“In our crowded and unstable world of 7 billion people, we need to dial down the propaganda and relentless shrieking of the mass media and reconnect with more basic human values. We need…to refocus our attention as individuals, consumers, and virtuous citizens, to what is most important in bringing us economic fulfillment and well-being.”

Disclosure first: I find Jeffrey Sachs somewhat frustrating. To my mind, his Millennium Villages project is an embarrassment – there’s no shame in starting a project that doesn’t work, but to refuse to release data to try to prevent others from finding out and continuing to support it damages the entire development movement (See Freakonomics blog, Wikipedia, etc.). It perhaps makes me unfairly cynical when he calls for government transparency and reform, so keep that in mind.

With that preamble, I found his book disappointing. I picked it up because the thesis sounded great, that the cause of America’s woes was a moral failure in its elites. I think this is an underdiscussed topic: the change in moral norms over the past 50 years means what once would be socially unacceptable, such as accepting an enormous salary and spending it entirely consumption, is now routine. In Ancient Rome, the wealthy were expected to spend most of their fortunes on public works, and did so because that was the norm. In some ways I like that model of the world: I think contributing to our communities is enormously important. I don’t know how to get there from here though: increasing taxes coerces contributions, which may be useful but is I think different from people wanting to contribute on their own. Anyway, despite Sach’s thesis statement, that’s not what the book is about.

The book focuses on ideas Sachs has introduced before. If this is your introduction to the subject, this or his earlier books are useful: he’s left wing but not partisan, believing both democrats and republicans are terrible. If you’ve spent a while thinking about the issues or read his other books though, there’s not much new here. He lists the classic problems facing the US, economic, political, social, and psychological, and then possible solutions, with a focus on increased taxes on the wealthy and mindfulness by citizens, and people engaging with the process. He has some suggestions I really enjoy, like requiring the US President to spend a few minutes every State of the Union outlining how the policies he’s mentioned will affect Americans 50 years from now, but most feel well-worn.

He ends with the idea that it will all sort itself out because the Millennial generation is socially liberal (in the American sense) and ethnically diverse.  He may well be right in that, and he’s certainly right on some of the other issues, but I’m not sure I got much out of the book. It all felt just a bit too standard for my taste.