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GibsonGirl99's avatar

I've only read the free sample available from the publisher--as I work in a library, I think I'll feel free to NOT buy this, but wait until it shows up in our catalog. That said, my problem with the book isn't the subject it addresses, but the fact that it appears to NOT address any sort of real-world problem! Indeed, I find that is my problem with economists generally, insofar as I can understand what they write. You, sir, seem to have no interest in HUMANITY, the species of which you are a member. The novelist Richard K. Morgan opines that "Society is, always has been and always will be a structure for the exploitation and oppression of the majority through systems of political force dictated by an élite, enforced by thugs, uniformed or not, and upheld by a wilful ignorance and stupidity on the part of the very majority whom the system oppresses." [2002] THAT is the problem--the only problem--and your 'future' speculation fails to address that problem. Unless by 'volunteering' to be one of the brains chosen for destructive scanning, thus opting decisively out of the question entirely, counts as an address. If, as a profession, economics or history or mathematics or whatever are not addressing how to change the situation depicted in the quotation, what good are you?Sincerely, One of the exploited and oppressed, and yes, more ignorant and stupid than you, quite probably.

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Peter David Jones's avatar

Thanks for the steel man! One of my bugbears is people using the standard Darwinian (mal)adaptive as something that automatically equates to (un)desireable in the socio political sense... I for one don't want to live in a society that's always banging up against Malthusian limits.

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