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| Common Wealth: Economics for a Crowded Planet | 
 enlarge | Author: Jeffrey D. Sachs
Publisher: Penguin Press HC, The
Category: Book
List Price: $27.95
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Avg. Customer Rating:  19 reviews
Sales Rank: 2098
Media: Hardcover
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 400
Shipping Weight (lbs): 1.4
Dimensions (in): 9.2 x 5.9 x 1.4
ISBN: 1594201277
Dewey Decimal Number: 338.9
EAN: 9781594201271
ASIN: 1594201277
Publication Date: March 18, 2008
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Condition: This is a brand new book sent straight from the publisher.
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Product Description
From one of the world's greatest economic minds, author of The New York Times bestseller The End of Poverty, a clear and vivid map of the road to sustainable and equitable global prosperity and an augury of the global economic collapse that lies ahead if we don't follow it
The global economic system now faces a sustainability crisis, Jeffrey Sachs argues, that will overturn many of our basic assumptions about economic life. The changes will be deeper than a rebalancing of economics and politics among different parts of the world; the very idea of competing nation-states scrambling for power, resources, and markets will, in some crucial respects, become pass. The only question is how bad it will have to get before we face the unavoidable. We will have to learn on a global scale some of the hard lessons that successful societies have gradually and grudgingly learned within national borders: that there must be common ground between rich and poor, among competing ethnic groups, and between society and nature.
The central theme of Jeffrey Sachs's new book is that we need a new economic paradigm-global, inclusive, cooperative, environmentally aware, science based- because we are running up against the realities of a crowded planet. The alternative is a worldwide economic collapse of unprecedented severity. Prosperity will have to be sustained through more cooperative processes, relying as much on public policy as on market forces to spread technology, address the needs of the poor, and to husband threatened resources of water, air, energy, land, and biodiversity. The "soft issues" of the environment, public health, and population will become the hard issues of geopolitics. New forms of global politics will in important ways replace capital-city-dominated national diplomacy and intrigue. National governments, even the United States, will become much weaker actors as scientific networks and socially responsible investors and foundations become the more powerful actors.
If we do the right things, there is room for all on the planet. We can achieve the four key goals of a global society: prosperity for all, the end of extreme poverty, stabilization of the global population, and environmental sustainability. These are not utopian goals or pipe dreams, yet they are far from automatic. Indeed, we are not on a successful trajectory now to achieve these goals. Common Wealth points the way to the course correction we must embrace for the sake of our common future.
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| Customer Reviews: Read 14 more reviews...
 Disappointing March 24, 2008
113 out of 168 found this review helpful
I wrote a rave review on the author's earlier book, The End of Poverty: Economic Possibilities for Our Time and eagerly anticipated this book. It has been a real disappointment. Only the foreword by E.O. Wilson kept me from setting it aside entirely.
As someone who reads broadly and sees with increasing dismay the insularity of citation cabals, somewhat arthritic communities of practice, and a tendency to ignore diverse perspectives, I was immediately annoyed by this book's failure to respect Lester Brown, Herman Daly, Paul Hawkin, C. K. Prahalad, and J. F. Rischard, to name but a few. The author does not appear to have read the High Level Threat Panel Report of the United Nations, and his over-all presentation, while accurate and erudite, is also dense, narrow, and of dubious implementability.
This is a book of, by, and for economic geeks. It is not a book for normal people. Below, in descending order of priority, are better books for the general reader, which is to say, equal or better coverage, easier to understand, with better over-all structure. Medard Gabel's book "Seven Billion Billionaires" is not out yet, so I point to his lead article and post his brilliant cost image above.
Where to find 4 billion new customers: expanding the world's marketplace; Smart companies looking for new growth opportunities should consider broadening ... consultant.: An article from: The Futurist
High Noon 20 Global Problems, 20 Years to Solve Them
The Future of Life
A More Secure World: Our Shared Responsibility--Report of the Secretary-General's High-level Panel on Threats, Challenges and Change
2007 State of the Future
Plan B 3.0: Mobilizing to Save Civilization, Third Edition
If you are steeped in the literature and care deeply about the details, then this book is an absolutely essential reference, and for that reason receives four stars.
