Thoughts on Books, Q3'24

Unlike my previous two entries in this series, I have written these reviews as I have finished each book. Unlike Q2'24, where I felt I had read a lot of bad stuff, this quarter has seen a pretty good run of books. Even where I am negative, my criticisms are not ones which strike at the surface level. I am optimistic that this run will continue, though I am sceptical I can reach my target of reading one book a week by the end of the year. Lastly, I am conscious that I am reading a lot of stuff by men. Recommendations for books written by authors with a more diverse background are always welcome.

To read list:

1. Stuck in Traffic, Anthony Downs
2. Still Stuck in Traffic, Anthony Downs
3. The Price is Wrong, Brett Christophers
4. For a New West, Karl Polanyi
5. The Utopia of Rules, David Graeber
6. The Unaccountability Machine, Dan Davies
7. Blood in the Machine, Brian Merchant
8. Maoism, Julia Lovell
9. Thinking Like an Economist, Elizabeth Popp Berman
10. The Rise of Modern Chinese Thought, Wang Hui
11. Newspeak, Slava Gerovitch
12. When China Rules the World, Martin Jacques

Determined, Robert Sapolsky

I was a big fan of Robert Sapolsky's previous book, Behave. Though, it has been a while since I read that book, and I did worry that my current disdain for popular science books may not have existed then. This is to say, I worried going into Determined that my admiration for Sapolsky's writing would not translate over. I'm pleased to say that I remain a fan of Sapolsky. On the subject matter itself, I had and have relatively little interest in the subject of free will, and that probably helped me enjoy the book more than I might have done. I know from my own academic work that things which should be fun and interesting can often fail to be when on cares too much about being right.

Determined is a book about free will, or our lack of it. Sapolsky writes in much the same endearing way he did in Behave, with silly personal quips intermixed with a level of scientific detail that shows a) Sapolsky really is a lover of science; and b) he is clearly a nerd. I do not mean that in a bad way. For readers of Behave, the first half of Determined is quite repetitive, though Sapolsky acknowledges this. The new stuff, though, on chaos and complexity--even some of the stuff on quantum--is really interesting. As are the parts on the policy implications of a world without free will. Though, I wanted more of this. At one point in the book, Sapolsky acknowledges that some people just do not care about the free will debate. I am one of them. I think it is pretty much irrelevant; the kind of thing people with too much time worry about. That, or those with too few alternative concerns. Sapolsky suggests that we all should worry about free will, because of the social implications around things such as criminal justice. And I agree. Yet, given this, I'd have perhaps expected more on policy, and more of a developed advocacy position. However, I realise that is not Sapolsky's wheelhouse.

I suppose I will conclude with my two cents on the free will debate. I do not dispute any of Sapolsky's science, and even he acknowledges that what he is asking is essentially the same question that Greek philosophers pondered when they thought about the 'unmoving mover'--the thing that gives momentum to thought and action beyond the process that can be measured. Sapolsky concludes we have never found such an impetus, and thus it is better to say free will does not exist, rather than act as if it does. Humans do have tremendous abilities to spot patterns and infer relationships--what if free will is a great spell we as a species continue to cast on ourselves? For what it is worth, as far as I know, scientists still do not know where or what the mind is; they cannot point to the physical location of consciousness; yet, there is physical arrangement of neurones that separates you from me. It is there, in the brain, of course (or, maybe, in the soul?), but we just don't know. The mind is something that exists, at least on an experiential level. And on that basis, I'm not convinced that ideas like free will necessarily need to be tied to physical brain matter. Maybe this is sacreligious--Sapolsky is a neurobiologist, after all--but I'm quite happy with this conclusion. As I am with the conclusion that free will doesn't exist. I want to live a happy, fulfilling life. I don't think free will is necessary for that; neither do I think it is an impediment.

Nuclear War, Annie Jacobsen

Some readers may know that I have an amateur interest in nuclear war, and--if I'm being candid--I think more about nuclear war as an immediate threat to humanity than global warming. I do not believe many people grasp the set up of nuclear arsenals around the world; the terrible destructive power of these weapons; or their continued use within 'deterrence' policies to this day. In my opinion, since the collapse of the Soviet Union, the notion of a nuclear war has evaporated from the public consciousness. Or, if it remains, it has been twisted into something less than it actually is. Perhaps we could call it the 'falloutification' of nuclear war politics.

