The Price of Civilization: Reawakening American Virtue and Prosperity Review

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The Price of Civilization: Reawakening American Virtue and Prosperity ReviewIn the Price of Civilization Jeffrey Sachs makes a powerful call for significant changes in the way the U.S. government manages the economy. According to Sachs, an economics professor at Columbia University, Washington has not devised policies that meet the challenge of globalization. Rather than investing in education and infrastructure, as many Asian countries have during the last twenty years, they have resorted to popular short-term stimulus measures such as cutting taxes and reducing interest rates. These problems have been exacerbated by lobbyists whose influence over Republicans and Democrats has made meaningful change impossible.
Sachs argues that the best solution for these problems is for Washington to move toward a "mixed economy" in which a more effective government plays a larger role in regulating businesses. He believes that the current problems in the American economy are structural and not short-term. With the Republicans and Democrats both seeking solutions that will prop up the economy for a year or two rather than address the structural issues, the United States is on the wrong course and not likely to return to the levels of prosperity it previously enjoyed. These problems can only be solved if the government makes a long-term commitment to investing in industry in part by raising taxes on the wealthy and reducing the growing gap between the rich and poor.
The Price of Civilization is divided into two sections. The first section covers The Great Crash and gives a thoroughly detailed description of the mistakes made by American elected officials. He critiques free market capitalism as well as those politicians who have blamed big government for the United States' difficulties in meeting the challenges of globalization. Sachs devotes the second part of the book to laying out his solutions for the economic woes that have beset the United States. His chapter on "The Seven Habits of Highly Effective Government" was especially powerful. Here, he calls for policy makers in Washington to pay more attention to planning and to stop ignoring long-term considerations. Sachs demonstrates very convincingly in this book that Washington's inability to focus on the long-term during the last thirty years has been one of major contributing factors to the nation's current economic malaise.
Sachs's bold argument is not likely to be welcomed by either Democrats or Republicans. One Republican congressman (Paul Ryan) has already published a scathing review of the book in the Wall Street Journal more or less equating Sachs's proposals with socialism. But I think Americans fed up with Washington and its inability to solve the current crisis will find many of Sachs's arguments very compelling. The majority of Americans do wish that the government could be reclaimed form corporate lobbyists and the people empowered. They do recognize that politicians on both sides of the spectrum are part of the problem.
Is Sachs right? I don't agree with him on everything but I do think he makes many valid points especially on the shortsightedness of our politicians and the methods that they are now using to attack our economic problems. I am not completely sold on Sachs's mixed economy solutions, however. I believe the key to economic policy is not whether we lean toward laissez-fair or a mixed economy. In fact, both of these have been successful in certain situations and may be part of the solution. The key is that our economic policy be smart and farsighted. In this sense, Sachs's book is at least a step in the right direction.The Price of Civilization: Reawakening American Virtue and Prosperity Overview

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