Educated: A Memoir – Tara Westover

A story of surviving fundamentalism and finding freedom

Educated, by Tara Westover, is a really powerful story that covers a roller coaster of emotions. It is a memoir that details what it was like for the author to grow up in an extreme fundamentalist home in rural America. Her family (specifically her father) was deeply suspicious of the government and didn’t allow their children to go to school or to receive medical care – she didn’t get a birth certificate until she went to college. The book covers family relationships, fears about the outside world, and the author’s journey to finding her own identity.

Trigger warning: There are multiple episodes of physical, emotional, and psychological abuse throughout the book that could cause relived trauma for those who have experienced such things.

Topics

Mental health/illness – Though he never gets a formal diagnosis, it is clear that her father suffers from some clear symptoms of paranoid schizophrenia, mania, major depression, and some possible personality disorder issues. A brother clearly has some violent tendencies of his own that are not addressed either medically or by the family. The author also details what appears to be a major depressive episode of her own while working towards her PhD.

Abuse and Resilience – The author traces her journey from homeschooled (more accurately no-schooled) child to university and eventually earning a PhD. Childhood adversity and resiliency is a topic that I’ve covered before in this blog with the book Supernormal. Trauma is a complex thing and what makes some more resilient than others is worth an entire book itself.

Identity – Dr Westover continuously wrestles with which version of reality to believe – the one she sees when she’s out in the world with her grandparents and people in town, or the one presented by her paranoid, conspiracy obsessed father? This struggle might be hard for some to accept or understand, but it is a struggle that people in abusive and manipulative relationships have to endure.

Recommendation

I strongly recommend this one. It deserves all the awards and excellent reviews it has gotten. My only caution would be for people who have experienced childhood trauma. This book doesn’t sugarcoat or skip out on the details. I had to skip over more than a few sections. You might also need to do the same.

You can connect with the author on her website here and on Twitter here.

P.S. Here’s an interview with Bill Gates and Tara Westover

The Birth of Loud – Ian S. Port

Leo Fender, Les Paul, and the Guitar-Pioneering Rivalry That Shaped Rock ‘n’ Roll

Here’s a departure from the usual on the eclectic reading list blog. I love music and play a few different instruments, including guitar. I enjoy many different types of music, but I’ll always have a soft spot for rock and roll. In this book, author Ian S. Port chronicles the history of the development of the electric guitar through innovators Leo Fender, Les Paul, and others. It’s an enjoyable story, whether or not you play guitar yourself or like rock music.

Here’s a good synopsis from the publisher’s website:

“In the years after World War II, music was evolving from big-band jazz into rock ’n’ roll—and these louder styles demanded revolutionary instruments. When Leo Fender’s tiny firm marketed the first solid-body electric guitar, the Esquire, musicians immediately saw its appeal. Not to be out-maneuvered, Gibson, the largest guitar manufacturer, raced to build a competitive product. The company designed an “axe” that would make Fender’s Esquire look cheap and convinced Les Paul—whose endorsement Leo Fender had sought—to put his name on it. Thus was born the guitar world’s most heated rivalry: Gibson versus Fender, Les versus Leo.

While Fender was a quiet, half-blind, self-taught radio repairman, Paul was a brilliant but headstrong pop star and guitarist who spent years toying with new musical technologies. Their contest turned into an arms race as the most inventive musicians of the 1950s and 1960s—including bluesman Muddy Waters, rocker Buddy Holly, the Beatles, Bob Dylan, and Eric Clapton—adopted one maker’s guitar or another. By 1969 it was clear that these new electric instruments had launched music into a radical new age, empowering artists with a vibrancy and volume never before attainable.”

Topics

Innovation leaders – The author does a great job of presenting the reality of the people involved, including their brilliance and flaws. I really appreciate that he includes a historical timeline of who came up with what, and when, while also acknowledging that no one single person can be credited with “inventing” the solid-body electric guitar as we know it today.

The arms race to be the best – Like most breakthrough innovations, things like the solid-body electric guitar, electric bass, special amps, and the like were largely rejected by those “in the know.” Once these things finally caught on, the race was on to perfect the instruments and be the leader in production and sales of this new technology. Competition between old friends and acquaintances was often heated.

