Book Review: "Player Piano" by Kurt Vonnegut

Player Piano (1952)
Kurt Vonnegut (1922-2007)
341 pages

I first heard about Kurt Vonnegut's novel Player Piano well over a decade ago and added it to my (already then too long and now far too long) list of books to read. More recently, repeatedly finding it referenced in articles exploring the potential implications of AI on the future of work, I decided it was high time to dive in. (Shout-out to Third Mind Books, which had it on the shelf!) I was surprised to find so much more to it than the association with AI.

Published in 1952, Vonnegut sets the story several decades into America's future. He imagines a third world war has occurred, during which America embraces a shift to a fully planned, highly automated economy to ensure smooth and consistent production of armaments. These processes and systems prove so effective in winning the war that they form the basis for the post-war economy, with engineers and managers becoming an elite class, broadly empowered by enfeebled politicians to run the country.

The novel opens a generation later, as further expansion of automation has dramatically increased productivity, obviating the need for most manufacturing workers, while comprehensive planning has limited the variety of products, dramatically reducing the number of workers needed for design and development. This has created a permanent underclass; the government requires them to work either on government organized infrastructure activities not able to be automated, or as part of the military, and covers all their needs directly, including food, housing and other products, plus a nominal few dollars per month for entertainment. The result is a kind of planned capitalism, in which

The government does not own the machines. They simply tax that part of industry’s income that once went into labor, and redistribute it. Industry is privately owned and managed, and coordinated – to prevent the waste of competition – by a committee of leaders from private industry, not politicians. (21)

The story centers on Dr. Paul Proteus, a plant manager for a major factory-works in the country. Though the son of one of the originators of the processes and systems that helped win the war and then completely reshape the American economic and social structure, Proteus becomes disenchanted with the depth and breadth of its implications, as large numbers of people have lost the meaning in their lives that work had provided.

For generations they've been built up to worship competition and the market, productivity and economic usefulness, and the envy of their fellow men – and boom! it's all yanked out from under them. They can't participate, can't be useful anymore. Their whole culture has been shot to hell. (90) 

With continued increases in productivity further exacerbating the situation, he struggles with the age-old question of how to alter a deeply engrained system that, while ultimately damaging to social cohesion and cultural welfare, provides clear material benefit compared to what had come before.

On the one hand, the novel's characterization of the potential negative consequences of automation has perhaps even more relevance today, with the increasing capability of AI. Although Vonnegut emphasizes the effects of manufacturing automation in the story, he does also point at increasing computing power beginning to come for the jobs of ever higher-level managers and engineers. The future-of-work questions Vonnegut raises will clearly resonate for many present-day readers.

Other aspects of the story will, however, seem strange or, at best quaint, particularly for readers in the US. Yet they provide a fascinating look back at how dramatically the breadth of acceptable discussion in the US regarding appropriate social and economic systems has changed over the past seven or eight decades,

As one example: in a play put on for a select group of elite managers and engineers at an annual, self-congratulatory celebration of the success of their economic system, one of the actors plays “the sky manager,” a kind of rarefied sage. Presiding over a scrap heap of ideas, represented as shooting stars, he recalls how these ideas were once

proud and new [before] destroying themselves in a brilliant instant, [including] Labor Unionism … Rugged Individualism, Socialism, Free Enterprise, Communism, Fascism. (212) 

In the present-day US, the idea that “Rugged Individualism” and “Free Enterprise” could ever be considered discredited and, in fact, as disreputable as “Socialism … Communism, [and] Fascism,” seems unthinkable – well outside the current Overton window. In the 1930s and 40's, however, the US had moved, in the wake of the Great Depression, toward a more planned economy, hoping to avoid the repeated economic crises of capitalism; and this shift only intensified during World War II to meet the needs of a wartime economy. So, at the point Vonnegut wrote the story, the continued transition to a much more highly controlled economic system certainly seemed possible.

In reality, however, the viewpoint Vonnegut refers to in the quote above – that people have been “built up to worship competition and the market, productivity and economic usefulness” – won the day, especially in the US. Decades of propaganda funded by business leaders created, in the years after Vonnegut’s novel appeared, a profound and dogmatic reverence for free market fundamentalism, as historians Naomi Oreskes and Erik M. Conway describe in their thorough and engaging history The Big Myth: How American Business Taught Us to Loathe Government and Love the Free Market (my review linked to at right). As a result, Americans have become so deeply indoctrinated into a belief in free market capitalism as a natural and inevitable historical outcome that it now seems almost surreal that Vonnegut could have even imagined the U.S. developing an economy with such an expansive level of planning.

A second “shocker” from the point of view of the present-day is Vonnegut's representation of the lifestyles of the elite in the American future he imagines. The managers and engineers that lead society and coordinate the economy live better to be sure, in fancier houses and, effectively, gated communities apart from the masses who live off the state. But these elite are not focused first and foremost on their wealth; instead, they seem deeply imbued with a belief in the importance of the functioning of the overall system. Rather than begrudging the cost of providing the material benefits afforded to the masses, they, in fact, revel in their success at doing so through their work.

In our present-day world, with a greed is good ethos widespread among the wealthy, many of whom seem monomaniacally fixated on keeping for themselves as much of their money as they can, Vonnegut's world of an elite willing to share the wealth seems like a fairy tale. Yet, Vonnegut wrote this story during a more progressive period in the US, with the highest marginal tax rates over 80% and a broadly shared (if not with minorities) post-war boom.  By the 1980’s, however, a belief among the elite that they deserve to keep all or most of their wealth took hold, a view philosopher Michael J. Sandel describes and cautions against in his thought-provoking book The Tyranny of Merit (my review linked to at right):

in market-driven societies, interpreting material success as a sign of moral desert is a persisting temptation [that] we need repeatedly to resist. (Sandel)

Related to this focus on holding onto wealth at a personal level, is its translation into political action. Vonnegut imagines a future in which elites fully support an economic-political system that provides sufficient material goods to the masses – business leaders, in fact, run that system:

the nation's … National Industrial, Commercial, Communications, Foodstuffs, and Resources Director, a position approached in importance only by the presidency of the United States. (2) 

 Again, a seeming fantasy in a present-day world in which the elite tend to leverage their wealth into political power in order to further benefit themselves at the expense of the majority, while ignoring the financial advantages they and their businesses have accrued from government spending in such areas as physical and educational infrastructure.

All that said, Vonnegut effectively captures the very real threat of increasing automation (and today AI) taking people's jobs, and the concern about what people will do in the future to find meaning. Through his story, he demonstrates that simply compensating people with material goods (or, more directly, money), while it may completely alleviate poverty, will not be sufficient; as Sandel points out in his essay mentioned above, it “will do little to address the anger and resentment that [arise from] loss of recognition and esteem [more than] diminishing purchasing power.” (Sandel)

Precisely this anger and resentment lie at the heart of Vonnegut's story, as the former workers – that is, the vast majority of the US population – have their material needs met, yet feel lost without work and “worry about what there is for their sons to live for.” (96) This concern provides the crux of the plot, as Proteus begins to recognize this problem with the economic system that's been put in place and which he is at the very heart of, leading him to become disillusioned with his part in it.

