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uditnair24's review
2.0
I really had to put effort to complete the book. First of all there are lots of assumptions in the book. As a result I was bit frustrated about it. More so there is lot of philosophical discussions rather than hard facts or figures which should be the key component in any economic analysis. Also the way authors dealt with environmentalism debate was unfortunate. I mean there can be instances where one might not agree with the method or factor used. But to completely discard the seriousness around catastrophic effects of climate change was disheartening. ( probably authors would change their mind after 2020).
tsharris's review against another edition
4.0
Smart, passionate case for refocusing rich countries away from growth from growth's sake and returning to old but important questions about the Good. I appreciated the intellectual histories of thinking about the Good and the shift to capitalism and limitless growth and thought that the Skidelskys actually offered some solid policy proposals ("nudges," really) for realizing what on the surface seems like a utopian vision. I'd like to think that this shift is not actually utopian and may already be underway.
meganstreb's review against another edition
2.0
I really didn't like this book.
I enjoyed the concept--is there a universal standard we could have for what makes a comfortable and enjoyable life? And enjoyed some of the musings why the universality aspect had disappeared-- e.g. religion used to set a maximum standard.
But I found it incredibly slow going, arrogant at times, and they spent so little time actually describing their idea of what the universal standard should include.
There are far better books on economics, standards of living, and greed, I'm sure.
I enjoyed the concept--is there a universal standard we could have for what makes a comfortable and enjoyable life? And enjoyed some of the musings why the universality aspect had disappeared-- e.g. religion used to set a maximum standard.
But I found it incredibly slow going, arrogant at times, and they spent so little time actually describing their idea of what the universal standard should include.
There are far better books on economics, standards of living, and greed, I'm sure.
romcm's review against another edition
5.0
There's something deeply consoling about this book. I want to read it over and over again. Keynes thought we would be working less but instead we're working more. Why? Because of the joy of it, but also the pressure to do it (welcome to the precariat) and then there's the insatiability created by bullshit advertising. The privileged few buy huge houses and cars. The privileged fewer go all KonMari on shit, and try to figure out what the good life is, while happiness evades (a mirage). These guys propose the following as all we need: Health, security, respect, personality, harmony with nature, friendship, leisure. Slow, steps through the decaying world to get there, I imagine.
treyhunner's review against another edition
4.0
I went into this book thinking there'd be actionable advice. There wasn't a lot of that, but I did come out of this book with a new and less shaky notion of what a healthier modern society might look like and some ideas for how we can get their collectively.
The writing is less dry than many books on economics and philosophy, but it's still quite dry.
I found this book to be a good complement to Robert Frank's Success and Luck. Frank's ideas are actually referenced in this book at least a few times.
The writing is less dry than many books on economics and philosophy, but it's still quite dry.
I found this book to be a good complement to Robert Frank's Success and Luck. Frank's ideas are actually referenced in this book at least a few times.
shayneh's review against another edition
4.0
I'd not before read a policy-level discussion of needs and wants, especially not one so rooted in classical philosophy. An enjoyable read, and a challenging one -- these British authors have a bone to pick with just about everyone in power today! (Also, coincidental mention of Alaska in here; surprise!)
nielsism's review against another edition
3.0
What would you do with a 5-day weekend, every week? Do we actually know how to engage in leisure (not merely 'free time') meaningfully? Do we still understand what money is for, having an outlook of what the good life entails?
The Skidelsky's draw on JM Keynes' early writings, to show that in the 1930s, the vision of the future entailed growing richer and working much less. While we, as a country or as 'the Western World', have indeed become extraordinarily rich through productivity increases, we have not seen the expected fall in working hours. Nor have we seen, subsequently, advances in learning to use that extra leisure to live 'wisely and agreeably and well'. Some of us still find some joy in work, obviously, but for many people (and for all people to some extent) work is obligatory. Some of us have the luxury to choose what kind of job to do, but there are very little people who can choose to not work at all. What went wrong?
We could point to the benefits of work, and all the socio-cultural positives derived from it. Others bring up the Marxist point that we have indeed become richer, but that the pie has not been shared equally. The Skidelsky's do agree with these, but add the important reason of 'insatiability' of wants. Throughout the decades, we have learnt to embrace the earlier vice of greed, of wanting more and more. In fact, our modern economy depends on it. There is no longer a distinction between what we need to live a good life, and what we want. We therefore work more, to keep up or aim for an expected lifestyle that is built on wanting more. While this inflammation of our worst qualities has brought us to this point of richness, we have forgotten what money is for, and have started to treat this as an end in itself. What we need therefore, is a re-examination of what we do with money, and how we can live the good life.
The book therefore takes us, firstly, on a journey through Western and Oriental thought, to track two basic ideas. First, it depicts a history of the idea that evil motives may be licensed for the sake of their good effects. Capitalism may have the underlying effect of breeding greed and individualism, but in the end we would all be better off. So too was Keynes very ambiguous to capitalism. We have, in other words, struck a Faustian bargain with our modern economy: it's okay that it's bad for some time, we will move away from it when we have acquired what we went after. But apparently, we have forgotten that we struck this deal in the first place.
The second idea is that there is a natural limit to means. From Aristotle, to old-Europe, India and China, it is not only shown that there is such a thing as a good life (even though very different), but most of all that it did not entail work, nor wealth accumulation. At some point however, this idea of the good life started to eclipse. The effect has been that the acquisitive instinct has been released from all bounds. The various distinctions drawn by pre-modern economic thought (needs and wants, necessities and luxuries, use and exchange value) all rest on the assumption that some ways of life are intrinsically superior to others. Modern economics has dispensed with this assumption. They take people “as they are”, not as they should be, and let people free to choose.