There is so much to like about Annie Jacobsen's book Nuclear War. To start, it is not a historical reckoning per se, in the same way that something like Daniel Ellsberg's The Doomsday Machine is. Ellsberg's book is fascinating for various reasons, but falls down as it does not say much beyond 1960s U.S. nuclear war policy. Jacobsen's book, while modelling a hypothetical scenario, is as up-to-date as national security resources would allow. Thus, she effectively guides a reader through the most likely scenario if a nuclear conflict were to start today. And, to be frank, it is terrifying and depressing. Like, truly. I cannot stress enough how, even for someone like myself with quite a lot of knowledge on nuclear war, this book gets into your head. Rare has a day gone by since reading it that I have not thought that this could be it. Right now.

The book is written in a style reminiscent of a thriller, and at times one does indeed slip into the thinking that this book is more fiction than it really is. This makes the terror of the very real details even more pronounced. It is no surprise that for a non-fiction book on national security policy, this book is being made into a movie. Personally, if that communicates to a wider audience the immediate threat all life on Earth faces, the better for it. To do my own bit in spreading this message, I would highlight two things. Firstly, deterrence is not a strategy, it is a sticking plaster. The question is not if deterrence can continue to work. It is merely a matter of when deterrence will fail. If we continue on our current trajectory; if we allow nuclear weapons to continue existing within our world; life on this planet will, perhaps sooner rather than later, end in nuclear holocaust. And, to paraphrase Khrushshev, in a nuclear war, the living will envy the dead. Secondly, when deterrence fails, we cannot stop it. There will not be enough time. We will have minutes left. Not hours, or days. Minutes. By the time you learn of deterrence failing, you will already be dead, either lost in nuclear fire, or doomed to live on an unhabitable planet.

Trade Winds, Christiaan de Beukelaer

Trade Winds by Christiaan de Beukelaer was a bit of a spur of the moment purchase after I stumbled across a reading list from Green New Deal Manchester, maybe. I cannot remember. Regardless, when I saw it, I thought it would be an interesting read because I know relatively little about trade dynamics and even less about the sustainability of global shipping. On these points, I felt the book was quite informative.

Where the book shines is in the literary style which de Beukelaer adopts. Leaning heavily into the genre of sea voyages, de Beukelaer uses the setting of being trapped at sea on a sustainable shipping vessel during COVID-19 to jump into and out of the various politics and economics that surround shipping, and its environmental damages. At times, the 'plot' gets in the way of the really interesting policy stuff, which is probably a niche criticism. I imagine for most readers, it will be the other way around. Nevertheless, there is something quite charming about the plot, and the cast of characters involved. de Beukelaer perhaps has a talent for fiction. It would have been quite easy to paint the relations between the crew as being basically fine; everyone pulling their weight and getting along in a situation beyond their control. Instead, I think de Beukelaer communicates a somewhat beautiful story of reality. There is tension in the narrative, even a sense of tiredness and boredom at times. Reading, I recall empathising with the feeling of dried salt water from the improvised showers, owing to the restrictions on fresh water. This all, ultimately, serves to enhance the environmentalism of the book. By feeling so embedded in the experience of what an actually decarbonised shipping industry might look like, one begins to grasp the scale of the challenge.

In turn, something I find quite interesting is how this all influenced my way of thinking about the problem. I do not know de Beukelaer, but if I had to guess, I'd say he generally sympathises with the 'degrowth' movement in ecological economics. This is because, on several occasions, de Beukelaer muses that the solution to much of the shipping industry's environmental woes must come from tackling excess consumption of goods. The best way to reduce shipping pollution is to ship less stuff. And I agree with this--I agree with it more than I thought I would. Now, I have never been anti-degrowth. One of the MBA lectures I give is on ecological economics, and the data does not necessarily suggest degrowth is, physically speaking, barking up the wrong tree. But, as my experiences of that class have taught me, it is much easier to say 'degrowth is something we should consider' when one lives and was raised in an affluent, safe, Western country like the UK. It is easy for me to say I could do without this or that. Thus, I have been personally reluctant to lean into degrowth, as it is a potentially alienating idea which I am not necessarily best equipped to communicate. de Beukelaer is a much better communicator than me, and I think the degrowth perspective Trade Winds advances is interesting. As is the book itself; it is a surprise that is worth sticking with.