Famous (and not famous) guitar pioneering musicians – While some musicians like Les Paul became well known, many other brilliant musicians aren’t known, even among music fans. I really appreciate that players like Muddy Waters are given some space to shine. Hendrix, Clapton, and other rock gods get their due, but this book doesn’t overlook those who came before.

Recommendation

Like I mentioned in the opening paragraph, you don’t have to be a guitarist or even like rock music to enjoy this book (but I think you’ll love this book if you fall into either of those categories). It is as much about the race to innovate and create as it is about the actual music and instruments. I learned a lot through this and it was well written. I also really appreciated how it didn’t present a glossed-over view of the main characters involved, but let you see them for their brilliance and deep flaws alike.

Here’s a link to the author’s website. You can also find him on Twitter. Here’s a link to the book on the publisher’s website.

Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, an American Slave – Frederick Douglass

An autobiographical account of Frederick Douglass’s life and the truth about slavery in the United States

Frederick Douglass was born into slavery in the early 1800s and grew up to be one of the most influential voices in the abolitionist movement. This book is written in narrative form and covers his life from birth (approx 1818) until he escaped and became involved in anti-slavery meetings (approx 1840). Throughout the book, he describes the practices of slavery in the South, the dehumanization that happens because of it, and his determination to find freedom. This is a really important book because many of us who grew up in the United States have only an abstract understanding of the horrors of slavery and haven’t been exposed to what it was actually like.

Normally, this is where I would talk about the topics and themes of the book I’m reviewing. But I don’t think I can do it justice if I go that route. This isn’t a long book, so it really should be read in full to best understand it. I’ll share a few quotes in hopes that it will help give you an idea of what it is like.

Quotes

“Slaves sing most when they are most unhappy. The songs of the slave represent the sorrows of his heart; and he is relieved by them, only as an aching heart is relieved by its tears.”

“I have observed this in my experience of slavery, – that whenever my condition was improved, instead of its increasing my contentment, it only increased my desire to be free, and set me to thinking of plans to gain my freedom. I have found that, to make a contented slave, it is necessary to make a thoughtless one. It is necessary to darken his moral and mental vision, and, as far as possible, to annihilate the power of reason. He must be able to detect no inconsistencies in slavery; he must be made to feel that slavery is right; and he can be brought to that only when he ceased to be a man.”

“The more I read, the more I was led to abhor and detest my enslavers. I could regard them in no other light than a band of successful robbers, who had left their homes, and gone to Africa, and stolen us from our homes, and in a strange land reduced us to slavery. I loathed them as being the meanest as well as the most wicked of men.”

“I assert most unhesitatingly, that the religion of the south is a mere covering for the most horrid crimes, – a justifier of the most appalling barbarity, – a sanctifier of the most hateful frauds, – and a dark shelter under, which the darkest, foulest, grossest, and most infernal deeds of the slaveholders find the strongest protection.”

Recommendation

I consider this a must-read book. There’s such a lack of understanding among some groups of people, especially privileged white folks like myself, about what slavery was actually like according to the people who experienced it. What we grew up with is a white-washed version of the history of our country and slavery in particular. Powerful stories like this help to put a human face on the suffering and injustice. This forces us to look at it in a different way.

Here’s the Wiki page regarding this book. Here’s a link to buy the book, but you should know that this work is in the public domain and you can find several places online where you can read it for free – like Project Gutenberg.

The Righteous Mind: Why Good People are Divided by Politics and Religion – Jonathan Haidt

righteous mind jonathan haidt book cover

What is the basis of morality and how does it influence our worldview?

In “The Righteous Mind”, professor and researcher Jonathan Haidt takes on the tall task of explaining how morality works, it’s possible origins, and how it directs us as individuals and cultures. He shows how humans are inherently moral creatures, but what typically divides us is how we view and interpret morality. This isn’t a fluff, pop-science book, it is a refreshingly honest look at the complex issues we face, done in a way that is far different than the heavy partisan takes out there.

Okay, with that intro bit out of the way, I feel like I need to say that you should just get this book and read it. I’m going to talk about some of the themes, but it won’t do a good enough job of capturing the nuance, important connections, and reasoning that this book excels at. And by nuance, I don’t mean in a “I’m afraid to talk about the issue directly so I’ll fill this space with complex and/or pedantic arguments detached from reality” type of nuance. I mean a focus on important subtleties regarding personality, cultural worldview, and definitions of morality. The author does a great job of breaking down some incredibly complex issues in an incremental way and provides the research to back up his reasoning.

