In Praise of the Essay/Book Review

I have always been a fan of tables and matrices – reducing ideas to the simple format of a 2x2 or 6x3 (or whatever) table. They not only relieve the text but force you to whittle text down to the bare essentials. Perhaps that’s why I love these Central Asian and Russian miniatures so much. And it might also explain my preference for ESSAYS as against books - for which I’m developing increasing distaste. London, of course, from the 16^th to the 19^th centuries, was home to the great Englosh essayists - Francis Bacon. (1561-1626); Joseph Addison (1672-1719) William Hazlitt (1778-1830) and Charles Lamb (1775- 1834)

But, these days, I am more interested în the political essayists – two of 

whom I would like to draw to me readers’ attention, a Brit and a German
William Davies is one of my favourite political scientists with several books 

to his credit. He’s just penned a review of two important books about the 

apparent decline of the left and some of his other essays can be found here
This is not normal – the collapse of Liberal Britain is a collection of his 

essays which appeared in 2020.
Wolfgang Streeck is a German sociologist whose writing has been celebrated 

several times on this blog. But I have failed to mention the essays he gave us 

in  Critical Encounters – capitalism, democracy, ideas (2020) which reviews 

books by the likes of Mark Blyth, Perry Anderson, Quinn Slobodian, Yanis 

Varoufakis, Jurgen Habermas and Peter Mair. It’s

... a collection of essays on political economy, stimulated by reading books for review. It is also a celebration of the book as a medium of communication among scholars and with a wider public....

Different book reviews by the same author, as collected in this volume, are only loosely connected: by accident of personal acquaintance, of time believed to be free, or of the reviewer’s sense of adventure.

How to review a book that is worthy of being reviewed? For me it requires deep reading, beginning usually with the last chapter, then the introduction, then several expeditions into the interior. This takes time. During reading sessions, I highlight what I find remarkable and sketch my own emerging views in the margins, or on the last pages where the publisher advertises other, often related, books. When I am finished with a book, it looks a little deranged. Having let it sit for a while in this condition, I return to it and read my notes. Where they yield a pattern, for example by repeating themselves, is where the reading has left an impact. Then I begin writing. Writing book reviews means taking the book seriously as a vehicle of scholarly communication; or, as in my case, even extolling it. In the social sciences, journal articles have come to predominate, which I find deplorable.

On the logic of minimalism, I should be a fan of poetry but draw the line at Brecht, Burns, Eliot and Mitchell (Adrian)

WHAT IS TO BE DONE?

 The last post suggested that too many books simply regurgitated what most of us already know about the economic system and that what is needed is a text which builds on this knowledge and identifies the detailed steps required for us to achieve a better world. Since my retiral in 2011, I’ve actually been working on such a book and am pleased to present the latest version - What is to be Done? Dispatches to the next generation. This runs in at 150 pages but is linked to a larger version which is double the size.

One of the Annexes gives hyperlinks to several hundred books which purport to thrown some light on the operation of the economic system – în some cases with some notes

Each of its chapters contains a table with links to the posts which inspired the text – with a ”takeaway” message. Let me summarise the chapters

Chapter 1. Critical junctures identified

History is written by the victors – and the sycophants who surround them. Events were generally much more finely balanced than first versions admit. Many people consider that the West has lost its way recently - and are struggling both to identify the reasons and to explore how a different future could be built. For some, it is simple – just a question of turning the clock back to the golden days....But most people recognise this as no more than an emotional tic and really want to understand how we – in the UK, the European mainland or the US – managed to make such a mess of things; and then what steps might be taken to build better societies...

This chapter looks back at the events of the past 80 years to try to identify the crucial points which have turned the hopes of the postwar period to the despair which currently grips many societies

Supporting Arguments can be found in Covid 19 as a Critical Juncture 

( Duncan Green 2020) and Out of the Belly of Hell Anthony Barnett 2020

Chapter 2.Trespassing encouraged

Intellectual specialisation has made it difficult for us to understand the world Most leaders of organisations are in the grip of groupthink and need countervailing mechanisms of accountability to help them see new realities

Boundaries – whether between countries, fields of study, professions, classes, religions or political parties – are usually heavily protected. But those able and willing to cultivate cross-border connections are often hugely rewarded – not just with monetary profit but with new insights. Just look at the Hanseatic League and the intellectual and cultural – let alone commercial - richness of towns and cities which lay on trading routes.

