James

"MMT is not a free lunch."

Revisado: 10-10-21

A while back, I saw a review of this book that said, "This author seems to think we can have a free lunch." This proves they didn't read the book, or did so under a delirious haze, because Kelton says, "MMT is not a free lunch" perhaps 7 or 8 times over the course of the book.

It is a good introduction to Modern Monetary Theory (MMT), which is essentially the idea that a government which borrows money in a currency for which it is the sole creator (such as US, UK, Japan, but not any country in the Eurozone), then the government can *always* pay its debts. This is because it can create rhe necessary funds. In such countries, budget deficits are a distraction from the actual danger of excess government spending, demand driven inflation.

Primarily, MMT is just an analytic framework to understand how the dollar has worked since it went off the gold standard and became a fiat currency. But her ultimate policy prescription is a federal job's guarantee (something FDR wanted, but was unable to complete).

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chapter 8 missing!

Revisado: 04-05-19

I like Darnton's writing quite a bit, and the material here is all pretty fascinating to me. (I used to work in a library though, so take that with a grain of salt.)

However, 2 reservations. 1) The narrator would pronounce certain letters peculiarly, almost a bit like a lisp. I found that distracting. 2) It skips from chapter 7 to 9. I read the physical copy for that portion. Basically he responds to and reviews a book.

The book he reviews is a polemic against libraries who deconstructed books and newspapers in order to scan them into microfilm in order to save space (thereby destroying them in the name of preservation). Darnton, takes an evenhanded approach to this argument. He criticized the assumptions if the argument and its methodology, but ultimately agrees with the value judgements and solutions given by the book. Having worked in a library, he thankfully also pointed out that lack of space is a real issue for libraries and that the author shouldn't have downplayed it.

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relatively typical zizek

Revisado: 12-19-18

We have Žižek's normal views and methods on display here, albeit applied to new things (including detailed analyses of Black Panther and Blade Runner 2049, the latter of which I disagree with). a
As usual, I find a lot in Žižek that I agree with and a decent bit that I don't. For example, he takes a stance against nominalism in this that I think misses the point of nominalism to a degree. But that's neither here nor there.

The narrator does a fairly good job most of the time, but what drags it down is how he mispronounced several names and words from other languages. Not really his fault, but someone should have caught it. Things like Jaroslav Hasek (pronounced Jar-Oh-Slav Hah-Seck rather than Yaroslaf Hashek as it is roughly supposed to be) are forgivable, but pronouncing Žižek's first name Slavoj as though the j is like the ZH in Zhivago (rather than like an i or a y) is not forgivable. Worse still, he gets the Ž correct, which IS pronounced like the ZH, so he pronounces it Slavož Žižek. Someone really should have checked that they were pronouncing the author's name correctly. Somewhere in between these two extremes you have irritating but relatively minor issues like the German word *Sittlichkeit* being pronounced with an English rather than a German CH.

I know that seems nitpicky, but it is incredibly distracting to anyone who is familiar with this material going in. And I'm sorry, but this book is not written for people unfamiliar with continental philosophy.

Which I guess is a point in itself. Don't try this book and expect to understand it thoroughly if you aren't well versed in the who is who of continental philosophy. You don't need intimate familiarity with them by a long shot, but at least know who Hegel, Marx, Lenin, Freud, Lacan, and Badiou are known for first. The issues are contemporary and relevant, so it is worth the bit of plato.stanford.edu reading first, but it needs it.

I don't expect the work will age very well since it is VERY present focused. Ironically, since he spends so much time talking about Lenin's prolific writing leading people to be able to pull defense of almost any view from his vast corpus, Žižek may suffer the same fate.

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Fascinating intellectual and empathetic exercise.

Revisado: 12-30-13

What did you love best about The Wisdom of Psychopaths?

I won't labor too terribly much on how fascinating a topic it was. The author really does a fantastic job of making the people he talks about come to life in a way that I rarely see even in fiction.

What really made me smile was that it helps to de-stigmatize a personality type that is not nearly as bad as media would have us believe. (And I'm not saying that as someone who hates the media. I work in media.) When we hear the word "psychopath" we not only bundle it with the term "sociopath" but then bundle it in turn with "serial killer" or "sadist." This would be akin to saying that all people with ADD are always bouncing off the walls, or that no person with depression can experience happiness.

What was one of the most memorable moments of The Wisdom of Psychopaths?

The quote at the end of the book was particularly poignant. I won't give it here as it will be far more effective if you've read the book.

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