Topics

Intuition comes before reasoning – The rider and elephant analogy helps to show how we like to think of ourselves as rational human beings who follow logic and principles, but we don’t work that way.

Morality isn’t just about harm and fairness – Professor Haidt shares his personal stories about how he came to see the importance of stepping outside of his moral matrix so that he could understand other moral foundations.

Moral Foundations Theory – “There are (at least) six psychological systems that comprise the universal foundations of the world’s many moral matrices. Here’s a handy summary from the wiki page on MFT:

Care: cherishing and protecting others; opposite of harm
Fairness or proportionality: rendering justice according to shared rules; opposite of cheating
Loyalty or ingroup: standing with your group, family, nation; opposite of betrayal
Authority or respect: submitting to tradition and legitimate authority; opposite of subversion
Sanctity or purity: abhorrence for disgusting things, foods, actions; opposite of degradation
Liberty: opposite of oppression

Morality binds and blinds – Humans are both selfish and groupish by nature. The mental imagery the author uses is that we are 90% chimpanzee and 10% bee. He also suggests how religion played a crucial role in human evolutionary history, enabling us to “transcend self-interest and become simply part of a whole.”

The reasoning behind our political and religious differences – Morality binds us together and we easily fall into groupish behavior and righteousness. This binding process blinds us from our weak spots and can cause us to be unable to understand how anyone could possibly see things differently.

Recommendation

I can’t recommend this book enough. It covers a lot of ground (research, psychology, history) without turning into an abstract/detached textbook. The author does a great job of mixing in personal stories to help illustrate points and admits to his own blind spots/weaknesses. It’s very refreshing to read a book that addresses such hot topics in an evenhanded way. Time will tell if moral foundations theory holds up, but it definitely goes a long way in helping to understand how good, well-intentioned people can view and experience the world so differently.

Quotes

I’m going to add some of the most interesting quotes from the book here, but please know that there’s a much deeper context here. So I really recommend reading the book to be able to grasp the big picture and context of each quote.

“We are deeply intuitive creatures whose gut feeling drive our strategic reasoning. This makes it difficult – but not impossible – to connect with those who live in other matrices, which are often built on different configurations of the available moral foundations.”

“We may spend most of our waking hours advancing our own interests, but we all have the capacity to transcend self-interest and become simply part of a whole. It’s not just a capacity; it’s the portal to many of life’s most cherished experiences.”

“Morality binds and blinds. This is not just something that happens to people on the other side. We all get sucked into tribal moral communities. We circle around sacred values and then share post hoc arguments about why we are so right and they are so wrong. We think the other side is blind to truth, reason, science, and common sense, but in fact everyone goes blind when talking about their sacred objects.”

“Anyone who tells you that all societies, in all eras, should be using one particular moral matrix, resting on one particular configuration of moral foundations, is a fundamentalist of one sort or another.”

“We evolved to live, trade, and trust within shared moral matrices. When societies lose their grip on individuals, allowing all to do as they please, the result is often a decrease in happiness and an increase in suicide, as Durkheim showed more than a hundred years ago.”

“Moral systems are interlocking sets of values, virtues, norms, practices, identities, institutions, technologies, and evolved psychological mechanisms that work together to suppress or regulate self-interest and make cooperative societies possible.”

“If you think about religion as a set of beliefs about supernatural agents, you’re bound to misunderstand it…religious practices have been binding our ancestors into groups for tens of thousands of years.”

“The human mind is a story processor, not a logic processor. Everyone loves a good story: every culture bathes its children in stories. Among the most important stories we know are stories about ourselves…Life narratives are saturated with morality.”

“When asked to account for the development of their own religious faith and moral beliefs, conservatives underscored deep feelings about respect for authority, allegiance to one’s group, and purity of the self, whereas liberals emphasized their deep feelings regarding human suffering and social fairness.”

“The various moralities found on the political left tend to rest most strongly on the Care/harm and Liberty/oppression foundations. These two foundations support ideals of social justice, which emphasize compassion for the poor and a struggle for political equality among the subgroups that comprise society.”

