Summer Reading to Lift Your Economic Spirits
The Pitch: Economic Update for September 1st, 2022
Most of Civic Ventures is taking the week off to relax and recharge with friends and family before the hard work of midterm election season begins after Labor Day. Zach will return next week (and every week thereafter) with all the economic news and analysis you’ve come to expect from The Pitch, but we thought we’d do something different with this week’s issue: A reading list for those of you looking to squeeze in one last book over Labor Day weekend.
But because we’re on the cusp of what looks to be an intense election season, I thought I’d offer some suggestions that would leave you feeling better about the world. Rather than weigh you down with the usual list of depressing journalistic investigations and scathing cultural critiques, here are a few uplifting economics books — titles that offer positive perspectives on the state of the world or forward-thinking policy suggestions that would improve the United States.
Dutch historian Rutger Bregman’s Humankind: A Hopeful History is a book that dismantles our long-held belief that humans are inherently selfish animals who only have their own best interests in mind. Instead, Bregman scours the historical record and reveals that more often than not, humans are cooperative, empathetic, and kind creatures who approach social interactions from a place of trust. He reveals what really happened when school boys were stranded unsupervised on a desert island (if you’re expecting a horrific Lord of the Flies scenario, you’ll be disappointed) and he debunks the Stanford prison experiment that’s often used to show that the average human is one step away from being a murderer. Bregman’s a cheerful, intelligent guide and this book will change your perspective on humanity for the better. (And if you’re looking for a full book club experience, Bregman discussed Humankind on our podcast Pitchfork Economics when the book was released in 2020.)
The Ministry for the Future is the only novel on this list, but Kim Stanley Robinson’s science fiction epic feels more real than the daily newspaper. The book begins in a dark place — a climate catastrophe in near-future India that leaves millions dead — but then builds to a thoughtful narrative about how international leaders can realistically come together to fight climate change with policy and cooperation. Robinson has been writing brilliant sci-fi and gorgeous nature essays for decades, but this book is his magnum opus–a hopeful gift to the world at a decisive moment in history.
The Black Agenda: Bold Solutions For A Broken System is a collection of essays by thinkers about how to improve outcomes for Black people, both individually and nationwide. Editor Anna Gifty Opoku-Agyeman does a good job of assembling a wide array of perspectives, and the economics segments of the book, which includes a blockbuster essay by Karl Boulware about how the Federal Reserve can increase prosperity for Black workers, offer fresh ways of thinking how to build a better and more inclusive economy.
Mariana Mazzucato’s Mission Economy: A Moonshot Guide to Changing Capitalism argues that capitalism can be a positive force that shapes the future of mankind if government steps in to direct it. Just as public-private partnerships helped us get to the moon in the 20th century, Mazzucato argues that smart policy incentives can create moonshot moments for private-public partnerships in the 21st century — solving big problems like disease, gun violence, and climate change by putting the profit motive to good use. (For more information, check out Mazzucato’s appearance on Pitchfork Economics.)
It’s easy to think of capitalism as a one-size-fits-all system — an economic system that works the same everywhere. But Any Partnanen’s The Nordic Theory of Everything reminds us that the average Scandinavian enjoys a far better quality of life than the average American, and those nations are still unapologetically capitalist. What matters most is which definition of freedom your society chooses to prioritize. While Americans use freedom to fight about gun ownership and prayer in schools, Scandinavian nations prioritize freedom to enjoy the essentials of life without incurring crushing debt. (Partanen and her partner, Trevor Corson, joined Pitchfork Economics to talk about Finland’s brand of capitalism.)
When people refer to politics as “the art of the possible,” they usually mean it in a denigrating way — that all our leaders can do is think small and make the best of what they’ve got. But there’s a whole optimistic flip side to that expression: The idea that anything is possible, and therefore achievable, if you can think it.
This is especially true of economics. Once you open your mind to accept that better systems are possible — and that, in fact, everyone would do better in a more equitable, inclusive economy — you start to think about all the ways in which the economy can be improved. There are nations that provide healthcare for every citizen. There are nations where nobody goes without shelter. The only thing that’s different in the United States is we have a bunch of people on both sides of the aisle loudly repeating the falsehood that we could never do what those nations do, or that those popular policies are somehow unpopular with voters. To those trickle-down naysayers, I argue that economics is the art of transforming the impossible into the possible.
Wherever you are, I hope you have a fantastic Labor Day weekend. Zach will be back next week, refreshed and ready to bring you the latest economic news throughout the midterm election season.
— Paul