One can argue that for displaced workers, having their material needs satisfied opens possibilities for pursuing creative activities that interest them. But even taking such a shift as possible, it would require a dramatic change in our socio-economic education, away from work as providing social meaning to emphasizing creative pursuits. And for the first generation of people left without work, even if they are economically secure, the social indoctrination that has them equating productive economic work with a sense of purpose and meaning will be almost impossible to set aside, tending to lead them instead to reactionary outbursts, as witnessed in Vonnegut's story, in which one character notes:

Things, gentlemen, are ripe for a phony Messiah, and when he comes, it's sure to be a bloody business. (92)

Precisely this reaction to such conditions was predicted by Eric Hoffer, who wrote in The True Believer (my review linked to at right) 

The present-day working man in the Western world feels unemployment as a degradation. He sees himself disinherited and injured by an unjust order of things, and is willing to listen to those who call for a new deal. (Hoffer) 

Hoffer’s book came out just a year before Player Piano, and one can imagine Vonnegut having perhaps been influenced by it. The chaotic run up to and evolution of the mass movement that develops in the story displays several of the characteristics Hoffer identifies: “the frustrated predominant among the early adherents;” they are “intensely discontented yet not destitute;” they subsume into the movement “the anxieties, barrenness and meaninglessness of an individual existence”;” and, crucially, they are “wholly ignorant of the difficulties involved in their vast undertaking” and have “a readiness to attempt the impossible.” All of this is reflected in both the rapid acceleration of the movement, as well as the way in which it quickly comes to overshoot the goals of its leaders, who lose control of its direction, coming to realize that their supporters demonstrate Hoffer’s thesis that one cannot “appeal to [a fanatic’s] reason or moral sense.”

Put all this together and Vonnegut's novel Player Piano provides readers a fascinating look into not only the potential impacts of increasing AI, but also the dramatic cultural, social and economic shifts that have occurred in the US over the past 75 years. Come to the book for the former, in this present moment of angst about AI's implications and the uncertainties and the inability to predict what will come next; but explore the latter, which provides perhaps the more crucial insight: the present-day, dogmatic acceptance of free market fundamentalism and its Winners Take All focus (to borrow Anand Giridharadas’ title, my review of his book linked to at right) was not an inevitable development, but rather the consequence of choices of a few wealthy elite able to convince the larger population to perceive their preferred economic framework as inevitable, and so to accept as unavoidable the damaging consequences for society.

Whether we acknowledge the damage resulting from the unquestioning belief of the elite managers and engineers in Vonnegut’s story regarding their system of planned capitalism, or that due to the equally unquestioning belief of our current elite in their system of unregulated, free market capitalism, we need to remember that these systems are choices, not inevitable, natural outcomes. And, as such, they can be remade to function more beneficially for a larger number of people. Pray that we discover and implement the appropriate changes before the descent into revolution, rather than after.

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Other notes and information:

For a fascinating account of how contingent the development of our present-day capitalist system over the past millennium has been on human choice (in particular, the self-interested choices of a wealthy and so powerful rentier class, and the politicians across the spectrum who actively support them) see the excellent work of Sven Beckert, Capitalism: A Global History, my review linked to at right.

Global capitalism was neither a natural state of things nor a straightforward undertaking – the restructuring of ever more parts of the world and of social life along a capitalist logic was, in fact, exceedingly difficult and took centuries to unfold. It took even longer to reach a state in which this peculiar way of organizing economic life seemed “natural” (Beckert) 

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Vonnegut seems to have anticipated by nearly a century the current collegiate NIL system. At one point in the story, the Cornell University head football coach worries about staying on-top:

Yale had floated a bond to buy the whole Text A&M backfield, and Penn had bought Breslaw from Wisconsin.” Later, preparing a letter to the alumni regarding the recent lack of funding from the administration, he considers opening with “Sportsmen … IS THE FOOTBALL BUSINESS AT CORNELL GOING TO BE RUN ON A BUSINESS-LIKE BASIS, OR IS THE BIG RED GOING TO BE BLED WHITE. … IN THE PAST FIVE YEARS, NOT ONE CENT HAS BEEN REINVESTED IN THE BUSINESS, NOT ONE CENT LAID ASIDE FOR DEPRECIATION [of the existing players as they age]. (272-3, capitalization from the original)

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In yet another example of Vonnegut being far ahead of events, the government addressed the economic dislocation caused by automation through an approach that some are currently proposing be used with AI: tax AI use by businesses, in order to amass the funds needed to support those who lose their jobs; as Vonnegut writes in the story:

The government does not own the machines. They simply tax that part of industry’s income that once went into labor, and redistribute it. (21)

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One could imagine this line from Vonnegut’s story – again written some 7 decades ago – as being replicated in some form in a future work, in the mid-21st century, looking back to our present day.

He … imagined with horror what the country must have been like when, as today, any damn fool little American boy might grow up to be President…! (120)

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For even more examples of Vonnegut’s perceptive, almost predictive take on the future, see other quotes from this book here.

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Have you read this book, others by this author, or even similar ones by other authors? I’d enjoy hearing your thoughts.
Other of my book reviews: FICTION Bookshelf and NON-FICTION Bookshelf

Book Review: "Capitalism: A Global History" by Sven Beckert

Capitalism: A Global History (2025)
Sven Beckert (1965)
1325 pages

The capitalistic economy of the present day is an immense cosmos into which the individual is born, and which presents itself to him … as an unalterable order of things in which he must live. It forces the individual … to conform to capitalistic rules of action. The manufacturer who in the long run acts counter to these norms, will just as inevitably be eliminated from the economic scene as the worker who cannot or will not adapt himself to them will be thrown into the streets without a job.

Max Weber, The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism

This observation, surely even more salient today than when Weber made it over a century ago, points to a fundamental challenge society faces when addressing concerns with our current economic system. Viewing capitalism as a natural, "unalterable order of things" can make attempts to significantly reform it – or, even more radically, transition to some other system – seem at best quixotic and at worst almost sacrilegious. With the Overton window for acceptable debate on potential economic policy changes so narrow, when too many become convinced the system is rigged against them, frustration can build toward revolution – destroy what is not allowed to be fixed.

To counter the slide into such a ruinous path to reform, one must first disabuse people of the debilitating myth of capitalism’s inalterability, of the belief that it is an inevitable outcome of history. Given the wealthy, powerful, and extremely motivated capitalists whose self-interest lies in maintaining this myth, however, countering it requires a thorough and detailed exploration of the history of capitalism and the role calculated choices have played in its rise.

Precisely this, historian Sven Beckert provides readers in his engaging book Capitalism: A Global History. By tracing the path of the “capitalist revolution” (xiii) over the past thousand years, he demonstrates that 

Global capitalism was neither a natural state of things nor a straightforward undertaking – the restructuring of ever more parts of the world and of social life along a capitalist logic was, in fact, exceedingly difficult and took centuries to unfold. It took even longer to reach a state in which this peculiar way of organizing economic life seemed “natural” (232) 

The likely jarring impact, for most readers, of the word peculiar, highlights both the challenge and the importance of this work.

