Thoughts on Books, Q1'24

Introduction
‘To read more’ was not quite a New Year’s resolution, but it is what has transpired over the calendar year, so far. This has not been achieved through any feat of personal willpower. Rather, through necessity. Firstly, the necessity to reduce my ‘to read’ pile of books to an acceptable height so as to buy more books. Secondly, the necessity of having to travel much more since Christmas, and having a several hour ‘lunch break’ between my teaching sessions.

The point is, I have been reading more. And for no particular reason. Much of what I have read is interesting, and I hope writing things like this will help me organise my thoughts.

I will try to post my reading quarterly, for those who are interested (I am often asked by students about ‘what they should be reading’ and almost all are dissatisfied when I say ‘everything’). For a brief list of what I will be reading, but have not yet read:

1. You Are Not a Gadget, Jaron Lanier
2. Only the Paranoid Survive, Andrew Grove
3. The Innovator’s Dilemma, Clayton Christensen
4. Super Imperialism, Michael Hudson
5. Tools for Conviviality, Ivan Illich
6. How Not to Network a Nation, Benjamin Peters
7. The Rise of Modern Chinese Thought, Wang Hui
8. The Road to Freedom, Joseph Stiglitz
9. Other Minds, Peter Godfrey-Smith
10. Determined, Robert Sapolsky
11. A Theory of Everyone, Michael Muthukrishna

Anyway…

A History of Western Philosophy, Bertrand Russell

I only really knew of Russell for two reasons. Firstly, he was a friend of Keynes, and there is a fun little picture of the two of them together (I think with Lytton Strachey) lounging on deck chairs, in Skidelsky’s second (or is it first?) volume of his biography of Keynes. Secondly, Russell was an important influence on Herbert Simon’s development of the ‘thinking machine’ in the 1950s. Simon actually used Russell’s famous book on mathematical logic (with Whitehead) to build his device, and corresponded somewhat with him.

My sincere opinion of A History of Western Philosophy is that it’s not really a history. The best part of the book—Book 2, on the role of the Church in Western Philosophy—is a history, and I would have gladly read more. The rest feels more encyclopaedic, and to that end, I regularly found myself wanting more detail. At times, it is as if there is a plot unfolding in the background, but I may only peer in through small, infrequent windows. One last point. Russell wrote much of the book during the war, and he is kind enough to occasionally note when (e.g., 1943) a particular chapter is written. I like this, as much of the book, in the end, feels like an assessment of how the ideologies of fascism, communism, and liberalism all emerged. Perhaps, for a reader seeking to understand that world at that time, this book would have been more revelatory than I found it.

Revolutionary Mathematics, Justin Joque

I bought this book because a) I like histories; b) I like books about technologies; and c) I like reading left-wing analysis of technologies. That being said, I was more interested in reading Matteo Pasquinelli’s The Eye of the Master, though that order had not yet arrived, so I went for Joque’s work, instead.

I did not quite know what I was anticipating. Initially, I was quite disappointed. If one reads as many overtly left-wing books as I do, there is a particular style of left-wing academic writing that, as far as I can tell, is designed solely to make you believe that much of important is being said, without ever clearly telling you anything important. Joque’s book, in the introduction, suffers from this proclivity, though so do many others.

The book is most enjoyable and informative after it sheds many of the nods to ‘Theory’ and actually begins exploring and critiquing specific technologies. Having been positioned as something of an AI book, I was pleasantly surprised at how much a book called Revolutionary Mathematics actually engaged with the social history of mathematics. Much of the book is very good, and it has clearly helped crystallise in my mind several ideas about, for instance, tangled versus entangled knowledge. Joque, much like Pasquinelli (whose book I am currently reading), does not seem overly supportive of approaches like symbolic AI, but does provide important critique about connectionist approaches which the world would be wise to take more seriously given the connectionist age now being thrust upon us.

After Work: A History of the Home and the Fight for Free Time, Helen Hester and Nick Srnicek

I bought this book for two reasons. Firstly, I figured given my job, I’d have to read it eventually. Secondly, I needed to buy another book to get a good discount on the bulk order, making this one, essentially, free.

