This book was a gift so I feel bad giving it one star but it was truly awful- despite the fact that it also gave me something amazing. Let me explain.

First, the book claims it will show us that the failings of capitalism can actually be solved by simply reforming capitalism yet the book only presents a single problem with capitalism and, gravely, it isn’t even the problem most people present. The book argues the true issue with capitalism is that it doesn’t provide to the top tier of Mazlow’s hierarchy of needs- ie our desires for art, spirituality, philosophy, etc. Meanwhile, most critics of capitalism are saying capitalism leaves many people struggling to obtain what’s in the bottom level of the pyramid- shelter, food, medical attention, etc. Afterall, the US is a capitalist powerhouse and yet many people have no insurance and diabetics die every year because they can’t afford insulin. So that’s strike one- the problem the book presents isn’t the problem most people bring up about capitalism.

Well, what does the book have to say about the problem that it does present? Well, the book claims that if companies are told to start producing for these “higher needs” that finally capitalism will make people happy instead of fostering materialism and emptiness. However, the book fails to realize that this has been done already and it has greatly failed. For profit art exists and is regularly found to be hollow compared with the unfortunate art created by starving artists or those that are not known until later in life or death. Mega-mall sized churches that turn a profit and have evangelical TV shows exist and are regularly producing homophobic church goers that are duped into thinking donating to a pastor on TV will cure their ailments. We already have capitalist solutions to the top tier of the pyramid and they’re all terrible.

Additionally, this book has no author listed whatsoever, not even at the very beginning or end of the book, nor could I find this information by searching online. This makes sense since the book gives the impression that it was written by a marketing team that wanted to create consumers who maintain a faith in capitalism and worship brands as symbols of a solution. What’s more is that no sources are given for any of the claims made nor any of the economists quoted. How did they legally print this without issue? If I presented writing like this to my professor, I’d be kicked out of graduate school for blatant plagiarism. The writing style is not academic in any sense- it does not provide examples of economic problems and only references art. This gives me the impression that there was likely a bored art historian on the marketing team that put this together. It doesn’t reference more than a single political ideologist and one economist and doesn’t address any writings by anti-capitalists like Marx or Kropotkin- probably because it couldn’t stand up against them but isn’t that the part of writing a political theory book? To address the opposite position? Instead, this book comes off hollow and Hallmark and corporate- not unlike Chicken Soup for the Soup or Coelho’s The Alchemist in that some people will love it but you get the sense these are casual readers of the subject at hand with little to no academic inclinations.

So what did this book do that was good? Well first it mentioned an artist I hadn’t heard of, Xu Zhen, and his supermarket installations. I looked him up on Google and now I’m completely obsessed with his art. For that, I’ll be eternally grateful.