Thoughts on Books, Q4'24

At the end of the year, according to my count, I have read 38 books. I suppose that is a lot, but it is not the one a week target. Though, I am not disappointed. If I am disappointed at anything after a year of reading, it is that I have read of a lot of books I did not think were very good. Then again, I am not an especially good writer myself, and everyone is trying their best. If I were to emphasise the positive aspects of my reading this year, I have read some wonderful books that have left a big impression on me, and which I hope continue to inform my thinking and future actions. The point of learning is not to show off to others how much one knows, but to transform oneself in ways which are rewarding and surprising. I think, at least in part, my reading this year has contributed to that.

I did not read quite as much as I would have liked this quarter. I perhaps oculd have squeezed out another book before the end of the year to reach 39, a satisficing 75% of the goal. But why rush to meet an arbitrary target (especially when one is going to miss it, anyway)? I've not decided if I will continue posting these reviews next year. On the one hand, I quite enjoy writing some of them. On the other, it feels like a chore at times. I do know, from conversations, that some people take my lists of books (if not reviews) as guides for their own reading. One of my motivations for posting my thoughts on books was to share what I was reading (good or bad), and that is still something I believe in. So... maybe?

To read:
1. How the World Ran Out of Everything, Peter Goodman
2. The Price is Wrong, Brett Christophers
3. For a New West, Karl Polanyi
4. The Utopia of Rules, David Graeber
5. The Unaccountability Machine, Dan Davies
6. Blood in the Machine, Brian Merchant
7. Thinking Like an Economist, Elizabeth Popp Berman
8. The Rise of Modern Chinese Thought, Wang Hui
9. Newspeak, Slava Gerovitch
10. When China Rules the World, Martin Jacques

China: A History, John Keay

I know too little about China. I have wanted to rectify this gap in my knowledge for a while, and the only way one who does not travel can do this is to read a diversity of accounts from others. John Keay's China: A History is the first of these accounts I have considered. I am quite neutral on this book. It comes across as a reasonably generic history book--the type one might pick up before a long flight. The major stregnths of the book do not necessarily come from Keay himself, but the intrigue of the character he is studying throughout the text. The history of China is fascinating not only in the ways in which it differs from Western history (which, unsurprisingly, I know a lot better) but in the ways that said history continues to cut through today. While I likely agree with Keay's assessment that the continuity of the Chinese state is exaggerated today, it is undeniable that a Chinese identity has existed for much longer than, say, a Roman identity, or a Christian identity. This book gave me some more appreciation of this idea. China is not a modern phenomenon, an entity to be taken seriously only now that their economic capabilities are beyond ignoring. China has always been there, playing its part in the global ebb and flow of human civilisation. This should not, in itself, warrant the nation (or, perhaps more accurately, the culture) some special privilege or claims to superiority today, as Julia Lovell suggests may be part of an emerging nationalist trend in the country (see below). But it should also demonstrate that Western ignorance of China nothing short of folly.

To go back to Keay specifically, I do not think this book is anything special. Keay tries to draw a throughline, or some narrative that demonstrates to the reader why the story of the first emperor, or the only empress, or the Mongol horde, or whatever, is important. This is admirable. Unfortunately, I think the notion of narrative in the book fails in two ways. Firstly, Keay slips too often into a style of 'and then this happened.' Characters come out of nowhere, trends become trends only at their zenith or nadir, and so on. I appreciate that there is a lot of history to cover, and that history is not always a neat thing that can be seamlessly stitched together. In retrospect, an approach of 'an then this happened' might legitimately be the best approach. But it is a common aspect of this book, and not one which disposes me to think that this history is much more than a surface level account. Secondly, though related to the first, is the distinct absense of people in this history. Keay could have called his book 'a history of the dynasties of China' and it would have been totally accurate. This is a book about dynasties and dynastic heads. These are the chaarcters who pop in and out uninvited. And what is more, quite often, they emerge at the head of armies tens of thousands (if not hundreds of thousands) in number. But, where did these people come from? Why did they fight? What was their lives like? Keay is light on these details. In discussing agriculture, or manufacturing, or trade, Keay notes the many remarkable things about Chinese history in these areas. But where are the people, the farmers and craftspeople and shiphands? Keay ends with the fall of the Qing, the republician warlord period, and a dash of commentary on the civil war. Need I ask the question again--where are the people? This is not a trivial point, either. Keay seems happy to make links to modern communist China throughout the book, and yet the thing that Mao and co. emphasised throughout their campaign--the importance of the people and the peasantry, of the mass line and the importance of learning from the peasants--is absent from this book. I appreciate Keay did not set out to write a 'people's history' of China. But given the sheer scale of the nation; given the obsession China's dynasties had with controlling this large nation; and given the historically unique achievement of cultivating a single culture for such a large population; one might imagine that the people would feature more as an agent of history than they do in Keay's book.

