Book Review: The Future of Capitalism by Paul Collier

I’ve mentioned before that Orin Thomas tends to give me many good book recommendations. The Future of Capitalism by Paul Collier is another of Orin’s recommendations. I notice from the cover that it’s also highly recommended by Bill Gates. So it had to be worth a look.

I ended up listening to this via an Audible audio book. It’s quite a long book at around 9 hours 26 minutes.

Overall, I loved this book. I’d have to say though, that it took me quite a while to get into it. I just didn’t find the first chapters all that compelling. But strangely, I then really did get into it.

The future of work and how it will affect society is a real passion for me. I’m both anxious and excited about what’s coming. I just wish I was 40 years younger, to be in a better position to see this all play out. Collier, though, targets capitalism itself directly.

There are so many aspects of how the world currently does (or often does not) work that deeply concern me. Our current form of capitalism is of benefit to an ever-decreasing percentage of people. I remember reading elsewhere about how most of the people in the USA see themselves as “middle class” yet most of them are far from it.

Collier sees much of the current system to be inherently broken, and I agree.

What is different about this book is the way that Collier offers direct, and quite practical, pragmatic suggestions for how to solve many of the current problems.

Bottom line?

I really enjoyed this book. If you don’t find the start of it all that compelling, I’d encourage you to keep at it. It’s worth it.

Greg’s rating: 8 out of 10

2019-11-19