Supprting Arguments can be found in Irving Janis’ “Victims of Groupthink” (1972), Gillian Tett’s “The Silo Effect” (2015) and Matt Syed’s “Rebel Ideas” (2019)

chapter 3. Economics – rather than statues – should be toppled from its grip on our minds

2008 should have been the death knell of economics since it had succumbed some decades earlier to a highly-simplified and unrealistic model of the economy which was then starkly revealed in all its nakedness. But the subject had, perhaps deliberately, been made so boring that people felt they had to ”leave it to the experts”.

John Kenneth Galbraith’s ”Almost Everyone’s Guide to Economics” (1978) was probably the first book to try to rectify this – but it is only in the new millennium that things have shown sign of improvement. Annex 3 lists texts which are enjoyable as well as useful. But we have to be realistic about the chances of a real reform in the education of economists. Academic economists have invested a lifetime’s reputation and energy in offering the courses they do - and neither can nor will easily offer programmes to satisfy future student demands for relevance and pluralism….. chances are, they think, that the next cohort will be more pliable... 

Supporting arguments can be found in Steve Keen and Brian Davey’s ”Credo” (2014)

chapter 4. Probing the Elephant

Talk of capitalism and post-capitalism is too loose and reified. There are various equally legitimate ways of perceiving the “beast”. Why do we have so much difficulty finding a word to describe the nature of the system which is wreaking so much havoc on the world? Is it globalisation? Neo-liberalism? Capitalism? And does it matter?

It’s more than ten years since the global financial meltdown – although a lot of writers now concede that the rot started a lot earlier…The Marxists may be a bit extreme in suggesting about 200 years earlier…..although there is a christian school of thought that would go back to the Garden of Eden….

“Exploitation” is not a word you hear a lot about these days and yet it so vividly captures what we have done – with ever increasing intensity - to people, to the land, to resources. Initially the suggested remedies were technical in nature – if massive in their financial implications - with private debt being nationalised and traumatic increases in state debt. Slowly we have realised that political and moral responses offer the only real hope. But the neoliberal model has gone from strength to strength – with no real attempt made to rein in the financial sector.

This chapter will look at various attempts which have been made to understand the nature of the Beast whose voracious appetite keep us all in thrall and to which Varoufakis gave the name The global minotaur.

Supporting arguments can be found in 57 Varieties of Capitalism

chapter 5. A new social goal is needed for the commercial company

Shareholder value ignores other crucial dimensions – such as the wider community and workers, Cooperative and social enterprises employ more people than we think – but have to struggle for legitimacy

In certain circles, to be accused of trying to reform – rather than “destroy” or “transform” – capitalism has long been one of the gravest criticisms if not crimes. Not only this accusation but the very distinction has, however, always seemed a bit ridiculous. What would “transformation” actually mean?

And who on earth could be attracted to the notion of wholescale nationalisation and associated bureaucratic power – to say nothing of even worse scenarios?? I, for one, would rather support workers’ cooperatives…

Although Margaret Thatcher kept asserting that capitalism was the only way – or, in her own words, “there is No Alternative”, a mantra which soon attracted the acronym TINA – we have, since the end of the Cold War, become familiar with the “Varieties of capitalism” literature. Eased into it by Michel Albert, with later work by the likes of Crouch, Hall and Soskice being much more academic and, often, impenetrable. But by the turn of the millennium the message seemed to be that

- Capitalism takes various forms

- although it’s actually called “globalization” and

- will always be with us.

But all that changed in 2008 – earlier pages have plotted the increasing dystoptic aspect of book titles on the subject and the increasing use of the previously unmentionable word beginning with C

chapter 6. Lessons of change explored

So much protest fails and few social enterprises have a multiplier effect. How do we create winnable coalitions? We use the concept of “change” all the time but there seems to be surprisingly little written about it as an all-embracing concept. The literature on change is, of course, immense but is divided very much into several completely separate fields which guard their boundaries very strongly - dealing with the individual, the organisational and the societal respectively (forgive the last term but “social” does have a rather different meaning from activities relating to a particular society). The first field tends to be interested in things like stress; the second in the management of change (but in 3 separate sectors); and the last in collective challenges to power which often go under the label of “social change”

Capacity development is one of the few approaches which recognises the importance of all three – although, in reality, its focus is on training and it never ventures into the dangerous field of social change. It’s only in the past year or so that people have dared challenge this.

