The Price of Civilization

So this is the state we're in: political gridlock in the USA, sovereign debt bringing down one country after another, protests growing, corporate bonuses growing.... It's in this context that I just finished reading Jeffrey Sach's book: The Price of Civilization - Economics and Ethics After the Fall.

There are many memorable passages I could quote, but one will have to do:

"The list of recent government failures is long and growing. The intelligence agencies failed to anticipate 9/11. The Bush administration launched a war over Iraq weapons of mass destruction that did not exist. The Iraq and Afghanistan occupations were totally botched, brought down by ignorance, lack of planning, and corruption of U.S. contractors. Hurricane Katrina shattered our confidence in our emergency response system. The banking crisis shattered our confidence in financial regulation. The banking bailout destroyed any remaining sense of fairness between Wall Street and Main Street. And now we face budget deficits unprecedented since WWII, but continue to grant massive tax breaks to the richest Americans."

There's a problem with what's been happening in American society over the past 30 years. Maybe it's time to admit that the current strategies aren't working.

This book examines the mess we're in and what could be done about it.