“If you are trying to change an organization or a society and you do not consider the effects of your changes on moral capital, you’re asking for trouble. This, I believe, is the fundamental blind spot of the left. It explains why liberal reforms so often backfire, and why communistic revolutions usually end up in despotism…Conversely, while conservatives do a better job of preserving moral capital, they often fail to notice certain classes of victims, fail to limit the predation of certain powerful interests, and fail to see the need to change or update institutions as times change.”

Learn more about the book and author here. Here’s a link to the Wiki page for the book. Lastly, here’s that link again to learn more about Moral Foundations Theory.

The Highly Sensitive Person: How To Thrive When The World Overwhelms You – Elaine N. Aron, Ph.D.

elaine aron highly sensitive person book cover

An explanation of sensory processing sensitivity, a temperament/personality trait

In this book, Dr Aron identifies and explains what sensory processing sensitivity (a highly sensitive person) means and what it looks like in the people who have this trait. Highly sensitive people (HSPs) are easily overstimulated and often misunderstood in our current culture that idealizes extroversion and constant stimulation. According to the author, HSPs comprise approximately 15-20% of the population. Could you or someone you know be included in this?

From the author’s website:

Are you easily overwhelmed by such things as bright lights, strong smells, coarse fabrics, or sirens nearby?
Do you get rattled when you have a lot to do in a short amount of time?
Do you make a point of avoiding violent movies and TV shows?
Do you need to withdraw during busy days, into bed or a darkened room or some other place where you can have privacy and relief from the situation?
Do you make it a high priority to arrange your life to avoid upsetting or overwhelming situations?
Do you notice or enjoy delicate or fine scents, tastes, sounds, or works of art?
Do you have a rich and complex inner life?
When you were a child, did your parents or teachers see you as sensitive or shy?

There is a self-test available on her website for those who answered yes to many/most of the above question.

Topics Covered

Introversion vs sensitivity – Dr Aron talks about the differences of introversion and high sensitivity. They are not the same thing, though there are areas where they can seemingly overlap. Extroverts can be highly sensitive, for example.

Response to stimulation – HSPs are very sensitive to stimulation. This often means that they quickly get tired in high stimulation environments (like a group gathering in a crowded restaurant with music playing and many people talking at once) a need to get away to recharge. Stimulation can come from any of the senses, but especially through sights and sounds.

Highly sensitive people feel like outcasts – A common feeling among HSPs is that they are fatally flawed. They have a trait that isn’t appreciated in our modern age, even looked down upon. They often avoid high stimulation group activities due to their trait and can end up as loners because of this.

Benefits of high sensitivity – HSPs can greatly benefit from this trait in creative and artistic professions. They tend to be highly intuitive and empathetic. While this can cause trouble in some careers and relationships, in the right setting it can be a fantastic gift.

Practical wisdom for HSPs – This isn’t just a theoretical or abstract book, it is full of practical wisdom and therapy/counseling activities that you can do to help identify the problem areas in life and what you can do about it. Each chapter ends with follow up questions and thing you can talk about with your counselor or therapist if you decide to seek professional help for any issues related to this.

Recommendation

I really enjoyed this book. Partly because I identify as an HSP and I have HSPs in my family. It really helps to explain personality and temperament beyond the typical, stereotypical definitions of introversion. This book could also be really helpful for people who don’t have this trait but have a loved one or family member who does. It’s easy to misinterpret the actions of someone without understanding what is going on inside them. Once you have a better understanding, it can help decrease resentment and hard feelings. I also recommend it for people who work in the service industry, especially healthcare. If 1/5th of your clients/patients have this trait, you really should learn more about it and how you can best connect with them.

Find out more about the book on Dr Aron’s website. Here’s the Wiki link to learn more about sensory processing sensitivity.

How to Change Your Mind – Michael Pollan

Michael Pollan How to Change Your Mind book cover

What the New Science of Psychedelics Teaches Us About Consciousness, Dying, Addiction, Depression, and Transcendence

In this book, journalist Michael Pollan explains the history, science, and research of psychedelics as well as his own personal experiences. It is part science book and part personal journey/memoir. Pollan clearly has his biases when it comes to spiritual and mystical matters, but he does his best to set these aside (along with his neurotic tendencies) in exploring new ideas. This following quote from his website sums it up well:

But what I didn’t expect when I embarked on this journey was for it to result in what is surely the most personal book I’ve ever written. I like to immerse myself in whatever subject I’m reporting—whether that means buying a steer to understand the meat industry or apprenticing myself to a baker to understand bread. What began as a third-person journalistic inquiry ended up a first-person quest to learn what these medicines had to teach me about not only the mind but also my mind, and specifically about the nature of spiritual experience. This book has taken me places I’ve never been—indeed, places I didn’t know existed.
Michael Pollan – website

Topics

The cultural history of psychedelic substances – Many cultures throughout history have incorporated psychedelics into aspects of religious life and spiritual practices. Mr Pollan traces the history of some of these in various indigenous cultures.

