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How Much is Enough?: Money and the Good Life Paperback – 5 Sep 2013

by Edward Skidelsky (Author),
Robert Skidelsky (Author)
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Robert Skidelsky (Author)
4.1 out of 5 stars 36 customer reviews
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Product details

  • Paperback: 272 pages
  • Publisher: Penguin (5 Sept. 2013)
  • Language: English
  • ISBN-10: 0241953898
  • ISBN-13: 978-0241953891
  • Product Dimensions: 13 x 1.6 x 20.3 cm
  • Average Customer Review: 4.1 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (36 customer reviews)
  • Amazon Bestsellers Rank: 186,769 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Review

A crisp and pungent book (Rowan Williams Prospect)

"How much is enough?" is a good question. Anyone who sets store by capitalism and markets will find [this] book uncomfortable reading. It should be read all the same (Economist)

A truly innovative and radical perspective on reshaping the economy ... thought-stirring and extremely refreshing (John Gray Guardian)

A welcome call to reinvigorate society's ethical aspect and bring about the good life for everyone (New Yorker)

In their thoughtful book, the Skidelskys move seamlessly from the abstract to the concrete; from philosophy to public policy. They note that Keynes's futuristic essay was ignored as the world sank into the Great Depression. Will we again ignore this call to imagine a better future? (Jon Cruddas MP Independent)

About the Author

Robert Skidelsky is Emeritus Professor of Political Economy at the University of Warwick. His three volume biography of John Maynard Keynes (1983, 1992, 2000) received numerous prizes, including the Lionel Gelber Prize for International Relations and the Council on Foreign Relations Prize for International Relations. He was made a life peer in 1991, and aFellow of the British Academy in 1994.

Edward Skidelsky is a lecturer in philosophy at the University of Exeter. He is author of Ernst Cassirer: The Last Philosopher of Culture and contributes regularly to the New Statesman and Prospect. He is currently working on a book entitled The Language of the Virtues.

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Customer Reviews

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4.0 out of 5 starsEnough is Enough
By Diziet on 1 July 2012
Format: Hardcover Verified Purchase
John Maynard Keynes believed that there would come a time when capitalism would be able to provide for all our needs. When that time was reached, there would be no further reason for growth. Capitalism was a necessary but temporary evil - 'a transitional stage, a means to an end, the end being the good life' (P17). Unfortunately, as we have seen, this 'end' has actually been the triumph of an aggressive and consumerist capitalism that has swept all before it, capturing us in a seemingly endless spiral, not of 'needs' but 'wants'. We are caught in an 'insatiability trap' and 'the good life' appears to be receding into dreams and sitcoms.

This book tries to explain just how this all came about. And, after exploring the roots of what more and more people are recognizing as our global dilemma, attempts to put forward some solutions and new ways to define and move towards this 'good life'.

The book starts with Keynes. Keynes believed that the average number of hours that people worked would slowly diminish as technology became more and more efficient. In reality what we have seen is instead of four people being employed for ten hours a week, one person works for forty hours, leaving three people unemployed. At the same time, capitalism has increasingly 'monetized' and commodified everything it can, as Michael Sandel, amongst many others, has shown. Monetizing things changes how they are valued - not only do they become comparable in money terms, but their very nature is altered. For example: '[e]ducation...is increasingly seen not as a preparation for the good life but as a mean to increase the value of 'human capital''.Read more ›
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4.0 out of 5 starsGreat analysis of the problems, not so great when it comes to solutions
By John Saunders on 25 Jun. 2012
Format: Hardcover
This is a very readable account of how, despite getting much richer since Keynes wrote his essay 'Economic possibilities for our grandchildren', we haven't had the concomitant drop in working hours Keynes forecast. The authors mine a rich stream of thought which considers capitalism a 'Faustian pact' with unseemly motives for the production of wealth. How this pact has got out of hand, with GDP growth changing from a means to bringing about the good life to the end pursued by government policy is the first argument of the book.

