Justice, not just Generosity: Winners Take All

Winners Take All: The Elite Charade of Changing the World

by Anand Giridharadas

Mr. Giridharadas was pleased to be named a Henry Crown Fellow of the Aspen Institute. He attended events and talks surrounded by other bright and idealistic professionals. As time passed, however, he became uncomfortable with the message and methodology of the fellowship.

It bothered me that the fellowship asked fellows to do virtuous side projects instead of doing their day jobs more honorably. [...] Instead of asking them to make their firms less monopolistic, greedy, or harmful to children, it urged them to create side hustles to "change the world." (p. 266)

This book argues essentially that large corporations create enormous profits for a minority of people by taking advantage of the poor and marginalized, creating or exacerbating problems of poverty, unemployment, and violence. Then, rather than changing their business practices, they donate a small portion of their profits to organizations of their own design to address the effects of their business practices without accepting responsibility for their role in the problems. 

By refusing to risk its way of life, by rejecting the idea that the powerful might have to sacrifice for the common good, it [today's elite] clings to a set of social arrangements that allow it to monopolize progress and then give symbolic scraps to the forsaken--many of whom wouldn't need the scraps if the society were working right. (p. 7)

The elite decide what to fund, how to address change, and how to measure progress.

For when elites assume leadership of social change, they are able to reshape what social change is--above all, to present it as something that should never threaten winners. In an age defined by a chasm between those who have power and those who don't, elites have spread the idea that people must be helped, but only in market-friendly ways that do not upset fundamental power equations. (p. 8)

Even with the best of intentions, inviting companies and their owners to be involved in addressing inequity or poverty immediately limits the creativity and revolutionary aspects of change. Not many board members are willing to entertain solutions that might inhibit their ability to pass on their wealth to future generations or that might disrupt the very companies that lead to their financial success.

Moreover, the charitable world is now described in the language of business, rather than something like justice or human dignity. Politically, for example, we have fewer people rising in the ranks of government organizations but are filling leadership positions with men and women from the business world, asking them to "regulate" their former colleagues and employers.

Young people who want to change the world are easily drawn into the narrative:

What threads through these various ideas is a promise of painlessness. What is good for me will be good for you. [...] You could help people in ways that let you keep living your life as is, while shedding some of your guilt. (p. 38)

Not only are capitalists able to assuage some of the problems, the prevailing wisdom is that they are better able to do so. However, the author argues this situation merely allows the winners to continue winning and pull even farther ahead.

There are still winners and losers, the powerful and the powerless, and the claim that everyone is in it together is an eraser of the inconvenient reality of others. (p. 50)

One of the key points of the book is how the large corporations manage to impact the messaging from speakers and authors. Many who begin by criticizing the current methods of philanthropy end up adjusting their talks and books as they are invited to conventions or retreats. As their income is more and more dependent on the wealthy, their words transform from calling for radical change to ones calling for change within the current system.

Inspire the rich to do more good, but never, ever tell them to do less harm; inspire them to give back, but never, ever tell them to take less; inspire them to join the solution, but never, ever accuse them of being part of the problem. (p. 155)

Then, not only do they continue to amass wealth at the expense of the week and poor, but they turn around and tell them something like "We know how best to solve your problems."

Leave us alone in the competitive marketplace, and we will tend to you after the winnings are won. The money will be spent more wisely on you than it would be by you. You will have your chance to enjoy our wealth, in the way we think you should enjoy it. (p. 164)

Interestingly, the book describes some companies that were designed to more directly benefit clients.

A company not run purely in shareholders' interests risked lawsuits from its investors. The dominant interpretation of corporate law, as we've seen, has since the 1970s come to regard companies' first duty as being to earn a profit for shareholders. (p. 248) 

Mr. Giridharadas provides many examples showing how the current ideology (allowing capitalists to determine our goals and methods for social change) is failing. He argues we need more government discussion of corporations and their behavior to address the root problems of inequity. I believe he would like to see more government regulation, but what he argues for is actually a more explicit and amicable public discourse on the causes of inequality and the methods for addressing it. Bringing those conversations out of private elite conferences and into the public arena allows everyone to participate.

It is solving problems in ways that give the people you are helping a say in the solutions, that offer that say in equal measure to every citizen, that allow some kind of access to your deliberations or at least provide a meaningful feedback mechanism to tell you it isn't working. It is not reimagining the world at conferences. (p. 227)

This book is written for elites, most of whom are firmly in the American left, politically. Some of the arguments, therefore, are along the lines of, "This is why Trump won the election," in ways that conservatives may find distasteful.