In the following two chapters, the authors engage with two relatively recent approaches to move away from this maximization of growth thinking: happiness economics and the modern environmental approach focused on the necessities to stop growing. I thought these chapters were harder to read, and most of all harder to put in context here as well. The only thing I retained was that they apparently do not do the trick, and we need something else, a real assessment of the good life.
In the final two chapters, they finally set out with their own project, outlining seven basic goods, or elements of the good life. After 160 pages, this might at first seem a bit of an anti-climax, seeing that everyone knows that friendship, health, or security are inherently elements of our good life. But credit to the authors to placing these central, since it is all too much forgotten that these are lived and enjoyed in themselves, and not as an appendix to work and money. In the subsequent chapter, they set out how such a good life could be aided by social policy. They argue to reduce the pressure to consume (with tax shifts), reducing advertising, and installing a basic income. These would be the enabling factors for everyone to be (to some extent) free from work and toil, and free up our minds to actively engage in leisure and the good life.
All in all a good book to read, especially the opening and closing chapters. The historical tracking of fuzzy ideas in 15 pages, on the other hand, seems at times a bit cherry picking. Same goes for the two chapters that have been jotted in the middle about happiness and environmentalism. The message itself is important though, and is even one of the key questions we should be asking ourselves as a society to move forward: why aren't we working less? Why aren't we enjoying life more, and finding our identity outside of the obligatory work floor? There are good reasons, as they outlined, that these questions and visions need not be utopian any longer, whatever conservatives might be telling us that 'there is no alternative' to working hard and long. It is time that we engage with those reasons, and start re-imagining and living our good life.
The Skidelsky's draw on JM Keynes' early writings, to show that in the 1930s, the vision of the future entailed growing richer and working much less. While we, as a country or as 'the Western World', have indeed become extraordinarily rich through productivity increases, we have not seen the expected fall in working hours. Nor have we seen, subsequently, advances in learning to use that extra leisure to live 'wisely and agreeably and well'. Some of us still find some joy in work, obviously, but for many people (and for all people to some extent) work is obligatory. Some of us have the luxury to choose what kind of job to do, but there are very little people who can choose to not work at all. What went wrong?
We could point to the benefits of work, and all the socio-cultural positives derived from it. Others bring up the Marxist point that we have indeed become richer, but that the pie has not been shared equally. The Skidelsky's do agree with these, but add the important reason of 'insatiability' of wants. Throughout the decades, we have learnt to embrace the earlier vice of greed, of wanting more and more. In fact, our modern economy depends on it. There is no longer a distinction between what we need to live a good life, and what we want. We therefore work more, to keep up or aim for an expected lifestyle that is built on wanting more. While this inflammation of our worst qualities has brought us to this point of richness, we have forgotten what money is for, and have started to treat this as an end in itself. What we need therefore, is a re-examination of what we do with money, and how we can live the good life.
The book therefore takes us, firstly, on a journey through Western and Oriental thought, to track two basic ideas. First, it depicts a history of the idea that evil motives may be licensed for the sake of their good effects. Capitalism may have the underlying effect of breeding greed and individualism, but in the end we would all be better off. So too was Keynes very ambiguous to capitalism. We have, in other words, struck a Faustian bargain with our modern economy: it's okay that it's bad for some time, we will move away from it when we have acquired what we went after. But apparently, we have forgotten that we struck this deal in the first place.
The second idea is that there is a natural limit to means. From Aristotle, to old-Europe, India and China, it is not only shown that there is such a thing as a good life (even though very different), but most of all that it did not entail work, nor wealth accumulation. At some point however, this idea of the good life started to eclipse. The effect has been that the acquisitive instinct has been released from all bounds. The various distinctions drawn by pre-modern economic thought (needs and wants, necessities and luxuries, use and exchange value) all rest on the assumption that some ways of life are intrinsically superior to others. Modern economics has dispensed with this assumption. They take people “as they are”, not as they should be, and let people free to choose.
In the following two chapters, the authors engage with two relatively recent approaches to move away from this maximization of growth thinking: happiness economics and the modern environmental approach focused on the necessities to stop growing. I thought these chapters were harder to read, and most of all harder to put in context here as well. The only thing I retained was that they apparently do not do the trick, and we need something else, a real assessment of the good life.
In the final two chapters, they finally set out with their own project, outlining seven basic goods, or elements of the good life. After 160 pages, this might at first seem a bit of an anti-climax, seeing that everyone knows that friendship, health, or security are inherently elements of our good life. But credit to the authors to placing these central, since it is all too much forgotten that these are lived and enjoyed in themselves, and not as an appendix to work and money. In the subsequent chapter, they set out how such a good life could be aided by social policy. They argue to reduce the pressure to consume (with tax shifts), reducing advertising, and installing a basic income. These would be the enabling factors for everyone to be (to some extent) free from work and toil, and free up our minds to actively engage in leisure and the good life.
All in all a good book to read, especially the opening and closing chapters. The historical tracking of fuzzy ideas in 15 pages, on the other hand, seems at times a bit cherry picking. Same goes for the two chapters that have been jotted in the middle about happiness and environmentalism. The message itself is important though, and is even one of the key questions we should be asking ourselves as a society to move forward: why aren't we working less? Why aren't we enjoying life more, and finding our identity outside of the obligatory work floor? There are good reasons, as they outlined, that these questions and visions need not be utopian any longer, whatever conservatives might be telling us that 'there is no alternative' to working hard and long. It is time that we engage with those reasons, and start re-imagining and living our good life.
simonking's review against another edition
4.0
Recommended, although I would suggest that you can skip chapters 4 and 5.
matthew_p's review against another edition
3.0
I've been thinking about the "good life" and what is enough, so this was a timely read.
femke495's review
3.0
Could have easily been an essay instead of a whole book but it has some interesting things to say