I have read two of Srnicek’s other books—Inventing the Future (with Alex Williams) and Platform Capitalism—and I anticipated After Work to be much like these, particularly the former. I would probably conclude that it is, and that it isn’t. What I like about this book is its depth. The history of the home is fascinating, and Hester and Srnicek do an excellent job of teasing out all the social and economic dynamics which are at play, and which have shaped modern life. While I have been aware of ideas such as ‘family abolition,’ and while I am not going to abandon mine tomorrow, I found the authors situated these radical ideas in a progressive light. As they note, something like family abolition is a poorly named programme of policy aims. Hester and Srnicek’s inclination to something more akin to a ‘caring society’ (my term, not theirs) seems much more marketable, and an ambition I can get behind. I have been musing on the multigenerational public housing of somewhere like Vienna, or ideas of ‘public luxury’ for a while now (I enjoy swimming, but leisure centres are much too scarce in the UK), and this book has presented these ideas in a way which I find quite helpful.

A People’s History of the French Revolution, Eric Hazan

So, I’ve wanted to read a history of the French Revolution for a while. It is such an important event, and while it happened 230 years ago, it feels like (to me) something which should still have deep resonance with us today. I like ‘people’s histories’ because I’m too much of a Brechtian, and so I went for this one by Hazan.

Hazan starts the book by discussing the idea of revolutionary time, something which I am quite interested in. Despite my interest, this discussion serves a much more important purpose in the book. Hazan is committed to telling the history of the French Revolution chronologically, rather than juxtaposing events which contemporary analysis, or emphasising individual character narratives (it is, after all, a people’s history). Which this caveat, the but would be much less forgivable in its structure. Individuals and groups appear without context, and often disappear without a curtain call or applause. Some chapters cover months at a time with little happening; some cover days with the whole world changing. Perhaps most comically, events which typically characterise the French Revolution—the storming of the Bastille, the execution of Louis Capet and his wife, Marie Antoinnete, the Terror—all take a back seat, with glancing references here and there, before Hazan jumps back to the fragment of a speech by so-and-so about this thing or that thing.

What Hazan’s book does effectively, at least for me, is illustrate the absolute chaos of revolution, and the relevance of class (which I am perhaps abusing, here) as a component of societal power structures. The revolution does not happen because of mass revolt per se. The elites engage in infighting, demonstrating to the masses the relative weaknesses of the social order in compelling their continued cooperation. Factions fight factions, each ultimately leveraging the rage of the masses to achieve particular ends. But at any given moment, the revolution seems without focus, always tending toward abstract ideals while, at the same time, very real plots and executions are taking place.

The Eye of the Master, Matteo Pasquinelli

As above, this was the AI book that I really wanted to read. Yet, despite the apparent wonders of modern technology, getting hold of a copy was harder than it should have otherwise been. Anyway…

Pasquinelli’s book is interesting, and read as a companion with Joque’s work, the pair cover similar (sometimes the same) ground while supporting one another. The work which perhaps should have been written, but alas has not been, is one which combines The Eye of the Master and Revolutionary Mathematics together—a partnership both should consider. Pasquinelli’s approach is to focus entirely on neural-based AI systems, ultimately telling a history of AI which, strangely, omits large chunks of the history of AI.

Yet, I do not think the book especially suffers from having done so. The discussion of the links between AI development and political economy are fascinating, and Pasquinelli’s engagement with Babbage’s work is a stand out feature of this book. I am, of course, biased insofar as I have a paper coming out (hopefully) which focuses on several of the economic ideas Pasquinelli' discusses (though with more of a focus on surveillance). Furthermore, as someone who was guided to read Hodgskin as a young economics student, and whom knows few others who have, it was somewhat vindicating to see Pasquinelli link to Hodgskin’s ideas around mental labour, too.

Where The Eye of the Master suffers is in what it omits. Firstly, I think the book is too fast to ignore the history of symbolic AI. This is because symbolic AI, in my mind, holds some important ideas for neural-based AI systems, particularly in trying to achieve greater informational efficiency from these systems. Returning to Joque, the contrast in methods is quite pronounced, and thus adds to the reader’s experience. In Pasquinelli’s work, there is no contrast. Secondly, the book essentially stops after arriving at Rosenblatt’s perceptron. Of course, this is a very important development in the history of AI. But given so much previous discussion of Babbage, of Hodgskin, of the commodification of mental labour, and so on, there are pages still to be written about the political-economic (and thus social) forces which transform the perceptron into the AI systems we have today.

