Joel Kotkin

This was truly good read. Since last year and all this world-wide situation I became very much interested into society dynamics and politics. Imagine my surprise when I found out that majority of world politicians (almost all with few exceptions) behave very much like politicians from my back of woods. Large on promises (that they never keep and usually when they say we need to go south you need to set the start position up north), surrounded by experts (this usually means that given person is not exactly an expert but it is there for a different reason or it is assigned as an expert because his/hers political party could not find anyone else) and generally incapable for anything (which I assume is reason why they took politics as their calling).

As you can imagine it was quite a surprise finding out that all politicians are the same and, what is worst, that time has come when they don't even try to hide their actions and mistakes (again something they share with politicians back home). You have them recorded saying one thing months ago and now saying they never said anything like that. Someone would expect reaction, right? Well.... wrong, it seems like people like this.

So when companies and their representatives that are loud enough come by and most importantly offer money, loads of money, that is usually enough for all politicians, of all parties and persuasions, to turn the blind eye and let these people do whatever they want because lets be honest in 4-5 years it will be someone else's problem.

Society in general is in a very bad place now. Reason is simple, fringe issues are brought up as a central breaking point while truly central issues are buried down - on latter politicians need to act because they are actionable but starting any work on these is equivalent of getting into the quicksand and as we all know for politicians that equals professional suicide. When it comes to former it is nothing but hot air and making people have something to talk about.

People seem to be ashamed of who they are, and very much like sadomasochists they seem to enjoy when being called names by the powers-to-be. This is something I find personally very sad and cannot understand it.

I wont go into retelling the book but will mention few things that I find very interesting.

So from the start ..... from the 1990's - 2020's almost all of the actual production is moved outside the countries from the West. This created huge unemployment and basically depopulated large parts of the said countries, people starting for other places to try finding work. Of course this fermented the outrage of affected populace so politicians (ever scared of losing positions) started talking about universal income. Universal income is good concept but is it truly something to put majority of population on? I agree with the author that this is just "bread and games" approach - it treats the symptoms but not the cause. And not to mention that people that have luck to have jobs now have to pay larger taxes to make universal income viable. So interesting approach - you cause the problem and then (through expertise groups that you also charge) you give a solution that will just burden the rest of population that has jobs - those that started the cycle have nothing to lose and pay no penalties.

Second is general immaturity of the people. It is sad turn of events but very few people are actually informed on anything - it is like majority is following Goethe and follows their heart and emotions but (unfortunately) not their brains(and we know what even Yoda said of emotions). By informed I don't mean they need to know everything on the topic (which seems to be what majority thinks when this is brought up) but they do not read on the topic, they do not investigate, they just follow what first pops up on their screens and generally allow to be bullied to the levels of no-opinons-follow-the-crowd. Considering that this is behavior of majority of news agencies and reporters can we truly blame the ordinary man?

I have to stop laughing every time I read in job proposals that they offer video games, fun rooms, food and gym. If you want to live normally you would only seek 8 hour base work-time and ability to go home on time and enjoy off-work hours. But people decide that they want to spend whole day on job. As a result you end up with half-crazed people wandering from one place to another working multiple jobs trying to make ends meet. How can you think about anything during this? In short you cannot. When you are constantly at work, assigned task after task, you don't think about anything else. But people want this and employer is more than glad to provide this.

Third is what is called gig economy. Concept where company takes majority of one's earnings without investing anything must be most devious one I ever came across. Does it provide mobility of the workforce - definitely. Can that workforce plan anything for their future? Hardly. Gig economy is nothing more than finding work for the given day - no certainty, no future. And with it there is no way to keep workers connected in any way - everyone is buzzing around like a fly without any goal other than getting through the day.

Fourth is all the discussion about the imported work force. When it comes to the imported work force it is all about lower wages (than employing someone that is citizen of a given country). As a result this brings down the overall wages for the given type of work. Majority of countries don't care about that so in general local workforce gets into problem finding work because they are more expensive. They need to go under the imported work-force wages but unlike them they have to pay taxes (since they are citizens). Quite a predicament, eh. If you want to see the country that works very hard to protect its own work force check Australia - you need to prove you cannot find anyone locally in order to be able to get out-of-country team for simple training sessions. Now that is protection of local workforce.

Fifth is just an aspect of who controls majority of ... lets call them operations around the world, anything that has impact on your daily life (food, clothes, electricity, water, gas, communications...). In these days this means less than 10 companies world-wide, private enterprises that are not accountable for anything. Even if every manager, CEO and employee is a clone of Mother Theresa I would be worried. To anyone with iota of technical knowledge putting everything under the same cup is sure way to trouble land. And now imagine that these same people are in control of your means of life. Isn't that something that should be keeping you awake at night?

Sixth is all of this parody of media influencers and general disconnection between rich and the poor. Well it would be parody if it weren't serious. So you have self-proclaimed experts touting things and asking for drastic measures without even thinking how would that affect the rest of the people in the country. Unfortunately they do not care and when it comes to this I cannot but draw parallels between what is going in the West now and what happened during the transition in the East. Its like East was a test to see what would be the reaction of the people.Its maybe me but when someone insists on something without a plan that does not affect (to dire effect) those closest to me I tend to say no thanks. Even if that some is such a believer that they did to their own family what they preach - I would say, hat down for your dedication but no thanks. Acting on the basis of opinions and not of data is stupid. And yes, when they say science backs this up ask them to point you to that data and say, OK let me check. Be informed, you know.

Seventh is that workers rights got in place mere century ago after centuries of abuse and hardships imposed by upper classes. They were put in place one part because of smart people in governments and three parts because of world events smart people did not want to have locally (that small revolution in Russia being quite a trigger). I think that it would be greatly irresponsible to let these rights go because bunch of people that live in their own universes and have no connection with the work-force (they could as well be from the different planet) say we should - right?

State is a contract between all parties involved - rulers and populace. Constant tug of war if you like. Letting oneself intentionally to be in a disadvantageous position is very stupid thing not just for oneself but for anyone that follow. Especially foolish is to be placed into disadvantage by unaccountable companies and individuals who pursue their own goals that are not known and always present only with "oh, it is for your own good" (Bernardo Gui must be the best embodiment of nature of dogma).

And when someone says that materialistic is not important - check their property. They could be verifiable St.Francis-like persona but ... lets say that would be highly unlikely. People talking about sinful things are usually people guilty of the same sins. On the other hand if it works for them (in that case bless them) - should it work for you?

So is it that weird to seek better conditions and ensure future that wont be bleak for majority? I don't think so. And this is also author's message. Hopefully work populace will keep their wits. Hopefully...

Interesting book, highly recommended.… (plus d'informations)

This is a great bird's eye view of the political issues that are crashing down around us now and in the coming decades. From wealth inequality to technology, to housing and education, the books leaps into describing the present, future and relevant episodes from the past.
The main problem with a great introduction to a subject is that if you're already interested in this subject, you already know half the content of the book. This is what I'd hand someone who seemed interested and needs to get up to speed.
This also means it's light on proscriptive suggestions on what to do. This is actually a plus, because you can easily hand the book to anyone from any political persuasion without much grumbling. But it also means this book is just a gateway to ones that go into more depth on each subject.… (plus d'informations)