Early scientific research on psychedelics – The history of LSD and the promising research on it for treating mental health conditions, substance abuse, and more in the 1950s and 1960s.

Countercultural revolution and the fallout – Timothy Leary and the culture wars are discussed and how this lead to political fallout and the abandonment of research on LSD and other psychedelic substances.

Transcendent experiences – The author explains the renewed interest and research on psychedelics and his own experiences under the influence. This is where the book shifts a bit from strictly science journalism into a more memoir-style.

Recommendation

I really liked this book. It will likely inform and challenge you. The author clearly has his own biases about spiritual and mystical matters, but he’s willing to explore areas that he once completely neglected. I give him major credit for that. He’s also a talented writer, so it’s not a difficult read or overly scientific. It’s definitely appropriate for the Eclectic Reading List.

You can learn more about the author and this book on his website. Here’s a link to the Wiki page for this book. Below is a video from a presentation at Google about his book and the topic of psychedelics.

Featured image from Penguin Random House.

Just Mercy: A Story of Justice and Redemption – Bryan Stevenson

A bold and brave look at injustice and racism in America

How committed are we to justice in America? Are we consistent with this commitment to justice, or are some groups given preferential treatment while others are discriminated against? Bryan Stevenson is a lawyer who founded the Equal Justice Initiative and has occasionally been in the headlines over the years for his work in defending people of color on death row. “Just Mercy” addresses the inconsistencies we have in our judicial system and looks at ways to make things better.

The true measure of our character is how we treat the poor, the disfavored, the accused, the incarcerated, and the condemned.
We are all implicated when we allow other people to be mistreated.
Bryan Stevenson, Just Mercy

Themes

Injustice in our judicial system – There’s no ignoring the statistics. Black men are significantly more likely to be arrested and imprisoned than white men, even when you factor in the same crimes. Black men are also sentenced to the death penalty far more often. This isn’t just some artifact from our country’s white supremacist past, this is current-day America.

American incarceration – The United States has the highest rate of incarceration in the world. Does this mean we have more lawless people or are the laws themselves (and how they are enforced) the real issue? I think it’s pretty obvious that the latter is the case.

The death penalty – Since the science has finally arrived with DNA evidence, many people who were wrongfully sentenced to death row have been exonerated. The author makes a great point about the morality surrounding this question – “The death penalty is not about whether people deserve to die for the crimes they commit. The real question of capital punishment in this country is, Do we deserve to kill?”

Recommendation

I can’t recommend this book enough. It is very well done, but it is also incredibly sad. My heart breaks to think of how many people have unjustly suffered under the cruel judicial system we have here in the USA. It can be easy to turn a blind eye to statistics, but when you take a moment to hear the stories and the people who have suffered, you can’t look away and pretend you didn’t hear. I suppose you can try, but you’d only be deceiving yourself.

You can find Just Mercy on Amazon here. You can learn more about the book on the EJI website. The book is being made into a movie – more on that here.

A Brief History Of Time – Stephen Hawking

The history of the universe told through the lens of science and physics

Stephen Hawking was a brilliant theoretical physicist who dedicated his career to studying and teaching physics. “A Brief History Of Time” is his most popular book, selling over 10 million copies and has been translated into more than 30 languages. It is a remarkable book because he is able to explain incredibly difficult concepts (quantum mechanics, general relativity, cosmology) in everyday language. It is written in a way that doesn’t require a physics degree to understand.

I’m not going to do a very long breakdown of the book, because it will be pretty clear from this short list of topics if you’ll be interested or not. But please don’t click away until you at least read my recommendation. Yes, this is a science book, but I feel that it is really important, even for folks who don’t work in scientific fields.

Topics Covered

The history of scientific discovery: the author traces the history of the study of astronomy, going back as far as the ancient Greek philosophers.