Beckert begins at “the port of Aden in the year 1150 … with the world's earliest capitalists – merchants,” (27) who “shared a principal aim of amassing profit by buying cheaply and selling dearly.” (38) Though their activities were not generally suppressed, neither were they quite seen as honorable: among land-owning elites, religious leaders and the broader community of mostly peasant farmers, opinions about such trade-for-profit had not changed much since Aristotle disparaged “efforts to maximize money [as] ‘a hazard to the moral well-being of the individual.’” (88)

Nevertheless, Beckert notes, these early traders represented the beginning of a radical shift from the subsistence existence of the overwhelming majority of humankind. Over the balance of the book, he describes the millennium-long series of truly epochal developments that transformed this group of isolated capitalists into a globe-spanning political economy, capitalism. And by including stories of particular capitalists and their workers from each of these stages of development, he brings alive his descriptions of the social, political, and economic changes that occurred.

Early on, he provides his definition of capitalism as 

a global process in which economic life is fundamentally driven by the ceaseless accumulation of privately controlled capital, is structured by the state, and propels the ever expanding commodification of inputs and outputs, including labor, creating constantly shifting boundaries between its outside and inside. (21) 

Beckert repeatedly returns to the elements of this definition in describing the series of transformative shifts that have occurred over the thousand-year evolution toward global capitalism. He makes evident that, at each stage, those in power privileged the expansion of capitalism over other possible directions, and thus that capitalism’s present-day arrangement arose not out of an ineluctable, natural process, but rather through a long series of specific, human choices.

Striking, in Beckert’s account, is how consistently these choices can be traced directly back to the profoundly durable simplicity of capitalists’ singular goal: from early traders “buying cheaply and selling dearly” to modern day investment firms for “which nothing but the ongoing accumulation of capital drives entrepreneurial decisions” (1074), “economic life [has been] fundamentally driven by the ceaseless accumulation of privately controlled capital.” This overarching focus on capital accumulation reveals itself as the principal driver behind the variety of ways capitalists have spent the past millennium either sparking political or social transformation, or adapting to the immutable reality of a particular political or social regime.

To be clear, calling out this focus is not meant as a pejorative observation: one can recount capitalism’s many benefits, or recall its variety of shortcomings, and either way acknowledge capitalists’ enduring fixation on capital accumulation. Nor does it obviate the value of Beckert’s fascinating and enlightening elaboration of the specifics of the transformations and adaptations that have led to our present system of global capitalism – the details of his narrative are, in fact, critical to understanding the intentional character of its development and its consequences.

As an example of the impact of this focus on capital accumulation, Beckert repeatedly emphasizes the role of the state as a key supporter in the installation and expansion of global capitalism.

Capitalism is as much a project of states as of capital owners…. Whether by supporting it in its day-to-day operations or during its most severe crises, states have propelled and backstopped the capitalist revolution through its history. (1076) 

Already a millennium ago, traders recognized the benefit (in terms of increased profits) of ingratiating themselves to the state by providing desired goods and, more importantly, a source of funds. And states came to cherish and rely on the funds generated by such traders (through taxation), and so actively supported their growth, both militarily and politically. As these isolated traders evolved into merchants and then capitalists, the links to the state only deepened.

In Europe, this cooperation became particularly strong, with taxes on capitalists funding state militaries, which were in turn marshalled not only to protect capitalist property, but also to conquer far-flung lands to expand trade and manufacturing. And internally, states put in place laws in support of increasing capitalists’ profits, often thereby changing the historical foundations of societies. Referring to this stage of development as war capitalism, Beckert describes how states engaged in “imperial expansion and armed trade … and on violent domination of labor and vast dispossession of collective resources.” (164) This early, deep integration in Europe, he argues, resulted in European dominance in the increasingly global capitalist order of the 19th and 20th centuries.

Similarly, Beckert describes how, again in pursuit of capital accumulation, capitalism “has been perfectly compatible with … commodification of labor across a spectrum of forms.” This has included, “at key historical moments, slavery,” (20) certainly the most reprehensible in what he demonstrates to be a long string of dehumanizing ways in which capitalists have pursued the cheapest possible labor in order to maximize profits (generally with active state support and at best a fig leaf justification for the resulting misery). In terms of slavery, in particular, he makes a persuasive case for its centrality in the successful transformation of capitalism into a globe-spanning system and for playing a key role in supporting the rise of European and US economic dominance.

The consequences of capitalists’ single-minded focus on capital accumulation can also be found in their seemingly unlimited adaptability to whatever ruling order they encounter. Though they may prefer one type of regime over another, “capitalism can flourish within a wide range of forms of political rule. As with diverse labor and territorial regimes, capitalism is undogmatic in regard to political systems as well.” (799) And yet, he notes a caveat that demonstrates the rule: 

Despite my insistence throughout the book on capitalism’s flexibility as the foundation for its enormous dynamic, capitalism is dogmatic in one sense: It rests on the ever expanding accumulation of capital … not by choice but by necessity. (1086)

Beyond these examples, Beckert goes into detail on myriad other ways capitalism’s expansion has played out, including: the aggressive pursuit of colonization and, later, attempts to mollify the impacts of decolonization; the active ignoring of externalities, such as natural resources in terms of both raw materials and pollution; and, supporting social benefits when revolutionary fever grew too strong, only to reduce or retract them at the earliest possible opportunity. In each of these areas, and others, his narrative makes evident the willful choices made to prioritize the “dogmatic” focus on “every expanding accumulation of capital” over all other considerations.

A throughline reveals itself, of capitalists aggressively translating their wealth into political power, in order to advance their interests by changing the social narrative and the law. A key part of this approach has involved the propagation of myths to enable and legitimize their actions. Thus, for example, in terms of the connection between capitalism and states,

the global seepage of capitalism into the nooks and crannies of many societies was not the result of a “natural” expansion of self-propelling markets, as many contemporary myths hold. Instead, the state engineered multiple forms of enclosure, envelopment, and encasement that drove capitalism’s spread, often pursuing policies with a pronounced anti-market twist. (714) 

Naomi Oreskes and Erik M. Conway explore this in the US context, in The Big Myth: How American Business Taught Us to Loathe Government and Love the Free Market (my review linked to at right), in which they point out that

what's at issue is not capitalism per se. Contemporary conservatives, libertarians, and market fundamentalists are not really defending capitalism, even if they think they are. They are defending a certain idea of capitalism, a vision of growth and innovation by unfettered markets where government just gets out of the way. ... To the extent that it once did (approximately) exist, it was a disaster: a world with little or no workplace safety, no constraints on pollution, no limits to the trees that could be cut down or the dangerous products that could be sold.” (13; The Big Myth) 

Yet in reality, as Beckert repeatedly demonstrates, “capitalism without the state was impossible, indeed unimaginable.” (97)

In Capitalism: A Global History, Sven Beckert accomplishes the improbable: make a 1000+ page history of an economic system fascinating and engaging from the first lines to the last, while at the same time providing a thoroughly researched, scholarly account. And a balanced one. He makes good on his opening comment, of his book being

ultimately not interested in contributing to the debit and credit columns of the opposing stories [of capitalism]. Instead, it examines capitalism from a global and long-term perspective to grasp its core: a radical departure and discontinuity in human affairs. … [and inviting readers] to embrace its study with a sense of wonder, surprise, and astonishment – not because it is ‘good’ or ‘bad’ but because of its world-shaping power, and because understanding it is crucial to navigating our shared future. (5)

Such an approach too often seems missing from discussions about capitalism, with its proponents focused on what they view as its benefits, and its opponents on what they consider its historical and present-day flaws. Though one can imagine that some readers – surely including those beholden to a successful social inculcation of the myths of free market fundamentalism – will push back on aspects of Beckert’s presentation, their challenge will be to refute what they disagree with in an equally thorough and persuasive way.

