Nilesh Jasani's Reviews > Another Now: Dispatches from an Alternative Present

Some ideas are so preposterous that when they come from respected authors and thinkers, a reader must pause to reflect on own sanity and mental frameworks. Are not the best ideas in the world were those that sounded funny all around when first proposed? The author makes no bones about claiming how revolutionary his ideas are. The book castigates any doubters or non-believers as those enslaved by the forces of capitalism.

The global economic system is not working for the vast majority. Every suggestion on improvements and alternatives should be viewed seriously, even if the evidence of any non-market systems yielding even half-decent results for the downtrodden is scant. That said, one must remember that many well-intentioned ideas are also plain ridiculous. No amount of the powerful rhetoric on how the current system is not working can make those ghastly ideas worth thinking about. This book contains multiple ideas of this variety - once again, regardless of powerful arguments on what is not working currently and good intentions.

Take the concept of hierarchy-less organizations that is at the root of one share, one vote corporate structure. The author clearly does not envision a military, or a political system or judiciary based on consensus-based working. Somehow, he believes that a phone can be built, or a university run, or people hired without empowered decision-makers. The sketchily presented DAO-like system may work in specific cases. However, didactic claims that such commune-like builds worked for farms or with hunter-gatherers are not enough to demand one for industries and organizations of our era. Parliaments and senates have done little to inspire confidence that a nation can run without presidents or cabinet ministers, let alone companies providing all the goods and services we need. Yes, there are many ways to prove that the current system is sub-optimal, but there is little to prove that the one offered in the book is not significantly inferior. Imagine if this book's content was modified through votes by everyone involved in the publishing process.

In another place, the author wants the nations who create surplus goods or services to provide them effectively free (or at a discount - in a roundabout way) to the nations who cannot balance their books on trade alone. This proposal is presented to ensure that no nation can indebt another or have claims on the other's assets. The author's background helps in understanding the cause of this impractical proposal. Under the author's leadership, should one assume that Greece would happily welcome tourists at deep discounts from other emerging countries with bilateral trade deficits? Or even if such surpluses are punished only at aggregate, the author's world Germany or China may still shut the shop beyond a point rather than keep working for no gains? One does not need to have the Capitalists fleeing to some Ayn Rand devised communes (Atlas Shrugged) to see how global trade will collapse to a halt if trade surpluses are not allowed to be capitalized.

The fact that the author wants to maintain the nation-state boundaries under his proposals is politically expedient but inconsistent with everything he is clamoring for. Can the author's system be equally just if the money deposited in an India-based newborn's account is different from a US-based? If someone from a sub-Saharan African country wants to work in Greece or live in Athens, why should the person's claim be lesser compared to a disenfranchised in those communities? After all, the author proposes a near elimination of property rights in the book and more vote/lottery-based systems for homes, just like for jobs.

The author's parallel-world utopia does not have markets, private banks, indebtedness, managers, and also information privacy! As one is not allowed to ask much about how goods would be distributed in such a system when something is not readily available to all who desire (expect answers to be based on more lotteries!), presumably one cannot provide a counterargument assuming bad actors too. The assumption that anything anyone does digitally is public will cause equality is a complete misreading of the human psyche. The smartest, most ambitious ones would find the most innovative way to suppress if the more susceptible ones are not afforded any privacy.

The list of proposals is vast, disconnected, and inconsistent. Given the story structure, the short book has even less space for any genuine discourse. The nature of the story allows the author to arbitrarily pronounce how his construct would make everyone happy without providing any arguments on the operational or behavioral nitty-gritty. Somehow, in this libertarian system, there will not be any opposition, demand would stay manageable, supply optimum, and everyone content with work and rewards.

As discussed above, the author's intentions are right. He dares to make a case for a society without many of the cherished, most celebrated parts of the current system. Yet, the author's inability to see the sheer impracticality of not just one but multiple proposals cast a dark shadow on anything potentially useful.