Gravity and Space/Time: how does gravity work and how is it related to time? Hawking dives into the implications of Einstein’s theories of general and special relativity and what this means on a universal scale.

Black holes: it just wouldn’t be complete if Dr Hawking didn’t talk about the topic that he’s most know for! This section of the book is my favorite part.

The beginning of the universe: how did the universe get started? What does this mean for the future and our history? There is a bit of speculation and philosophizing from the author here that is out of scope for the book, but worth considering.

The quantum world: Dr Hawking explains the strangeness of the smallest particles in the universe and the forces that control how they work together. It’s a really, really weird world that we live in.

Recommendation

I love this book. I’m fascinated with all things science, especially things like black holes, how the universe works, and the weirdness of the quantum world. You don’t have to be a nerd to appreciate this book, but it helps. It was a brave undertaking to try and write a book that explains some really deep stuff in layman’s terms. Some have criticized it for not being scientific enough. Others say it is still too technical for the average person to comprehend. You can’t please everyone!

The one thing I will note is that I’m not entirely certain how up-to-date all the information is in this book. There has been a flurry of recent research, scientific observation, and breaking news on topics like dark matter, the weight of the Higgs Boson particle, and gravitational waves. I’m not sure how much (if at all) such info might conflict with some of the theories that Dr Hawking provides in this book, but it is something to keep in mind. There is a newer book called A Briefer History of Time that is supposedly a bit more refined, abridged, and updated that was published in 2005 that you may want to check out first. I haven’t yet, so I can’t comment on it.

You can find the book on Amazon here. Here’s a link to the Wiki page on the book.

Lost Connections – Johann Hari

Social connections are more important than you think

This book is a look at the social and cultural factors that play into and can cause anxiety and depression. Written by a journalist who also has personally experienced depression, the author explores how it’s more than just biology that influences whether we have anxiety or depression. It’s a controversial book, for sure. I don’t necessarily agree with all of his conclusions, but he brings up things that are far too often overlooked, especially the mindset that a pill fixes everything.

Before I get into the usual review/breakdown, I want to add this link about a critical review of an article that Johann Hari released ahead of print of this book. While this critical review is based on the article Hari wrote, it also is applicable to the book. I recommend that people read that review before or after checking out this book.

Topics Covered

The “Chemical Imbalance” view of depression: the author does a good job of explaining how the view of depression and anxiety being solely a serotonin problem gained traction and became part of the public (mis)understanding of how these conditions work. Yes, SSRIs help people, but not in the ways that psychiatrists originally thought. Serotonin is a chemical that does and is involved in a lot of brain/body issues. Medical professionals are more aware of this than Mr Hari lets on, but the public is still largely misinformed about this topic.

Social factors of depression and anxiety: the excessive focus on biology and chemical imbalances have largely pushed discussion on social factors of mental illness out of the picture. Our modern, Western lifestyle runs contrary to many of the ways that humans have lived and socialized for thousands of years. We shouldn’t overlook this. This is part of what is called social determinants of health (often abbreviated as SDOH). You can find out more about SDOH via this link from the CDC.

Loneliness: many studies and statistics show that people are more lonely than ever, despite living in the internet age of constant connection. This is part of the SDOH as mentioned above, but deserves to be singled out as a primary, concerning issue. Connection is so very important for us humans. We are a social species, after all. We need personal, face to face interaction with others to be healthy in mind and body. I’ve written a post about this topic on another blog for those interested in learning more.

Recommendation

While I don’t agree with all the conclusions that Hari makes, or how he frames some of the book, I appreciate that he was willing to share his story and what he’s learned along the way. He makes several great points about how social factors are often overlooked, issues such as SDOH, and rightly critiquing the overprescription of meds. I would recommend this book to anyone wanting to know more about those specific parts of the discussion on depression and anxiety.

The main caution I want to make with this recommendation is that people should do more research into this topic before making permanent decisions on medical care, medication usage, and such (for themselves and for how they view others). Please read the critical review I linked to at the top of this post if you’re going to read this book.

You can find the book on Amazon here. Here’s a link to the website for the book.

