Books Reviewed 2015

Here is  housekeeping post, collecting all the books reviewed here in 2015.

Looking back at this list, I see that this year saw Terry Pratchette’s last book (a wrenching experience), and new novels by old favorites Stross, Perry, Macguire, Holt, Gaiman, among others. I also read older but still good histories by Goodwin and Graeber. I read several books about banking, Papal and otherwise, and overlapping works about Italy, fictional and (supposedly) real.

Over the year, I reviewed a sampling of important books about contemporary digital life, including cryptocurrency, the “sharing economy”, social media, and “mind change”.   These works covered a spectrum from enthusiasm to dark worry, giving us much to think about. There are many more I did not have time or energy for. (I will say more on this topic in another post)

Throughout 2015 I continued my ongoing investigation of the question, “what is coworking?”, including reviews of two recent (self published) books about coworking by practitioners. (More on coworking in another post.)

Shall I name some “Best Books” out of my list? Why not?

Fiction:

There were so many to pick from. I mean, with Neil Gaiman in the list, how can I choose? But let me mention two that are especially memorable

Radiance by Catherynne M. Valente
Very imaginative and well written, and, for once, not so horribly dark. This book lodged in my memory more than others that are probably equally good.

Telegraph Avenue by Michael Chabon
Published a few years ago, but I didn’t read it until this year. A wonderful, intricate story. The flight of the parrot is still in my memory.

Nonfiction:

There were many important works about digital life, and I shall try to comment on them in another post. But three books that really hit me are:

Debt: The First 5,000 Years by David Graeber
From several years ago, but I didn’t read it until this year. Highly influential on the ‘occupy’ and other left-ish thinking. This is an astonishingly good book, and long form anthropology, to boot. Wow!

Reimagination Station: Creating a Game-Changing In-Home Coworking Space by Lori Kane
An exlectic little self-published book about “home coworking”, which I didn’t know was a thing. Kane walked the walk, and made me think in new ways about community and coworking.

Fangirl’s Guide to the Galaxy by Sam Maggs
Unexpected amounts of fun reading this short book. It does an old, graying nerd no end of good to see that at least some of the kids are OK. Really, really, OK.

List of books reviewed in 2015

Fiction

A Darkling Sea by James L. Cambias
After Alice by Gregory Maguire
Aurora by Kim Stanley Robinson
Bats of the Republic by Zachary Thomas Dodson
Book of Numbers by Joshua Cohen
Chasing the Phoenix by Michael Swanwick
Candy Apple Red by Nancy Bush
Chicks and Balances edited by Esther Friesner and John Helfers
Corsair by James L. Cambias
Count to a Trillion by John C. Wright
Diaspora by Greg Egan
Distress by Greg Egan
Electric Blue by Nancy Bush
Forty Thieves by Thomas Perry
Futuristic Violence and Fancy Suits by David Wong
Get In Trouble by Kelly Link
Good Omens by Terry Pratchett and Neil Gaiman
Karen Memory by Elizabeth Bear
Koko the Mighty by Kieran Shea
Luna: New Moon by Ian McDonald
Mort(e) by Robert Repino
Numero Zero by Umberto Eco
Radiance by Catherynne M. Valente
Rebirths of Tao by Wesley Chu
Redeployment by Phil Klay
Satin Island by Tom McCarthy
Secondhand Souls by Christopher Moore
Seveneves by Neal Stephenson
Shark Skin Suite by Tim Dorsey
String of Beads by Thomas Perry
Telegraph Avenue by Michael Chabon
The Annihilation Score by Charles Stross
The Best Science Fiction & Fantasy of the Year Volume Nine ed. by Jonathan Strahan
The Buried Giant by Kazuo Ishiguro
The Enchantment Emporium by Tanya Huff
The First Bad Man by Miranda July
The Fortress in Orion by Mike Resnick
The Future Falls by Tanya Huff
The Good, the Bad, and The Smug by Tom Holt
The Mark and the Void by Paul Murray
The Relic Master by Christopher Buckley
The Rook by Daniel O’Malley
The Shepherd’s Crown by Terry Pratchett
The Three Body Problem by Cixin Liu
The Unfortunate Decisions of Dahlia Moss by Max Wirestone
The Water Knife by Paolo Bacigalupi
The Wild Ways by Tanya Huff
Time Salvager by Wesley Chu
To Say Nothing of the Dog by Connie Willis
Trigger Warning: Short Fictions and Disturbances by Neil Gaiman
Ultraviolet by Nancy Bush
We Are Pirates by Daniel Handler
Witches Be Crazy by Logan J. Hunder
Zer0es by Chuck Wendig