Beckert’s nuanced history of capitalism goes a long way toward supporting a more productive discussion about addressing the economic challenges so central to the rise of populist movements and increasingly divisive partisanship in the West, and of uncertainty and instability more broadly.

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Other notes and information:

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Have you read this book, others by this author, or even similar ones by other authors? I’d enjoy hearing your thoughts.
Other of my book reviews: FICTION Bookshelf and NON-FICTION Bookshelf

Book Review: "Blue Horses" by Mary Oliver

Blue Horses (2014)
Mary Oliver (1935-2019)
79 pages

Mary Oliver’s poetry fairly radiates with her profound love for, and connection to, the natural world. The wonder she communicates provokes in me a nearly irresistible urge to immediately head out the door and deep into the nearest wood or field – to experience again that same wonder for myself.

And so it is with her collection Blue Horses. In these poems, Oliver captures not only the beauty she discovered during her many sojourns in the wild, but also what she learned from observing nature about how to live life more fully.

For Oliver, each part of the natural world – the animate and the inanimate – amazes, both individually and in their role as part of the whole. Through her writing, she not only expresses her awe at all she sees but also, as in the poem Good Morning, wonders how others could fail to be similarly moved by such an abundance of delights.

The multiplicity of forms! The hummingbird,
the fox, the raven, the sparrow hawk, the
otter, the dragonfly, the water lily! And
on and on. It must be a great disappointment
to God if we are not dazzled at least ten
times a day. (22)

In that same poem, she mentions “the notebook that I always carry in / my pocket. / And the pen,” with which she records as she walks not just the stunning “multiplicity of forms,” but also the smallest of details in what she sees. In The Vulture’s Wings, for example, she thrills to a stunning contrast that occurs as a vulture soars above, the top of its wings

black death
color but
the underwings
as sunlight
flushes into
the feathers
are bright
are swamped
with light. (45) 

Here the word “swamped” completely changes the scene, transforming a brief flash of light into a moment that dazzles, thrills. And as a consequence, in her description the vulture sheds the pejorative image often associated with it.

Beyond such beauty, Oliver also discovers in nature inspiration for how to live her own life. This can be a general attitude, “Stay young, always, in the theater of your / mind,” (21) or a broader realization of how to be at peace with both minor nuisances and mortal challenges.

In that latter sense, she finds each element of nature to have its role, its place in the larger scheme of the world. In Stebbin’s Gulch, she describes a cascading stream,

it’s only industry

to descend
and to be beautiful
while it does so;
as for purpose

there is none,
it is simply
one of those gorgeous things
that was made

to do what it does perfectly
and to last,
as almost nothing does,
almost forever. 

Here again, one phrase – as almost nothing does – transforms a lovely description of a natural scene into a transcendent realization about the fleeting nature of life and the futility of too constant and obsessive a focus on purpose.

Oliver puts a finer point on the transience, interconnectedness, and ultimate contingency of life in Owl Poem, in which she notes that animals do not ask the food that they take whether it wished to live, before she goes on to acknowledge that “Acceptance of the world requires / that I bow even to you, / Master of the night.” These lines carry added poignance, given that in a poem a few pages earlier in the collection she writes that, like a hunter, “cancer / entered the forest of my body, / without a sound.”

In other poems in this collection, Oliver also takes a more personal line. In one she touches on a sudden and surprising blooming of love late in life; in another, she describes, obliquely, the difficulties she faced at home as a child, something she also recalled in an interview with Krista Tippet for the On Being podcast.  She seemingly references this painful period in the poem Loneliness, then notes 

Oh, mother earth,
your comfort is great, your arms never withhold.
It has saved my life to know this. (51) 

These lines reflect her comments in the On Being interview that tie her love of nature back to a need to escape what she could not control, and to somehow find peace by immersing herself in the natural world, fully and unreservedly.

Even for readers not burdened by the emotional toll that Oliver seems to have lived through, her message that nature’s “comfort is great” offers reason enough to venture out into and connect more deeply with the natural world. Her poems in Blue Horses tempt readers with reminders of the vast “multiplicity of forms” of beauty that await.

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Other notes and information:

I will admit that I pulled this book off the shelf at the bookstore (shout out to the Crazy Wisdom Bookstore!) based on seeing Oliver’s name on the spine, but was then instantly sold by the gorgeous cover, with its Franz Marc painting, Turm der blauen Pferde (Tower of Blue Horses). The painting features in one of the poems in the book.

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Have you read this book, others by this author, or even similar ones by other authors? I’d enjoy hearing your thoughts.
Other of my book reviews: FICTION Bookshelf and NON-FICTION Bookshelf

Book Review: "The Boat of a Million Years" by Poul Anderson

The Boat of a Million Years (1989)
Poul Anderson (1926-2001)
470 pages

I remember when Poul Anderson’s science fiction novel The Boat of a Million Years first came out, over three decades ago. I had somehow heard about it before it was released (in those halcyon, pre-internet days), and anytime I came near a bookstore I eagerly checked to see if they had it. When I finally found a copy, I was over-the-top excited to read it – and it didn’t disappoint.

All this was long before I began writing these reviews. But, recently, I read the book again.

What originally attracted me was the story arc following a group of immortals on Earth as they live through the millennia, from ancient times to far into our future. Anderson’s immortals are born at different times and in different places, but all face the challenge of keeping their agelessness hidden. While some carry out into solitary, nomadic lives, others repeatedly settle down, though only ever for a couple few decades until their families and neighbors begin to question their perennial youth, forcing them to again disappear and start elsewhere anew. For they must take care as, while they do not age, they can be killed if injured sufficiently brutally.

The story opens in 310 BC, introducing the earliest born of these immortals, Hanno, as he seeks to join a Greek ship that plans to sail out of the Mediterranean and up the coast to then unknown northern lands. Already in the opening pages, it becomes evident the care Hanno takes to hide the centuries he has already lived.

As the story proceeds, readers are introduced to other immortals, born later, in other lands. With each chapter, Anderson drops into the life of one or the other of them, usually to reveal a moment of crisis, as they face trouble hiding their immortality and struggle to find a way through. Gradually, their wanderings begin to intersect, their experiences helping them to detect another like them, though their ever-present fear of discovery by mortals keeps them wary even then of revealing themselves.

In ancient times, and even up through the 1800’s, disappearing remains a feasible option for them, with vast uncharted or at least isolated lands to vanish into, and limited or no communication across large distances. As the 20th century dawns, however, it becomes increasingly difficult for them to remain under the radar. They must employe ever more cunning strategies to remain undiscovered – and be quick to move on whenever someone gets too close to the truth. Eventually, they reach a point in which they must decide whether to face the uncertain future together, and what path offers them the most appealing way forward.