I am conscious that Keay's history may be better or worse than someone else's. I have nothing to compare it to, and so my thoughts may miss something critical that someone else catches, or may unfairly characterise a respectful effort within the literature. I don't know. As an overview, I found the book to be fine.

Stuck in Traffic, Anthony Downs

It perhaps says something about me that I was very excited to read this book. Some of the ideas in or adjacent to this book--notably, that lowering speeds reduces journey times--I have been preaching about for quite some time, to my increasingly annoyed and bored friend group. I am also a bit sentimental to Anthony Downs, as his work on voting behaviour was the topic of the first 'paper' I ever wrote (it was not very good). I was thus curious to see how, and why, Downs had decided to devote his efforts to the questions of traffic and traffic management.

I did not enjoy this book. It is extremely boring. Most people would not be surprised by this--it is a book about traffic, after all. But my lack of enjoyment is almost entirely Downs' fault. Downs is a terribly bland writer, in my opinion. He is clearly an excellent textbook economist, but that is also how he writes. There is no daring in the prose; no sense of confidence that self-assured economists tend to have. Perhaps Downs would have developed this if he had won the Nobel prize, but even in his academic work, I kind of feel the same--excellent by the standard of a textbook, but cold and sterile as a piece of writing or a policy document. Downs' major recommendation--to charge for road usage--is not in principle an idea I disagree with. But it is one that is devoid of the political reality. If implementing a road usage surcharge was just about having a political fight, I would be up for it. But, as the French yellow jacket protests demonstrate, it is also about matters of equity, redistribution, and justice. One cannot solve something like traffic with technocratic fixes. One needs to rewire society through investment to change (and hopefully, expand) peoples' choice sets, as well as reorientate the operation of society to emphasise a new set of ends in itself. When I write this, I naturally do not have traffic management in mind (though it is applicable and it is something I care about), but rather, climate change. Colleagues and I have even recently written about the limits of small tweaks in not just solving problems, but also of conceiving of those problems to begin with (the phrase 'when you only have a hammer, everything is a nail' comes to mind).

My criticism of Downs for showing little literary flaw is therefore no a criticism of style, but a criticism of personality and intellect. I do not think Downs was ever the type of guy to think deeply about the politics; to seek out a tool beyond his perfect, economics, hammer. This leads to a strange book which appeals to neither of the likely groups of readers. For economists, the book is a bit bland and standard; it lacks the bit beyond the economics which revitalises the economic basis of traffic management. For general interest readers, the book is too economically, feeling much more like a policy briefing report than a book. I would note that I say all this while still agreeing with many of Downs' ideas and recommendations.

Maoism, Julia Lovell

I know essentially nothing about Maoism, except for the things one can gleam through left-wing memes. I knew about the struggle sessions, the notion of criticism/self-criticism, and the tendency for Maoists to believe little can be achieved without a rigorous, militant organisational structure. I bought Lovell's Maoism hoping to learn a lot more about Mao, and the ideas to which his name are given. Given the impact these ideas have had, it has always stuck me as an important point of my own personal ignorance. This being said, it is also important to recognise that the subtitle to Lovell's book is A Global History, and that Lovell is a historian. Thus, rather than this book being a political text or analysis per se, it is a historical account of Maoism around the world. I think it is also a response to the author's gripe that Communist China is a 'non-interventionist' state. Lovell brings this up several times--that she believes modern China's attempts to brand itself as a hands off, self-facing state is a perversion of China's history since Mao.