Our understanding of that phenomenon generally comes from history books the most popular of which deal with individuals - who are easier to identify with. Talk of technological and economic forces tends to be too abstract for most people – although recent books from the likes of Jared Diamond and Yuval Hari are enjoying a new vogue by virtue presumably of our increased awareness of the power of technology

For more – see A short note and annotated bib on Change

7. Change agents and coalitions sought

Progressives are good at sounding off – and bad at seeking common ground

This book started with questions which I was posing 20 years ago to help identify where I should be putting what energies I had left in me. I have to confess that, so far, the book (and the blogposts on which it draws) is the only tangible result of those questions!

An issue I keep returning to in the book is our inability to make ”common cause” as the world seems to be collapsing around us. It’s not that we don’t care – or are apathetic. A lot of us participate actively in discussions and demonstrations. It’s rather that our energies are dissipated in too many, diverse fields of concern... And in increasingly polarising debates – sometimes about issues which have echoes of the medieval debates about ”angels dancing on the head of pins”. Why is this?

Our developing egocentricity seems also to undermine the possibilities of effective collective action. For example, too many of the big names who write the tracts about the global crises present their analyses and prescriptions with insufficient reference to the efforts of others. They have to market their books – and themselves – and, by that very act, seem to alienate others who could be their comrades in arms. For more see Common Ground – democracy and collectivity in an age of individualism Jeremy Gilbert

THE BOOK WHICH EVERYONE SHOULD READ??

The Cultural Tutor is am amazing blog with text and music which comes in every Friday. Its latest issue asked a simple question - which book should everyone read?. The obvious answer is The Bible or the Koran - ideally with Christians reading the second book and Muslims the first.

But its not just religion which separates people – it’s also AGE. My younger self had books whose importance I recognised (listed here) - a few of which I find on rereading don’t impress eg Social Science as Sorcery (1972). And my older self lacks the memory to do justice to some of the books from the new millennium, some of which are covered in the above list. I suspect many readers of the Cultural Tutor blog will as a result mention books they have recently read. But first I need to indicate how I make my judgement ie what criteria I use in measuring impact. That’s not actually all that easy to divulge – I suppose it’s some sort of combination of

- perennial wisdom

- causing us to look at the world in a different way

- good writing

- a sense of wry humour

- humility

It’s not surprising that the books I remember are from the early 1960s – for example EH Carr was a favourite, not just his “Twenty Years’ Crisis” (1946) which introduced me to Realism but What is History? EH Carr (1961) which I vividly remember for its story of how you caught fish (facts) depended on the type of reel you used and the spot you chose to fish at. Peter Berger was another writer who made an impact – first for his prescient postmodern analysis in The Socal construction of Reality P Berger and T Luckman (1966) and then Pyramids of Sacrifice – political ethics and social change (1975)

More recently, writers such as Francis Fukuyama, David Graeber, Michael Greer, Roman Krznaric, Kate Rawarth, Wolfgang Streeck and Yanis Varoufakis have also impressed . One book, however, stands out for the variety of explanations it offers for the difficulties we have in agreeing and acting on global warming – viz Why We Disagree about Climate Change by Mike Hulme (2009)

But, at the end of the day, I tend to fall back on Bertrand Russell whose Sceptical essays still delight although published in 1925

The Fundamental Flaw in the Economists’ view of the world

I once called myself an economist – it was something graduates of 1960’s British Universities did then. It was sufficiently unusual to be worn as a mark of distinction. However I can remember only the following lessons from my four years engrossed in economics books -

- the strictness of the various preconditions which governed the idea of (perfect) competition – making it a highly improbable occurrence;

- the questionable nature of the of notion of “profit-maximisation”;

- the belief (thanks to the writings of James Burnham and Tony Crosland) that management (not ownership) was the all- important factor

- trust (thanks to Keynes whose work was dinned into me) in the ability of government to deal with such things as “exuberant expectations”

- the realization (through the report of the 1959 Radcliffe Commission) that cash was but a small part of money supply. Financial economics was in its infancy then and debt - household and country – had not become the problem it now is.

By the mid 1970s I had seen the error of my ways and moved, somewhat unsuccesfully, into the field of “political science” (the penis envy of real science was already evident). By the 1980s we had all fallen - hook, line and sinker - for the new economic religion. When I first came to Romania in the early 90s, I was amazed at the number of “economists” I came across – for them it meant no more than an “accountant”!

This blog has been very critical of the economic profession – only economists like Steve Keen, Mark Blyth, Yanis Varoufakis and Dani Rodrik have managed to escape its ire, although it has recognised the stirrings in the new millenium of remorse for its erstwhile arrogance. What most economists have a temperamental disinclination to discuss is...POWER – which even this little overview ignores. 

This fantastic article offers a very useful discussion of the sort of criticism economics has received in the past decade or so - setting it against some alternative models.