I think it's worthwhile to ask whether the weakest members of our society are making any progress and tying our goals and assessments of progress towards those goals to measurements of the quality of life for the least powerful.

Now that I've read this book, I find myself noticing evidence of its arguments in articles and TED talks. It has helped me to be more critical of those who are promising to change the world without changing our lifestyles or our hearts.

Benedict XVI's Caritas in Veritate offers a rich contemplation of walking in love and solidarity with the poor and marginalized. I highly recommend it to anyone interested in charity or societal change, even if not Catholic. 

For Catholics, though, changing the world is a matter of bringing forth the kingdom of God. Charities and governments can participate in that transformation, but what it requires most of all is allowing the love of Christ to change our hearts and then go forth to love and cherish every human person. Those of us who are comfortable in our lives must learn to sacrifice our own luxuries for the benefit of the marginalized if we want to follow Christ. Part of that sacrifice might mean admitting the deficiencies of our society's status quo.

Generosity is not a substitute for justice... (p. 182)

I have received nothing in exchange for this post. Links to Bookshop are affiliate links. I checked this book out from the library. 

June 2020 Book Reports

This Country of Ours by H. E. Marshall (along with First People: An Illustrated History of American Indians by David C. King) - link to my post (purchased copies)

Force for Good: The Catholic Guide to Business Integrity by Brian Engelland - link to my post (purchased copy)

Caritas in Veritate (Charity in Truth) by Pope Benedict XVI - This encyclical addresses development in terms of aid, international trade, culture, technology, and faith. His words are careful and nuanced, providing guides for organizations, businesses, and governments. The language is rich but difficult. Pope Benedict doesn't supply any easy answers, but instead directs everyone to consider always the true development of individual people in every programmatic decision. I had thought this might be a good encyclical for my high schooler to read at the end of his economics and social responsibility course of study, but I think it's better suited for those who are contemplating actual programs. (printed from the Vatican website)

The History of England for Catholic Children, a reprint from Hillside Education - link to my post (purchased copy)

Links to Amazon and Bookshop are affiliate links. I have received nothing in exchange for this post.

Catholic Social Teaching and Businesses: Force for Good

A Force for Good

by Brian Engelland

I found this book while looking for something about Catholic principles in business for our economics course next year. Last year, First Son read half of Economics: The User's Guide by Ha-Joon Chang. He also read You Need a Budget by Jesse Mecham along with some other articles for personal finance. The two streams together were half an economics credit.

This coming year, he'll finish Economics: The User's Guide. I'm going to create a second stream to read that will focus on Catholic and moral aspects of economics. It's very much still in flux, but I imagine it will include some chapters of Small Is Still Beautiful, some essays from Wendell Berry, and possibly an encyclical. Force for Good is a good option I'm considering for Catholic business principles.

The book is a relatively easy read, providing introductions to Catholic teachings of natural law and Catholic Social Doctrine (or Catholic social teaching) and their relationship to policies and decisions in a business. The author draws on business articles, encyclicals, Scripture, and the Catechism. He also draws on his own experiences as a manager, owner, and university professor.

While not all of the business-related information is directly applicable to all students, thinking about these ideas is beneficial to everyone. We all buy products and choose which companies to support with our purchases. This is also an excellent book for any student considering a career in business or entrepreneurship. 

I am a radical Catholic in terms of my economic ideas, so reading this book was sometimes difficult for me. I think Professor Engelland is much more idealistic in his beliefs about how easy it is to run a large successful business based on Catholic social teaching. He claims such practices are actually better for a company and allow it to flourish in the competitive market environment. I think the number of international and conglomerate companies that do not adhere to such principles belies his assertion, but such principles can be and should be the bedrock of Catholic businesses. I want to share these kinds of ideas (and ideals) with my students as we think about economics.

I have received nothing in exchange for this post. Links to Bookshop are affiliate links. I purchased this book used.

History, Geography, Culture...Life: Food: A Cultural Culinary History

Food: A Cultural Culinary History (The Great Courses)

by Ken Albala

Professor Albala attempts to cover all of human history through food. His focus is Western culture and Europe, but there are survey lectures for areas in Asia and Africa as well. In the later lectures, there is a definite bias toward local food and the kind of farm and table philosophy espoused by Wendell Berry and others, a bias that happens to coincide with my own. The last lecture, where Professor Albala predicts future movements in food, was my least favorite. Perhaps that's just because I don't want all his predictions to come to fruition.

