Some Books I've Read Recently

The Shock Doctrine critically examines the politics that go with Milton Friedman's Free-Market economic theory. Naomi Klein's contention is basically that free-market politics has produced mainly a staggering history of appalling results. Her claim that supply-side policies, redistributing wealth from the general population to the upper economic tiers, cannot achieve popular acceptance on their own merits, (except possibly in the U.S. I think) so heavy-handed tactics are integral to implementing these policies, and Friedman himself actively endorsed these undemocratic moves time and time again.

The book is eye-opening, level-headed, and well researched. It should be read by anyone skeptical of "free market" economics. Free-market adherents can skip it as they'd only get angry.

The Age of Heretics is Art Kleiner's history of management theory and consulting. It begins with the early post-WWII days and chronicles breakthrough corporate ideas such as Procter & Gamble's "technician" system, Shell's Scenario Planning, and (reverent pause) Toyota, as well as some stranger trends like the LSD experiments of the mid 1960's.
The new edition continues up through recent history, the new edition pulling in leaders like Jack Welch at GE.

Kleiner's book provides an interesting parallel to Klein's history of corporate wealth and public policy. It's rather long, but an interesting read for the odd person who might be both interested in business management and able to about it in critical or historic terms rather than regarding all Business with uncritical acceptance. The title itself is enough to scare most business readers away, except possibly those who regard themselves as "Innovators" (and Bob Sutton has a book for those people).

Kleiner chronicles the stories of corporate men and women who fought the system with the hope of improving it. Some are remembered as innovators, others succeeded at their goals only to be forgotten, or worse, caught in a backlash and exiled while their fruits of their efforts were co-opted by others. A unifying theme is the introduction into corporate thinking of psychological ideas around self-actualization, which provided alternatives to the industrial revolution mentality of control by measurement and the moral absolution that goes with it. That kind of psychology, like Keynesian economics, is mostly a vestige of the heady, optimistic post-WWII era for the most part. Today, psychology and social theory makes little reference to such utilitarian goals, and most recently business management is in such turmoil that whatever coherent ideas it embodies will take some time to be recognized.

Kleiner's book is laudable for its recollection of bits of business history that ordinarily are lost in subsequent rewrites--business usually does not build museums or otherwise hold up its actions to critical or historic evaluation. Because of this odd sense of purpose I wonder what Kleiner's point was in writing this book or releasing a new edition, unless he hopes to encourage those disillusioned by The System to pursue a philosophy of engagement rather than one of detachment.

Maybe it was a philosophical hedge in case McCain had been elected and the nation turned "Maverick-happy."

Cory Doctrow's Little Brother is a fun, dark, anti-escapist story of teenagers caught up in a security crackdown after a terrorist attack. Aside from feeling like I was too old to be reading it, I was impressed by the pacing of the story and Doctrow's ability to weave his areas of personal interest into the narrative without becoming tangential or pedantic. I saw some similarity to Gibson's Pattern Recognition, and found this story more approachable.