A couple of economists have just come out into the open about the subject - “Power and Progress – our struggle over technology and prosperity” by Daren Acemoglu and Simon Johnson comes in at a whopping 550 pages. Acemoglu is a developmental economist from Turkey who has published, with political scientist James Robinson, “Why Nations Fail” (570 pp 2012) and “The Narrow Corridor – states, societies and the state of liberty” (800pp 2019)

I mention the number of pages simply because I have an ongoing campaign against long-winded authors and have appealed to publishers and writers alike to exercise more discipline before they inflict yet another title on the poor reader. The reviews are interesting although I think Acemoglu would have been better advised to continue his partnership with a political scientist. I think I will wait for a graphic version.

Reviews and interviews

• https://www.theguardian.com/books/2023/may/07/power-and-progress-daron-acemoglu-simon-johnson-review-formidable-demolition-of-the-technology-equals-progress-myth

• https://economics.princeton.edu/wp-content/uploads/2023/03/Markus-Academy-Daron-Acemoglu-June-14-2023.pdf

• https://cepr.org/system/files/2023-06/Power_and_progress.pdf interview

• https://www.richmondfed.org/-/media/RichmondFedOrg/publications/research/econ_focus/2023/q2/interview.pdf

• Institutions and Growth Acemoglu, Johnson and Robinson 2004

Can Economics change its Spots?

I’ve written fairly savagely about economists in the past – so it’s about time I recognised there are some in the new generation who are thinking differently. And I’m not talking about the behavioural economists who, for me, have little to offer – they’e just making minor adjustments to what remains a thoroughly complacent, arrogant and selfish view of human nature. The table which follows doesn’t do justice to the new wave of iconoclasts who are clamouring for our attention – but it’s a start

	Famous for	Key Books
Kate Rawarth	The concept of planetary limits	“Doughnut Economics”
Isabella Weber,	Questioning prevailing wisdom about inflation	“How China Escaped Shock Therapy”
Mariana Mazzacato	Exploding myths about corporations and the State	“The Entrepreneurial State” “The Vaklue of Everything” “Mission Economy”
Thomas Pikety	Exposing the scale of inequality	“The Economics of Inequality” “Capital” “Capital and Ideology”
Mark Blyth	Ruthless dissection of the politics behind the economics	“Austerity – the history of a dangerous idea” “Angronomics”
Yanis Varoufakis	Being the bad boy of the eurozone – but a great story-teller!	A textbook an autobiography “The Global Minotaur” “And the Weak Suffer What They Must?”

 
And, because I’m impatient to get this post – with all its usual hyperlinks – to my readers, 

let me finish with a great review of Thomas Pikety’s latest book “Time for Socialism” from 

what is rapidly becoming a never-to be-missed journal - Jacobin
 

The fact that a thinker with Piketty’s intellectual influence has embraced socialism is significant in itself, paving the way for greater numbers of people to begin envisioning a world beyond capitalism. But what should we make of his vision of socialist transformation?

Talk of a relatively gradual and already underway shift toward socialism will no doubt raise eyebrows among radicals trained to expect that a break with capitalism will necessarily require some form of revolutionary rupture in the state and economy. Yet this gradualist vision should not be dismissed out of hand.

The truth is that we have no way yet to precisely predict the form that a transition to socialism will take in an advanced capitalist democracy. Piketty’s insistence that the radical reforms he envisions will be won through struggle against (rather than accommodation to) corporate power is likely sufficient as a strategic horizon for the foreseeable future. Though a more rapid and less peaceful revolutionary break may eventually be put on the agenda in the face of minoritarian employer reaction, there’s no need nor any political benefit to project immediate revolution as the only possible path forward.

Some radicals may similarly frown upon Piketty’s insistence that the transition to socialism is already underway, as seen in the growth of the welfare state and related declines in economic inequality. Yet here too the author is onto something: the reforms won by socialists, organized labor, and social movements over the past century have made significant incursions into market relations.

Despite neoliberalism’s ravages, the welfare state has not been dismantled even in places like the United States and the UK — current and future struggles for decommodification are thus being waged on a significantly higher social baseline than they were in, say, the 1930s. As such, the most pertinent criticism of social democrats — one shared by Piketty — is not that they were gradualists, but rather that they eventually proved incapable of being effective gradualists. Instead of continuing to shift power and control toward working people, social democratic parties largely abandoned this project in the face of economic crisis, globalization, and employer resistance from the 1980s onward.

