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The Price Of Civilization: Reawakening American Virtue And Prosperity (2011)

by Jeffrey D. Sachs(Favorite Author)

3.83 of 5 Votes: 1

ISBN

140006841X (ISBN13: 9781400068418)

languge

English

genre

History & Biography

publisher

Random House

review 1: A useful primer on why US politics is unable to make decisions any more, why our infrastructure is the worst among the developed nations, and why we are falling behind in economic progress, especially when we look beyond GDP to new measures such as Happiness.A bit dated now...the key recommendations of ending the Bush tax cuts, ending the wars in the middle East and passing a rational budget have happened, but so many more ideas that should be implemented, if we can get the political logjam undone. Why do we do long term plans for businesses and our individual retirement plans, but when it comes to the US Gov't we look one year at a time?Good to see a liberal economist acknowledge the problem of budget deficits and propose solutions, both on the cost and tax ... moreside.
review 2: Given the debacle currently unfolding in our government, I would recommend this book to anyone interested in getting a bit deeper than the news headlines. Published in 2011, this is not particularly new but to me its age makes it startling in its prescience.Sachs takes our two party system to task and explains how our elected officials are beholden not to their constituents but to corporate interests - it is a simple matter of both where their campaign dollars come from during their political life and their personal dollars before and after. The author is clearly not a partisan and does not favor one party over the other and correctly points out both idiocy and corruption in both parties. Pertaining to Obamacare specifically, Sachs indicates that the law is in fact terrible; it does not go far enough to reap any of the benefits of the 'socialized' health care systems seen in northern Europe. The original legislation did contain a public option that may have served to keep the insurance companies honest, however this was nuked in order to garner enough Republican support to get it passed. The fact that this law is terrible does not, of course, justify the petulant behavior of the Republican party who have chosen to shut down the government to protest a law that they were part of creating and passing. The law hurts me personally; my current state of deliberate unemployment means I am a customer of a low premium, high deductible policy which will soon be illegal because it does not 'cover enough.' My personal dislike however does not mean that I agree with the tactics used to protest it by the Republicans which will only delay the inevitable. less

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