Especially in the first half of the novel, before the characters have come together, it can be challenging to keep track of who’s who, especially as it can be several chapters before Anderson comes back around to the same character. As they change their lives to remain hidden, they often change their names, and though Anderson gives clues for the reader, to help keep track, it can still be difficult to keep things straight. Admittedly, I made it more difficult for myself this second time through, because I ended up reading it a bit at a time, over many months.

Unfortunately, as I recall also happening on my first reading, I didn’t discover until I finished the story that the end pages contain both a Chronology, listing the year each chapter begins, and a Glossary, providing the modern-day locations of the ancient place names used in the story. It would have helped to know that these pages were there as I was reading the story; unfortunately, the book has no table of contents, so a reader is left to discover these guides by chance – or once they come to the last page of the story.

The one advantage to not discovering the end pages in advance is that for someone who loves history, it can be fun to decode the places and times the chapters are set in. And unlike when I first read the book, now with smart phones a reader can discover for themselves the information necessary to figure it out.

As someone who enjoys learning about the past and imagining what’s to come, the idea of these characters witnessing and experiencing so many centuries of human development thrilled me. More generally, stories set across long time scales tend to catch my attention. Thus, I was excited to turn the page, deep into Neal Stephenson’s Seveneves, and read the single line 5000 Years Later. And then there was Cixin Liu’s Remembrance of Earth’s Past trilogy, which begins in our recent past and actually carries right on past the end of our universe. (My reviews of these novels linked to at right.)

The first half to two-thirds of the book can feel a bit chaotic, as the story jumps ahead in time and place from one character (or few characters) to the next, until they finally begin to come together. And Anderson imagines a rather depressing future for humankind, one that paradoxically leaves the immortals as the most recognizably human beings left to carry on the ancient motivations of humankind. But if you love history and an epic sweep to your stories, Anderson’s done his homework; in The Boat of a Million Years you’ll drop into now almost legendary times and places in our past, not as dry history, but through characters who experience them firsthand.

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Other notes and information:

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Have you read this book, others by this author, or even similar ones by other authors? I’d enjoy hearing your thoughts.
Other of my book reviews: FICTION Bookshelf and NON-FICTION Bookshelf

Book Review: "The Future of Truth" by Werner Herzog

The Future of Truth (2024)
Werner Herzog (1942)
115 pages

I don’t think truth is some kind of polestar in the sky that we will one day get to. It’s more like an incessant striving. A movement, an uncertain journey, a seeking full of futile endeavor. But it is this journey into the unknown, into a vast twilit forest, that gives our lives meaning and purpose; it is what distinguishes us from the beasts in the fields. (3)

With these comments, director and writer Werner Herzog sets the stage in his essay The Future of Truth for an examination of what it means to seek truth, particularly in a world filled with ever more sophisticated forms of misinformation, misrepresentations and deep fakes.

He opens by distinguishing between truth and facts, dismissing the idea that “what characterized truth was its way of sticking to fact, to reality.” (20) Rather, he argues, “facts, of themselves, have no power, they are inert, they shed no light, they give us no deeper understanding.” (20)

Precisely that distinction lay at the heart of an article I read recently dealing with climate change: the author noted that then-President Obama had presented facts about climate change that supported his call for acting more aggressively to address it, while Republican politicians presented other, equally true facts about the potential economic difficulties of doing so. The author pointed out that both sides were “correct” with respect to their facts, leaving the discussion at a stalemate; the real challenge was, how to get to the deeper truth of the situation, through a broad discussion about what should be done and what the consequences might be? (Unfortunately, I can’t find the link to that article at the moment; if you recognize it, please leave the link to it in the comments below.)

Herzog promotes such a seeking of truth in his essay, characterizing it as the pursuit of a deeper understanding of a situation, of humankind, of our world. By exploring this “journey into the unknown” in the presence of a variety of examples of deceptions – both intentional and unintentional, and including some he himself has participated in – he raises thought-provoking questions about what lies in the gray area between such artifice leading us to fundamental truths versus being destructively deceptive.

Over several chapters, he considers: the often exaggerated plots presented in movies and other arts performances to communicate emotional truths; the misrepresentations and lies of political leaders from ancient times to the present day; the seductive nature of conspiracy theories and sects; and the ever improving ability of AI to create deep fakes in terms of videos, recordings and pictures. While some of his examples of misinformation will be familiar to readers, the wide range of deceptions he describes is truly impressive – if also dismaying.

Hertzog’s view of truth as being distinct from a simple collection of facts makes eminent sense to me, as does his conception of the pursuit of truth as a never-ending journey to ever deeper understanding. I wonder, however, whether his ready acceptance of certain kinds of deception for the purpose of better getting to truth in particular situations leaves open a dangerous lacuna through which other, less honorable actors could also pass, claiming the same right to pursue and propagate their destructive truths.

By way of example: he mentions a Japanese business called Family Romance, an agency that will “supply actors who on a temporary basis stand in for missing friends or family members.” (37) He describes using actors from that agency to make a film “that a few reviewers took … for a documentary;” in fact, it wasn’t, and yet he argues that “in spite of [that] there is an underlying truth: in the feelings” (40) communicated by the actors. 

Then the rub, however: he relates that "a few years later ... the Japanese state broadcaster, filmed a documentary about” the agency's owner, asking him “to nominate a client who would be prepared to stand in front of the camera and talk about his experience with Family Romance.” To the subsequent embarrassment of the broadcaster the owner chose one of his own actors to pretend to be a client, later defending his choice by saying that

a genuine customer would have played down his loneliness to keep face, he would have told lies, and at best maybe said half the truth. Only one of his actors, who had done the job of cheering up a lonely person hundreds of times, would permit deep insights.... Would speak the truth. (41) 

Essentially, the owner argued, the genuine person might lie, while the liar would tell the truth – get to the true feelings.

But this seems a slippery slope, for two reasons. For one: yes, the genuine person might play down their loneliness, but more generally their situation might simply be complicated, their loneliness may only represent a part of what they are feeling; an actor portraying such loneliness could simply end up as a caricature of some idealized lonely person – is that really getting at a truth? More critically, by making this switch, creating this illusion, are we not granting permission for the autocrat or dictator to do the same, to create the lie that, from their point of view, gets to the “truth” as they see it, or at least as they want others to see it? If one argues that a deception can be useful for getting at the truth, how does one distinguish between creating acceptable and unacceptable deceptions – pursuing edifying versus damaging “truths”?

I suppose Hertzog might argue that establishing that distinction – between acceptable and unacceptable, good and bad truths – is part of the overall work for all of us, the “incessant striving” required. But it feels a dangerous game to play.

Hertzog even uses himself as an example of such ambiguity. Describing it broadly so as not to spoil it for readers, early in the book he quotes another author; being a bit curious, I googled the quote and found that it was known to be something Hertzog himself had made-up. Towards the end of the book, he reveals this – citing it as an example of how he distilled the writings of this particular author into a quote that expresses the broader truth he had found in them, even if the author never explicitly wrote the words Herzog “quoted.”