I found much of this book difficult. Lovell recognises that many people do not actually know what Maoism is, and that is her starting point. She also, perhaps tellingly, relies that Maoism itself is a bit of a misnomer. She reports that much of Mao's writing probably isn't his, but the work of better theoreticians within the party. Mao's military writings, which may be more applicable to him, are also specific to the conditions of warfare in 1930s China, and that the extrapolation of these ideas to general principles (the kind of thing necessary for a coherent political programme) is not always suitable here. Indeed, the unsuitable nature of Mao's ideas to different political contexts is a reoccuring theme within this book. As a result, a reader begins Maoism without, still, an especially compelling idea of what it actually is. One thing which does cut through, which is interesting but potentially also frustrating, is Lovell's assessment of Mao the man. It is interesting because knowing people behind ideas is, in my opinion, essential to understanding those ideas. That Mao was not necessarily the foremost theoretician within the party is interesting to know in terms of evaluating Mao's contribution to political theory (e.g., how much of Mao's theory is retrospective rationalisation for Mao's pragmatic actions, or mistakes?). But it is frustrating insofar as the continued lack of clarity about what Maoism actually is is exacerbated when one is being given potentially irrelevant facts about who Mao was. In turn, this twists a reader's interpretation of these facts. Lovell clearly does not like Mao the man; neither do I, based on Lovell's discussion. This, in itself, should not undermine Lovell's contribution, or tarnish her work which any political bias. But the combination of apparent obfuscation of what Mao thought with criticism of Mao the man does result, from my experience, in the immediate opening third of the book feeling as though Lovell has an ax to grind, against Mao and against China.

I think this feeling dissipates as one moves further into the book. In discussing the various incidents involving Mao and his support for revolutionary groups around the world, Lovell must also discuss the often brutal regimes that said revolutionaries were revolting against. The atrocities of the US in Vietnam, or of the Indonesian military dictatorship (which was also supported by the US Government). Lovell's discussion of these historical antagonists (to the revolutionary protagonist) does not sugar-coat things, which leaves one (well, me) to conclude that Lovell, if she has an ideological ax to grind, dispises the awful atrocities across the political spectrum which were committed in the twentieth century, something which I can readily support, as should we all. In this sense, the book opens up (or perhaps I as a reader opened up to Lovell, but as above, I think the construction of the start of the book contributed to my suspicions of Lovell's motives). Now, being ignorant, it may well be the case that Lovell continues to write in ways which are uncharitable to some groups and not to others. I do not know. I recall reading somewhere that history never happens, but is rather constructed in such a way that even those 'making' said history would not recognise (because, in the moment, we cannot view ourselves as part of the whole series of events). Lovell may be doing this throughout the book. But the book does gain an energy as the history approaches more recent events, where one can almost touch the impact of Mao on modern life. The final chapter, on the strange use of Mao in modern China, is especially interesting, especially given the growing body of work trying to understand what Xi Jingping actually thinks (e.g., what is Xiism?).

The Death of Homo Economicus, Peter Fleming

I was lent this book as part of a project I am working on. I didn't really know what to expect going into it, and I am not sure entirely what I think having read the whole thing. I know that I enjoyed the book, though it did not wholly align with my expectations. For me, the phrase 'homo economicus' means a very specific thing--the hypothetical perfectly economically rational person who economic models are actually describing. Within behavioural economics, homo economicus used to be brought up to be criticised (it has fallen out of fashion nowadays). As such, I anticipated a book called 'the death of homo economicus' to be some critique of why economics is wrong, from the perspective of a poor understanding of human beings. And, in a broad way, that is what Fleming's book is. But this is an unkind mischaracterisation.

