Is it just me or does American racism come through in almost everything that country does? This seemingly normalized view that other countries’ populations are not fully human and can be manipulated and experimented on, and it’s fine because… they’re “not American”?
This book is a bit intense for me because it hits a bit too close to home because of my father and the people I grew up with and around. And their stories.
Ok, this book is dark. But maybe something we all need to read.
Because its core claim is that there is a vulnerability that is exposed in a society when tragedy/disaster strikes, and that some groups might take advantage of such a situation to further their own aims. And it shows how this has been done time after time. Where the group waiting in the wings in the book were capitalism fundamentalists ready to support brutal dictatorships to further their grand plan.
Maybe this particular group is not the one we might see, but I’m sure we all know of groups in our respective countries that would jump at the opportunity to seize power and subjugate the population for money, religion and/or hate.
The reason why we maybe should read it is that we are on the cusp of a series of local and global disasters, even if we ignore the current wars, sitting on a runaway train straight for a climate catastrophe. And maybe if we are prepared we might recognize it when our fear is used against us.
Milton Friedman thought Nixon was a socialist. He wanted the US to become the same kind of brutal dictatorship as he had installed all over South America.
This is the man people quote when they say the goal of a company is to “maximize shareholder value”. A man with the blood of thousands on his hands. A full on fascist. I guess I shouldn’t be shocked, but I am.
Finished first read, but now I need to reread the beginning. Current impression is that I find the arguments individually interesting. I’m not sure the underlying logical argument they are a part of is logical or if the conclusion is a logical result. But I still found the book very interesting. Especially the first 3/4ths. The basic logical argument he seems to present is that current capitalism has constructed a mechanism that forces managers of publicly traded companies to serve shortterm goals. And that this makes it impossible for companies to adapt sufficiently to accommodate looming crises like climate change. When leadership has to deliver on quarterly numbers they cannot steer according to any other metrics. I think his idea is that if we can somehow break that mechanism then… and this part I’m unclear on and I’m not sure I find it very interesting either. Basically I don’t know how I feel about the broader logical argument, but I found the discussion to get there very interesting.