agree with most of the sentiments (economic rationalism really did go too far) and I would have liked to be convinced by the authors that their proposed alternative understanding was correct, but I don’t find myself convinced one way or the other. The answer might be out there, but this book hasn’t captured it (for me anyway).