Non Fiction

Arrival of the Fittest by Andreas Wagner
Blue Mind by Wallace J. Nichols
Debt: The First 5,000 Years by David Graeber
Digital Gold by Nathaniel Popper
Fangirl’s Guide to the Galaxy by Sam Maggs
God’s Bankers by Gerald Posner
LaFayette in the Somewhat United States by Sarah Vowell
Let’s Be Less Stupid by Patricia Marx
Live Right and Find Happiness by Dave Barry
Merchants in the Temple by Gianluigi Nuzzi
Mind Change by Susan Greenfield
Mindsharing by Lior Zoref
Modern Romance by Aziz Ansari
No More Sink Full of Mugs by Tony Bacigalupo
Not Impossible by Mick Ebeling
Pax Technica by Phillip N. Howard
Peers, Inc by Robin Chase
Reimagination Station: Creating a Game-Changing In-Home Coworking Space by Lori Kane
Speculative Everything by Anthony Dunne and Fiona Raby
Team of Rivals by Doris Kearns Goodwin
The Age of Cryptocurrency by Paul Vigna and Michael J. Casey
The Art of Forgery by Noah Charney
The Next Species by Michael Tennesen
The Reputation Economy by Michael Fertik and David C. Thompson
The Social Labs Revolution by Zaid Hassan
The Ugly Renaissance by Alexander Lee
Twentyfirst Century Robot by Brian David Johnson
Women of Will:  Following the Feminine in Shakespeare’s Plays by Tina Packer

 

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Books Reviewed Third Quarter

Books Reviewed Third Quarter

A bit of housekeeping:  here is a list of all the book reviews that appeared in this blog in Q3 2015.  Mostly new or recent releases, with a few old but good thrown in.

Fiction

Aurora by Kim Stanley Robinson
Book of Numbers by Joshua Cohen
Chasing the Phoenix by Michael Swanwick
Chicks and Balances edited by Esther Friesner and John Helfers
Good Omens by Terry Pratchett and Neil Gaiman 
Koko the Mighty by Kieran Shea
Secondhand Souls by Christopher Moore  
The Annihilation Score by Charles Stross
The Best Science Fiction & Fantasy of the Year Volume Nine ed. by Jonathan Strahan
The Good, the Bad, and The Smug by Tom Holt
The Rook by Daniel O’Malley 
The Water Knife by Paolo Bacigalupi
Time Salvager by Wesley Chu 
To Say Nothing of the Dog by Connie Willis 

Non fiction

Reimagination Station: Creating a Game-Changing In-Home Coworking Space by Lori Kane
Digital Gold by Nathaniel Popper
Let’s Be Less Stupid by Patricia Marx
Mind Change by Susan Greenfield 
Modern Romance by Aziz Ansari
Peers, Inc by Robin Chase
Team of Rivals by Doris Kearns Goodwin 
The Art of Forgery by Noah Charney
The Next Species by Michael Tennesen 

 

Book Review: “Peers, Inc” by Robin Chase

Peers, Inc by Robin Chase

 How to size up this book? It’s difficult.

Robin Chase is one of the founders of Zip Cars, a very successful “sharing economy” company, which gives her perspective on the “miracle” that is the collaborative economy. She lays out her own synthesis of this new economy, which she calls “Peers, Inc.” The general idea is that to do things right, you need both centralized “platforms” (the “Inc”), and zillions of networked individual customers and co-creators (the “Peers”).

Much of the book is dedicated to recounting familiar cases (e.g., Uber and AirBnb and, of course Zipcar) to show how they fit into her framework. It’s more than a little confusing (and frustrating), as she shoe horns all kinds of stuff into her prescriptive theory.

The theoretical framework is intended to guide us in the development of businesses and public policy (and, I suppose, personal life). In that effort, Chase is all over the map. On one page, she describes the miraculous world in which we all benefit from sharing, and the next page she admits that, unless power and wealth are shared, the “collaborative” economy is an epic disaster for the “Peers” (and many of the “Inc”, too).