In the video version of this series, he makes a few recipes. These are less interesting on audio, though they tended to be small parts of the lectures. I think all of the recipes are included in the PDF of the course guidebook. (These seem to be available on only some phones or apps, but they should always show up in your library on the actual Audible website.)

As I was listening, I found many connections and relationships with the high school coursework we are using, including that from Mater Amabilis™. I think a high school student (there are some references to mature themes, though none I remember being central to the ideas) could listen to this course from beginning to end as part of a high school course. It's a little short by itself to be an elective, not quite enough hours even for a quarter-credit.

Many of the lectures, however, would be a fun addition or supplement to other courses. Here are some ideas I had while listening.

European History - Many of these would be enjoyable and give a welcome respite from the heavy reading of Europe: A History.

• LECTURE 2: What Early Agriculturalists Ate
• LECTURE 3: Egypt and the Gift of the Nile
• LECTURE 5: Classical Greece—Wine, Olive Oil, and Trade
• LECTURE 6: The Alexandrian Exchange and the Four Humors
• LECTURE 9: Dining in Republican and Imperial Rome
• LECTURE 11: Europe’s Dark Ages and Charlemagne
• LECTURE 13: Carnival in the High Middle Ages
• LECTURE 15: A Renaissance in the Kitchen
• LECTURE 17: 1492—Globalization and Fusion Cuisines
• LECTURE 18: 16th-Century Manners and Reformation Diets
• LECTURE 19: Papal Rome and the Spanish Golden Age
• LECTURE 20: The Birth of French Haute Cuisine
• LECTURE 21: Elizabethan England, Puritans, Country Food
• LECTURE 22: Dutch Treat—Coffee, Tea, Sugar, Tobacco
• LECTURE 26: Eating in the Early Industrial Revolution

British History

• LECTURE 21: Elizabethan England, Puritans, Country Food
• LECTURE 25: Colonial Cookery in North America (or American History)
• LECTURE 26: Eating in the Early Industrial Revolution
• LECTURE 30: Food Imperialism around the World

Geography of Africa

• LECTURE 3: Egypt and the Gift of the Nile
• LECTURE 23: African and Aboriginal Cuisines

Geography of Asia

• LECTURE 4: Ancient Judea—From Eden to Kosher Laws
• LECTURE 7: Ancient India—Sacred Cows and Ayurveda
• LECTURE 8: Yin and Yang of Classical Chinese Cuisine
• LECTURE 12: Islam—A Thousand and One Nights of Cooking
• LECTURE 24: Edo, Japan—Samurai Dining and Zen Aesthetics

Geography of the Americas

• LECTURE 16: Aztecs and the Roots of Mexican Cooking
• LECTURE 25: Colonial Cookery in North America

Geography of Australasia

• LECTURE 23: African and Aboriginal Cuisines

Health

• LECTURE 27: Romantics, Vegetarians, Utopians
• LECTURE 29: Big Business and the Homogenization of Food
• LECTURE 32: War, Nutritionism, and the Great Depression
• LECTURE 33: World War II and the Advent of Fast Food

Economics

• LECTURE 29: Big Business and the Homogenization of Food
• LECTURE 32: War, Nutritionism, and the Great Depression

I have received nothing in exchange for this post of my honest opinions. Links to Amazon are affiliate links. I purchased this audiobook from Audible.

Economics for Land and People: What Matters?

What Matters? Economics for a Renewed Commonwealth

by Wendell Berry

Kansas Dad had this book on our shelf. I wasn't sure it would be something we could use in high school, but after skimming a bunch of books on economics and finally settling on a main text for our economics study, I decided we needed something to address how our Christian faith should influence our ideas on economics. Wendell Berry isn't Catholic, but his thoughts on economic policy are relatively close to my own though far more eloquent.

Because this is a book of essays, many published in other sources years apart, there is a bit of a disjointed feel to the book. It's also sometimes a little depressing to think of Mr. Berry speaking and writing and living his ideals for so many years in a society that is only ever so slightly changing.

In the first essay, "Money Versus Goods," postulates an economy rooted in the land and people rather than entirely focused on money and spending.

But spending is not an economic virtue. Miserliness is not an economic virtue either. Saving is. Not-wasting is. To encourage spending with no regard at all to what is being purchased may be pro-finance, but it is anti-economic. Finance, as opposed to economy, is always ready and eager to confuse wants with needs. From a financial point of view, it is good, even patriotic, to buy a new car whether you need one or not. From an economic point of view, however, it is wrong to buy anything you do not need. [...] In an authentic economy, we would ask what the land and the people need. People do need jobs, obviously. But they need jobs that serve natural and human communities, not arbitrarily "created" jobs that serve only the economy.

