The noted French economist makes the case for overhauling the global economy to provide greater equality.
“In a large-scale federal community, bound by agreements on the free movement of goods, people, and capital, it is logical to entrust a central government with the key role for the taxes, ensuring the greatest redistribution.” So writes Piketty in a statement guaranteed to induce howling fits in strict libertarians. Advocating a technocratic, even bureaucratic socialism in this collection of columns from Le Monde, the author builds a careful case. The world hasn’t become poorer, writes Piketty, but the world’s governments have, thanks to a widespread program of corporate tax breaks and other economic concessions to people who do not need them. This immiseration of government has significant effects, one of the most visible of which is an impoverishment of the educational system. Inequality results from the fact that private wealth has been rising far faster than public wealth has been declining. “There is absolutely no sense in making tax gifts to groups who are old and wealthy and have already done very well in recent decades,” Piketty argues sensibly. He urges governments to impose both hefty estate taxes and far higher graduated income taxes, and he also suggests that at the age of 25, young people be given outright grants of $150,000 or so to help lift them up in the marketplace and encourage innovation and economic diversity. With such a boost, it would be possible for those young people to start their own businesses and take risks instead of settling in desperation for whatever job comes along. Piketty’s arguments are piecemeal and sometimes written as if for fellow economists, with his proposed reforms coming one after another. Readers might have found it more useful had he used his columns as a mine for a more coherent argument rather than reprinting. Still, each page offers an interesting provocation.
Readers of like-minded political bent will find Piketty’s arguments powerful, if a touch arid.Pub Date: Oct. 26, 2021
ISBN: 978-0-300-25966-7
Page Count: 360
Publisher: Yale Univ.
Review Posted Online: Aug. 13, 2021
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 2021
Categories: BUSINESS | CURRENT EVENTS & SOCIAL ISSUES | ECONOMICS | POLITICS | WORLD | GENERAL BUSINESS | PUBLIC POLICY | ISSUES & CONTROVERSIES
Did you like this book?
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
An exploration of the importance of clarity through calmness in an increasingly fast-paced world.
Austin-based speaker and strategist Holiday (Conspiracy: Peter Thiel, Hulk Hogan, Gawker, and the Anatomy of Intrigue, 2018, etc.) believes in downshifting one’s life and activities in order to fully grasp the wonder of stillness. He bolsters this theory with a wide array of perspectives—some based on ancient wisdom (one of the author’s specialties), others more modern—all with the intent to direct readers toward the essential importance of stillness and its “attainable path to enlightenment and excellence, greatness and happiness, performance as well as presence.” Readers will be encouraged by Holiday’s insistence that his methods are within anyone’s grasp. He acknowledges that this rare and coveted calm is already inside each of us, but it’s been worn down by the hustle of busy lives and distractions. Recognizing that this goal requires immense personal discipline, the author draws on the representational histories of John F. Kennedy, Buddha, Tiger Woods, Fred Rogers, Leonardo da Vinci, and many other creative thinkers and scholarly, scientific texts. These examples demonstrate how others have evolved past the noise of modern life and into the solitude of productive thought and cleansing tranquility. Holiday splits his accessible, empowering, and sporadically meandering narrative into a three-part “timeless trinity of mind, body, soul—the head, the heart, the human body.” He juxtaposes Stoic philosopher Seneca’s internal reflection and wisdom against Donald Trump’s egocentric existence, with much of his time spent “in his bathrobe, ranting about the news.” Holiday stresses that while contemporary life is filled with a dizzying variety of “competing priorities and beliefs,” the frenzy can be quelled and serenity maintained through a deliberative calming of the mind and body. The author shows how “stillness is what aims the arrow,” fostering focus, internal harmony, and the kind of holistic self-examination necessary for optimal contentment and mind-body centeredness. Throughout the narrative, he promotes that concept mindfully and convincingly.
A timely, vividly realized reminder to slow down and harness the restorative wonders of serenity.Pub Date: Oct. 1, 2019
ISBN: 978-0-525-53858-5
Page Count: 288
Publisher: Portfolio
Review Posted Online: July 21, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 2019
Categories: GENERAL BUSINESS | PHILOSOPHY & RELIGION | SELF-HELP | BUSINESS | MOTIVATIONAL & PERSONAL SUCCESS
Did you like this book?
Noted number cruncher Sperling delivers an economist’s rejoinder to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.
Former director of the National Economic Council in the administrations of Presidents Bill Clinton and Barack Obama, the author has long taken a view of the dismal science that takes economic justice fully into account. Alongside all the metrics and estimates and reckonings of GDP, inflation, and the supply curve, he holds the great goal of economic policy to be the advancement of human dignity, a concept intangible enough to chase the econometricians away. Growth, the sacred mantra of most economic policy, “should never be considered an appropriate ultimate end goal” for it, he counsels. Though 4% is the magic number for annual growth to be considered healthy, it is healthy only if everyone is getting the benefits and not just the ultrawealthy who are making away with the spoils today. Defining dignity, admits Sperling, can be a kind of “I know it when I see it” problem, but it does not exist where people are a paycheck away from homelessness; the fact, however, that people widely share a view of indignity suggests the “intuitive universality” of its opposite. That said, the author identifies three qualifications, one of them the “ability to meaningfully participate in the economy with respect, not domination and humiliation.” Though these latter terms are also essentially unquantifiable, Sperling holds that this respect—lack of abuse, in another phrasing—can be obtained through a tight labor market and monetary and fiscal policy that pushes for full employment. In other words, where management needs to come looking for workers, workers are likely to be better treated than when the opposite holds. In still other words, writes the author, dignity is in part a function of “ ‘take this job and shove it’ power,” which is a power worth fighting for.
A declaration worth hearing out in a time of growing inequality—and indignity.Pub Date: May 5, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-9848-7987-5
Page Count: 384
Publisher: Penguin Press
Review Posted Online: Feb. 26, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 2020
Did you like this book?
© Copyright 2022 Kirkus Media LLC. All Rights Reserved.
Follow
We can’t wait for you to join Kirkus!
It’s free and takes less than 10 seconds!
Already have an account? Log in.
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
Welcome Back!
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
