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rodhilton's review against another edition
1.0
This book is pretty frustrating - it's rare for me to feel like I want to reach into a book and slap the author for being a dumbass, but I had that feeling multiple times reading this book.
The first portion of the book is essentially someone taking hours to say "everyone is miserable, but look how much better off we are than 50 or 100 years ago with regard to various advancements." Essentially the author is saying stop complaining, everything is great. He laments what whiners people are, given how they complain despite being so well off. He talks about how much money people have and how we can afford all sorts of great things.
Of course, the reality is that people are able to afford so much not because we have more wealth, but because we accumulate more debt. The average American is saddled with credit card debt, and many Americans have been using their homes as equity, treating their houses as ATM machines despite the fact that their houses are overvalued. Reading these portions of the book in light of the housing crash was extremely irritating.
Easterbrook goes on to dwell on just how much better our lives are by pointing to the fact that people sell so many useless things. The example which titles the relevant chapter is the existence of little carpeted steps for your pets. After all, we must be rich if we can afford steps to help our dogs onto our couches, right? Another example he uses of our society of excess is the fact that so many people have paper shredders. He argues that people don't need to shred their papers, so this is excessive wealth on display. Easterbrook, you're an idiot. Paper shredders weren't necessary for the average consumer in the 50's, but they are today. Information is far more valuable today than it used to be, and getting ahold of someone's social security number or credit card number in the age of computers can, and often does, lead to identity theft. Identify theft wasn't as possible sixty years ago, but it is today. People can and do comb through trash for information that can be used to steal identities - in modern society, it is not a good idea to throw sensitive information in the trash without first sending it through a diamond-cross-shredder.
After about the halfway mark, the book takes a marked turn into, ironically enough, Easterbrook complaining endlessly. He discusses various problems with the world and argues that we have an obligation to solve those. He offers solutions which lack any understanding of basic economics. One particularly annoying example is that poor people can't buy nice sandwiches for lunch (not kidding). He argues that everyone should be able to live such that they don't have to worry about stuff like that, so we should substantially increase the minimum wage. I sat there, wishing I could explain to him that doing so would wind up driving up the prices of these sandwiches (since the supplier has to pay their workers more now), but Easterbrook argued that the prince increase would only really affect the rich. I've heard good and bad arguments for minimum wage increases, but Easterbrook's may be the worst. As I sat there, wishing I could tell Easterbrook how much I disagree with him, he went on to say that "only a coldhearted person" would disagree with him. What an ass.
I found myself infuriated for most of this book. Easterbrook barely supports any of his assertions with scientific studies or even surveys. Most of his propositions are unsupported opinion, which eventually transitions into ill-informed opinion as the book goes on. Just plain awful.
The first portion of the book is essentially someone taking hours to say "everyone is miserable, but look how much better off we are than 50 or 100 years ago with regard to various advancements." Essentially the author is saying stop complaining, everything is great. He laments what whiners people are, given how they complain despite being so well off. He talks about how much money people have and how we can afford all sorts of great things.
Of course, the reality is that people are able to afford so much not because we have more wealth, but because we accumulate more debt. The average American is saddled with credit card debt, and many Americans have been using their homes as equity, treating their houses as ATM machines despite the fact that their houses are overvalued. Reading these portions of the book in light of the housing crash was extremely irritating.
Easterbrook goes on to dwell on just how much better our lives are by pointing to the fact that people sell so many useless things. The example which titles the relevant chapter is the existence of little carpeted steps for your pets. After all, we must be rich if we can afford steps to help our dogs onto our couches, right? Another example he uses of our society of excess is the fact that so many people have paper shredders. He argues that people don't need to shred their papers, so this is excessive wealth on display. Easterbrook, you're an idiot. Paper shredders weren't necessary for the average consumer in the 50's, but they are today. Information is far more valuable today than it used to be, and getting ahold of someone's social security number or credit card number in the age of computers can, and often does, lead to identity theft. Identify theft wasn't as possible sixty years ago, but it is today. People can and do comb through trash for information that can be used to steal identities - in modern society, it is not a good idea to throw sensitive information in the trash without first sending it through a diamond-cross-shredder.
After about the halfway mark, the book takes a marked turn into, ironically enough, Easterbrook complaining endlessly. He discusses various problems with the world and argues that we have an obligation to solve those. He offers solutions which lack any understanding of basic economics. One particularly annoying example is that poor people can't buy nice sandwiches for lunch (not kidding). He argues that everyone should be able to live such that they don't have to worry about stuff like that, so we should substantially increase the minimum wage. I sat there, wishing I could explain to him that doing so would wind up driving up the prices of these sandwiches (since the supplier has to pay their workers more now), but Easterbrook argued that the prince increase would only really affect the rich. I've heard good and bad arguments for minimum wage increases, but Easterbrook's may be the worst. As I sat there, wishing I could tell Easterbrook how much I disagree with him, he went on to say that "only a coldhearted person" would disagree with him. What an ass.
I found myself infuriated for most of this book. Easterbrook barely supports any of his assertions with scientific studies or even surveys. Most of his propositions are unsupported opinion, which eventually transitions into ill-informed opinion as the book goes on. Just plain awful.
tclinger's review against another edition
5.0
I learned a lot from this book. I read it in my college English class and it was paired with the book Affluenza: The All-Consuming Epidemic. While the Affluenza booked detailed how consuming rates were going up, The Progress Paradox tells how everything's getting better, yet people feel worse. This book was definitely a good read, even for non-fiction, and makes you think about your own consumer habits, such as: Do you really want it? or are you just trying to fill a void like other people? I definitely recommend this book, especially to people who live (or thrive) in capitalistic economies.
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