About halfway through the book, I grasped what Fleming meant by the term 'homo economicus'. He understands it how I understand it, intuitively, but uses it quite different. For Fleming, homo economicus is a state of being that we all, as subjects under capitalism, are being forced into becoming. Homo economicus, rather than a description of economic rationality, is for Fleming a condition of capitalist existence. He frequently notes how things like job security and the marketisation of the public are all things which, on paper, should appeal to homo economicus, and which the working class are increasingly subjected to. In this sense, homo economicus is conceptualising as something that the economic system and state are transforming the masses into. Though, these are also conditions which Fleming argues ordinary people do not want to live under. His notion of the 'death' of homo economicus therefore is quite subversive--we need to kill homo economicus so that we are people can thrive. And, I like this angle. From a behavioural perspective, there is rarely a criticism of homo economicus per se, but rather, the criticism is towards economists assuming this is a good description of people. Behavioural economists would not, in principle, object to people behaving like homo economicus--they would probably say this is good or 'rational' behaviour.

This is why Fleming has, in part, a bug to bear with behavioural economists. Fleming's argument that homo economicus is not something we should want to be, and that we should actively resist efforts to bring this creature into being, positions him in opposition to the behavioural project. In doing so, Fleming reveals a politics of behavioural economics which I agree with, and which I think should be more widely acknowledged. Behavioural economics is not a radical school of thought. It is not even, really, antagonistic to mainstream economics. Rather, it proposes ad hoc modifications (to use Kuhn's language) to economics to keep the ball rolling. This ideological limits behavioural economics. Behavioural results, rather than being widely and broadly interpreted, become interpreted through an ideological lens (e.g., cognitive biases) which a priori determines what ideas and policy prescriptions are opened and closed (the project I am working on is all about this, which is why this 'review' feels a bit more like a stream of consciousness).

But, as above, I am not wholly sure what I think of this book. Much of it does just feel like Fleming writing 'I hate neoliberalism' over and over, and I mean, just the line. From this perspective, this book isn't great. The left has enough 'pop political' accounts lambasting neoliberalism. Equally, it is undeniable that there is something below the surface, a degree of intellect which outstrips most left-wing 'infleuncer' type of books. Fleming's style aside (I do not dislike it but it is not academic, despite Fleming being an academic), it is clear that there is deep thought happening regarding the question of how economics, as a set of ideas, shapes our world, and that is quite interesting.

Celebration of Awareness, Ivan Illich

My choice was to either start my third and final tomb on China, Jacque's When China Rules the World, or buy a whole bunch of cheap Illich paperbacks and indulge myself for a few days. Obviously, I chose Illich. Celebration of Awareness is not one of Illich's books I've been particularly interested in reading (compared to, say, Beyond Economics and Ecology or The Right to Useful Unemployment). Having read it, I am not sure it is one of Illich's best books, nor is it one I would recommend.

Like much of Illich's writing, the book is not really a book, but a collection of essays which deal with similar topics. Illich is upfront about this, which is kind. The similar topic of Celebration of Awareness is awareness. Like most of Illich's writing, quite what this means is up to the reader's interpretation. Any reader of Illich will know that his ideas are kind of like 'choose your own adventure' questions. He will pronounce big but non-specific ideas, relating them only partially to different areas of society, and through repetition in slightly different language the engaged reader will arrive at a loose arrangement of Illich's thought in their own words (I hope this is intentional on Illich's part, and not simply him being a bit inaccessible at times--that Illich would write in such a way that a reader must reassemble his ideas in their own words is very Illichian). My interpretation of awareness is a state of being where one recognises that the institutions of modern society are not ordained or objective, but actually quite functional, and could function quite differently if so desired. Illich here more than in other books attacks the idea of credentialism, and how modern society encourages to internalise our own place in the hierarchy through reference to 'objective' standards. As readers will know, this is an idea I am very interested in, and probably internalised myself from Illich. Thus, awareness refers to awareness of this state of affairs. Illich's call to 'celebrate' awareness, then, is a call to reveal the illusion that, say, more education makes us smarter, or that more consumption makes us happier. Illich argues that only once institutions are challenged and a state of awareness achieved can we "create" humanity. Illich writes that "we cannot think our way to humanity", which is probably an unhelpul phrasing of Illich's point--we cannot rely on 'progress' and the institutions which pertain to promote it to make us happier or more fulfilled. These things can only come through embodiment of ourselves--which is to say, through awareness that, as above, more education does not make us smarter, more consumption does not make us happier, and so on.

