... small but wide-ranging ... The Future of Capitalism is rife with inventive proposals, including the creation of a new international body that would coordinate the diplomatic efforts of the world’s great powers; reforming corporate boards; establishing socioeconomically integrated schools built around distinctive 'belief systems' and much else ... Though I wouldn’t endorse Collier’s manifesto in every detail, his 'hard centrism' has much to offer.
[A] personal, passionate and original book ... One does not have to agree with everything in the book to realise its scope and power ... This book is admirable in many ways: the broadened ethical approach to economics; the range of economic, social and political issues it analyses; and the analysis of the economics of agglomeration in today’s world. Yet it also breeds despair, at least in me ... This is a beautifully written and important book. Read it.
Collier’s new book revisits this familiar territory, but stands out because it is pragmatic, blunt—and optimistic ... The technical discussion is enlivened by one-liners ... Mr Collier knows what he wants—but do voters want it, too?
Paul Collier is nothing if not ambitious ... Collier belongs to that sadly small band of truly useful social science academics who read the most relevant research, transcending the narrow specialisation of the academy, and apply it in a pragmatic manner to contemporary problems ... Collier can be a bit slapdash with his facts and perhaps tries to cram too much into one book, meaning some ideas feel half-digested. He has a good turn of phrase, though, and can be witty too, on the social bias of Spellcheck for example. This book is not an easy read but it is an important one — the revenge of the clever provincial biting the metropolitan hand that has fed him so generously.
Paul Collier has written an ambitious, important book about how to understand and address the new economic anxieties faced worldwide by capitalist economies ... this is an ambitious book that proposes challenging efforts to reduce the three great divides. We know, for example, that winning approval for taxes on New York City residents to pay for programs in cities like Detroit would be a political challenge. We know the effort to actually create new clusters of businesses in distressed cities will be a technical challenge. Collier acknowledges that this one book cannot present all the detail that will be needed to succeed with his proposals.
This admirably lucid and concise book is a barely suppressed howl of rage on behalf of the 'left behind' part of Collier’s family in Yorkshire, and a call for policies that would address their 'humiliations'. ... If this is the future of capitalism, then it hasn’t got one.
A potent argument ... [A] masterful blend of personal experience and the best thinking of diverse social scientists ... The author is especially good on the forces unraveling shared identities, from the rise of smartphones and social media to declining home ownership among the young and my-country-first nationalism as opposed to patriotism ... A powerful, bracing call for a return to New Deal ethics in the age of Trump and Brexit.
