BOOK REVIEW: WILL YOU BE RICHER OR POORER? Profit, Power and A.I. in a Traumatized World by Charles Hugh Smith (2019) — Faith and Finances Ministry
Book Reviewed by Patrick Blair on December 31, 2019
First Impression Versus Lasting Impression: The book’s title accurately describes the subject matter of the book but appears to focus on money. However, the book goes way beyond money and focuses on the totality of humans’ quality of life. The in-depth analysis of historical economic, sociological, and political
trends has left me persuaded of some of the book’s dark predictions.
The Book in a Word: Disillusion.
Summary: Charles Hugh Smith has picked apart mankind’s hope in technology, artificial intelligence, and the resulting plans for universal basic income. With a broad-view, dry economic perspective, the book reads like a 21st-century version of Adam Smith’s 1776 Wealth of Nations. Smith has moved beyond the late 20th-century globalism trends and boldly analyzes the nascent 21st-century trends of A.I. and universal basic income (U.B.I.).
What I liked the most: was the author’s broad analysis of wealth and how it includes intangible capital like social, environmental, cultural, and human capital. The book gives you permission, and perhaps an imperative, to view wealth and capital holistically in world that only measures stock prices and quarterly
earnings.
What I liked the least: was the dryness of the book. However, I give it a pass because of its academic nature. The book did not indulge in colorful examples, doomsday scenarios, or other hyperbole.
Recommended for: those who are interested in understanding long-term trends and macro-economics. Also, this might be a good book for business executives and career investors.
Not Recommended for: the average person or average investor. The book will be too intellectual for the average reader, even those interested in money. That being said, if a reader is willing to do the mental jumping-jacks, he or she can gather tremendous insights into global socio-economic dynamics.
Faith-finances.com Website Categories Covered: Investments, Personal Finance, Book Reviews
Reading Level: Basic … Intermediate … Advanced … Scholarly.
Interesting Concept: Because society only measures economic capital and fails to measure critical social, cultural, human, and environmental capital, it is doomed to make all but a few poorer. For example, 99% of people will live in a more depleted, polluted world, while the 1% can own their own oasis within that world. People intuitively understand that the world should focus on more than money and corporate valuations, but our system is too dysfunctional and corrupt to make significant progress toward changing it.
Great Quotes: “Humanity’s emotional default setting is to cling to whatever promises the least disruption of what we now have and enjoy. This default setting manifests as an unrealistic faith that technology will automatically generate more of everything that’s good: more convenience, more comfort, more income, more security, more energy and so on. But this is just wishful thinking.” (p. 33). “What we [the individual] can do is seek a localized, decentralized economy that is more like the sustainable, frugal, efficient, adaptable, self-organizing system …, an economy that is reducing its dependence on the corrupt, wasteful, autocratic, centralized system that is careening toward the cliff of insolvency and dissolution.” (p. 86).
Spiritual Content: A little in the sense that Smith gives value to the often-overlooked intangibles that make our lives worth living. One way of looking at the book is that it is a broad-based indictment of society and how, without God, it leads to corruption, small-minded thinking, and ultimately to destruction.
Book Citation: Smith, Charles Hugh. Will You Be Richer or Poorer?: Profit, Power and A.I. in a Traumatized World. Berkeley, CA: Oftwominds.com, 2019.
Please see www.faith-finances.com for more book reviews and articles.