Besides being disjointed, Celebration of Awareness suffers from its place in Illich's catalogue. Deschooling Society is a better tract on education, Shadow Work better on industrial life, and Tools for Conviviality better on institutions and transforming society. One sees in this book the seeds of the ideas which would flourish in these later works. But this, in turn, detracts from the value of Celebration of Awareness. One is almost certainly better served puzzling through what conviviality means to Illich, than puzzling over the more primordial ideas within this book.

The Right to Useful Unemployment, Ivan Illich

Unbeknownst to me upon purchasing this book, The Right to Useful Unemployment is an extended afterword of Illich's Tools for Conviviality, a book which I must return to, as Illich does often benefit from multiple readings. I mention this because I have quite mixed feelings about The Right to Useful Unemployment. On the one hand, I find Illich an interesting writer, and I believe several of his ideas about how expertise diminishes people's belief in themselves to be worthwhile (here, Illich calls such expert jobs "disabling professions"). His writings on institutions and radical monopoly, first discussed in Tools for Conviviality, are fascinating, and somewhat elaborated upon here. I thus want to like this book. Perhaps one day I might, but...

The major weakness of The Right to Useful Unemployment is quite how repetitive it is in relation to Illich's other work. Now, Illich is a repetitive writer--several of his books are collections of essays, and Illich acknowledges in the prefaces to these books that they contain overlap and repetition. But The Right to Useful Unemployment really suffers from this. It is why it is important to appreciate that this book was an afterword to Tools for Conviviality--it is cutting room floor material! Almost all that is interesting in this book arises in other areas of Illich's work, and is expanded upon in these other works, too. For a book titled The Right to Useful Unemployment, where Illich could have really pressed home a critique of modern work, and articulated centrally a vision of the future, he does not do this (Illich does have this vision, but one must dig to find it, which is something this book could have been useful in tackling). Alas, that is not this book.

Bounded Rationality, Sanjit Dhami and Cass Sunstein

Dhami and Sunstein's take on bounded rationality is something I have wanted to read for quite a while, given it is an incredibly important idea being tackled by major contributors to the field. I did not read the book sooner as it is quite an expensive book, though through a US discount and patience, I ultimately acquired a copy at an acceptable price. Truth be told, I was not optimistic about this book. I have seen how the notion of bounded rationality has been (in my opinion) abused in modern behavioural science, and experienced first hand a reluctance by behavioural scientists to engage with Simon's work. I did not especially anticipate a deeper engagement with Simon here, and I was right in my scepticism. For a book which could have brought Simon to today's behavioural scientists, and updated Simon's ideas, it fails on these grounds. Simon takes a back seat. Though, having read the book, I am tempted to moderate my views and ask whether the prominence of Simon matters too much.

What I quite like about this book is how it is an intense but throughout overview of behavioural science and behavioural economics, without being either too economical or too psychological. It is a great reference book, and one which did inspire several ideas reading it. I can see myself citing it a lot in the future, because it says a lot of interesting stuff. This is not what I expected from a book called Bounded Rationality, but it is not--strictly speaking--a misrepresentation. Dhami and Sunstein start from the modern perspective that Simon isn't that important, and that more recent developments matter more, and that is fine (though I disagree). If one starts from this point, then their characterisation of bounded rationality makes total sense, and the book is quite a nice overview. If one does not start from this perspective--if one is seeking the aforementioned return to Simon--one will be terribly disappointed.

