Civil Society – Page 17 – Public Intelligence Blog

2010/07/212010/08/02

Review: Eaarth–Making a Life on a Tough New Planet

4 Star, Atlases & State of the World, Capitalism (Good & Bad), Civil Society, Complexity & Resilience, Congress (Failure, Reform), Consciousness & Social IQ, Culture, Research, Disease & Health, Environment (Problems), Environment (Solutions), Executive (Partisan Failure, Reform), Future, Nature, Diet, Memetics, Design, Peace, Poverty, & Middle Class, Public Administration, Science & Politics of Science, Survival & Sustainment, Values, Ethics, Sustainable Evolution, Water, Energy, Oil, Scarcity

Starts Weak, Ends Strong, Not the Whole Picture

July 21, 2010

Bill McKibben

EDIT of 2 August 2010: However great the mind or the man, we all make mistakes. Paul Hawkins made his with Monsanto, I've made mine. ClimateGate established with clarity the fraud associated with both the fabricated science and the intended “sub-prime mortgaging” of the Earth's atmosphere. Maurice Strong and Al Gore are pushing fraud, not fixing. Mercury and sulfer and methane are bigger problems than carbon, and global warming is a small element–not even close to being the main event–within Environmental Degradation, threat #3 after poverty and infectious disease. It troubles me when people vote against the messenger–McKibben is a great man–he's also made a mistake. Get over it and do more reading, integrate more, and it will all come out fine.

. . . . . . .

I was so annoyed with the narrow first third that glorifies the likes of Al Gore, Thomas Friedman, and Larry “women can't think like scientists” Summers that I was actually contemplating three stars. This is a weakly researched book that buys into the International Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) and Maurice Strong carbon fraud, while ignoring the vastly more intelligent findings of the High Level Panel on Threats, Challenges, and Change, A More Secure World: Our Shared Responsibility–Report of the Secretary-General's High-level Panel on Threats, Challenges and Change, in which Environmental Degradation is #3 and more broadly defined.

Any book that quotes the discredited James Hansen of NASA and that builds a case around Op-Eds and undocumented assertions is a stain upon scholarship, and the first third of this book falls into that sinkhole. Despite many references to the Copenhagen summit, there is not a word in this book about ClimateGate (see the Rolling Update at Phi Beta Iota the Public Intelligence Blog) and therefore I find this author guilty of active misrepresentation bordering on a lack of integrity in this specific instance. The author is spending too much time with newspapers and not enough time with books representing the distilled reflections of others.

Having said that, and deducted one star for the lapse, I find the balance of the book absorbing, fascinating, and rich in gems of insight and fact. It should be read in conjunction with:

Limits to Growth: The 30-Year Update
Human Scale
High Noon 20 Global Problems, 20 Years to Solve Them
The Future of Life
Acts of God: The Unnatural History of Natural Disaster in America
The Next Catastrophe: Reducing Our Vulnerabilities to Natural, Industrial, and Terrorist Disasters
The Real Global Warming Disaster: Is the Obsession with “Climate Change” Turning Out to Be the Most Costly Scientific Blunder in History?
Biomimicry: Innovation Inspired by Nature
The Fortune at the Bottom of the Pyramid, Revised and Updated 5th Anniversary Edition: Eradicating Poverty Through Profits

My criticism and praise of this important work are based on the above and the other 1,600 non-fiction reviews I have posted to Amazon, all more easily accessible in 98 reading categories at Phi Beta Iota the Public Intelligence Network.

