"The Third Pillar" by Raghuram Rajan (2019)

"The pillars are seriously unbalanced today. Communities have been especially impacted. In the United States, minority and immigrant communities were hit first by joblessness, which led to their social breakdown in the 1970s and 1980s. In the last two decades, communities in small towns and semirural areas, typically white, have been experiencing a similar decline as large local manufacturers close down..."

Raghuram Rajan is a Professor of Finance at the University of Chicago. He's also served as Governor of the Reserve Bank of India and Chief Economist at the International Monetary Fund. The Third Pillar is his fourth book.

And what, you ask, is this "third pillar?"  The "third pillar" is the community or communities we live in, which collectively make up the social landscape in which we live our lives.  The other two pillars are government and the market.  In the author's thinking many of the world's problems are reducible to an imbalance between the three pillars, with the government or the market often overwhelming the community's role in the individual's life.

For this reason the author sees strengthening the community as central to improving circumstances in a variety of national and international contexts.  Democracy, in other words, in its most participatory form.  Related to this idea is his concept of inclusive localism, in which communities interact and effect change within both the government and the market, resulting in better outcomes for those involved.

But.. how to get there from here?  Few would argue against the author's conceptions of the three pillars and inclusive localism, but it is the application of these ideas that poses the real problem.  The Third Pillar ranges from India, to the United States, to China, and along the way the author arrives at some arresting conclusions, many of which make one feel that we could be on the brink of change, but when you think downward to real places and real communities you can't help but wonder at the mechanics of bringing those communities to the forefront of daily existence, and how the various dysfunctions present in these communities can be separated from what, if anything, makes them work.

I would encourage anyone looking for a pair of fresh eyes on national and international relations to read The Third Pillar, but don't expect a clear roadmap to the future.  This book could be called a beginning, but we're far from a practical start with respect to fixing what's wrong with our societies, our governments and our economies.

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"Extreme Economies" by Richard Davies (2019)

 "...people are told they are free to choose the goods they buy and the careers they pursue.  In fact, we are 'slaves' to consumerism, enticed by markets that exist to create false wants.  Fashion exists, for example, to make people feel they have a deep need - in a Maslow sense - for the latest cut of jeans or pattern of dress.  The economics of data are the same, in Mr. Han's view.  Our data is in mass supply and freely supplied by us.  But we are slaves here too, chasing tokens of approval - likes on Facebook and Instagram - that we mistakenly feel are valuable."

Author Richard Davies is a former writer for The Economist.  He's also served as an economic advisor to the British government, and is presently employed as a Professor at Bristol University.  Extreme Economies is his first book.

In Extreme Economies he travels the world seeking out the most unusual areas with respect to production, distribution and trade.  He visits Aceh, Indonesia, which rebuilt itself with surprising speed after a tsunami.  He visits the Zaatari refugee camp in Jordan, where a remarkable system of trade exists between Syrian exiles.  He travels from there to Louisiana, where he interviews inmates on their own informal economy, and from Louisiana he inspects locations as far apart as the Darien Gap, Kinshasa, Glasgow, Akita, Tallinn and Santiago.  Each economy he visits exhibits its own unique characteristics.

His conclusion?  He sums up his travels by reassessing the value of social capital, and by remarking upon the aspects of economies that economists themselves often overlook.  Places such as Zaatari or the Louisiana prison system, which seem poor from the outside, are actually vibrant when considered from the standpoint of mediums of exchange, adaptability and their impact upon neighboring economies.  He arrives at the conclusion that a nation's GDP is never the end of the story, and that even in a place with high levels of income inequality there may be more than meets the eye.

I found this book very interesting and I recommend it without reservation.  It has a lot to say about the direction our economies may be heading in, and the author is very careful about the statements he makes.

Those living in Taiwan will want to read the chapter on Akita, Japan.  Many communities in Taiwan are experiencing similar challenges, and as our populations age we'll need to overcome many of the same difficulties.  Books like Extreme Economies are one way of doing that.

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"What Money Can't Buy" by Michael Sandel (2012)

I don't have much to say about this book.  It's short, the author makes good arguments, and he writes in a very fluid manner about what would be, in another's hands, a very thorny issue.

Here are the two main points he presents in What Money Can't Buy:

"It's worth taking a moment to clarify these two arguments for the moral limits of markets.  The fairness objection points to the injustice that can arise when people buy and sell things under conditions of inequality or dire economic necessity.  According to this objection, market exchanges are not always as voluntary as market enthusiasts suggest.  A peasant may agree to sell his kidney or cornea to feed his starving family, but his agreement may not really be voluntary.  He may be unfairly coerced, in effect, by the necessities of his situation.

"The corruption objection is different.  It points to the degrading effect of market valuation and exchange on certain goods and practices.  According to this objection, certain moral or civic goods are diminished or corrupted if bought and sold.  The argument from corruption cannot be met by establishing fair bargaining conditions.  It applies under conditions of equality and inequality alike."

The rest of this book is basically and amplification and exploration of these two points.  A related point being that markets are never morally neutral, and that commodification always implies certain beliefs and attitudes about the commodity in question.  This, I think, is a very timely observation, and one that I hope we, as citizens of the world, can take a closer look at.

I didn't find this book as interesting or as eye-opening as the author's other book, Justice.  Nevertheless it's still very good and raises many pertinent questions.  If you've read Justice, What Money Can't Buy would be an excellent choice for further reading.

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