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Title: Deep Economy: The Wealth of Communities and the Durable Future
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Manufacturer: Holt Paperbacks
List Price: $14.00
Our Price: $7.96
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| Customer Reviews: |
| Deep Economy: The Wealth of Communities and the Durable Future by Holt Paperbacks Better than most | Excellent writing. Bad title.
Bill McKibben throws the kitchen sink at us from Bill Gates to Gandhi. More time should have been spent on solutions, particularly in US communities. Eco cohousing was glossed over.
Also missed was the huge cost of US health care which is a serious drain on our resources. Missing was the fact that US universities are also building McMansions and our educational institutions are burning money while poor people can not get all day schools so they can work. I won't even get into the political waste going on.
But McKibben is totally right on - big is killing us. Growth is killing us. Small is obviously better, but right now most communities don't know that they have to take the bull by the horns. Stay home next time, Bill. It is less fun, but the real work is here. | | Deep Economy: The Wealth of Communities and the Durable Future by Holt Paperbacks left with wanting more | Although I thought that "Deep Economy" was well-written and informative, I was disappointed because I think that it did not give any real solutions, nor did the book take into account the desperation of the lower classes in the U.S. due to poverty, lack of health-care, lack of security, and lack of any promising opportunities. Before the poor in our country can tackle new, sustainable economic ideals, we have to resolve their subsistence and security issues and provide hopeful, long-lasting opportunities through education and business.
I agree most heartily with Mr. McKibben's overall assessment of America's gross over-consumption, and "hyper-individualism", and that, through globalism, we are exporting these ideals in a destructive way, but I cannot share his optimism that this can change just simply through localism. His anecdotes about how alternatives work, though idyllic sounding, are elitist and not at all practical or even possible on a large scale. With our current, growing population, we cannot go back to small, local village economies. Plus, even within the types of projects that he describes in the book, hyper-individualism prevails. I have experienced and witnessed that co-housing, community radio and cooperative projects in this country are often wracked with conflict and so much personal attacks that members become disillusioned and burnt-out and eventually good-hearted souls abandon the concepts altogether. For better or worse, "hyper-individualism" is here to stay.
The only solution, that I can see, is for the U.S. to take strong action at the Federal level. We need a major restructuring of our tax code, our agricultural policy, our energy policy, our trade policies and treaties, our health-care system, etc. But I doubt that there is the necessary political leadership and will to avoid (when the grid shuts down, the gas goes away, and the Wal-Marts empty) a future of shortages, chaos, conflict and misery.
| | Deep Economy: The Wealth of Communities and the Durable Future by Holt Paperbacks a book which can change your thinking | | A very good, well-written book on some of the most challanging topics of this era. | | Deep Economy: The Wealth of Communities and the Durable Future by Holt Paperbacks An optimistic way to avoid environmental collapse | This brilliant book about the oncoming wreck of the global economy fails to answer the most elemental and yet essential question: How do we change human nature from wanting More! More! More!
Almost 50 years ago, the General Motors' exhibit at the World Fair was based on the idea, "Technology can point the way to a future of limitless promise." If McKibben or anyone else wants to understand the future, they need only look at today's GM, or Ford. The world is heading for a similar wreck; the survivors will be those who get out of the way.
This book is an example of the problem it laments; it is a dazzling example of the benign greed that is producing disaster, it offers cheery solutions well suited for miniscule groups of the conscientious, but it's not an answer. It merely uses more paper to explain the danger of using too much paper and other materials.
Let's be realistic: GM's vision of the future produced gray smog, stop-and-go rush hour traffic, road rage, OPEC prices, the rust-belt, inner-city blight, White flight, auto thefts and car bombings, plus global warming, used car sales people and SUVs. It's all a product of free decisions in a free marketplace. Now, GM is collapsing but Toyota thrives with its little cars and hybrids. It's how we got today's mess. What's the solution? More free decisions in a free marketplace?
McKibben is perfect when he points out small hunter/gatherer cooperative groups were normal for 99 percent of our history; but, he fails to come to grips with the monetization of relations among people during the past 5,000 years, and especially the last 300 years. Everything is now impartially subject to decisions based on free market pricing, which means the lack of hunter/gatherer cooperation is replaced by individualized competition.
Our economy is a wolf-pack that has turned on itself.
He cites the creation of the Industrial Age as beginning with Thomas Newcomen's invention of a practical steam engine in 1712; but he ignores the agonizing social upheaval people endured in fleeing old local sustainable farms and moving into cities. Any major change in our future will likely involve a similar human and material price. Someone needs to explain the "cost" of change and how it can come about.
One solution I'm involved with on a daily basis is Amazon.com -- which by making it easy to "recycle" used and donated library books has spared whole forests. Until such recycling occurs for much more than books, we must be content with dire forecasts about the oncoming wreck of the economy.
For most societies, the solution has always been collapse before radical change. McKibben offers little hope that America is different.
Doable? Other reviewers are optimistic. But, I look at the sorrow of ruins and fear people are too attached to past and present mistakes to see or accept alternatives. Perhaps McKibben is right; he is certainly an antidote to my pessimism. His analysis is interesting -- if doable; and if doabvle, it is vital.
This is a rough guide to a better future. | | Deep Economy: The Wealth of Communities and the Durable Future by Holt Paperbacks An Economy Based on Having Stuff is not Sustainable | This is a great book group read! It is not too long, has great examples, and is a pleasurable read. Not a book just for economic eggheads, but for everyone!
When I read this book I wanted to buy 100 and share them with people and discuss the ideas in the book. Since then my book group also read the book and can't stop talking about it.
McKibben challenges the fundamental economic belief that having more will make us happier and is necessary for our country's economic survival. Instead he offers a different model for our economic life that is sustainable for the planet and for us as a people.
| | Deep Economy: The Wealth of Communities and the Durable Future by Holt Paperbacks Product Description | “Masterfully crafted, deeply thoughtful and mind-expanding.”—Los Angeles Times In this powerful and provocative manifesto, Bill McKibben offers the biggest challenge in a generation to the prevailing view of our economy. Deep Economy makes the compelling case for moving beyond “growth” as the paramount economic ideal and pursuing prosperity in a more local direction, with regions producing more of their own food, generating more of their own energy, and even creating more of their own culture and entertainment. Our purchases need not be at odds with the things we truly value, McKibben argues, and the more we nurture the essential humanity of our economy, the more we will recapture our own. |
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