While I don't think is it wrong to buy something you want but don't need, I do think in our society, we buy far more of our wants than we should. Kansas Dad and I do that less than many because we have purposefully chosen a lifestyle that by its nature limits our spending money, but also because we generally carefully consider any purchase. I still buy far more books than we need.

In "Major in Homecoming," Mr. Berry addresses education.

Education has increasingly been reduced to job training, preparing young people not for responsible adulthood and citizenship but for expert servitude to the corporations.

Those of us who homeschool are able to provide an education more focused on developing character and the ability to appreciate goodness and beauty, but we still live in the world. Our children will most likely go to college (Kansas Dad is a professor, after all) and we pray they are able to support themselves in adulthood, but we hope they will seek out the kind of education that makes them better people, not just better employees.

He touches on the same topic in "Economy and Pleasure."

The idea of the teacher and scholar as one called upon to preserve and pass on a common cultural and natural birthright has been almost entirely replaced by the idea of the teacher and scholar as a developer of "human capital" and a bestower of economic advantage.

Think about Wendell Berry the next time you see an advertisement for a college or university.

A number of the essays identify significant problems with the modern agricultural industry.

In addition to an array of labor-saving or people-replacing devices and potions, it has given us massive soil erosion and degradation, water pollution, maritime hypoxic zones, destroyed rural communities and cultures, a farming population dwindled almost to disappearance, toxic food, and an absolute dependence on a despised and exploited force of migrant workers.

First Son will be reading more about the agribusiness model in The Omnivore's Dilemma as part of his Health and Happiness course of study. (We'll be using the Young Reader's Edition because he'll be able to read it faster.)

Mr. Berry argues for a local economy designed to benefit the local people. He recommends economic policies and business practices that favor industries that are smaller, more diverse, and more comfortably nestled into communities. In "An Argument for Diversity:"

Two facts are immediately apparent. One is that the present local economy, based like the economics of most rural places exclusively on the export of raw materials, is ruinous. Another is that the influence of a complex, aggressive national economy upon a simple, passive local economy will also be ruinous.

More than once, Mr. Berry reminds us that the "solutions" for modern-day problems carry a future cost that may be as great or greater than the problems they purportedly solve.

But the industrial use of any "resource" implies its exhaustion. It is for this reason that the industrial economy has been accompanied by an ever-increasing hurry of research and exploration, the motive of which is not "free enterprise" or "the spirit of free inquiry," as industrial scientists and apologists would have us believe, but the desperation that naturally and logically accompanies gluttony.

One of the longer essays is "Conserving Forest Communities." I'd like First Son to read this one, despite it's length. In in, Mr. Berry uses a model of managing a forest for the well-being of a community while considering first of all the future of the forest to imagine how such an economy might work on a grander scale. While there are still many questions about how we might shift our nation toward such an economy, the idea of the ideal is a hopeful note in what may otherwise be a somber book.

The ideal of the industrial economy is to shorten as much as possible the interval separating investment and payoff; it wants to make things fast, especially money. But even the slightest acquaintance with the vital statistics of trees places us in another kind of world. A forest makes things slowly; a good forest economy would therefore be a patient economy. It would also be an unselfish one, for good foresters must always look toward harvests that they will not live to reap. 

The last essay, "The Total Economy," looks critically at the "free-market" economy and it's underlying assumptions. I think this essay is one of the most important for our study of economics as it directly addresses the kinds of arguments we find beneath and behind every economic report in America.

I'm still thinking about what our economics study will look like, but some of these essays will be included. Here are the ones I'm considering:

• Money Versus Goods
• An Argument for Diversity
• Waste
• Conserving Forest Communities (perhaps only part of this one)
• The Total Economy 

I could have written a post about every essay in the book. It's wonderful, if slightly depressing. Highly recommended.

All opinions are my own. I have received nothing in exchange for writing this post. Links to Amazon are affiliate links.

Explanations: The Great Crash 1929

The Great Crash 1929

by John Kenneth Galbraith

I don't know how this book ended up on my to-read list back in 2012, but I enjoyed it tremendously in 2019.

While some of the conditions creating the environment enabling the dramatic rise and fall of the stock market in 1929 have been alleviated, I was struck more than once at how we saw the same problems and problematic responses during the 2008 financial crisis.