Again, however, a demagogue or simply someone bent on deception could propagate a “quote” of some work of another that perverts the message in a way that corrupts public discussion and eventually policy – rationalizing that it gets at what they consider an important truth. And, as has been reported, even if the deception is eventually discovered, it can be difficult to disabuse people of a lie they have heard, especially if it aligns with what they want to believe. In the current social and political environment – ever more polarized and full of opposing, hardened ‘truths’ – it can be hard not to be concerned about where such deceptions could lead us.

I have long admired Hertzog as a director, enjoying his films; evident in them is, as he writes, that

all my life, my work has been involved with the central issue of truth. I have always rigorously opposed the foolish belief that equates truth with facts. (79)

In The Future of Truth, he argues that we all should engage in the hard work of looking beyond facts to discover truth. And, ultimately, it’s perhaps better to follow his lead in that sense, to actively pursue truth rather than live in fear of those who would abuse our search.

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Other notes and information:

A recent article in the New York Times discusses this same topic of truth: Music, At Least, Doesn't Lie.

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Have you read this book, others by this author, or even similar ones by other authors? I’d enjoy hearing your thoughts.
Other of my book reviews: FICTION Bookshelf and NON-FICTION Bookshelf

Book Review: "The World Goes On" by László Krasznahorkai

The World Goes On (2017)
László Krasznahorkai (1954)
311 pages

I struggle to know how to even begin to classify the twenty-one pieces in Hungarian writer László Krasznahorkai’s anthology The World Goes On. All but one are written in a stream of conscious style of generally paragraph-long sentences, with the paragraphs themselves often spanning many pages. Each challenges a reader to follow a kind of frenzied inner monologue of a restless mind. (The one exception to this style I’ll leave for readers to discover – certainly, its structure was a first for me…)

The collection can broadly be divided into two groups. The first section, roughly half of the pieces, Krasznahorkai’s labels HE SPEAKS, with the remaining half in a second section labeled HE NARRATES; a single, final story has its own section HE BIDS FAREWELL. Despite the similarities in approach across the pieces, those of the first (and third) section have a distinct impact compared to those in the second.

The opening set of pieces tend to be written in a first-person voice, as essays that unspool personal meditations on the world and our place in it. For these, the stream of conscious telling serves to reinforce the struggle to find sensible explanations as one contemplates the complexities and contradictions of our world.

Thus, for example, in the opening story, Wandering-Standing, the protagonist (Krasznahorkai?) describes a desperate desire to leave his hometown – “intolerable, cold, sad, bleak, and deadly” (5) – only to discover that wherever he goes he has not actually left behind what he wished to escape. In He Wants to Forget, he despairs of our present-day world, finding it to be an

age [that] wants to forget it has gambled away everything on its own, without outside help, and that it can’t blame alien powers, or fate, or some remote baleful influence; we did this ourselves: we have made away with gods and with ideals. (17) 

The title story considers the irrevocable consequences of the events of 9/11, which he finds marks a clear before and after for our civilization: 

I knew at once, watching the flaming, tumbling Towers, and then envisioning them again and again, and I knew that without a brand-new language it was impossible to understand this brand-new era in which, along with everyone else, I suddenly found myself. (27)

And, finally, The Second Lecture considers the minor, almost invisible, constraints the world we have created places on us; a vagrant standing at the end of a platform, beyond a yellow line meant to mark off the area as prohibited, inspires a meditation on the how we internalize so many of the rules we live by. 

The particular instinct that prohibits setting foot in just this area doesn’t only prohibit setting foot in it, but erases it from consciousness as it were …. Any forbidden zone of this sort … not only explicitly communicates its unavoidable randomness, but offers exemplary proof that the regulations of our human world (including the simplest ones) are not just unfathomable but unchallengeable. These regulations … even the least significant ones, are impossible to separate from their invisible corpus; laws such as these – even the mildest ones – become visible solely when they are violated, and can be apprehended in operation only through a certain element of scandal, that is, via the introduction of a certain degree of danger. (46) 

Somehow, a particularly trenchant observation in our current moment, when seemingly innocent mistakes or inoffensive actions can have prejudicial, and even fatal, consequences.

The second section shifts to a short story format; here the stream of conscious telling often comes with particular phrases repeated many times over, giving the stories a frenetic pacing. In A Drop of Water, the protagonist finds himself in a sacred city in India, which he desperately wants to leave but, like a nightmare, he can never quite find a way out. That Gagarin describes the search for truth by a man obsessed over what might have led to the death of the first Soviet Cosmonaut. In many of these stories, the telling leaves a reader almost exhausted for the protagonist: it’s hard not to feel that most of them could use a meditation course to help quiet their frantic thoughts.

Several of these stories return to the themes of the first section, exploring the nature of our world. Thus, in Downhill on a Forest Road, a driver suffers the contingency inherent in everyday events, discovering in an instant that

everything, including a catastrophe, has a moment-by-moment structure – a structure that is beyond measurement or comprehension, one that is maddeningly complex … because of one choice or another, of more choices and still more choices ad infinitum, those maddening had-we-but-known choices impossible to conceptualize because the situation we find ourselves in is complicated, determined by something that is in the nature of neither God nor the devil, something whose ways are impenetrable to us and are doomed to remain so because chance is not simply a matter of choosing, but the result of that which might have happened anyway. (221)

And, more bleakly, Journey in a Place Without Blessings tells the story of a cleric who takes drastic action with his church and congregation in the face of a loss of faith:

The diocesan bishop sits sadly among the congregation and he says: this is the end of the reading of the Scriptures, for there has been no understanding. (277)

Each of the pieces in The World Goes On pulls a reader in, enveloping us in a fast-moving current of ideas and observations. I’ll admit that I was knocked off balance in the first pieces, finding it difficult to wrap my head around them. But as Krasznahorkai’s style grew on me, I came around, letting myself be fully absorbed into his storytelling.

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Other notes and information:

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Have you read this book, others by this author, or even similar ones by other authors? I’d enjoy hearing your thoughts.
Other of my book reviews: FICTION Bookshelf and NON-FICTION Bookshelf

Book Review: "Universal Basic Income" by Karl Widerquist

Universal Basic Income (2024)
Karl Widerquist (1965)
255 pages

I’ve long been a supporter of the idea of having a Universal Basic Income program. It seems particularly necessary in the United States, where the dominance over the past half-century of a free market fundamentalist ideology focused on profits above all else has had the inevitable consequence of driving an ever-growing number of people into increasingly precarious situations relative to work and so income. And the rapid advances in AI and automation can only be expected to accelerate this trend.

But I’ll admit that my support of UBI has rested on a largely uninformed understanding of how it could be implemented and the challenges to it. So, when I discovered an introductory text entitled simply Universal Basic Income earlier this year (shout out to The Regulator Bookshop!), I decided it was time to address this gap. Written by Karl Widerquist and published as part of The MIT Press Essential Knowledge Series, the book jacket blurb promised “an accessible introduction” to UBI – and it definitely delivers on that claim.