The author opens with "Humanity shares a common fate on a crowded planet." Early on he says that sustainable energy could be achieved for 1% of world income. He believes Asia will be the economic center of gravity in the future (assuming this includes India, I agree).
He identifies six key factors for the near future:
1. Convergence
2. More people, higher incomes
3. Asian Century
4. Urban Century
5. Environmental Challenges
6. Poorest Billion
He loses one star, apart from failing to honor the real pioneers including Herman Daly, father of Ecological Economics: Principles And Applications, for overly general platitudes about global collaboration, technology, saving Darfur as if anything he lists was possible, and generally neglecting so many factors and metrics as to leave me wondering where the book was going.
He does well in itemizing the importance of the anthropocene, which tends to be neglected by many, listing impacts on land, water, carbon, nitrogen, plants, birds, and fisheries. The loss of amphibians and pollinators (e.g. bees) is noted.
He lists seven climate change impacts:
1. Rising ocean levels
2. Habitat destruction
3. Increased disease transmission
4. Changes in agricultural productivity
5. Changes in water availability
6. Increased natural hazards
7. Changes in ocean chemistry
These are all important, but I am distressed to see no reference to Blue Frontier, Blue Death, or Water: The Fate of Our Most Precious Resource. This confirms my unease--this is a brilliant man with a great deal of influence who is out of touch with a number of very significant observers whose intellectual contributions cannot be ignored in a work such as this.
Coming back to Darfur, one recommendation he makes with which I totally agree, is the value of introducing cell phones and cell towers to the high-risk areas. I wrote to the CEOs of both Nokia and Motorola about such an initiative a year ago, and never received a response. They do not seem to appreciate the reality that cell phones, like razors, should be given away, and the transactions monetized instead ("sell the shave, not the razor").
He makes five points about the US that are certainly serious, but as one who has read Joe Nye, Jonathan Schell, Chalmers Johnson, Noam Chomsky, Ralph Peters, and so many others, I see the following five points as the equivalent of a teen-age driver lecturing on highway safety:
1. Limits of military power (see Nye's Paradox of American Power)
2. Wars of identity (see Peter's Wars of Blood and Faith)
3. Drivers of violence (see UN High Level Threat Panel above)
4. Foreign Assistance (see O'Hanlon, Half Penny on the Dollar)
5. Real Security (proliferation, environment, failed states--ho hum)
The chapter on global problem solving was entirely reasonable, and I worry that I am communicating too harsh a sense of the book. If you are a geek and have time on your hands, by all means buy this book. Otherwise, read my reviews of all the others, and then buy Rischard's book and spend time at the Earth Intelligence Network (all free).
He says the public sector should
1. Fund basic science (never mind the Republican war on science)
2. Promote early stage technologies (never mind Monsanto's seeds of death or the Transylvanian Dracula patent system designed to retard human progress by locking up new stuff so the legacy stuff can continue to sell)
3. Create a global policy framework for solutions (see Earth Intelligence Network and the ten threats, twelve policies, and eight challengers, see especially the EarthGame(TM) as devised by Medard Gabel who helped Buckminster Fuller create the original analog World Game)
4. Finance the scale-up of successful innovations and technologies (huh?)
No mention of the public sector's most important role in creating a social environment that is stable, orderly, and healthy, so that citizens can be educated and gainfully employed while exporting goodness.
He suggests the private sector has two core responsibilities besides making a profit (at our expense, see comment below on true costs):
1. Investing in R&D, often with public funding
2. Implementing large-scale technological solutions in partnership with the public sector
Hmmm. No mention of Green to Gold, Sustainable Design, Services Science, identification of "true cost" for all products and services, etc. There is an entire planet of literature relevant to this books purpose that does not appear here. I respect the author and his accomplishments, but at this point in the book I am exasperated.