Chip War, Chris Miller

I probably won’t say too much about Chip War, because I like it a lot. It is easily the most readable book I have read in a long time, and it is tremendously engaging. One of the reviews on the cover describes the book as a “non fiction thriller” and I can see why. To an extent, the narrative style took away from the book, but I can understand why this book has been an almost omnipresent FT book of the year. I probably have two gripes with the book.

Firstly, and maybe this is conjecture, the book feels very anti-China. Miller is quite happy to tell the story of how Japan, and later Taiwan, caught up with the US in chip production, and through great determination and innovation overtook the US in some areas (particularly Taiwan). But when discussing China, whose activities in the semiconductor market are going to shape the next few decades, one way or another, Miller pulls back on the enthusiasm. Instead, the story he tells is of China stealing secrets and technologies. He seems dismissive that China could ever innovate or overtake the US in some areas of semiconductor manufacturing. Sanctions on China play a role here, as they did in Japan’s economic development. But Miller, who has charted 70 year’s of chip development, seems too write off China as a perpetual laggard.

Secondly, while the focus of the book makes for an entertaining read, the book lacks a wider economic and geopolitical grounding which would help situation the narrative. Talking about currency exchange rates, sanctions, and so on, is boring. But it’s necessary to understand many of the dynamics (e.g., human capital, technology, financing, supply chains) which are central to the changing semiconductor market. The book is accessible at the expense of being truly insightful.

The Dilemmas of Lenin, Tariq Ali

I read this book for three reasons. Firstly, I bought a copy a year ago and was tired of it just sitting there (as opposed to now sitting in basically the same place, but with me now having the satisfaction of having read it). Secondly, having read Mazan’s book on the French Revolution, I figured it would be interesting to have a perspective on the Russian Revolution (I have a copy of John Rees’ Leveller Revolution which I will work my way through, in due course, too). Thirdly, I was waiting to receive my copy of Giovanni Arrighi’s Adam Smith in Beijing, and needed something else to read.

For the forgoing reasons, I didn’t think I’d much enjoy this book, or have a particularly easy time with it. To my surprise, I did. I am vaguely aware of Ali’s pedigree and it shows as a writer. Rather than writing a biography of Lenin, Ali spends much of his time outlining the social situation in Russia throughout Lenin’s life. In exploring the dilemmas of Lenin (hence the title), Ali seems to believe it more important to paint for a reader the landscape in which Lenin had to grapple with issues, rather than an image of the man doing the grappling.

Of course, Lenin the man shines through here and there, but there is a sense when reading The Dilemmas of Lenin that Ali is really more interested in showing the reader how Lenin worked, how he thought and adapted. The book is then, in my opinion, a much more applied variant on an idea I call biography as method (essentially, the idea that understanding how ideas come about can give insights and thus methodological direction to those ideas themselves), though I’m sure philosophers of science have called something more interesting and accurate.

Adam Smith in Beijing, Giovanni Arrighi

I picked up a copy of this book for two reason. Firstly, I enjoyed Arrighi’s The Long Twentieth Century and expected a similar level of scholarly quality. Secondly, I heard an interview on the topic of geoeconomics, which I find interesting and relevant to my teaching, in which this book was mentioned. Thus, (2) invoked (1), and both translated into a purchase.

Adam Smith in Beijing is a great book with some poor parts to it. The first third is really interesting for those who like theory and political economy, which I do. The last third is fascinating insofar as a Arrighi tackles the ‘China question’ 15 years before anyone else was really taking China seriously. I learnt a lot about the political economy and institutional organisation of China which I was previously unaware of, and which I think do demonstrate important differences between the hegemonic Western (American) capitalist system and the emerging Chinese system.

Yet, the middle third is, perhaps, a bit dry. There is a lot of discussion of monetary economics, international finance, and politicking, without enough explanation, in my opinion. These are not my specialities, so many I am missing something someone else would better appreicate.