Super Imperialism, Michael Hudson

Super Imperialism by Michael Hudson has been on my to-read list for a while. I initially picked it up at the same time as Giovanni Arrighi's Adam Smith in Beijing, which was a surprising accessible read, despite my concerns. My review of that book can be found here. On the one hand, I wondered whether Hudson's book would be a similar read; one that was challenging but still grounded and gripping. On the other hand, I had a feeling that the book would be a drag. It's a book that physically feels dense, and at times it is. Certainly, it is a tremendous amount of international monetary economics, which at times can be really interesting, and at times can be very difficult to grasp.

The reality is that Super Imperialism has bits of both. The book is about how the U.S. has dominated the twentieth-century through a combination of military power supported by monetary authority, and how U.S. strategy has exploited the weaknesses first of the old European powers, and more recently, of the developing world. It is a book that, to be frank, should make anyone dislike the U.S.. I do not mean this in a xenophobic way--one only needs to observe the difficulties Americans face with healthcare, drug addiction, public service provision, education, criminal justice, and so on, to know that the benefits of America's imperialist position do not trickle down to the masses. I mean disdain for the U.S. comes in the form of disdain for the U.S. power brokers and, to a lesser extent, the U.S. bourgeoisie who benefit from this economic order while much of the rest of the world (including the European powers) suffer. This book has, in various ways, shaped some of my thinking about foreign policy and geopolitical strategy, which--to be fair--is precisely why I purchased the book.

Hudson himself notes that Super Imperialism is widely read within the U.S. State Department to educate new diplomats about how U.S. monetary policy actually works. In this latest edition of the book, Hudson also notes that the book is increasingly read by Chinese officials who, Hudson readily admits, are formulating strategies to take on the U.S. in what they imagine will be the 'Chinese Century.' Hudson is less certain of this outcome. He suggests--and I am inclined to agree with him--that rather than a 'Chinese Century' emerging (following Arrighi's notion of long centuries), the global economic order which is actually emerging is one of multipolarity. He points to the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation, and--had the book not been released in 2021--I am sure would point to how Russia and China are developing monetary and trade systems outside of those dominated by the U.S., following the Russian invasion of Ukraine ('de-dollarisation'). The Israel-Gaza conflict only pulls at the thread of an American empire which is slipping (not to mention the domestic challenges the country faces). These factors are one of the main reasons I wanted to read Super Imperialism--to get an idea of where we are heading. While reading, various thoughts entered my mind, not the least that the UK probably needs to rejoin the EU; the EU probably needs to substantially integrate further, developing the euro and the central banking instutions into something that can facilitate debt sharing and investment; developing its own military power; and developing a foreign policy independent of the U.S., one that uses European wealth to invest in developing regions (primarily North Africa and the Middle East) and which can oppose the destabilising actions of various nations. Without these developments, I cannot see a prosperous European continent in the late twenty-first century. But now, we are going off topic. What is more frustrating about Super Imperialism is that much of the most relevant stuff is contained with, say, ten pages of a 400 page book. I personally found the history around war debts and so on very interesting, but this is a book that feels very dated, given it is meant to be a 'manual' for U.S. economic strategy today.

The Great Transformation, Karl Polanyi

The Great Transformation is something of a religious text for some areas of political economy, and having never read it, it seemed appropriate to give it a go. I thought I understood the basic premise of the book--that economic developments prompt political reactions which force states to intervene to change economic conditions; Polanyi's famous 'double movement.' And that idea is at the heart of The Great Transformation. But, to my delight, there is so much more to this book.

Polanyi's real goal with this book is to highlight how the self-regulating market (what we would today call the free market) is neither natural nor sustainable. As a socialist, there are some Marx-adjacent points to Polanyi's criticism of markets. But unlike Marx, Polanyi criticises some specific uses of markets which he suggests leads to the abovementioned double movement, which in turn sparks social unrest and harm. Specifically, Polanyi notes that markets in labour, land, and money simply do not make historic sense, and are inherently unstable. Yet, Polanyi argues, these 'fictional commodities' must be subject to markets for capitalism to work. Thus, he spend much of The Great Transformation documenting the historical developments that led to the creation of these fictitous commodities.

