Cary Neeper's Blog: Reviewing World-changing Nonfiction - Posts Tagged "education"

The Lessons of History by Will & Ariel Durant, New York, Simon & Schuster, 1968, 1996.

Another prescient, must-read from the past, the Durants' short book reminds us of cycles in history-- from democracy to inequality in wealth to revolution and chaos and hopefully back to democracy. Given the current uproar in politics, their analysis is chilling, especially since Congress is so dysfunctional. History meets critical situations by ..."legislation redistributing wealth or by revolution distributing poverty," they say.

This book was written by the Durants after they reread their ten volumes the Story of Civilization (to 1789). The example given by Plutarch in 594 B.C. is very revealing. He saved Athens from revolution by leveling the playing field—forgiving debt, devaluing money, applying a progressive tax and doing a G.I. Bill i.e. providing free education to former soldiers. Sounds like the laundry list in Robert Reich's Saving Capitalism, NY, Knopf, 2015.

Rome didn't do so well—just engaged in war and continued favoring the wealthy, a mistake easily made by the manipulation of democracy. "Men who can manage money manage all." As an example, farmers now must be employees of "...capitalists or the state." Thus history becomes a cycle of "concentrated wealth and compulsive circulation."

Education is required if we are to avoid the violent surge from "...changing political argument into blind hate." Hopefully that stage in the Trump campaign is now over. "If equality of education can be established, democracy will be real and justified." I understand that free college education is provided in Germany these days, and that some states are moving in that direction. Now, how about leveling the playing field, Hilary?

The Durant's lessons are divided into brief, beautifully crafted and readable chapters, summarizing history as seen by the Earth, in biology, by race and character, morals and religion, economics and socialism, government and war, during growth and decay.

We need to believe there is hope. Humans are inventive, stubborn but not stupid. As we face this difficult presidential election, I believe we can find Durants' "...approximate equity of legal justice and educational opportunity."

Coal Wars: the Future of Energy and the Fate of the Planet by Richard Martin, Palgrave Macmillan, 2015.

With good story telling, Martin paints a picture of coal's history—its hearth-warming blessings of cheap energy, its future-bashing dangers, and its slow demise, leaving too many lives disrupted. Meanwhile, our future is seriously compromised by an overdose of coal's signature, carbon dioxide.

Martin shares his personal experiences while visiting the coal country in Appalachia, Wyoming, Colorado, Ohio, and four areas in China. The picture he paints helps us understand the importance coal has played in human energy-dependent history, how it has created mining cultures whose roots go deep in China, Europe and the United States, and now why its demise is raising difficult questions.

The author doesn't preach answers at us. He makes a strong case, however, for recognizing that "market forces are going to kill off coal..." (Other sources have reported that there are more jobs now in solar than in coal, which is being out-sold by cheap gas.)

Three principles, he says, could lead to a "set of solutions." 1) Coal burning must shut down before carbon dioxide does us in: "A sustainable energy strategy requires making choices." 2) "We can't abandon the workers." They need a "GI bill" to provide support while acquiring education and training for new jobs. It would cost only 1 dollar per ton of coal. 3) "the Solution must be global," and the "...only mechanism...a price on carbon... [i.e.] stiff penalties for greenhouse gas emissions."

It's a dilemma not easily faced, for coal gave us the energy to build our technological cultures, and there is still a lot of it available. Like our dependence of gasoline and cars, it's hard to imagine how we could get along without it. But, unlike transportation, the alternatives are not only obvious but urgent, if we are to rescue the future.

The Great Divide: Unequal Societies and What We Can Do About ThemThe Great Divide: Unequal Societies and What We Can Do About Them by Joseph E. Stiglitz, New York, W.W. Norton & Co., 2015.
The titles of other books by Nobel Prize winner Stiglitz suggest fair warnings and solutions: Rewriting the rules, …Growth, Development, and Social Progress, …How Today’s Divided Society Endangers Our Future, Freefall, Making Gobalization Work, Fair Trade For All…, Globalization and Its Discontents.

The solutions: Don’t spend money we don’t have. Reduce corporate welfare. Increase safety nets for the poor. Help workers improve their skills and get health care. Invest in education, technology and infrastructure. Assure fair global trade. Stop subsidizing American agriculture. The author reminds us that improving our education would help us compete in the global market.

Student dept is now (2015) more than all credit card debt at 1.2 trillion dollars. (13 % owe over $50,000 each.) The author observes that universities hire adjunct professors (who love to teach, usually) at unlivable wages, while insisting that those hired as professors bring in research money.

Simple changes include raising capital gains and inheritance taxes, spending to broaden access to education, enforcing anti-trust laws, reforming corporate governance and executive pay, and regulating banks to end exploitation.

Without putting a label on his ideas, his ideas appeal to common sense--like eliminating discrimination and exploitation by disallowing manipulation and unearned favoritism-- redoing “financial regulations and corporate governance.” Included are ways to lower the rate for capital gains and equalizing the proportion of income paid as income tax. Take a look at patrioticmillionaires.org and their book.

The Essential Bernie Sanders and His Vision for America by Jonathan Tasini, C,helsea Green Publishing, Vermont, 2015.

Bill McKibbon said it:”…Bernie…always means what he says, and he always stands for what he believes.” In this small book J. Tasini gives us the full text of Bernie’s Vermont talk announcing his run for President of the U.S.”

Like the book, the speech is divided into topics critical to correcting our laws so that health care is a right--as is a college education--where child care , health care, and veteran benefits are affordable and where all Americans realize the full promise of “…equality that is our birthright.”

To clarify each topic, Bernie’s words and political activities are presented by Chapter topics, each ending with a short summary of “Bernie Facts that summarize his detailed political and legal action and his stands in Congress . The twenty topics include a wide spectrum of government concerns: Economy, Health Care, Education , Environment, Taxes, Wall Street, Workers, Family Values, Society, Politics, Infrastructure, Veterans, Agriculture, Immigration, Civil Rights, Foreign Policy, Foreign Trade, Media, Government Oversight, and Personal Liberty.