- Paperback: 304 pages
- Publisher: Yale University Press; New edition edition (1 Jun 2000)
- Language English
- ISBN-10: 0300082606
- ISBN-13: 978-0300082609
- Product Dimensions: 21 x 14.1 x 2.1 cm
- Average Customer Review: 4.3 out of 5 stars See all reviews (3 customer reviews)
- Amazon Bestsellers Rank: 1,313,025 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
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Product Description
Review
"A serious, smart book, which also functions as a cogent critique of the inequality of opportunity that has become a given in modern America." New Yorker "A Big New Idea so bold in its simplicity, so pure in its claims to justice,...that the only shock is that it is certain to get a hearing as the fight to fix Social Security heats up this year." Matthew Miller, New York Times Magazine "The new century needs political and social innovation even more than it needs business innovation. The authors have done well what intellectuals are supposed, but are seldom bold enough, to do: innovate ideas about important social issues." Jack Beatty, Atlantic Monthly "A big idea like this is significant because it can reframe the public debate. It can change the prevailing assumptions. Eventually, it can change the course of the nation." Robert Reich, Former Secretary of Labor, Washington Post
Product Description
Must we resign ourselves to a growing chasm between rich and poor? Bruce Ackerman and Anne Alstott propose an innovative alternative in this thought-provoking book: an eighty thousand dollar grant for every qualifying young adult. The authors analyse this plan from many perspectives and argue that such a citizen's stake would open the way to a society that is more democratic, productive, and free.
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Customer Reviews
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
2 of 3 people found the following review helpful
Format:Hardcover
The concept of a stakeholder society is a very reasonable and very important idea. Alstott and Ackerman present a lucid, easy to read, argument for it. Their argument of the need for a citizen's pension in place of the present system of social security (which excludes people who have not 'worked', such as housewives), is also very convincing. I hope that their ideas don't get simply dismissed as "too radical" by the media. These ideas aren't radical at all. They're down to earth and sensible.
0 of 2 people found the following review helpful
Format:Hardcover
The idea at first sounds crazy, but trying to figure out why will force you to examine many of your own opinions--and perhaps ultimately to reach a different conclusion than your first.
0 of 4 people found the following review helpful
Format:Hardcover
It was winter; the ants' store of grain had gotten wet and they were laying it out to dry. A hungry cicada asked them for something to eat. "Why didn't you gather food in the summer, like us?" one of the worker ants asked. "I didn't have time," it replied; "I was busy making sweet music." The worker laughed at it. "Very well," it said; "since you sang in the summer, you must dance in the winter."
A few ants of the drone caste heard what the worker said and were morally outraged. They convinced their brother drones to force the colony to share its grain with the cicada and all its relatives. "From each according to his abilities, to each according to his needs," they said. For several years the drones ran the colony in the new, moral, way. The cicadas and the ants all nearly starved to death. Equally.
The drones of another colony, who agreed with the moral claim of the cicadas, pondered the sad fate of first colony. "The worker was right; the cicada made its own choices and had no moral claim on the ants' store of grain," they said. "But not everyone gets a fair start. To fix this, we will give everyone a share of the grain at the beginning of the summer, not at the end. Then at the end of the summer everyone will pay back the share he or she got at the beginning, plus interest. And those who do well and have extra grain will pay back extra to make up for those who don't have enough."
The cicadas thought this was a great idea. The workers weren't so sure. All that summer, the cicadas sang sweetly, the workers gathered grain (but not too much since they knew they'd have to give away any extra), and the drones watched. That winter they all nearly starved to death. Equally.
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