Edited by John Taft
After reading this book, I actually wrote three reviews. Two
of them I ended up discarding because after rereading some sections, my opinion
either changed or I thought of something better to explain what I felt on
reading that part of the book. That makes this the fourth review I’m writing.
The original review title was: “A step in the right
direction that (unfortunately) won’t get you very far”. I went with that
because I felt that the book had too many vagaries as far as actual execution
of a financial plan. That is to say that I found the premise (promise?) of this
book exciting: Get a bunch of qualified, serious-minded, economic thinkers and
doers, and have them analyze the recent economic crisis and the current state
of economic affairs so that they can then lend us an ethical and moral standard
on which to base future economic activity so that everybody ends up better off
and economic crises become things of the past. But in the end, they didn’t
really come up with a way to make all their ideas become reality. Still the
book has a lot of positives.
The list of essay writers reads like a veritable who’s who
of economic thought, which raises the expectations higher. The editor, himself
a leading economic thinker, explains how the book came into being and what it
is trying to accomplish, and then, we plunge right in.
The chapters and essays come steadily and relentlessly with
many being quite short and concise. Some essays provide history lessons, some
just analysis, some a combination thereof. All of them present some ideas for
avoiding financial crises in the future.
Most are very dry, but everything was quite readable. The common tenet throughout
the book is, companies and individuals who are entrusted with other people’s
money need to act responsibly, not be greedy, and use a moral and high ethical
approach to business. It sounds good, and more than a few of the contributors
make it sound achievable. A number of the essays, however, fall back on
legislation and legislating bodies (politicians) as the way to go, but given
the current pusillanimous state of Congress, those ideas (I thought) fell flat.
That is to say, there is absolutely nothing wrong with any
of the ideas and proposals and supporting theoretical arguments that are
presented en masse by the great thinkers assembled here, except, there is no
plan of execution and nobody is going to undertake it upon himself or herself
to be the one to start the great “ethical economics at any cost” movement. (For
one, it’s hard to make much money doing that.) I like what the writers have to
say for the most part, and I like the presentation and concept of this book.
Ultimately though, high-minded does not always result in high-achieving. Of
course, we want our financial advisors and consultants to behave themselves. Of
course we all want to play win-win games that benefit everybody. Of course, we
want to be part of something that is great and beneficial to all of mankind.
Unfortunately, we are all human, and none of the writers has a clear concept of
how we can motivate people to ignore their own profitability and success and
sacrifice it for something else. (After all, as a member of society, if I make
myself a little better off, isn’t society a little better off for my
achievement, as long as I haven’t taken something from another member of my
society?) In the end, I give this book three dollar marks for its readability
and for being a highly informative book. I just don’t think it is all that
good.
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