The Leveller Revolution, John Rees

This one was a bit of a slog. I know too little about the English Revolution, and particuarly, the radical elements of it. Rees’ book seemed like a good introduction, and generally I think this is a quality piece of work. It gives quite a bit of depth into the lives of key figures in the Leveller movement, and at times paints quite an engaging picture of the happenings of London in the 1640s. Much like other “people’s histories” such as Hazan’s, the ‘main characters’ of the revolution (Cromwell, Charles Stuart) take a back seat in the narrative, allowing Rees to jump from figure to figure as event warrant.

It is an eclectic approach which at times does serve to breath life into the narrative. At other points, it leaves a reader feeling lost. Characters come and go without a hello or goodbye, which has a certain literary merit to it, even if it is not one which I think always works. The book opens on events in London assuming, in my opinion, a certain degree of knowledge from a reader which might not be warranted. I was attracted to the book as a work of radical history; it was something of a learning curve to get my head around the various religious trials which were ongoing. I suppose, in the book’s favour, is this. I began reading this before reading Arrighi’s Adam Smith in Beijing, but had not yet finished. When I picked up Arrighi’s book, I did quickly find myself drawn back to Rees’ work. There is something here, though perhaps it is not always here. A break was the right decision.

Deschooling Society, Ivan Illich

I love Ivan Illich, for all his flaws, and for all the matters in which I disagree with him. There is a radicalism about his polemicism which is desperately missing in my life. I spend much time around ‘cutting-edge’ academics, ‘disruptive’ entrepreneurs, and our politics is full of ‘triggering’ ‘punk rock’ types—and they are all so bland and paint-by-numbers. Illich, for better or worse (and there are bad takes from Illich, to be sure) ruthlessly demands from his readers an alternative stance on the world. If one is willing to comply, Illich always shows one things which should invoke ideas.

Deschooling Society is Illich’s most famous work. It is a work that, to an extent, him came to renounce. It is also a work of its time, being written in the early 1970s. Throughout, Illich makes illusions to society ‘waking up’ to the horrors of the modern world. But this strikes a modern reader with a sense of Illich getting caught up in the post-60s moment which existed at the time. To know what was coming—Reagan, liberal capitalism hegemony, hypernormalisation in the 21st century—one struggles to see how Illich could have ever truly believed that people were coming around to his way of thinking. That, in particular, school would be abolished, and society deschooled, as he so passionately advocates.

The most important part of Illich is in his institutional economics, which I do not believe he would ever have described as such. Chapter 4’s Institutional Spectrum is compelling and probably deserves more eyeballs. Paired with his book Shadow Work a decade later, there are some really interesting ideas about the social externalities of modern industrial society floating around, and I can see links as far as Veblen and Keynes. Alas, this is not what Illich is trying to do. I think, though, if he pursued this line of thinking, he’d spot the critical error in (at least part) of his thesis, here. It is not that school creates consumers, and is thus parasitic on society. Rather, it is that capitalism demands workers, and thus demands the state provide education. School, rather than creating the social externality (institutional dependence of education) instead is a social externality (for state sanctioned education subsidies industrial neglect of worker education and upskilling).

There is more to be said. Though, not here.

Agendas, Alternatives, and Public Policies, John Kingdon

I read this book entirely for work. A reviewer of a paper I am working on suggested that Kingdon’s framework for how policy items get onto the political agenda would be useful for my work (which, when published, I might write some more about). Despite this book being ‘homework,’ in a manner of speaking, I really enjoyed it.

Kingdon is up front about several things which ultimately improve the quality of the whole reading experience. Firstly, there is no set guide to how policy happens. There are themes, and patterns, and common roles, but things are much too complicated to be consciuously manipulated consistently. Secondly, some obvious ideas about how policymaking happens are, actually, correct. Politicians with a lot of power do, well, have a lot of power. Lobbying and the national mood does have an effect. But, thirdly, he offers quite a refreshing view of everything. Politicians (or their staff) aren’t necessarily Machiavellian plotters. Often, they follow the path of least resistance, or perhaps, the path of most ‘sounds reasonable’ness. They have themes, vibes so to speak, but not necessarily policies. This more boundedly rational view of things (and Kingdon does implicitly draw on Simon a lot) is quite appealing.

I would encourage everyone to read it. Though, perhaps, this book thus demonstrates my ability to focus intensely on terribly dull things, like a monograph about 1970s policymaking.