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A review by rosekk
Another Now: Dispatches from an Alternative Present by Yanis Varoufakis
3.0
I really don't know what to make of this. I don't know what it's supposed to be. A sketch of a viable replacement for capitalism? But it doesn't offer enough detail or answer enough questions for that. A call to arms? But the description of how capitalism is overthrown in the Other Now isn't clear enough (and is possibly too optimistic) to be useful as a 'how to'. Perhaps this is just meant to be an exercise in keeping ones mind open and considering the possibilities of a world without capitalism. I suppose it manages that.
There are some creative economic ideas (I don't know achievable they are, but they sound plausible on the face of it). I think I was hoping for a little more; the question on the back of the book ('What would a fair and equal society look like?') made me think the text would actually seek to depict a fair and equal society, and perhaps sketch out an idea of how to achieve it. The book doesn't do that, and it stops pretending to quite quickly; the 'other now' it talks of shows some improvement on our world in some ways, but the text admits its still subject to plenty of issues. I guess I was hoping to read the book and find ideas to be enthused about and inspired by, and I'm disappointed because I best I feel a cautious curiosity about some of the suggestions offered.
I'm also not entirely sure why it was written the way it was. It's fictionalised, presented mostly as discussions between characters, but it doesn't do very much with the freedom a fictional tale brings (I've seen sci-fi stories do a lot more in terms of reimagining society, either as a critique of our one or as offering an alternative). While it's more engaging than some political books I've read (though not all), it's still relatively dry when compared with much speculative fiction, so I don't think the style used makes it any more approachable or appealing to a wider audience.
I find it hard to judge the book because I'm not sure what it was trying to do, so I can't tell if it succeeded. It fell short of my expectations, but I don't know if that's simply because I was asking too much.
There are some creative economic ideas (I don't know achievable they are, but they sound plausible on the face of it). I think I was hoping for a little more; the question on the back of the book ('What would a fair and equal society look like?') made me think the text would actually seek to depict a fair and equal society, and perhaps sketch out an idea of how to achieve it. The book doesn't do that, and it stops pretending to quite quickly; the 'other now' it talks of shows some improvement on our world in some ways, but the text admits its still subject to plenty of issues. I guess I was hoping to read the book and find ideas to be enthused about and inspired by, and I'm disappointed because I best I feel a cautious curiosity about some of the suggestions offered.
I'm also not entirely sure why it was written the way it was. It's fictionalised, presented mostly as discussions between characters, but it doesn't do very much with the freedom a fictional tale brings (I've seen sci-fi stories do a lot more in terms of reimagining society, either as a critique of our one or as offering an alternative). While it's more engaging than some political books I've read (though not all), it's still relatively dry when compared with much speculative fiction, so I don't think the style used makes it any more approachable or appealing to a wider audience.
I find it hard to judge the book because I'm not sure what it was trying to do, so I can't tell if it succeeded. It fell short of my expectations, but I don't know if that's simply because I was asking too much.