Early points that got my attention:

Continue reading “Review: Eaarth–Making a Life on a Tough New Planet”

2010/07/142010/07/14

Review: Building Social Business–The New Kind of Capitalism that Serves Humanity’s Most Pressing Needs

6 Star Top 10%, Associations & Foundations, Best Practices in Management, Capitalism (Good & Bad), Change & Innovation, Civil Society, Complexity & Resilience, Consciousness & Social IQ, Culture, Research, Economics, Environment (Solutions), Humanitarian Assistance, Information Society, Intelligence (Collective & Quantum), Intelligence (Public), Intelligence (Wealth of Networks), Justice (Failure, Reform), Nature, Diet, Memetics, Design, Peace, Poverty, & Middle Class, Priorities, Public Administration, Technology (Bio-Mimicry, Clean), True Cost & Toxicity, Truth & Reconciliation, United Nations & NGOs, Values, Ethics, Sustainable Evolution, Voices Lost (Indigenous, Gender, Poor, Marginalized), Water, Energy, Oil, Scarcity

4 in isolation, beyond 6 in context–a cornerstone book

July 14, 2010

Muhammad Yunus and Karl Weber

While I sympathize with those who feel that the book lacks reference to prior art, that social business has been around for a very long time, and that much of the book is somewhat similar to his first book that I also reviewed, Creating a World Without Poverty: Social Business and the Future of Capitalism, I am rating this book a five here and a “6 Star & Beyond” at Phi Beta Iota the Public Intelligence Blog, for the simple reason that he is not just doing it, but doing it on a global scale, pushing the envelope across all boundaries, and setting the stage for realizing what Nobel-candidate C. K. Prahalad articulates in The Fortune at the Bottom of the Pyramid, Revised and Updated 5th Anniversary Edition: Eradicating Poverty Through Profits.

The Nobel Prize to Yanus was a righteous one–unlike the political idiocy of awards to Al Gore and Barack Obama. I can only hope that the Norwegian public shames its overly political Nobel Committee into getting back on track with awards such as this one.

My friend Howard Bloom has a new book out that complements this one: The Genius of the Beast: A Radical Re-Vision of Capitalism and of course there are others both recent and past, such as Capitalism at the Crossroads: Next Generation Business Strategies for a Post-Crisis World (3rd Edition).

Three things are changing that make this book a cornerstone book:

Continue reading “Review: Building Social Business–The New Kind of Capitalism that Serves Humanity's Most Pressing Needs”

2010/07/062010/07/08

Review: IDENTITY ECONOMICS–How our Identities Shape Our Work, Wages, and Well-Being

5 Star, America (Founders, Current Situation), Best Practices in Management, Civil Society, Consciousness & Social IQ, Economics

Concise, Relevant, Documents New Knowledge, Respects Work of Others

July 6, 2010

George Akerlof and Rachel Kranton

This book is a solid five, and one of those instances when brevity adds value. While I was concerned to see no discussion of “true cost” economics and the book is overly fawning on Goldman Sachs (written before Goldman Sachs was exposed for its multiple fiscal crimes against both investors and governments), the superior References, Notes, and Acknowledgements balanced this out. This work began in 1995.

This is an engrossing book and it immediately overcame my general disdain for economists, most of whom have only recently discovered information asymmetries and most of whom refuse to recognize that corruption in the US government and cheating across the US economy is fully the equivalent of transnational organized crime in cost to society.

Overall I consider this book very useful as both an overview (with most impressive “by name” citation of prior art on every page) and as a critique of conventional economics. This book is an excellent complement to the book I just reviewed, The Hidden Wealth of Nations and will be complemented by the book I will review next week, Building Social Business: The New Kind of Capitalism That Serves Humanity's Most Pressing Needs. See also my review of Nobel-worthy The Fortune at the Bottom of the Pyramid, Revised and Updated 5th Anniversary Edition: Eradicating Poverty Through Profits.

Core concept: IDENTITY is actualized psychological norms within a social context.

QUOTE (page 8): Identity economics restores human passions and social institutions into economics.”