Always, when markets are in trouble, the phrases are the same: "The economic situation is fundamentally sound" or simply "The fundamentals are good." All who hear these words should know that something is wrong.

He talks about it later as well:

Mr. Mellon was participating in a ritual which, in our society, is thought to be of great value for influencing the course of the business cycle. By affirming solemnly that prosperity will continue, it is believed, one can help insure that prosperity will in fact continue. Especially among businessmen the faith in the efficiency of such incantation is very great.

Obviously in 1929 (recounted in this book) and in 2008 (when I vaguely paid attention as an adult), these "incantations" were ineffective. It would be interesting to see if anyone can point to a time when the economy was struggling and such affirmations helped steady it before there were drastic effects.

The machinery by which Wall Street separates the opportunity to speculate from the unwanted returns and burdens of ownership is ingenious, precise, and almost beautiful.

He mentions a few of these methods like funding to customers through brokers and adjustments to margins and interest rates to keep funds available.

The purpose is to accommodate the speculator and facilitate speculation. But the purposes cannot be admitted. If Wall Street confessed this purpose, many thousands of moral men and women would have no choice but to condemn it for nurturing an evil thing and call for reform.

Mingled with the financial record is a remarkable tone of humor.

To say that the Times, when the real crash came, reported the event with jubilation would be an exaggeration. Nevertheless, it covered it with an unmistakable absence of sorrow.

One of the points Galbraith makes in the book is how most people who anticipated the 1929 crash realized there was only a little hope of avoiding it, mainly they realized it could not be stopped. The only choices, though, were to allow it to happen "naturally" as a results of the market itself imploding or taking action toward a "deliberately engineered collapse." In hindsight, it seems obvious a slow controlled collapse would be preferable to the disaster that ensued, but it's difficult to assess. Additionally, whoever took action toward a controlled collapse would bear the unmitigated blame for the entire collapse despite protestations of a potentially greater catastrophe. The system, therefore, and one which continues today, discourages any person or entity from suggesting restrictions or constraints on the financial market as a whole.

One aspect I misunderstood before reading the book was the relatively small number of people trading on the stock market. According to Galbraith, at the peak of speculative trading in 1929, there were probably less than a million. Google tells me there were 121.8 million people in the United States in 1929. Somehow less than 1% of the population wreaked havoc on the economy and ravaged the lives of millions for a decade to come. One of the explanations Galbraith proposes is that the stock market crash disproportionately devastated the very wealthy in an economy that was heavily dependent on luxury spending. When the wealthy people stopped buying luxuries, the crash spread throughout the entire economy.

Galbraith also tackles the misconception that suicides increased, people were leaping to their doom from New York City skyscrapers. Suicides in New York were substantially higher in the months before the crash than after. The rate did rise, however, over the course of the Great Depression. I can imagine how the initial shock and optimism gradually deepened to unremitting helplessness. Galbraith suggests people remembering these later suicides mentally altered their dates to the time of the crash.

The singular feature of the great crash of 1929 was that the worst continued to worsen. What looked one day like the end proved on the next day to have been only the beginning. Nothing could have been more ingeniously designed to maximize the suffering, and also to insure that as few as possible escaped the common misfortune.

Those who survived early dips with intact capital were lured back to the market for the "bargains," companies now priced below their estimated value. The price of the stocks stabilized after November, but continued to decline over the next twenty-four months, dropping to a third or a fourth of their "bargain" price. So even those who bought "bargains" found their investments worthless over the course of the next few years.

My library only had this book in an anthology: The Affluent Society and Other Writings. I only read The Great Crash 1929 but I enjoyed his style so much I put the whole book on my to-read list. (At my current rate, I'll get to it in about ten years, when my youngest son graduates high school.)

This post contains my own opinions. I did not receive anything in exchange for it. Links to Amazon are affiliate links.

Update on Personal Finance for High School: You Need a Budget

You Need a Budget: The Proven System for Breaking the Paycheck-to-Paycheck Cycle, Getting Out of Debt, and Living the Life You Want

by Jesse Mecham

I wrote a few weeks about about a book I thought First Son might use for Personal Finance (in tenth grade, though I might move it to ninth grade for later students). The more I thought about it, the more I wondered if it was really want I wanted. Frankly I was uncomfortable with aspects of the book that focus on maximizing profit in investing in our current economic system and with its defense of wealth accumulation. There were a few chapters that just seemed unnecessary for a high schooler. (Not unexpected as it wasn't written for high schoolers.) So I was keeping my eyes open for an alternative and found this on the library shelf of new books.