The authors also argue - following Aristotle, and echoing Michael Sandel in his book Justice: What's the Right Thing to Do? - that the draining of a moral and ethical discourse from public discussion of policy has merely obscured, rather than removed, the ethical stance behind political decisions. This is a welcome point, and along with their discussion of the 'Faustian pact' forms the most successful passage of the book.

So far, so good - but unfortunately the rest of the book is on shakier ground. The authors outline their own vision for 'the good life', which I felt was too subjective to be a programme with a real chance of being adopted by any mainstream political party. They make some valid criticisms of it, but nevertheless I feel the capabilities approach (developed by Amartya Sen and Martha Nussbaum) remains a much better guide for policy than their assertion that the good life be promoted by government.

Two chapters deal in turn with the new happiness economics promoted by Richard Layard and the green/sustainable movement.Read more ›
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1.0 out of 5 starsHow Much is Enough
By superpeasant on 28 Dec. 2012
Format: Hardcover
I was quite enjoying this book and trying to take an interest in its erratic progress until Chapter 5; 'Limits to growth:Natural or moral?' This raised major doubts about the relative importance they give to the texts they refer to and also the depth to which they have read them. For example, after doggedly struggling through their seemingly endless surmise about Faust and an obscure 1928 paper by Keynes, I find this pivotal chapter dismissing in two sentences the multi-million selling and hugely relevant 'Limits to Growth' published in 1972, describing its 'prophecies' as having turned out to be 'unduly alarmist'. That book was forecasting the state of the world in 2100 and its predictions are still alarmingly on track, so how on earth can they dismiss it so prematurely? On oil reserves they complacently cite 'the opening up of new fields in Alaska and Mexico'. Those oil fields were actually discovered years ago and the authors seem disturbingly unaware of the fact that already in 2012 they have dramatically declined to 20% of their peak output. World oil production has been on a plateau for 5 years despite record prices, yet there is no mention at all of 'peak oil' and the many expert petroleum geologists who have written on this critical issue. On the vital topic of climate change they have referred to such famously biased science-denying hacks as Lomborg and Lawson rather than any one of hundreds of professional climatologists who have written extensively on this grave threat to humanity's future. Unbelievably, writing in 2012 they don't even mention the massive demands being placed on the planet by the unprecedented acceleration in demand for all its resources and the resulting global pollution caused by the hyper-development taking place in China, India, Brazil and the rest.Read more ›
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Most Recent Customer Reviews

5.0 out of 5 starsFive Stars

A very good and interesting book. I recommend it of all my heart.

Published 7 months ago by Hugo
5.0 out of 5 starsDefinitely worth a read.

A very interesting book. The Skidelsky brothers compare modern western values with the values of other societies throughout history to argue that we have taken a step in the wrong... Read more

Published 11 months ago by Amazon Customer
5.0 out of 5 starsFive Stars

To date my favourite book, I based my dissertation on ideas I came up with while reading this.

Published 13 months ago by Cornelia
5.0 out of 5 starsFive Stars

excellent read. robert skidelsky and his son have a way with words that draws you to keep reading.

Published 18 months ago by sikander khan
5.0 out of 5 starsFive Stars

astonishing how selfish people have become and greedy

Published 20 months ago by Janet Cross
5.0 out of 5 starsA very enjoyable read. Could be skipped through if ...

A very enjoyable read. Could be skipped through if you are not interested in the history, and you will still get a lot. Feel everyone should read this.

Published 20 months ago by tony
4.0 out of 5 starsFour Stars

Very happy with purchase.

Published 22 months ago by P. J. Dallaway
5.0 out of 5 starsFive Stars

Puts excesses of national spending into perspective

Published 24 months ago by Ed
4.0 out of 5 starsFour Stars

this was a present for my husband

Published on 15 Nov. 2014 by Mrs.S.
4.0 out of 5 starsA Worthy Project, But Incomplete

Father-and-son duo Edward and Robert Skidelsky never answer the question posed by their title (although one footnote provides an estimate that around $66,000 per year should be... Read more

Published on 26 Oct. 2014 by Richard Bagshaw

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