Widerquist, according to the author’s bio, is a professor of philosophy specializing in distributive justice, having earned doctorates in political theory and economics. He acknowledges up-front his deep engagement in and support for the basic income movement, but argues that

whether you agree with my position on UBI or not, I think you can learn more from a passionate and honest attempt to argue the strongest points for it and refute the strongest points against it than from a dispassionate list of points on either side. (10) 

So, a reader clearly understands his position going in.

Widerquist opens with a brief history of the UBI movement, then provides the definition of UBI he uses for the purposes of his book: 

a periodic cash payment unconditionally delivered to all on an individual basis, without means-test or work requirement.” (11) 

After explaining the individual elements of this definition, he points out other names used to refer to UBI, as well as alternative views on the key aspects it should include. He also differentiates it from other, related kinds of policies.

With nomenclature and definitions established, Widerquist describes sample implementations of UBI. Rather than getting into the weeds of specific potential program details, he focuses on presenting simplified, illustrative examples. Based on a roughly poverty level UBI payout and a simple flat tax, he demonstrates the net amount of money each person would receive given the amount of personal income they receive. By making these examples concrete – to the point of including tables of dollar amounts showing personal income and the taxes on it in the context of receiving a UBI – he illustrates clearly for readers how a program could work.

But how would such policies fare in the real world? Widerquist acknowledges that the lack of existing, broad-based implementations of UBI makes drawing firm conclusions difficult. Nevertheless, he reviews a variety of narrowly targeted UBI trials that have been done globally – including devoting a chapter to Alaskan’s experience with their oil revenue financed Permanent Fund Dividend – and discusses what can be learned from such programs, despite their limited scope.

Among the conclusions he draws, I found perhaps most impactful his comments regarding affordability concerns raised about UBI. He makes a compelling argument that, in terms of financing a UBI program, it’s more about the will to do so than a lack of available funding opportunities; he even proposes potential funding sources, including charging for mineral rights on public land or for the use of the broadcast spectrum – instead of giving these away to companies at little or no cost, only to have them turn around and make a profit selling the resulting products and services to consumers (that is, back to the original, public owners of those rights). Ultimately, he notes:

People who say “we can’t afford it” don’t usually mean that, objectively speaking, the spending required to support UBI is unsustainable; they mean that subjectively, it costs more than they think it’s worth. If you don’t like a policy to begin with, it’s subjectively unaffordable at any cost. No evidence refutes these subjective beliefs. … The case for UBI is better built on the rejection rather than the accommodation of that belief. (130)

Beyond Widerquist’s clear and effective explanation of how a UBI could be implemented and financed, however, I found most enlightening his examination of the pros and cons of UBI programs. He gives a pointed description of the economic realities that make UBI necessary, persuasively refutes arguments raised against it, and explores which justifications can and cannot work in gathering support for it.

His fundamental argument for UBI, which he returns to repeatedly in the text, builds off a concept of distributive justice, and gets at the heart of the motivations driving our present-day economic system: 

It’s wrong to come between anyone else and the resources they need to survive. But that’s exactly what we do. Our rules deny the vast majority of people access to the resources necessary to produce food, shelter, clothing, and the other things humans need unless they continue providing services [i.e., work] for existing property owners. Because our rules have that feature, we are all owed at least enough cash compensation to buy goods instead. (143) 

He goes on to make a point that seems largely ignored, or perhaps forgotten, by too many, especially in the US:

People often say that work is a fact of nature, but that’s not true in the way we use work today. Work in the sense of “toil to convert resources into consumption” might be a fact of nature, but work in the contemporary sense of “time spent providing services for people who have money so you can get money to access resources” is no fact of nature. The current necessity of it is entirely the result of rules that have been imposed on us. (144)

Over a century ago, in The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism (my review linked to at right), Max Weber described this imposed basis of our current capitalist economic system as having arisen out of a distinctive form of ascetism introduced by the Protestant Reformation. The resulting society we have created, Weber recognized,

is an immense cosmos into which the individual is born, and which presents itself to him, at least as an individual, as an unalterable order of things in which he must live. It forces the individual, in so far as he is involved in the system of market relationships, to conform to capitalistic rules of action. The manufacturer who in the long run acts counter to these norms, will just as inevitably be eliminated from the economic scene as the worker who cannot or will not adapt himself to them will be thrown into the streets without a job.

Thus, the role of work in our present-day society is not a fact of nature and, as Widerquist unequivocally states, “we can change the rules.” (144)

A few lines later, I’ll admit I was fairly cheering him on as he highlighted a pet peeve I’ve long had regarding discussions about policy proposals (such as UBI) that might rein in some of the excesses of free market fundamentalism:

Labels such as “socialism” or “communism” are primarily used as meaningless scare words for any progressive policy. So many different ways to organize an economy are possible that it is folly to portray a continuum between “capitalism” and “socialism” as if it were all there is. There are thousands or millions of policy choices, all of which create differently working systems. (147) 

As opposed to considering such options, however, in the US anything less than full-throated support for the free market system too often evokes the question ‘what do you want, communism?’ – which shuts down any chance for a constructive or nuanced conversation. This dogmatic mindset has been methodically inculcated into American thinking, as Naomi Orestes and Erik M. Conway point out in their trenchant history The Big Myth: How American Business Taught Us to Loathe Government and Love the Free Market (my review linked to at right):

By promoting a false dichotomy between laissez-faire capitalism and communist regimentation, market fundamentalists [have made] it difficult for Americans to have conversations about crucial issues, such as appropriate levels of taxation or the balance between federal and state authority, or even how to appraise the size of the federal government objectively.

Another element emphasized by defenders of our current economic system, notes Widerquist, is a requirement for “mandatory-participation” – that everyone who can work should be expected to. This expectation leads to an argument against UBI centered on the concern that it may allow some people – those willing to get by on a poverty-level income – to decide not to work. Widerquist argues, however, that what UBI actually provides is individual independence: rather than allowing a person to not work at all, it liberates a person from having to accept poor wages or working conditions simply to survive. And, as he points out to defenders of a mandatory-participation requirement:

If you think the market economy is going to fall apart without the forced participation of 99 percent of its workers, you must think it’s very fragile system. (147)

Addressing the related concern of incentive to work, he has a section that I was strongly tempted to quote in its entirety, as it provides a powerful and decisive rejoinder. I’ll limit myself here, however, to his penetrating observation that

When the subject is whether workers want available jobs at going wages, you always hear about “lazy workers” who won’t work (for going wages), but never about “cheap employers” who won’t pay the wages you need to get people to work voluntarily [rather than to survive]. (148-9) 

As he goes on to point out: “If one person has a task that they want someone else to do, they should pay enough that someone wants to do it.” (149)

In that sense, UBI would address one of the critical consequences of sky-rocketing inequality: what some have come to label the precariat, those struggling to get by on whatever jobs and wages they can get. Implementing it would “reverse the growth of inequality … by giving workers greater power to command better wages and salaries.” (142) Thus, workers having a basic income would be able to leave a job with poor or abusive working conditions, or a poor salary, without immediately ending up homeless and unable to eat.

Fundamentally, Widerquist argues that with UBI “we can have a thriving market economy without poverty, homelessness, or the fear of economic destitution.” (142) Instead of working counter to our market economy

UBI is actually rather individualistic, giving power to middle- and working-class people against both private and governmental power structures. It’s compatible with any system that respects everyone’s power to say no. (148) 

UBI simply gives people enough to survive – a poverty level income; to live better or afford more, a person would still have to find work.