This is all fascinating, and I think in many ways much preferable to Marx's critique. Marx, in my opinion, was not the best writer insofar as I do not enjoy his writing style. Yet, Polanyi brings in further critiques of Marx, and demonstrates further advantages over Marx, which I think are worth highlighting. In terms of critique, Polanyi argues that Marx's notion of class is too simple; that homogenous classes do not exist, and that human history does not follow from people acting in their economic self-interest (which, by extension, becomes their class interest). Polanyi emphasises the various roles, traditions, and motivations people can have behind their political actions, and notes that historically, these factors account for much of the fragmentation of social movements much better than a simple class-based analysis could. Polanyi does not dismiss class as a relevant factor, but simply suggests that Marx retained too much Ricardian logic for his 'critique of political economy' to transcend the behavioural assumptions of Ricardo's (and Smith's) political economy. When we look at, say, the critique someone like Friedman makes of Braverman's (Marxist) analysis of twentieth-century management, we can see this Polanyian criticism again, which to me gives it some weight. In terms of further advantages, I think Polanyi's focus on labour, land, and money, and the unsuitability of these 'commodities' to markets is helpful because it offers a more practical set of ideas for overcoming capitalism. Demarketising and decommodifying these commodities will, following Polanyi, undermine the functioning of capitalism. It will not destroy capitalism--just as capitalism did not destroy aspects of feudalism--but it can allow democratic government to control capitalistic mechanisms, which in time could allow greater reform (again, just how capitalism came to control feudal institutions).

I can see why The Great Transformation is held in such high regard, though I am surprised that so much emphasis is placed on the double movement when this is a relatively small part of the whole book, and while the rest of the book has so much interesting stuff to consider. I will, hopefully, spend much more time considering said stuff.

Cybernetic Revolutionaries, Eden Medina

Medina's Cybernetic Revolutionaries is a book I should have read a long time ago. I have had a copy sitting on my eternal 'to read' pile for a couple of years, yet never quite seemed to get around to it. One of my goals this year is to make a significant dent in the pile (it is not going well), and Medina's work jumped out as something I bought because it sounded really interesting, and which I have heard is a brilliant piece of work.

I generally accord to this sentiment. Cybernetic Revolutionaries is a fascinating, and quite engaging book, throughout. Covering the background and history of Project Cybersyn--Chile's attempt to build a networked economy in the early 1970s--Medina excellently outlines the general proposition that technology and politics are inseparable; but more than that, dialectically linked, twisting and shaping one another. For Medina, the political background of a democratic socialist revolution sets the pace for the 'story' of Project Cybersyn, and so she focuses more on how technology can be built with explicit political objectives in mind. This is one of the most interesting parts of the book. It makes me think of someone like Jaron Lanier, who would probably make similar arguments about the sociology of technology and path dependencies within technology (in fact, he does in You Are Not A Gadget), but who does not make these points anywhere near as brilliantly as Medina.

Cybernetic Revolutionaries is helped by the excellent scholarship throughout, and the deep level of study on the author's part which shines throughout the pages of the book. In the end, the 'story' Medina tells is a sympathetic one, but one that also seems tinged with sadness. It is difficult, as least for me, to tell from the writing whether Medina wants to present the chaos and breakdown of the Cybersyn project as inevitable, or whether the narrative simply leans into a more historical styling. Nevertheless, returning to the politics as a major theme of the book, Medina--rightly, in my opinion--notes that Cybersyn in some ways previews the failings of technosolutionism which would emerge in the twenty-first century. The U.S. economic blockade of Chile could not be overcome by building a networked economy, even if the networking did produce some degree of economic and political flexibility. This is an example of the material realities which technological promises cannot overcome--something we should be mindful of today.

How Not to Network a Nation, Benjamin Peters

How Not to Network a Nation is, in some ways, a sibling of Cybernetic Revolutionaries. They are both books about (failed) attempts to apply cybernetic thinking to socialist economies, and they both tread obscure technological histories which until recently have been overlooked. But there are differences between these books, both in terms of focus, and in terms of quality.