The War On Normal People – Andrew Yang

Guest post today from Aaron Eischeid

Source: Public Library

Why I Picked It

The author, Andrew Yang, is currently seeking the nomination to be the democratic presidential candidate, and his distinguishing policy position is to implement a form of Universal Basic Income (UBI). I have been previously interested in UBI as a potential solution for poverty and subsequently many of poverty’s second and third order effects like addiction, abuse, depression, obesity etc. I am very glad that discussion around UBI is happening on a national stage, and wanted to learn more about Yang, and his plans specifically.

Idealistically speaking, I think UBI or a national dividend (same idea different marketing term) may be a rather good way to balance out some of the inherent injustices and inequalities of the system we are currently in. Ultimately UBI is a wealth redistribution scheme, but it stands out in that while other social welfare programs or wealth redistribution schemes tend to be heavy on bureaucracy, one of the appeals of UBI is how simple it is and how much existing bureaucracy it could stand to eliminate over time.

Not An Economics Textbook

This book obviously isn’t meant to be an academic work. Most of his intended audience would probably lose interest if it were. It is a book written by a presidential candidate, after all. In interviews, Yang has referred to UBI (or his particular nomenclature for it – the Freedom Dividend) as “capitalism that doesn’t start at zero” or “trickle up economics”. The latter phrase resonates with me much more than the former, but economics experts may cringe at both. I don’t know.

His writing and speaking style reflects that Yang is a venture capitalist / entrepreneur type more than an intellectual. As such he approaches the idea of UBI in a different way than I have tended to think about it. Where I tend to start from “seems like kind of the right thing to do”, and see the numerous pragmatics as icing; he seems to start from practical necessity – stemming from the rise of automation and the subsequent loss in jobs – and his cherry on top is the idealistic concept that “we’re all really shareholders in the wealthiest nation on the planet” (this is me sort of paraphrasing – not a direct quote).

He is not alone. Many people from the CEO or entrepreneurship side of the economy see the coming wave of job loss, and have latched onto the concept of UBI as good potential solution for the problems that will inevitably arise if the current mentality around jobs doesn’t shift significantly. Or similar business minded folk point out there is a solid case to be made that the socio-economic benefit of UBI is just a good deal. UBI isn’t cheap, but they argue it is an incredible bang for the buck in its potential to move the needle on costly budget items like crime, health care, education, and so on.

Themes and Concepts Covered

They Took Our Jobs!

Most of the first two thirds of the book outlines the problem in the US economy related to jobs.

First, a couple chapters are spent trying to convince us that a coming wave of automation and subsequent job loss is immanent. I tend to think some of the hype around AI is more fiction than science, but whether we have fully automated fleets of semi trucks or just mostly assisted driving, I do think Yang is almost certainly correct that there are about to be a whole lot less of certain kinds of work in the not so distant future, and as a society we aren’t really well prepared for that shift.

He does a nice job outlining that this isn’t only a problem for truck drivers and fast food cashiers, but really for anyone with repetitive task types of jobs. This can involve relatively non-specialized skills like call center employees. It can also impact highly trained professions like x-ray technicians, stock traders, and even surgeons.

A good chunk of pages are spent explaining the ‘normal people’ – the median income and education levels, the types of jobs, and the suburban environment etc. Nothing to surprising for anyone whose paid attention to these sorts of things before. Here he also discusses how unemployment statistics are largely misleading – and GDP is a poor measure of economic health. Agreed!

How many and what types of jobs were already lost in various periods is covered at length; though his focus falls on the period from 2000 to 2014 where millions of manufacturing jobs (ie. normal people jobs) simply disappeared. Then he discusses the dramatic impacts that has had on communities – from crime, to depression, to marriage rates, to the numbers of people going on social security disability, to the opioid epidemic, to the ways that it likely impacted political voting trends. All quite interesting, if somewhat depressing stuff.

Just Teach Them To Program Then

His discussion of how job retraining or education aren’t realistic solutions to the problem are a bit interspersed, and disjointed, but he makes some good points and seems to have a similar picture of the college bubble as I have. Personally, being a more self motivated learner I find it hard to grasp why the statistics on the efficacy of retraining are so dismal, but so it is. Still, even granting that retaining workers were effective there stands the problem of what you would train them all to do. Bureaucratic institutions setup to determine this are bound to be behind the curve at best, whereas just re-adjusting the employment market via UBI has a potential to be much more dynamic.