Nor does it make sense to criticize Piketty for omitting calls for the nationalization of the economy’s commanding heights. There’s a strong argument to be made that markets for private goods are fully compatible with (and arguably necessary for) a thriving socialist society — provided that the state radically undermines capitalist power and wealth, that firm-based economic democracy is expanded, and that robust welfare policies provide everybody with the essential services they need to survive. That said, Piketty’s case would have been strengthened had he engaged more with proposals for a complete democratization of firms, as famously envisioned by Sweden’s “Meidner plan.”

A more significant limitation is that Piketty says little in the book about the importance of rebuilding the power of organized labor. This question gets passing mentions in his admonitions to “rethink institutions and policies including public services, and in particular, education, labor law, and organizations and the tax system” and to “stop denigrating the role of trade unions, the minimum wage, and salary scales.” Yet the author’s relative inattention to organized labor today is somewhat surprising given his commendable focus on the urgency of bringing back working-class politics and his consistent acknowledgement of the historical importance of trade unions in reducing inequality.

Perhaps Piketty, with his expertise in leveraging data to identify historical trends and policy solutions, felt that it was best to leave it to others to flesh out the strategic lines of march necessary to win his proposed vision. But without a revitalized labor movement to change the balance of class power, the author’s most ambitious policy solutions are unlikely to pass — and some of his other proposals might not have their intended consequences. Employee comanagement, for example, generally can serve as a tool for increasing workers’ influence when paired with robust trade unions. But in the absence of the relatively favorable relationship of forces created by strong working-class organization and the credible threat of disruptive workplace action, comanagement plans risk becoming toothless at best and mechanisms of employer control at worst, pushing workers to rubber stamp bosses’ prerogatives.

Ignoring Psychology

I've just finished "The Act of Living – what the great psychologists can teach us about surviving discomfort in an Age of Anxiety" by Frank Tallis (2021) which is a lovely overview of key figures in that discipline. It also gives me an opportunity to correct an interesting mistake I made a few years back when one of my famous tables - purporting to show how each of the social sciences tried to make sense of the world - completely forgot to include psychology. Some, indeed, might call the mistake “Freudian”!!

The core assumptions of academic subjects (amended table)

Discipline	Core assumption	Most Famous exponents (not necessarily typical!)
Anthropology	shared meaning	B Malinowski, Evans-Pritchard, Claude Levi-Strauss, Margaret Mead, Mary Douglas, Chris Shore, David Graeber
Economics	Rational choice	Adam Smith, J Schumpeter, JM Keynes, P Samuelson, M Friedmann, J Stiglitz, Thomas Pikety, Ho-Joon Chang
Geography	the interaction of physical and cultural influences	Alexander von Humboldt, H Mackinder, David Harvey, Danny Dorling
Political economy	explores the role of political factors in economic outcomes.	JK Galbraith, Susan Strange, Mark Blyth, Wolfgang Streeck, Geoffrey Hodgson, Yanis Varoufakis,
Political science	Rational choice (at least since the 1970s)	Robert Dahl, Gabriel Almond, David Easton, S Wolin, Peter Hall, James Q Wilson, Bo Rothstein, Francis Fukuyama
Psychology	Maslow’s basic ones of survival	Sigmund Freud, Carl Jung, Erich Fromm. Bruno Bettelheim, Maslow, Howard Gardner,
Public management	mixed for traditional bodies - rational choice for New PM	Woodrow Wilson, Gerald Caiden, Chris Hood, Chris Pollitt, B Guy Peters, G Bouckaert,
Sociology	Struggle for power	Durkheim, Max Weber, Talcott Parsons, C Wright Mills, Robert Merton,  Herbert Simon, A Etzioni, Ralf Dahrendorf

And, indeed, there is something in my Presbyterian soul which probably disapproves of the idea of someone doing a quasi-Confessional on another human being. The intercession of a priest (or psychologist) is somehow not right!

And, yet, I have read psychology books with some pleasure and, indeed, edification – I thoroughly enjoyed the wry humour of Michael Foley’s The Age of Absurdity – why modern life makes it hard to be happy (2010) and learned much from "Life and how to survive it" by Robin Skynner and John Cleese (1993) - one of the clearest expositions I know of how the different stages of human development - at individual, organisational and societal levels and still in print after some 30 years. 

Such titles may focus on us as individuals rather than political creatures but I am a great believer in in the injunction to "Know Thyself”- if a bit slow in the actual practice. But psychological matters seem to have been pressing in on me recently – with posts last year such as Know Thyself, then one about the Johari Window and one actually entitled Mind Matters which brought together several books with a psychological perrspective