In my opinion, Peters' book is not as good as Eden Medina's work. To an extent, I suspect this is because of the narrative each can tap into. The story of cybernetics in Chile is relatively short, fast paced, and punctuated by dramatic moments. The story of cybernetics in the Soviet Union is slow, dispersed across several characters, institutions, and decades, and hardly ever (it seems) the main character in its own story. This is reflected in the approach Peters takes to discuss Soviet cybernetics, and ultimately underpins what I think is the most important contribution of this book. Where Medina focuses on the technology-politics dialectic, Peters--whether he realises this or not--focuses on policy setting and political agenda setting.

For Peters, the consistent failure of the Soviet Union to network its economy comes from the lack of political consensus and institutional infighting which was characteristic of the Soviet command economy (I am unsure what Peters' politics is, though this may be relevant insofar as his political views might shape some of his intepretation of Soviet politics. Nevertheless, I think his criticisms remain quite valid). The networking of the national economy would require huge resources, and thus the highest level of political support. Furthermore, these resources were potentially to be taken from existing ministries, creating animosity, and the successful network may have made irrelevant other ministries, creating outright hostility. These themes and more can also be found in Kingdon's discussion of agenda setting, which lends validity to Peters' hypothesis (though I am not sure Peters is aware of Kingdon's work).

Most interestingly, this critique is built around the cybernetic concept of a heterarchy. A heterarchy, as I conceive of it based on Peters' use of the term, is essentially a multinodal organisational structure. Peters' brilliant adaption of this plain idea is to argue that institutions often have formal 'hierarchies,' but function via informal 'heterarchical' processes. In principle, A > B, and B > C. But if A and C are friends, few with any social sensitivity would believe that the formal hierarchy really articulates the effective power of B. Again, Kingdon is potentially relevant here--Kingdon discusses the idea of the 'garbage can' model: rather than agendas being set rationally and in response to formal channels of communication and feedback, ideas tend to get chucked into a 'garbage can' and circumstances determine when, and who, picks an idea out to run with. From the perspective of social change, I think these ideas are very important, and I'll be thinking much more about all of this. Anyway, Peters' great insight, with the idea of heterarchy and formal/informal organisation established, is that solutions which are built in response to the formal structure of a probelm (e.g., a bureaucracy) may be (on paper) brilliant. But success requires the solution to actually follow the informal, heterarchical structure of a problem. Failing this, the whole solution will fail (no matter how apparently brilliant it is).

The Machine Age, Robert Skidelsky

I am a big fan of Robert Skidelsky's writing. His trilogy on Keynes is by far the best biography I have ever read, and he is probably the most accessible writer on economic history alive today (and I hope for many more years). I have some issues with some of his other books. His Keynes: Return of the Master stuck me as a bit of a rehash of the biography trilogy to try and capitalise on the furore unleashed by the Global Financial Crisis (while I may be mistaken, there are even some sections which might have literally been copied and pasted from some of his earlier Keynes writing). The Machine Age feels more Return of the Master than it does the biography.

I don't think that makes it a bad book. Yet, it is a book which must be understood in parts, with varying quality. The first third or so of The Machine Age is really interesting. Skidelsky combines his natural talents at writing economic history with some of his more philosophical writing (which also appeared at times in the trilogy), but applies the discussion to the history of technology and its economic and social implications. There are quite a few interesting lines, and some insights where I felt I learnt something. For instance, his elaboration of the 'machine philosophy' of Thomas Carlyle is very interesting, and something I will use going forward. If I were to be critical of this third, it would be that the analysis could go deeper. My mind goes to Matteo Pasquinelli's discussion of Babbage's work on the political economy of technology and automation--Skidelsky probably should have gone into discussions like this. Indeed, in my opinion, The Machine Age should probably just be a polemic on the political economy of work and technology. This would play to Skidelsky's strengths and, I think, be something that Skidelsky could offer an interesting narrative around.

I was less impressed with the other two-thirds of the book. The middle third sees Skidelsky review a lot of science fiction writing throughout the past three or four centuries to highlight how the challenges of technology we are now facing have been previously considered. I think there is some value in this--I am writing something related to this myself--but I am also not too convinced the value is that substantial. For instance, I find it interesting when literary scholars analyse Marx's Communist Manifesto or Das Kapital from literary perspectives. It is fascinating to see the links between works of political economy and, say, gothic horror. But how much does an understanding of these links change or inform how Marx's work should be used? Some, to be sure. But there are plenty who would still regard capitalism as an unworldly horror, and so it is hard to see Marx's analysis as being twisted by the literary movements around him (though said movements may have coloured his aesthetics). This is all a long winded way of saying that it is interesting to consider Orwell's 1984 or Huxley's Brave New World, but in a book about immediate technological pressures, it feels a little indulgent.