Although Widerquist examines – and refutes – these and other arguments against UBI, he also touches on what I feel is the most serious impediment to implementing it: finding the political will. In what now, in early 2026, feels like a dramatic understatement, he notes:

One perennial antidemocratic problem in American politics is the power of the donor class. Studies in the United States consistently show that legislation is far more responsive to the opinions of the wealthy than to the opinions of voters as a whole. … [And] disturbing trends against the power of the people are present in the United States. Some state governments are attempting to establish permanent minority rule by disenfranchising voters, gerrymandering, and other anti-democratic tactics. (208-9) 

The economist Martin Wolf examines the origins and consequences of such disturbing trends in The Crisis of Democratic Capitalism (my review linked to at right), in which he describes what he considers to be the fundamental, symbiotic relationship between democracy and capitalism, and argues that:

The health of our societies depends on sustaining a delicate balance between the economic and the political, the individual and the collective, the national and the global. But that balance is broken. Our economy has destabilized our politics and vice versa.

Corrupting the political process in their favor, the elite and big business continue to increase their wealth and power by lowering taxes for themselves while reducing job protections and social services for everyone else. Thus, for example, they have successfully lobbied to reduce marginal tax rates from highs of over 80% on the wealthiest during the middle of the 20th century down to 37%; and they have broken the back of both public and government support for unions, making it possible for businesses to increase profits by reducing wages and benefits. These powerful groups can be expected to fight mightily against higher taxes to support UBI, and against the possibility that their businesses could be forced, by a stronger bargaining position of their workers, into paying higher wages.

One could imagine that a sufficiently enraged and engaged populist progressive movement could potentially overcome this reactionary position. But the first step would be that enough people see through the economic ideology of free market fundamentalism that has become so ingrained in US social and economic thinking.

However, another barrier to the rise of such progressivism must also be overcome, as Widerquist points out: the successful creation by the elite and big business of a destructive social ideology.

Perhaps the biggest threat to the UBI movement is the rise of right-wing nationalism … convincing the mass of people that our economic problems are caused by some boogeyman [such as] immigrants; foreigners; LGBTQ people; racial, ethnic, or religious minorities; and any other vulnerable group they single out. America is particularly vulnerable to right-wing nationalism because white fear and distrust has extremely deep roots. (209) 

The history of this challenge has been thoroughly examined by Heather McGhee, in her engaging The Sum of Us (my review linked to at right), in which she explores how the elite in the US have for centuries instilled and then leveraged fear of the other to protect their wealth and power:

The elite adds in the urgency of the zero-sum story – they are taking what you have; they are a threat to you – and it’s enough to keep a polity focused on scapegoats while no progress is made on the actual economic issues in most Americans’ lives.”

I would argue that together, these broadly and deeply held beliefs – in support of free market fundamentalism and against support for programs that also help other groups – pose a bigger challenge to getting UBI implemented than specific arguments against it. Because, in the end, these beliefs mean that those against UBI will always be motivated to find yet another argument against it.

Widerquist also explores the relationship between automation and UBI. While acknowledging that automation would seem to be a ready and convincing argument for UBI, he goes on to argue that he finds it a poor supporting point. He raises the concern that those opposed to UBI will simply push back with let’s wait and see if unemployment really rises before doing anything, since significant unemployment due to automation hasn’t yet occurred. He also argues that “automation might be more likely to cause increased inequality and precariousness” (195) in the near term, rather than direct job losses, and that in fact it already has, for centuries. As he points out,

[although] the term Luddite has come to refer to any person with an opposition to technological improvement … the real Luddites weren’t necessarily opposed to automation itself; they were demonstrating against the cruel way our labor market reacts to automation. (198)

Andreas Malm provides a fascinating review of the history leading up to the Luddite movement and, more broadly, the impact of automation on skilled labor, in Fossil Capital (my review linked to at right). Examining the origins of the Industrial Revolution in the English textile industry, he demonstrates how fossil fuels enabled business owners to automate, and so eliminate highly skilled workers, in order to increase profits. He quotes a manager in the 1930’s, who wrote

the machines never get drunk; their hands never shook from excess [work]; they were never absent from work; they did not strike for wages; they were unfailing in their accuracy and regularity.

Malm also describes how fossil fuels enabled a shift in production to densely populated cities, where business owners recognized that the

shadow of potential substitutes will keep a worker aware that she is fortunate to have her job. The threat of dismissal is ‘perhaps the most effective means yet discovered to impose labour discipline in class-divided societies.’ … a large, dense, concentrated supply [of workers] allows for ‘flexible labour turnover policies’, whereas a small, thin, spatially dispersed labour market forces firms to treat their employees as precious minerals.

Looking forward, however, Widerquist points out that “We don’t need to stop technology to fix the problems that inspired the Luddites. We need to raise the floor [through, for example, UBI] to ease the transition.” (199)

Although Widerquist convincingly refutes many of the arguments against UBI, one I remain concerned about – not as a reason to not implement it, but rather as a challenge to any such implementation – is the potential inflationary impact. Widerquist acknowledges that although the government spending to finance UBI and its beneficiaries “demand for goods will create inflationary pressure.” (162)  But, he argues, taxation policy, whether on wealthier members of society or also on businesses’ access to and use of raw materials (widely understood, from minerals to broadcast spectrum and beyond) can mitigate this.

In terms of the potential inflationary pressure of wages being driven up by giving people the ability to survive without working, he makes the argument (in a personal correspondence) that

wages going up does not always mean inflation goes up. Sometimes wages going up means profits going down while the overall price level remains the same. We need a good fiscal and monetary policy along with UBI to ensure any new spending is consisted with overall price stability. 

While I certainly support the idea of lower profits as a fair exchange for more socially viable wages, and of the pursuit of fiscal and monetary policy that enables UBI to succeed, I still struggle to see how it's politically feasible.  This remains the rub.  How can UBI supporters overcome the entrenched power of a wealthy elite who believe that they merit whatever they can get, and that by hiding in gated communities they can protect themselves from the blowback of the impacts of the massive inequality they are creating?

Nevertheless, in Universal Basic Income, Widerquist makes a persuasive case for both how beneficial UBI would be for the increasing numbers of people in precarious living situations and how straightforward it could be to implement.  Perhaps more importantly, he clearly lays out which arguments can be effective in pursuing support for UBI and cautions against others that may seem at first blush reasonable but contain pitfalls.  His book provides a solid and engaging starting point for anyone interested in better understanding this important policy option.

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Other notes and information:

More quotes from this book

Regarding the vaunted idea in the US of a deeply felt work ethic, Widerquist calls it for what it is: 

our society has no work ethic. It has, at best, a money-making ethic, as evidenced by the ability to buy yourself out of a genuine obligation to “work” with an inheritance, a lottery ticket, lucky investments, or nefarious business deals. (151)

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Have you read this book, others by this author, or even similar ones by other authors? I’d enjoy hearing your thoughts.
Other of my book reviews: FICTION Bookshelf and NON-FICTION Bookshelf