Continue reading “Review: IDENTITY ECONOMICS–How our Identities Shape Our Work, Wages, and Well-Being”

2010/06/302011/10/22

Review: The Hidden Wealth of Nations

6 Star Top 10%, Best Practices in Management, Capitalism (Good & Bad), Change & Innovation, Civil Society, Complexity & Resilience, Consciousness & Social IQ, Democracy, Education (General), Education (Universities), Games, Models, & Simulations, Intelligence (Collective & Quantum), Intelligence (Public), Intelligence (Wealth of Networks), Nature, Diet, Memetics, Design, Peace, Poverty, & Middle Class, Philosophy, Politics, Security (Including Immigration), Survival & Sustainment, Voices Lost (Indigenous, Gender, Poor, Marginalized)

Beyond 5 Stars, a Cornerstone Book, Most Extraordinary Strategic Depth

June 30, 2010

David Halpern

Amazon has recently been allowing longer reviews by inserting a “Read More” line and I hope this entire review is allowed to stand. It will also be posted to Phi Beta Iota the Public Intelligence Blog, with links back to Amazon.

This is a Beyond Five Stars book. Although there is a fine literature emerging on collective intelligence and wealth of networks–and there is an increasingly robust Open Money movement that also includes local communities currencies that keep the wealth local–this book does something no other book has done–it connects economics to humanity and reality and the intangibles in all their forms.

This is not a book about underground economies, barter systems, alternative currencies, etcetera. It is one of the most profoundly relevant, erudite yet easy to read books I have ever read, with a direct bearing on every aspect of human life, and in particular the role of government as it should be.

The author specifically quantifies the financial and intangible value of “getting along” and being part of deep interconnections that define, drive, and develop (or not) the hidden wealth of nations.

The author has provided an extraordinarily well-organized book with a well-presented series of chapters that left me with so many flyleaf notes I fear I will not do the author and the intellectual tour de force he has provided, quite enough justice. Buy and read the book. Tell elected and appointed leaders about it–or send them a copy of this review. [I am stunned that there are no other reviews as this book was published in 2009.]

Continue reading “Review: The Hidden Wealth of Nations”

2010/06/202010/06/20

Review: The Politics of Happiness–What Government Can Learn from the New Research on Well-Being

4 Star, America (Founders, Current Situation), Best Practices in Management, Civil Society, Complexity & Resilience, Consciousness & Social IQ, Culture, Research, Democracy, Disease & Health, Economics, Education (General), Education (Universities), Electoral Reform USA, Environment (Solutions), Future, Intelligence (Public), Peace, Poverty, & Middle Class, Philosophy, Politics, Priorities, Public Administration, Voices Lost (Indigenous, Gender, Poor, Marginalized)

cover politics of happiness — Amazon Page

Absolutely Righteous, Mis-Leading Title

June 20, 2010

Derek Bok

First off, I'm back. After three months integrating into a field position with a prominent international organization, with three days off the whole time, I am finally able to get back to reading, and have about fifteen books on water I was going to read for UNESCO but will now read and review for myself. Look for two reviews a week from this point on, absent another tri-fecta (volcano, storm, minor coup).

This book is the first of three books that I am reviewing this week, the other two are The Hidden Wealth of Nations, which will be a five, and Identity Economics: How Our Identities Shape Our Work, Wages, and Well-Being, probably a five as well, but I continue to be stunned as how people limit their references to the last 10 years when so much has been done that is relevant in the last 50.

This book is not about the politics of happiness. It is more about the possibilities of public administration of happiness.

This will be a long review–apart from the author being one of a handful to truly top-notch minds with a historical memory, the topic is important–much more important than I realized until I starting following unconventional economics (ecological economics, true cost, bio-mimicry, sustainable design, human development and non-financial wealth).

The author opens with Bhutan and its Gross National Happiness (GNH) concept, with four pillars (good governance, stable-equitable social development, environmental protection, preservation of culture). Elsewhere (on the web) I learn that the 72 indicators are divided into nine domains (time use, living standards, good governance, psychological wellbeing, community vitality, culture, health, education, and ecology).

From there the author moves to the 1800's and Jeremy Bentham, and of course our own Founding Fathers who included “the pursuit of happiness” in the Declaration of Independence. As I have commented before in reviewing other books such as 1776; What Kind of Nation: Thomas Jefferson, John Marshall, and the Epic Struggle to Create a United States, and The Thirteen American Arguments: Enduring Debates That Define and Inspire Our Country, happiness in those days was interpreted as fulfillment, “be all you can be,” not frivolous joy of “excessive laughter.”

