Review by Choice Review
Saul's book is a brilliantly written polemic against mindless devotion to "corporatism." For Saul (a Canadian essayist and novelist) the chief impulse behind today's glorification of market-driven individualism is a social order of big institutions led by irresponsible technocratic elites in government and big business. The new world order thrives on its distribution of rewards as cover for its discouragement of active, publicly interested civic engagement. Passive and conformist in our politics, we become energized with the trivial nonconformities promised by salesmanship, style, and fashion. Saul's themes will be familiar to students of the Frankfurt School; his project of a democracy built on "disinterested citizenship" echoes themes found in J"urgen Habermas and John Dewey. But Saul's acid, epigrammatic style is wonderfully readable, so his essay might prove extremely useful to teachers searching for a literate and provocative source in courses on contemporary democracy or the crisis of advanced society. Upper-division undergraduates through faculty. S. Plotkin; Vassar College
Copyright American Library Association, used with permission.
Review by Booklist Review
Saul engagingly explains the current woes of democracy, especially in Canada, the U.S., and Britain. He argues from history and philosophy that the democratic meaning of individualism has been obscured and the importance of economics overemphasized throughout the twentieth century. With Socrates, he maintains that in a democracy, citizenship is the incumbent duty and government the great responsibility of the individual. Minding one's own business and getting the government off one's back are derelictions of democracy that reflect infatuation with corporatism, the brand of utopianism exemplified by Mussolini's fascism, with its melding of huge business interests and government to achieve the managed society. Privatization as a remedy for government inefficiency and the conception of individualism as the capacity to purchase consumer goods bespeak corporatism's present power, for both reduce citizenship and place control with managers accountable primarily for the bottom line, not the public good. There are many more compelling--and disquieting--ideas in this exciting, though discursive, little book. --Ray Olson
From Booklist, Copyright (c) American Library Association. Used with permission.
Review by Publisher's Weekly Review
Writing in the same iconoclastic spirit he brought to Voltaire's Bastards: The Dictatorship of Reason in the West, Canadian writer Saul offers a damning indictment of what he terms corporatism, today's dominant ideology. While the corporatist state maintains a veneer of democracy, it squelches opposition to dominant corporate interests by controlling elected officials through lobbying and by using propaganda and rhetoric to obscure facts and deter communication among citizens. Corporatism, asserts Saul, creates conformists who behave like cogs in organizational hierarchies, not responsible citizens. Moreover, today's managerial-technocratic elite, while glorifying free markets, technology, computers and globalization, is, in Saul's opinion, narrowly self-serving and unable to cope with economic stagnation. His prescriptions include eliminating private-sector financing from electoral politics, renewing citizen participation in public affairs, massive creation of public-service jobs and a humanist education to replace narrow specialization. His erudite, often profound analysis challenges conservatives and liberals alike with its sweeping critique of Western culture, society and economic organization. (Jan.) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
(c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
Review by Library Journal Review
Self-knowledge was always a main goal of Western civilization, but the self to be known was understood in generous terms as the basis of community. Saul says that as the gap widens between the worst off and best off, self-knowledge has become self-interest. In Voltaire's Bastards (LJ 9/92), Saulhistorian, thriller writer and successful businessmanattacked "rationality" conceived as the pursuit of one's own interest, which comes under fire again, along with passivity, disregard of language, and the quest for an impossible certainty. Lost is the free and open society that comes from a skeptical balance of common sense, ethics, imagination, intuition, history, and reason. Saul marches fast, firing telling volleys at his targets, but he also fires on religious "ideologies" that involve a presumed self-knowledge binding humanity to God and eternity. Thus, he leaves the individual to strike a balance much like the one recommended by the self-interested pragmatists he despises. Still, this is a good book for anyone who likes to see ideas at work. Saul knows how to reach ordinary readers.Leslie Armour, Univ. of Ottawa (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
(c) Copyright Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Review by Kirkus Book Review
Readers must look past some unorthodox conceptualizations and outrageous pronouncements to glimpse the piercing insights in this volume. Essayist and novelist Saul (The Paradise Eater, 1988, etc.) argues that in the 20th century ideologies ranging from socialism and fascism to psychotherapy and free market economics have promoted truisms that undermine the acquisition of knowledge. For example, despite evidence to the contrary, we believe that democracy requires free markets, markets convert self-interest into the common good, and technology is the key to progress. As a result, managers, interest groups, and technocrats have become our gods, and the individual citizen is smothered in a bureaucratic society. Saul finds the antidote for this situation in people who seek knowledge without the pacifier of ideological certainty, the public good without pretending it is synonymous with self-interest, and reason without emasculating it in abstract rationality. His critique leaves few residents of the 20th century unscathed, possibly provoking scholars to look down their noses and sniff about sloppy work while nonacademics reject the arguments as out of touch with the real world. This is to be expected if Saul's thesis has any validity. It is also a pity, for there is much here that should not be dismissed so easily. Identifying ``individualism'' as an ideology and contrasting it with individual citizens acting in a democracy highlights common assumptions that need to be examined. Portraying universities as willing partners in the commercialization of society, and disciplines like political science and economics as contributors to ideology rather than knowledge, raises serious issues within the undeniably troubled world of academia. Saul's almost nostalgic references to Socrates hardly provide a clear direction, but the lack of an answer should not be used to denigrate the asking of questions. It is unlikely Saul will be forced to drink hemlock, but supporters of the status quo may suggest it.
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