The not-for-profit sector has five key roles, per the author:
1. Public advocacy (perhaps public education would be a better term)
2. Social entrepreneurship and problem solving (good)
3. Seed funding of solutions (but not willy nilly--has anyone heard of the concept of a creating a Global Range of Gifts Table for each of the ten threats across each of the twelve policies, with amounts from $10 to $100 million, such that individuals--80% of the giving--can select items directly, and Civil Affairs and NGO individuals all over the world can "call in" peace targets to the Table?)
4. Accountability of government and the private sector (see the Peter G. Peterson Foundation and what David Walker will be doing there--that is a first-class endeavor)
5. Scientific research, notably in academic institutions (where we should be emphasizing very low cost licensing to the governments of India, South Africa and others, and burying the profiteering pharmaceuticals and the predatory seed companies).
The author follows the above with a global funding architecture that is not persuasive and that would not satisfy my colleagues from the Office of Management and Budget.
The book ends with a limp, suggesting eight steps individuals can take:
1. Learn
2. Travel
3. Join
4. Community (face to face)
5. Social Networks (online)
6. Workplace
7. Live personally (Gandhi: be the change you want to see in the world.)
My bottom line: this book is not ready for prime time. It is dense, disappointing, and it will never be read nor understood by the kinds of people--less E.O. Wilson and George Soros--that have real power over the $1 trillion in charitable giving, the $1 trillion in spending on war instead of peace, or the $1 trillion in corporate and government and other foreign assistance.
I challenge the author to post a one page summary suitable for a President, and a one-page spending plan that addresses the ten threats and twelve policies that I list below for the convenience of the Amazon shopper:
TEN THREATS (LtGen Dr. Brent Scowcroft and others on High Level Threat Panel of the United Nations--in order of priority)
01 Poverty
02 Infectious Disease
03 Environmental Degradation (includes climate change and warming)
04 Inter-State Conflict (we spend $1.3 trillion on waging war)
05 Civil War (often occasioned by corruption and our support for 42 of the 44 dictators on the planet--see Breaking the Real Axis of Evil: How to Oust the World's Last Dictators by 2025
06 Genocide
07 Other Atrocities (kidnapping for body parts; kidnapping dumb cute girls from Connecticut that go to "movie auditions" alone)
08 Proliferation (no mention of small arms, the real weapon of mass destruction: the USA sells five times more weapons to the rest of the world than the UK, three times more than Russia--and the worst proliferators of nuclear, biological and chemical are the five permanent members of the UN Security Council. Reality check, anyone?)
09 Terrorism (a law enforcement problem, not even close to the casualties from automobile accidents in the US alone)
10 Transnational crime ($2 trillion against the US $7 trillion, and getting worse--they have better intelligence, encryption, computers, and wages than any government force)
The twelve policies, based on an EIN study of the last 5 presidential election "mandate for change books":
01 Agriculture
02 Diplomacy
03 Economy
04 Education
05 Energy
06 Family
07 Health
08 Immigration
09 Justice
10 Security
11 Society
12 Water
Last but not least, the author, who is without question one of the very highest experts in his narrow chosen domain, appears out of touch with the literatures on collective intelligence and on the wealth of networks. I will mention only one book (there are others, including one now free at EIN on COLLECTIVE INTELLIGENCE: Creating a Prosperous World at Peace). See my favorite, Yochai Benckler's The Wealth of Networks: How Social Production Transforms Markets and Freedom.
I am going to end with a harsh thought: As much as I admire Columbia University, as much as I see the possibilities for the United Nations, what I sense in this book is that the author is deeply entrenched in a pyramidal systems of systems, and is still in the "command and control" top-down elites rule mode. Common Wealth is not going to be orchestrated by the New York mandarins--it is going to be created by We the People, using Open Money, boycotting all products and services whose true costs are externalized (e.g. Exxon did not make $40 billion in profit--they externalized $12 in costs to the earth for EACH gallon of gas they sold--one will not find that fact in this author's book--he might not be invited back to the high table).