The author identifies and discusses six factors pertinent to happiness in the US context as he defines it: Marriage; Social Relationships; Employment (wherein trust in management is VASTLY more important than the paycheck); Perceived Health; Religion (in sense of community not dogma) and Quality of Government (as which point I am reminded of George Will's superb Statecraft as Soulcraft; Quality of government is further divided into Rule of Law, Efficient Government, Low Violence and Corruption; High Degree of Trust in Public Officials and Especially Police; and Responsive Encounters by Citizens with Government.

Note: 30 million in US population are “not too happy.”

Continue reading “Review: The Politics of Happiness–What Government Can Learn from the New Research on Well-Being”

2010/05/06

Review: Surviving the Toxic Workplace–Protect Yourself Against Coworkers, Bosses, and Work Environments That Poison Your Day

5 Star, Capitalism (Good & Bad), Civil Society, Consciousness & Social IQ, Culture, Research, Leadership, Power (Pathologies & Utilization), Values, Ethics, Sustainable Evolution, Voices Lost (Indigenous, Gender, Poor, Marginalized)

Worst Case Stories, Depressing, But Relevant, May 6, 2010

Linda Durre

Disclosure: the publisher sent me this book after asking for permission to do so, and I agreed to read and review the book. Then I got a job that took me overseas and I am just now catching up with my commitment on this specific book.

First off, this is the most comprehensive treatment I have ever seen and the typology that the author developed is very–VERY–scary on multiple levels, including recognizing myself in multiple categories including Socially Clueless, Angry, Rescuer, and Obsessives. Bummer.

I found the book absorbing. Although each “chapter” is really closer to a four-page blurb, there is nothing wrong with the typology, the substance, or the intentions of this book.

At best it should make most people grateful they do not work in a toxic environment. At worst it could be a wake-up call for those who have put up with extraordinary abuse, have come to think of it as normal, and might find this checklist approach to toxic environments helpful.

For me the best part of the book was the end where the author itemizes a number of class action law suits that have led to big wins for some groups, but sadly only have decades of litigation and decades of loss.

The stark reality is that both governments and corporations have forgotten that their mission includes the nurturing of their employees and the communities that host their offices. Ethics has gone down the tubes, and corruption at all levels is the norm. From where I sit, the healthiest route right now is to simply disconnect, move to Seattle, or Portland, or Alaska, and start over. If on the other hand you are a CEO, are being “born again” and want to get it right, then this book is a good introduction to the professional that can help your company get back on the right side of goodness.

Some other equally depressing books:
Rage of the Random Actor: Disarming Catastrophic Acts And Restoring Lives
The Cheating Culture: Why More Americans Are Doing Wrong to Get Ahead
Screwed: The Undeclared War Against the Middle Class – And What We Can Do about It (BK Currents (Paperback))
The Working Poor: Invisible in America
The Global Class War: How America's Bipartisan Elite Lost Our Future – and What It Will Take to Win It Back

On the bright side:
Nonzero: The Logic of Human Destiny
Emergence: The Shift from Ego to Essence
Reflections on Evolutionary Activism: Essays, poems and prayers from an emerging field of sacred social change
Revolutionary Wealth
Collective Intelligence: Creating a Prosperous World at Peace

2010/04/262010/05/05

Review (DVD): The Book of Eli (2010)

5 Star, Civil Society, Complexity & Catastrophe, Complexity & Resilience, Culture, DVD - Light, Reviews (DVD Only)

Dark, Worthy, Held My Attention to the End, April 26, 2010

I salute the other excellent reviews, this is primarily a short note for those who follow my reviews, including the sub-set, DVDs for intelligent people.

Definitely there. Sombre, thoughtful, and very worthwhile. See all my DVD reviews at Phi Beta Iota, the Public Intelligence Blog, under Reviews, DVD Only (bottom of second column). We're recovering from an attack that Word Press was not ready for, so it may be a week before we are clean and locked up against outside attack.