Interestingly he has some background in education / tutoring and holds the view that teaching is one of the things that doesn’t scale via automation well. While I might disagree with him on the potential for online courses, I am very much with him that job retraining is a non-solution to automation generally.

One of the things in particular that has intrigued me personally about the idea of UBI is the ways I might re-arrange my own employment. I have always thought I would enjoy teaching in some fashion, but could never justify doing it based on the pay and other factors. UBI paired with non-employer sponsored medical insurance – another one of Yang’s major policies is medicare for all – enables restructuring employment such that being a part time teacher might actually be practical!

The Critical Policy Solution: UBI a.k.a. Freedom Dividend

For as much as the book revolves around the idea of a UBI it spends only a couple chapters articulating the policy, how it would be paid for, and addressing a few popular criticisms of it. I suppose this could be because it is a very simple idea. Just give people money. The major new source of funding Yang proposes to help pay for it is a VAT tax. Again, a relatively proven and well understood system, outside the US at least, and it does have some potential to get at some portions of the economy that are paying less than their fair share currently. Finally, the most popular criticisms are mostly based in ignorance about the idea or economics, so they are not difficult to address.

I still have lots of questions on the details and the nuance. Learning more about those was one of my hopes in reading this. As I have already mentioned the broader intended audience would probably have been put off by that sort of stuff, so though I can’t fault Yang for not getting into all that, I also can’t help but feel a bit disappointed in this regard.

Auxiliary Ideas

At this point Medicare for all or some similar single payer system is a no-brainer to me, but he doesn’t waste words as he spends a chapter on it because he brings up points in favor of the idea that many democrats may tend to overlook. I suspect his angle would tend to appeal to the more republican or libertarian minded too – such as how health care isn’t a typical free market, and the ways employer tied health benefits negatively effect the job market. UBI by itself isn’t sufficient to realize the liberation of the labor market. It needs to occur in tandem with some sort of universal healthcare.

He does have a few ideas to potentially help promote more holistic health care since just changing who pays the bills doesn’t fix all the shortcomings of the current medical system in the US. Ideas ranged from paying doctors a fixed salary vs per patient, to psych consultations to go with doctors appointments. Fine ideas, but they feel a little more borrowed than internalized, and it isn’t clear how much of that would translate into policy, or how, but at least he’s thinking innovatively in this area I guess.

One idea he covers briefly, that was mostly new to me, is that of a social currency that would be a separate parallel currency. Basically a scaled up version of time banking. I really like the concept! It feels like it has a lot of wide ranging potential. That said, Thus far I’m unconvinced this would need to be a federal program at all. Communities are already doing time banking. More probably could and should. Why getting the federal government involved is necessary or helpful is unclear other than it might speed it along.

So…

The book concludes with a bit of a “rah rah! we can do this!”, but with no specific call to action. There is a general summoning to “commit” and “sacrifice” for some of these ideas and policies he has presented because the problem is looming and with some of the solutions he has outlined presumably hope is not in vain. Maybe an implied “vote for me”, though there is no indication he had decided to run for office at the time of writing.

That all left me a bit wanting, but again it is a book by an entrepreneur and presidential hopeful, so I suppose that’s the kind of thing you’re going to get. I came away feeling like Yang on the whole has some good ideas and feels like a forthright and decent guy. A candidate worthy of voting for, especially if you accept his premise, that the problems of coming automation are legit, and that UBI is a good solution to them. But, while this book is an decent intro to the idea of UBI, it will do little to convince you that it is good policy if you care about the details.

Recommendation

Reading any of the books by presidential candidates is a rather good way to understand their policy positions; bound to be better than the soundbites on the mainstream news or via televised debates! However, there are so many candidates, many of whom have published a book. Policy-wise many of the candidates are actually quite similar. Others are fairly mainstream/establishment, thus you probably wouldn’t learn much beyond some nuance of their positions or personalities from reading their books, so I can’t recommend that as a general approach.

Yang, in making UBI the foundational policy of his campaign, is distinct in the field of current candidates. I personally have had good experience reading books of the more outlier candidates. Ron Paul is an example that comes to mind from a couple of election cycles ago. Agree or disagree with their positions, the ones that don’t fit so neatly into red or blue camps tend to have very interesting ideas or perspectives at the least. So, if you are going to be thinking and discussing politics this time around The War On Normal People is a decent place to start.