POLITICAL & SOCIAL SCIENCES
Generation Hope: How Inclusive Economics Can Help Us All Thrive Arunjay Katakam | Otterpine 374p, trade paper, $18, ISBN 978-1-955671-34-7
Upbeat but clear-eyed about the challenges of climate change, wealth inequality, and an increasingly “feudal” economy where “nobility has been replaced by billionaires, vassals by white-collar corporate employees, and villeins and serfs by blue-collar workers,” this impassioned call for change from Katakam (author of The Power of Micro Money Transfers) urges readers toward a shift in mindsets about money, regulation, and our connectedness to others. “We need holistic change that revamps our current economic system, curtails emissions of greenhouse gasses, and rethinks the way we educate our kids,” Katakam writes, while offering both compelling examples of the possibilities and ample evidence of how, since Reagan and Thatcher, the world has seen “a massive shift in global wealth” where “everyone but the upper-income households have suffered significantly.”
Katakam writes with buoyant spirits despite the grim realities he exhaustively outlines. A capitalist who rejects socialism in favor of an inclusive economics that “prioritize[s] inclusive growth and social justice,” he calls for individual and societal change, making the case that the former, as seen in “conscious” consumers embracing “abundance mindset”s and a spirit of interconnectedness, will spur the latter. Rather than tear down current systems, he advocates for improving, regulating, and restoring an inclusive version of the capitalism that once “drove innovation, created products and services for the good of society, reduced poverty, increased the standard of living, and made a modest profit along the way.”
This inclusive capitalism—embracing growth, participation, opportunity, stability, and sustainability rather than “superprofits”—might strike readers as fanciful, but Katakam argues with persuasive power that the very act of imagining it, and manifesting it as individuals, is a crucial first step toward change. The book is nonpartisan, as quick to quote David Brooks as Robert Reich, and at times rambles, but Katakam’s critique is as unstinting as his belief in positive change is inspiring.
Cover: A- | Design & typography: A | Illustrations: A Editing: B+ | Marketing copy: A