See for instance (Amazon limits me to ten links, sorry):
Infinite Wealth by Barry Carter (the first real visionary)
Wealth of Networks by Tom Stewart
Revolutionary Wealth by Alvin and Heidi Toffler
Group Genius by Keith Sawyer
Wikinomics by Don Tapscott
Then there is the sustainability and ecological economics literature:
Seven Tomorrows by Paul Hawkins
Green to Gold by by Daniel Esty and Andrew Williams
Natural Capitalism by Paul Hawkins
Ecology of Commerce by Paul Hawkins
Capitalism 3.0 by Peter Barnes
The Philosophy of Sustainable Design by Jason McClellan
and so on....
Argh. Annoying. I expected so MUCH more. I expect some negative votes. There are those that simply cannot stand to be told they have missed a big part of the diversity answer. As we used to say in Viet-Nam, "Sorry 'bout that." It takes ALL of us, SHARING and creating COLLECTIVE INTELLIGENCE from the BOTTOM UP, to create Common Wealth. This book is certainly accurate as far as it goes, well-intentioned, but looking through the wrong end of the telescope.
 Sachs Perfect Home Run!!! March 19, 2008
23 out of 42 found this review helpful
Couple of years back I rushed to Columbia University in New York City to see Harvard biologist Edward O. Wilson (I read all of his books )on stage giving a talk on Biodiversity, Environmental Impacts,.... and answering questions. I saw a man sitting next to him and asking questions and Dr. Wilson talking proudly of him and I thought this guy must be somebody really good but he is very humble. This is my first encounter in to the intellectual realm of Jeffrey D. Sachs. I later got a decent effect from his book "The End of Poverty". But this book is in a different League altogether.
It has touched, clarified, interconnected many topics of thoughts going on in my mind for long time after reading books like Deep Economy, The Ecology of Commerce, Guns germs and Steel, Collapse, Field Notes from the Catastrophe,Cradle to Cradle-Remaking the Way We Make Things,1491,Blessed Unrest, Big Coal, Untapped, Natural Capitalism, and many other books including tomes of economics and globalization ones.
The cover itself is an elegant design I have never seen before on any book. May be i liked it too much because I am an East Indian by ethnicity and we love anything golden in color :-).
I was waiting for March 18th and barged in to Barnes & Noble to grab one and read it.It deserves a public craze like that of Harry Porter. Keep doing your wonderful work Dr. Sachs. Let god give you more strength and wisdom. ---Hill Krishnan (Tk525@nyu.edu)
He is right on, but... March 19, 2008
22 out of 51 found this review helpful
The author is right on and if he were in charge of the planet things would improve. But that can be said of a lot of good people, unlike our current "president" who is destroying the planet. Imagine what good the trillions of dollars we wasted on an unnecessary war could have done! We could have been completely energy independent by now with that kind of scratch. It's not that we can't do it, it's that our leaders are beholden to the oil interests.
The thing that bothers me about the talk and books about how to solve the worlds ills is that it is not hard to say how to improve the world, what needs to be done is obvious. From many points of view, in many different ways, that has been said and it's EASY to do so.
The problem is the people in charge, the powerful people, don't WANT to change the world for the better. They can do it; they just don't. You don't have to write to them about HOW to do it because that's easy. They simply don't want to. Why? Greed, fear, power. More books and treatises on HOW to fix things isn't necessary I'm afraid. For instance, it is NOT a lack of resources like water and food that causes problems, it's selfishness, greed, and fear. We could solve starvation in a heart beat if our leaders were compassionate and not beholden to greedy people.
So the revolution we need is SPIRITUAL (not religious), not technical or knowledge based. Plenty of books have been written about that too. So it's not a lack of information or knowledge. It's will. The leaders, those in power to get things done, need the will to have a heart, to be compassionate and care about others, as well as those they are beholden to who are greedy beyond belief. How many billions of dollars do you need to live? How many homes and boats do you need while others are starving for a piece of bread?