You Need a Budget focuses on how to budget with the money you have for the expenses you know you will have. It's the outgrowth of a budgeting website and app available on a subscription basis, but the book itself is beneficial independent of the service. Though not written for high school students, I think it gives a good idea of how to handle personal finances. First Son already does this sort of thing for his finances now, but this book will push him to think ahead to budgeting when he is responsible for more expenses.

There is a chapter on talking with your "partner" about managing household finances and goals. The information is reasonably good, but as the book is written for the millennial generation, it does not assume marriage (and frankly gives many examples of couples who are not married). I talked to Kansas Dad about it and we decided our high school students could still read the book, but it's good to be aware in case you prefer to choose a different option for your family.

I intend to pair this book with other resources like an article on investing showing how compound interest builds if you begin investing early. Retirement accounts of investments in stocks seem inevitable for at least the near future, so I want him to understand about investing when he's young. I am also, however, planning for him to read a number of essays by Wendell Berry and parts of Small Is Still Beautiful to help him question the status quo and consider what role economics might play in a society that strives to build the Kingdom of God. All of this will be in addition to the economics book he'll use as a text over the next two years but the personal finance part should be fairly easy so I think he won't be overwhelmed.

An Economics Book Worth the Struggle: Economics: The User's Guide

Economics: The User's Guide

by Ha-Joon Chang

After hours spent searching our library, browsing online, and skimming economics books, I have found our high school economics text.

The User's Guide presents multiple schools of economic thought: Classical, Neoclassical, Marxist, Developmentalist, Austrian, Schumpeterian, Keynesian, Institutionalist, and Behaviouralist. Unlike every other book I found, Chang's descriptions include both advantages and disadvantages for each school. He advocates throughout the book for the use of multiple schools, arguing that each restricts the solutions to any economic problems by the questions they pose and that a combination of perspectives will provide the most robust policies.

In the very beginning, Chang addresses the all-important question: "Why do you need to learn economics?"

There are many different types of economic theory, each emphasizing different aspects of complex reality, making different moral and political value judgements and drawing different conclusions. Moreover, economic theories constantly fail to predict real-world developments even in ares on which they focus, not least because human beings have their own free will, unlike chemical molecules or physical objects.

We should all learn the basics of economics, therefore, so we can properly assess economic plans and theories proposed in government and by politicians. They are making assumptions we may refute both about the economic situation and about our goals as individuals and as a society.

The fact is, we all need to know something about diverse approaches to economics if we are not to become passive victims or someone else's decision. Behind every economic policy and corporate action that affects our lives -- minimum wage, outsourcing, social security, food safety, pensions and what not -- lies some economic theory that either has inspired those actions or, more frequently, is providing justification of what those in power want to do anyway. 

The book is divided into two main parts. In the first half, "Getting Used to It," he presents the general terms and concepts of modern economics: what it is, a history of capitalism, schools of economic thought, and economic actors (individuals, corporations, organizations, governments).

In the second part, he explores socioeconomic problems and considers each in light of different economic theories, questioning the assumptions made by some current economic policies and encouraging the reader to also consider non-economic aspects of problems like the value of work beyond a salary. This part includes chapters on topics like production, modern financial products, poverty, unemployment, the role of the state, and international economics.

While Chang is not a man of faith, his treatment of issues like poverty and meaningful work presents a picture of the world that allows discussions of our responsibilities as individuals and communities to care for those who are suffering and to provide an economic environment in which all can flourish.

The author does not hide his own opinions. For example, he argues for a greater emphasis in the economic considerations for production (the manufacturing of actual goods) and for greater regulation of the financial services industry. His biases are clearly indicated within the text, however. He uses the pronoun "I" and says what he thinks without presenting it as if there were no other side to the debate or as if it were a consensus argument of all modern economists.

Acknowledging the difficulties involved in changing the economic status quo should not cause us to give up the fight to create an economy that is more dynamic, more stable, more equitable and more environmentally sustainable than what we have had for the last three decades.

With a few exceptions, I agree with his recommendations and overall assessments of our current economic situation (national and international). Not everyone is as radical and anti-establishment as I am, though. If you are unsure, I recommend (at least) reading his concluding remarks for each chapter before assigning this book to your student. (There are also a few instances of crude language.)

This is a meaty text. The author claims it is written for anyone with a secondary education. It is bursting with footnotes, endnotes, real-life examples (and the numbers to support them), and recommended additional reading for each chapter. Many of the chapters include minutiae of details that will not need to be remembered exactly for the main point to be understood but which could easily overwhelm a student. The first part is especially dense because it focuses intently on the economic schools of thought and a large number of economic ideas that a high school student may be encountering for the first time.

