WE CAN SAVE THE WORLD

Personal-finance writer Scott seeks to remake a broken capitalist system in his latest work.

The author writes that he knows a lot about how the economy works, but he hasn’t been able to turn that knowledge into riches—and he notes that it’s easy, under such circumstances, to wonder if the system is operating correctly. “In a world that has…so much knowledge stockpiled in libraries, the internet and book stores,” asks Scott in his introduction, “how come everyone I know, including myself, are usually thrust into a life of constant struggle and strife?” To answer this question, the author delves into the ways that capitalism actually functions: how we all participate in it, benefit from it, and are victimized by it. He discusses how changes in corporate culture and shortsighted consumption habits have contributed to creating a society of haves and have-nots. Scott then explores some alternative economic systems while also suggesting changes that might make capitalism more equitable and sustainable; he calls this hypothetical reboot “Tempered Capitalism.” Overall, Scott’s prose is conversational and easy to follow, as when he discusses the advantages of life in a growing community of people who live in vans: “The sense of freedom, self-efficacy and sovereignty that they experience is worth any of the hardships they encounter. Imagine that. We live in a country that is considered ‘free’, yet people are starving for the actual experience of freedom.” However, the book is very brief considering the weightiness of its subject—less than 100 pages—and relies heavily on the ideas of others, including systems scientist Riane Eisler, author of The Chalice and the Blade (1987). The solutions that Scott comes to are also fairly long-term and difficult to enact, to say the least—one of them, for instance, is the establishment of a united world government. Readers will likely agree with much of what the author says about the inequalities of the current global economic system, but his ideas aren’t much more specific or original than one might hear in a gathering of college students.

An earnest but rather lightweight critique of contemporary capitalism.