I think she buried here lead. Grievously. The beginning of the book is awful, and I almost put it down and stopped reading around Chapter 4. That would have been a shame, because the important contributions are in the last three chapters.

The problem is, as she frankly tells us,  “[a]s I tracked the incentives for each stakeholder (in Chapters 6 through 9) I changed my thinking in a way that took me by surprise.” (p 255, three pages from the end of the book).

Round about page 200, she finally figures out that Uber-ification is horrible for the little guy unless there are effective policies in place. At that point, she begins to grapple with how to organize the “sharing economy” so that it works for the 99% as well as the 1%.

My view is that she should have redone the whole book. She should have started here, and left out all the fluff at the beginning.

Looking at the end of the book, I generally agree with what Chase would like to happen. She’s worried about things that everyone should worry about. (E.g., Uber drivers viewing the company as more like pimps than partners, p. 254) But I have a lot of quibbles with her diagnosis and prescription.

First, I’m not really sold on the “inevitable” takeover of the “Peers, Inc.” model. For one thing, the so-called “miracle” is not apparent to me. For example, open, shared platforms are said to “succeed by distributing power.” (p.250) I wish that were so, but I don’t think it is. My observation is that they succeed by acquiring monopoly power, usually through first mover advantage, luck, and  regulatory arbitrage. This is neither miraculous, nor especially sustainable.

I also have problems with her implicit social psychology, which posits that all people everywhere have a passion for work. “[A] workforce of economically empowered and passionate freelancers” (p.251) This is just not how people are. People are passionate about many things, most of which are not likely to be viable gigs.

Chase also misunderstands the psychology of “status”, which is symbolized many ways. My own view is that online “reputation” systems and “the size of one’s network” (p. 253) are weak and watery forms of “status”, and will never, ever supplant all the other markers we have been using, including “stuff”.

I’ll toss in another bee in my own bonnet: this vision of everyone as a hustling freelancer, holding down several gigs at once is highly “ageist”. This is fine for young people in good health. It is a catastrophe for older workers or anyone who has the misfortune to get sick, injured, or have bad luck and lose your home and savings. Or get pregnant. Or get old. This whole project leaves behind whole swaths of the population who cannot compete in this dag-eat-dog world of “independent contractors”.

For that matter, this doesn’t look like “reinventing capitalism” (from the subtitle) so much as carrying the same old rigged game to its logical extreme. But I digress.

The question is, of course, how do we organize the “sharing economy” so that it works for the 99% as well as the 1%? At the end, Chase comes up with a very reasonable wish list for necessary public policy designed to make the “Peers, Inc” world livable:

• “Governments must create and open up assets for value extraction by all
• We need to tax heavily at the platform […]
• Government regulations need to protect autonomous individuals against the power of the platforms and benefits need to be tied to people and not jobs
• Everyone should be an independent contractor[…]
• We must have a minimum basic income […]
• We should emulate […] the free and open-source software movement.” (p. 255)

The problem is, I fear, that there is no chance at all that these laudable policies will be enacted. If anything, governments are moving the opposite direction. A “minimum basic income”? Taxes on platforms? Government regulations to restrict the actions of off shore companies? What planet is she from? For that matter, I don’t even understand how you can “protect autonomous individuals” yet have everyone “be an independent contractor” (i.e., a small company).

As she says, “We have a choice to make. We can transfer the uge gains from productivity that will result from Peers, Inc platforms and elevate the standards of living for everyone…or not.” (p. 252) I’m betting that the elites who control government policy will choose “not”.

Absent the miracle of actually enlightened government, “Peers, Inc” is a formula for catastrophic impoverishment of the 99.99%. And, if her analysis of power balance is valid (Chapter 6), the whole “Peers, Inc.” will collapse. When wage levels approach zero, it may be “efficient”, but it is the end of the consumer economy.  But we’re barreling into this project, with no net, and there is no plan B. Uh, oh!

So how can we possibly make this “inevitable” “reinvention of capitalism” work?  “I don’t know”, she says (p. 221).  This is not terribly helpful.  I don’t know either.

I guess I want you to read this book, but have a very critical eye. And if you just read the last two chapters, you probably will get the best from it.

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1. Chase, Robin, Peers, Inc.: How People and Platforms are Inventing the Collaborative Economy and Reinventing Capitalism, New York, PublicAffairs, 2015.