The final third is possibly the most disappointing section, though I don't really blame Skidelsky for this. In the final third, Skidelsky outlines how technology today is having terrifying effects on society. Undoubtedly so. The issue this section has is it adds little new on top of a debate which has been unfolding in one way or another for fifteen years or so, by now. The section is not the prose of a scholar deeply embedded in the sociality and politics of technology, but of a sage observer--which, of course, is exactly what Skidelsky is. Alternatively, I will acknowledge that this book could not close without a section like this; it is an editorial necessity. Furthermore, the typical Skidelsky reader may not be someone like myself; someone who has written with multiple authors cited by Skidelsky. For the Skidelsky-esque liberal, this third of the book--indeed, the book itself--I think would be interesting and valuable. Despite my somewhat negative tone, I did quite enjoy the book (most of my negative reviews downplay the enjoyment I have with most of what I write).

Elinor Ostrom's Rules for Radicals, Derek Wall

I've had this book for quite a while, sat on my never diminishing 'to read' pile. As it happens, I finished The Machine Age before my copy of Thomas Schelling's The Strategy of Conflict could arrive, and so I decided something from the pile should be tackled. And that 'something' was Derek Wall's short--and quite nice--book on the thought of Elinor Ostrom.

Ostrom has always been a funny character in my mind. Obviously brilliant, but also somehow existing in a negative space--there, but also not in the picture. I have read Ostrom's Governing the Commons, and after reading Wall's book, I should probably go back to it. I think I'd find more appreciation in Ostrom's work now, and that's one of the great things about Rules for Radicals. Wall clearly enjoys Ostrom's work, and clearly sees the obvious-and-yet-somehow-not value in it. The book is, in a nutshell, a loose attempt to apply Ostrom's ideas and economic philosophy to thinking seriously about questions of political economy and ecology, namely, how can we change the current capitalist system, and how can we prevent climate change? These are noble goals. I am not necessarily convinced this book actually does too much to develop that project.

This, loosely, is my main criticism of the book. As an intellectual exercise, or an introduction to Ostrom for the Left (which is probably one of its main motivations), it's a reasonably good book. But it's not much beyond this. Each chapter touches on a different aspect of what Ostrom believed, and each Wall has to tentatively try and twist into some kind of 'rule' or important lesson for radicals today. And, to be frank, I am not sure this is successfully achieved very often. By the end of the book, it even feels more biographical than analytical, which I don't mind too much, but I also do not think is the goal with Rules for Radicals. It is a shame--Derek Wall probably should write an Ostrom biography, as it would afford him the time and space to delve into an interesting person's life (and a person Wall is obviously passionate about), keeping Ostrom as the main subject, while dropping into and out of discussions of where Ostrom's wider philosophy has relevance today (which is one of the better things Skidelsky would do in his biography of Keynes).

The Strategy of Conflict, Thomas Schelling

Schelling's The Strategy of Conflict is one of those books that always finds its way onto reading lists for Game Theory courses, and as it happens I am teaching more game theory this year than previously, I figured reading it would be worthwhile. It was, and it wasn't.

The book is difficult, which I do not mind, and the first half or so is quite rewarding. It is interesting insofar as the first half of the book is much more around commitment strategies in negotiations than game theory proper. It is also interesting that when Schelling turns to game theory propoer, he is much more critical than I anticipated. I very much agree with his emphasis on tacit agreement strategies over 'solving' games of strategy formally, and his occasional reference to someone like Herbert Simon is welcome, too, as there are clearly links. And, being interested in nuclear war, the relevance Schelling's work has to national conflict--and his candidness about this--is very interesting.

Where the book lost me was in the second-half. Here, Schelling spends too much time discussing hypothetical games and hypothetical players, mixing in the language of formalism rather than that of negotiation and strategy. There are still insights, to be sure, and the text is not that tricky to follow, if one tries. Yet, given one of the major positives about the book is the emphasis on tacit agreement, to then switch and absorb oneself in the language of abstract games is disappointing. I suppose, though, this is what I expected from the book. That not all of the book was like this must make the whole thing more of a positive than a negative.