While I do exactly quite like the book, there are quite a few problems with it. Firstly, it feels quite dated in places. There are not infrequent jabs at homo economicus in neoclassical economics, at the reluctance of the top five to publish behavioural research, and so on, and it all feels old. For instance, the top five does publish behavioural research. In fact, part of my problem with behavioural economics is how amenable it is to the top five. That behavioural economics is 'too radical' for mainstream economics does not hold water. One can and should criticise the top five. For instance, those journals publish extremely boring, unimportant and monotonous stuff. But this could be levied at a lot of behavioural work, too, especially now that the field has matured and methodologies have crystallised. Secondly, the book comes across as a bit 'partisan', for lack of a better word. Behavioural science has a division (sometimes over-exaggerated) between the heuristics and biases group and the fast and frugal heuristics group. Pointing out this division is important. Outlining the contributions of both sides is also important. Bounded Rationality does both. But Bounded Rationality is notably on the side of the heuristics and biases side. It defends this school, and takes a much more critical perspective on the fast and frugal heuristics side. I am not against criticism and I generally have no dog in this fight. But I thought more balance was important. Thirdly, it is quite obvious a) who wrote what; b) that one author wrote much more than the other; and c) that one author wrote a lot better than the other. In collaboration, this sometimes happens. One partner will be more invested and motivated by the project than the other. But it is quite jarring to go from dense, detailed, and informative prose to much looser prose as the book does. I am not opposed to the economic philosophy that the book engages in; in fact, I want more of this! But if the philosophy or political economy of behavioural science is to be discussed (as it should be), it should have been integrated throughout the book, and be much deeper and challenging--not simply regurgitating a couple of established perspectives in this space.

ABC: The Alphabetization of the Popular Mind, Ivan Illich and Barry Sanders

I have by this point read a lot of Illich. I am certainly not an expert, but I am not an amateur at navigating his prose. I bought ABC on a whim--as above, I just wanted to read some Illich--and the book that arrived was an original copy, like-new. That, vainly, enamoured me to the book, and intrigued me to actually read this thing, having bought it essentially on a whim. The reason I say that I know Illich's writing is because this is, to my knowledge, the only book Illich ever co-authored, and the book comes much later in his career (1988), after its peak. One thus expects the book to stand out against Deschooling Society or Tools for Conviviality; time and fame has passed, and a new voice has come on broad to help articulate the argument. One does not quite expect such a radical--but welcome--departure from these older texts.

ABC positions itself as a history of writing and language, but it is not that at all. It is barely historical--though Illich and Sanders have much to say about history. Rather, it is a critique, essentially, of what writing has done to human society. They present some quite fascinating insights into how writing evolved, and the political and material forces which governed its evolution. But they are much more interested in critique, offering only loose hooks on which to hang a historical hat before articulating what this means for people and society. Their major assertion is that language is a social force, one which binds people together and demands we each attempt not to 'communicate', but to understand. Writing, by contrast, is an anti-social invention, one which is able to remove language from its social context, rendering it into an artefect which can be remembered, transmitted, communicated and studied, but which is necessarily less than the language it is meant to represent. I think this is a powerful idea. As someone who must write a great deal, it does resonate with me insofar as I find a lot of writing to be hollow, somehow lacking in something. Those who claim to have discovered 'facts' or the 'truth' or knowledge often seem at pains to actually convey this understanding; walls of jargon are erected to offer structure to the student, but inevitably, to exclude the masses. As a 'thinking' person, I find myself constantly struggling to articulate my ideas, while the written word comes quite naturally. One must wonder what situation I have found myself in? Illich and Sanders would suggest that I have confused the written word with knowledge, communication with understanding. I think often this is accurate.

In this sense, ABC sits comfortably within Illich's wider canon. The invention of writing begins the process by which credentials emerge, disabling professions become established, and society becomes institutionalised such that this 'expertise' may be probably managed and distributed, leading to the society Illich so often attacks: one of induced demand and commodity manipulation, rather than conviviality. What is disappointing about this book is there is much more which could have been done with this. There are important links to, say, the invention of debt and the emergence of property. No longer are these things tied to social relations, but they can be transferred and adjudicated. The justice of common sense is displaced by the justice of the law, which is inevitably the justice of the sovereign (Illich and Sanders do discuss this in relation to the Spanish monarchy, though this is also a rehash of a discussion found in Shadow Work). This book is also, I think, surprisingly important in contemporary discussions. That writing proliferates information, and thus institutions which must manage it, is important in relation to the computer and AI. Today, we are all incredibly informed, and yet we know nothing. There is also the matter of AI itself--what is the text that generative AI produces? Can it be anything at all when it is writing that has no social life to it. Even now, as I write, at least something in the words I am choosing reflects thoughts and conversations I have had, and social experiences I have been subject to. Where is this in an AI system?