A Pessimistic Book as a Source for Hope: Spufford's "Red Plenty"

Years ago now, when this first came out, the blog “Crooked Timber” ran a symposium on the book that I read avidly. I remember at the time thinking that I should actually check the book out. When it came to it though, I had read enough around the book that I had felt like I had read the thing itself – the same way like I felt I was under no obligation to finish Piketty’s “Capital,” I think, because I had read so many blogs about it.

Come to think of it, that may be why I’ve never finished the namesake of that book, Marx’s Capital.

Alas, I digress. The good folks were running a symposium on another book and that reminded me that I wanted to read this book. I think it was worth it.

First of all, something must be said of the structure. It’s basically a look at the Soviet Union in the post-Stalin era where there was still some belief that the Soviet system might work. It is done in vignettes looking at different people as they lived and dealt with the economic and political systems of what is the American Eisenhower and Kennedy era. But there are a couple of weird things – It’s kind of like a Dos Passos or that other writer that stole his style and won prizes for it. The thing is that some of it is made up and the writer cannot speak or read Russian, so even the things that weren’t made up are a bit filtered through official records.

That said, the book was enjoyable for someone like me who is sympathetic to the Soviet Union in broad strokes even if having to condemn it in particulars. For the most part the tale is one of resigned acceptance of what must have been an optimism at some point – like most 30-year-olds today, you know. What it tells is the tale of trying to harness the rise of the computer but not being the innovator, and they technology always being the copy of the more inefficient but more entrepreneurial west. It is a shaded truth, and it actually opens one for optimism of what could be accomplished in central planning in terms of the computer we have and will have in the near future. Redundancy can be eliminated, leisure can be spread far and wide – plenty will be upon us. We just need to use the best of the systems that are available to us in terms of politics and economics and not let ideological rigidities preclude any possible strengths that are to be gleaned – because that is what the ultimate failure is that we really see both in Spufford’s book and the real world, a blindness induced by an idea of right that does not include all our rights.

Don't Hurt Me: Ansari's "Modern Love"

For the most part, Ansari’s book can pass as a contemporary social science book.

It is so conventional, in fact, it cites both Iyengar’s “Jam Study” and the Aron / Dutton “Bridge Study”. It does not invoke Philip Zimbardo, Milgram, or the Marshmallow study, as far as I know. For what it is, it is an interesting look into the dating scene for the contemporary lonely-hearts in terms of modern courtship. It is, at its heart, a larger explication of the book “Dataclysm” by Christian Rudder (who the author cites).

What makes the book stand out is the credited author is the famous comedian Ansari (His coauthor makes the inside flap copy, but not the cover). Ansari’s voice is very noticeable throughout the text – but I had the feeling that on reading that the authorial intrusions would be relatable to people who know the speech cadences of the comedian, but perhaps off-putting to those who were unfamiliar. Aside from the fact that the argument could be made that the book’s look at modern love is one that is highly privileged to the urban and straight first world, the book works for what it is.  Fans of both the comedian and contemporary social science books should find something that is interesting and entertaining stories to pass on.

The Future We Want: A Review of the Essay Collection Edited by Dirty Commies Sunkara and Leonard

I think I have a legitimate question here.

If Sunkara is editing (with Leonard) a collection of essays about how we need to build socialism, how is this book different from a Jacobin issue? Is it that they didn’t get the art team out?

But seriously, this is a fine addition to the series of Sunkara-edited and contributed collections. It is a collection of several essays united by the common thread of the common, on how we make the world better for everyone. My main issue with it was that the essays were siloed – here’s women’s issues, here’s race issues, and the thread isn’t really pulled together until the final essay, a coda by Sunkara and Peter Frase. Not to say that this isn’t important – but I wanted to see a more organic whole.

What was interesting was the common thread between the siloed topics that might not have been intentional. Several of the authors argued for the necessity of a universal basic income. This seems to be the struggle of our time under the context of capitalism that may have some legs as the robots rise and the millennials who feel the Bern start coming into more power and the olds start dying off. The real question is if this is a reformist move, or will take us to the promised land of worker control of the means of production and the gradual withering away of the state, or if it is an end point that if accomplished will foreclose other discussions on reform.

Two important essays close the book before the coda. Tim Barker makes a clear argument against the too common celebration of the small business, which is important because it shows that the capitalistic system is the problem no matter how large the scale. I hadn’t thought of the subject much at all, and it nicely disturbed some preconceived notions of mine. Then the last essay is Seth Ackerman prodding on the idea that the socialist future is not the end, but a beginning, an important reminder that we are not reaching for the end of history on our terms, but instead a new beginning.

On Weinstein's "Complete Guide to Fundraising Management"

 This book was the textbook for my class in Development of Nonprofits. Prior to this class, I have not had much exposure to the development side of things in the nonprofit world. This is in spite of five years at a nonprofit and the introductory class to all nonprofit issues (Used the heavy and deep Jossey Bass Handbook for that class). Basically, this means that this book is my touchstone for Development. Overall it is good for someone who is a basic beginner, with a nice step-by-step look and lots of charts and graphs that could be used as template were I ever needed to fill a development role (though I hope that I will never be in charge of it, the goal is to be an Executive Director at some point so it will be on my plate). 

The only real criticism is that it feels a bit dated. There’s not much consciousness of the connected world in terms of fund raising – though that may because of the very limited returns that come of it (when development is all about relationship building, you have to maintain your network somehow, right?). Basically, if this is for your class, it won’t be your least favorite textbook ever, and it might have some utility after the fact, so it’s hard to go wrong here.

Smarter, Faster, Better by Charles Duhigg: Another Winner

What makes Duhigg’s books work – both this and the earlier “Power of Habit” – is not that he is doing any unique and new research. What makes his books work is a strange alchemy that makes the familiar new again while he spins the unfamiliar in with it. 

For example, in this book one of the stories he talks about is the redevelopment of the factory in California that was a failing GM plant but became NUMMI through a team-up with Toyota. Now, I’ve been to business school, so you can bet that I have heard about the Toyota way and have the book on my shelf. But Duhigg takes that story and personalizes it so that the reader learns along with the person in the book and the familiar becomes new. 

And that’s just one example. The author looks at eight different frames on how we can become better at what we do in a more productive manner through the power of storytelling. It’s as if the book wants to be a social science book and a novel and a self-help book all at once while at the same time never being any one of those on a stand-alone basis. It was a fun read and I hope that I absorbed some of it so that I too can become smarter and faster and better.

NB: I was provided with a review copy of this text in exchange for the possibility of a review

Praise for Branko Milanovic's "The Haves and Have Nots"

Milanovic has a book coming out, another one on inequality. 

But he was writing about inequality before Piketty made it cool.

I read his blog posts because Thoma points them my way some time, but I thought before engaging with the more current work, I would read this one, intriguingly subtitled “A Brief and Idiosyncratic History of Global Inequality”. The book is set up as three essays that are more wonkish and each essay is filled with some more detailed stories to support the larger ideas behind the essays.

He looks at three different kinds of inequality – that between people in the same nation; that between individual nations; and that between all the world’s citizens. I think that as a popular book about economics it works very well. The vignettes are enough that they can be accessible to someone with little background and they do help explain the more technical aspects of the larger essays. I wish more scientists wrote with the skill Milanovic does here. I am eagerly awaiting that new book, but I’m glad I read up on the background info.