How to get that to happen? You got me. I don't know. But I do know that is the answer. No sense wasting time and resources spelling out what the world needs. We know already. It just needs to be implemented.
The Rising Costs of Environmental Degradation April 27, 2008
8 out of 9 found this review helpful
With the publication of The End of Poverty: Economic Possibilities for Our Time just a few years ago, Jeffrey Sachs estimated that it would take annual donations of 135 to 190 billion dollars by rich countries to eradicate poverty by 2025. Those were the UN Millenium Development Goals of 2000. But much has happened since then. Economic development has accelerated and not because of development aid, it was mostly due to globalization or market forces. The unfortunate by-product of this development has been enviromental stress. In order to continue development in a sustainable way and also reach areas of sub-Sahara Africa, the price tag will go up. According to Sachs, it will now require 840 billion dollars or about 2.4 percent of rich-world income. This is still a bargain when one considers the alternative.
Sachs is obviously a liberal with a grandiose plan that many will call utopian. He has been famously criticized by conservatives such as William Easterly in The White Man's Burden. Conservatives are not keen on large-scale plans in general, and they are generally cynical about what governments and humanitarian aid agencies can accomplish. However, in spite of their differences, Sachs and Easterly share some common ground. They both believe that small targeted projects that are either monitored or bypass corrupt government officials can be effective. Sachs is at his best when he draws on work done at the Earth Institute, of which he is director. The scientific farming techniques that he advocates are essential to the survival of the human race that is becoming predominantly urban.
Eradicating poverty is in everyone's interest since it slows down population growth. If the global population continues to grow at its current rate, reaching 10 billion at mid-century, our resources will be depleted. It is unrealistic for national governments or international organizations to try and control population growth. Only with economic security and widely distributed wealth will populations levels stabalize.
Sachs argues in the final chapter (The Power of One) that global cooperation is needed to solve the problems of poverty, overpopulation, pandemics, pollution, climate change, and scarcities of water, arable land and resources. This sounds naive and utopian but it is also true. National governments, however, will only be looking at their own short-term interests. But as environmental catastrophes start to mount, whether it's food shortages or rising sea-levels, governments will take action, but by then it might be too late.
 Grandiose Solutions...But How Realistic? June 20, 2008
7 out of 8 found this review helpful
My local church is devoting the next several months to promoting the UN's eight "Millennium Development Goals," which have been formally endorsed by the Episcopal Church USA. I read "Commonwealth" to get new insights about the many challenges, obstacles and opportunities we face in the 21st century.
Unfortunately, the author's conclusions left me feeling vaguely unsatisfied -- you could even say "intellectually malnourished." Jeffrey Sachs is no doubt a brilliant thinker who sees the big picture, but I question his sense of realism.
For example, when Sachs says, with great confidence, that there is plenty of fossil fuel to sustain continued global growth until at least the year 2100 -- I wonder if he reads the newspaper on a regular basis. The current spike in oil prices illustrates the dramatic political dangers inherent in today's world energy market. His calm prescriptions for transitioning to both liquefied coal and renewable energy forms doesn't seem to ring true. We may end up in a very dark place long before that happens (e.g., massive increases in hunger, regional wars, resource riots, etc.).
Much of the rest of the book makes good sense, but it's so general and broad as to be almost "untestable" in the real world. Saying we should invest in the development and adoption of environmentally sustainable technology is sort of like saying we should remember to breathe: "Yeah, OK, but give me some specifics here, Jeffery!"
Sachs comes off sounding like a politician who doesn't want to be held accountable for campaign promises, so he hedges every statement with a long-term perspective and a truckload of weasel words (implied disclaimers). It's not particularly honest, if you ask me.
In my research for the church program, I found MUCH MORE useful the list of 30 specific solutions developed by the Copenhagen Consensus 2008. They are hard-nosed, pragmatic and very testable. [...]
My advice for Sachs: Come down from the 60,000 foot view and give us "foot soldiers of change" something more useful -- something less cognitive and more practical.
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