Slouching Towards Utopia
An Economic History of the Twentieth Century
Ratings8
Average rating3.8
15
An Economic History of the Twentieth Century
Ratings8
Average rating3.8
AN INSTANT NEW YORK TIMES AND WALL STREET JOURNAL BESTSELLER LONGLISTED FOR THE FINANCIAL TIMES BUSINESS BOOK OF THE YEAR A FINANCIAL TIMES BEST ECONOMICS BOOK OF THE YEAR AND THE ECONOMIST BOOK OF THE YEAR From one of the world's leading economists, a sweeping new history of the twentieth century - a century that left us vastly richer, yet still profoundly dissatisfied. Before 1870, most people lived in dire poverty, the benefits of the slow crawl of invention continually offset by a growing population. Then came a great shift: invention sprinted forward, doubling our technological capabilities each generation, and creatively destroying the economy again and again. Slouching Towards Utopia tells the story of the major economic and technological shifts of the 20th century in a bold and ambitious, grand narrative. In vivid and compelling detail, DeLong charts the unprecedented explosion of material wealth after 1870 which transformed living standards around the world, freeing humanity from centuries of poverty, but paradoxically has left us now with unprecedented inequality, global warming, and widespread dissatisfaction with the status quo. How did the long twentieth century fail to deliver the utopia our ancestors believed would be the inevitable result of such material wellbeing? How did humanity end up less on a march to progress than a slouch in the right direction? And what can we learn from the past in pursuit of a better world?
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The low rating for this book is really an average, because there’s some five-star materials in here, and some one-star sections. Maybe there is simply no way to have a good Econ history book within the conventions of popular publishing, which says that anything that smacks of a text book costs you sales — so this book which is constantly making comparisons and drawing analogies, and comparing different eras and places is entirely devoid of graphics to make those things memorable. So it’s really a much harder read than it needs to be. And way longer than it needs to be.
Overall this book was a slog, but I think a slog worth making for some of the insights I just wish it has been boiled down to two or three long read articles and handed to a gifted graphic designer who could have done some explainers to go along with it.
This book is to Economic/world history what a chess book would have been with no chess diagrams and the moves all described in words, rather than in compact and standardized chess notation - bulks up the product considerably, and makes it a lot more work for the reader to identify the insights.
DeLong's long 20th century goes from 1870 up until right after the financial crisis of 2008. In those 140 years humanity has made massive strides forward in technological improvements, quality of life and accumulation of wealth. The key change makers are: the research lab, corporations, and globalization. And so we're climbing towards an utopia, yet the further along we get on that climb, the more it becomes clear that a) we'll never be satisfied, and b) we don't agree on how to get there.
History and economic development is an oscillating climb. Two steps forwards (the gilded ages from 1870-to-WWI and WWII-to-1970) one step back (world wars). The highs seems to be tied to the lows and also the other way around. We need creative destruction in order to reinvent ourselves. And if we're doing too well, we reset our benchmarks for success, those on top get cocky, and discontent start to brew below. Economics growth followed by depressions.
This book is a fascinating attempt at a summary of the economy of the last 140 years. DeLong mostly tried to give a global picture, but still is too US-centric (it's always the same), especially in the last chapters. In addition, in the final chapters, he dives too deep into specific US political decision making, and loses his objective focus. Which was the guiding light for all the previous chapters. Still, I feel I learned a bunch, even though a lot of it was a bit overwhelming.
I feel I should read a primer on Keynes, Hayes, etc now
“The Market Giveth; The Market Taketh Away: Blessed Be the Name of the Market?”
This is a very long slog of describing how things were technologically and economically and how two competing ideas have shaped major idealogical forces in the twentieth century. The major take away I had from this one was brought up near the beginning. You have two economic ideas:
1) The market is perfect and man serves the market to drive the most efficient outcome in all cases. If there are troubles with the market, it is because someone hampered the market from being completely free. (Hyak)
2) People feel that they have rights and want things to be fair. Since these are both subjective concepts it is difficult for me to think about this being factual based, especially in this post-truth age. People will resist politically policies that they feel are violating their status quo or rights and/or result in things not being fairly allocated.
This book walked through the long century of economic growth with these as the filter with which to view events. I went through it once, but if you really wanted to absorb the details you'd have to revisit it. It's very long and a little detailed.