A high school student with a history of reading and narrating substantial books will be able to handle this text, if it is read slowly. It is certainly one worth the time and effort. I intend to assign this book over two years, probably twice a week, to limit the length of the readings and prevent overload from the data.

Shaping Economic Policy for Families: Small Is Still Beautiful

Small Is Still Beautiful: Economics As If Families Mattered

by Joseph Pearce

This is one of the suggested books in the Mater Amabilis™ high school curriculum available in the facebook group for supplemental reading in economics. We put off economics for the year, but in anticipation of a personal finance and economics course in tenth grade, I read this book to consider requiring it.

Most of the book reiterates the arguments presented originally by E. F. Schumacher's book, Small Is Beautiful: Economics As If People Mattered. Published decades after Schumacher's book, Small Is Still Beautiful is able to show the prescience of Schumacher's ideas about the environment and economic policy and provide examples of people, cooperatives, and companies attempting to shape business around people, instead of people around business.

Collins English Dictionary defined the term as "the social science concerned with the production and consumption of goods and services and the analysis of the commercial activities of a society." According to this conventional definition, people are either producers or (as individuals, more likely) consumers of goods and services. For Schumacher, this understanding of personhood is clearly incomplete. The discipline of economics must be ordered to an end that is determined by factors more than purely economic.

If economics asks and answers questions solely based on economic output and spending, individuals and communities should carefully consider how much emphasis economic measurements and predictions should guide political and development policies. Rather than asking, how can we make more money, we should be asking, how can we create an environment in which people can flourish? In this way, Small Is Still Beautiful reminded me of The Blue Zones of Happiness.

Pearce highlights how emphasizing rampant economic growth leads directly to environmental destruction.

The worship of economic growth as an end in itself is based on the highly questionable assumption that there are no limits to the planet's ability to sustain it. Yet none of these pressing issues are addressed by conventional economics. It doesn't have the answers because it doesn't even ask the questions.

He traces the development of mega-corporations in America to the 1890 Sherman Antitrust Act.

The passing of this act in America, and the absence of anything similar in Europe, was to tip the scales of advantage firmly in America's favor: not, however, because the act succeeded but because it failed.

Instead of colluding with smaller companies to control markets, the large ones bought or merged themselves into complete control. Though he acknowledges most economists favor unmitigated economic growth, Pearce and Schumacher argue we must ask about more than just the material. Pearce poses questions like:

• Does money buy happiness?
• Can material possessions prevent personal sorrow or suffering?
• Does everything have its price, or are some things priceless?

Later he says:

If economics was to play any meaningful part in solving the most pressing problems facing humanity and the planet it would have to look beyond the purely economic to the wider questions of life which give economics its purpose. In other words, to become truly relevant, economics must look beyond itself: the "how" of economics needs to be reconciled with the "why" of human existence.

Schumacher divided this meta-economics into three areas: consideration of its purpose, assessing qualitative aspects of life, and expanding the concept of mankind beyond material well-being.

Conventional economics, obsessed with perpetual growth, has no concept of "enough." [...] And although there are poor societies that have too little, there are no rich societies saying that they have enough, still less that they have too much.

Chapter seven introduces the idea of subsidiarity based on Pope Pius XI's encyclical Quadragesimo Anno. This important Catholic idea should inform us as we assess governmental policies. Contrary to most of our current policies, we should be creating economic environments that encourage small businesses and discourage rampant growth and mergers.

In short, inverse economies of scale should prevail.

This may decrease a nation's measurements of earnings and spendings, but Pearce and Schumacher argue (with Pope Pius XI) that subsidiarity provides an environment in which men and women and families can better flourish, even if they don't have as much capital.

Pearce explores more human-based economics through a handful of "case-studies," looking in-depth at areas like organic farming, the growth of local breweries, and the Scott Bader Commonwealth. While pertinent, they seemed rambling with far too many numbers from the 1980s and early 1990s. They would be more powerful if more succinct and a focus on recent (as of 2006, when the book was published) data. I wonder what Pearce thinks of the number of massive corporations acquiring organic companies. He might have written something on it recently, but when I tried searching I mostly found links to Small Is Still Beautiful.

Sadly, one of the cooperatives highlighted, Equity Shoes, closed in December 2008, citing debt and competition from "competition from cheap imports." It was purchased by Pavers but I can't tell if it's still a cooperative or if they are just using the brand.

I think this book is a little long (and long-winded in parts) for First Son to read all of it, but I think it's an important part of what I want him to consider as he studies economics. Therefore, I intend to assign selected chapters from the book, asking him to narrate them. If he is interested, he is welcome to read the whole book. (He won't, but I suppose other students might.)

I selected the chapters in which I had highlighted the most. I don't know how useful that will be to others, but here's the list I think we'll use:

• Chapter I: Beginnings and Ends - how economics does not currently serve humans
• Chapter II: Malignant Growth - how large companies came to dominate our economic development and shape our policies
• Chapter V: Mechanistic and Materialistic - how economics should look beyond itself
• Chapter VII: The Cult of Bigness - which introduces the idea of subsidiarity
• Chapter XVIII: Ends and Beginnings - the role of science and technology

I purchased this book used and have received nothing in exchange for this post; all opinions are my own. Links above to Amazon are affiliate links.

Personal Finance in Level 5: Dave Ramsey's Complete Guide to Money

Dave Ramsey's Complete Guide to Money

by Dave Ramsey

Update on May 27, 2019: I've picked a different book.

The Mater Amabilis™high school beta plans, available in the facebook group, recommend an economics book each year for a full credit of economics. We started the ninth grade recommendation, Whatever Happened to Penny Candy?, but I didn't like it so we stopped a few weeks in. Since then, I've spent some time reading from various books on economics and still haven't found the perfect book. I think we're going to read two or three books next year that together will give First Son a half credit of economics.

Our Personal Finance component will be this book by Dave Ramsey. If you've read anything by Dave Ramsey, it's in this book. In it, he has gathered and organized his Financial Peace University course material. It's written to adults, but that includes young adults just starting out so I think First Son (and the other kids) but a high schooler can read it and just tuck information away for later.

The book covers: savings and compound interest, budgeting, debt elimination (and avoidance), the credit and finance industry, insurance, and investing. Simple skills like how to balance a checkbook are not covered, but there are lots of sites and videos online with that kind of information.

There are constant references to Dave Ramsey's other books, Financial Peace University, their website, and the events they host. While it's understandable, given that it's the textbook for the course, it can seem tedious.

I intend to ask for narrations for each chapter, but not to give tests based on the book.

I don't agree with everything Dave Ramsey says, but it's pretty good. I'm still looking around for a book that will cover economics at the community level (city, state, national, international) and something that will introduce and explain the Catholic idea of subsidiarity. Basically I think Ramsey has started on the right path in pulling out of the debt economy of our nation, but I'm more radical and want to expose the flaws in the system itself. I'm currently considering Economics for Helen and Small Is Still Beautiful.

I have received nothing for this post and it contains my honest opinion. I check this book out of the library. Links to Amazon are affiliate links.

Innovations and Consequences: Fifty Inventions that Shaped the Modern Economy

Fifty Inventions that Shaped the Modern Economy

by Tim Harford

This book caught my eye in our library catalog and so I managed to read a book the same year it was published. This is a pretty easy book to read in small snippets and, while thought-provoking at times, isn't the kind of complicated book that requires reading before children are awake or after they've gone to bed. It explores sometimes surprising effects of inventions most of us take for granted today.

But we shouldn't fall into the trap of assuming that inventions are nothing but solutions. They're much more than that. Inventions shape our lives in unpredictable ways--and while they're solving a problem for someone, they're often creating a problem for someone else.

Unfortunately, those problems often seem to fall disproportionately on the poor.

The selected fifty inventions are grouped into broad categories: Winners and Losers (like barbed wire), Reinventing How We Live (like the birth control pill), Inventing New Systems (like the bar code), Ideas About Ideas (like double-entry bookkeeping), Where Do Inventions Come From? (like chemical fertilizer), The Visible Hand (like antibiotics in farming), and Inventing the Wheel (like paper money).

Each short chapter presents the story of an invention and an exploration of the myriad ways it has spread its influence through our current global economy. Some of these inventions were ones I hadn't much considered, like property registers. The author also points out how these inventions or their repercussions impact problems we still see in the world like trade deficits and developing countries (in an already developed world).

It's reasonable to assume that future inventions will deliver a similar pattern: broadly, they will solve problems and make us richer and healthier, but the gains will be uneven and there will be blunders and missed opportunities.

Overall, this was a fascinating read and quite enjoyable, even if I don't agree with all the author's assertions. I did appreciate the extensive endnotes. I also added a whole slew of notations in my Book of Centuries.