Rating: 
Summary: Should be required reading for control freaks
Review: Using clear writing, clear logic, and copious examples both contemporary and historical, Postrel deftly rebuts the myths of stasists of both the right and the left. This book provides excellent answers to those who would force all of us to conform to their supposedly infallible, "one size fits all" vision of how life should be lived, whether that vision stems from environmentalism, social conservatism, or whatever this week's eternal verities are.If I were to boil the book down to one sentence, it would be the following question for stasists: "Why should we accept that you know perfectly how the rest of us should live our lives?" That question, once asked, has an obvious answer -- which may be why so few people are brave enough to ask it. Postrel's message has special relevance to me, as backward-looking neighborhood activists are doing everything in their power to destroy my community.
Rating: 
Summary: Beyond Hayek
Review: Who knows where Virginia Postrel is leading us with this superoptimistic,richly detailed and refreshingly exuberant updating of some of F.A. Hayek's work on self-organizing systems? Surely not into a political campaign or a legislative agenda. For those who are so inclined, Maslow's The Farther Reaches of Human Nature would make a nicely complementary read. Tom Peters, of course, is a dynamist soul mate. Ms Postrel is such an optimist that it seems mean-spirited to wish that she would have devouted a chapter to the tradeoffs this creative destruction imposes on humanity.
Rating:
Summary: A creative approach to thinking about the future
Review: I usually hate this kind of "business self-help" book, so full of platitudes & random facts, and with no "system" of looking at problems (like a social scientist might). This book is different, as my 5-star rating denotes. Postrel has a "system" for evaluating ideas, and marshals her miscellaneous anecdotes very well to support her arguments. So you come to the end of the book, and you have a usable way of thinking about the world, rather than a jumble of stories. Postrel keeps your interest and only rarely falls into the "preachy" style typical of this literature. The book is not a heavy text, and could actually be read in a single or, at most, two sittings. I had my company library buy the book and plan to circulate it around to my colleagues.
Rating: 
Summary: Put me down firmly as a "Statist"
Review: I agree with Ms. Postrel about the tiredness of the Republican/Democratic sham and the idea that the logical division should be between the "dynamists" and the "statists". However, I believe that once she states that fact, she has an obligation to present both sides in the same light. I believe that she fails at this miserably: libertarian "dynamists" are presented in the best possible light, while control-oriented "statists" are presented in the worst. Postrel writes endlessly about the tremendous number of innovations and breakthroughs that have been created by dynamic thinkers. Of course, she doesn't mention that most really important breakthroughs of this or any other century, say the Sistine Chapel by Michealangelo,the transistor, the atom bomb, the cure for polio, etc. would not have been possible without extreme and direct government interference. A "statist" would tax citizens to provide for childhood vaccination, thinking about the long-term goal of prevention of sickness. A "dynamist" would leave it up to each individual parent to be thoughtful enough, knowledgeable enough, and careful enough to take care of their own children. I'll leave it to the reader to decide which group they would rather belong to. I believe in human ingenuity; I believe it has created much that has helped improve the health and happiness of people. However, human ingenuity also has its downside. The side that makes people cut corners and put unsafe products on the market (remember phen-phen? There have been countless others). A dynamist would say that the marketplace will decide all matters; afterall, people won't buy a dangerous or defective product, right? I believe that libertarians live in a dream world populated by perfect creative angels. They seem to have no concept of the real nightmares possible as a side effect of all their ingenuity: nuclear waste pollution, pesticide pollution, chemical pollution, and the newest horror, biotechnological pollution. I would rather have slower, safer innovation than absolute destruction. For failing to point out the problems that would be caused should her libertarian policies be dominant, I give this book 1 star.
Rating:
Summary: interesting and provocative
Review: Virginia Postrel certainly provides a more accurate framework for looking at how people look at the world. It is clear and bi-polar by necessity. I wait with anticipation for more intricate and multi-layered perspectives that fall in the middle of the dynamist-stasist continuum and a more thoughtful analysis of when "central planning schemes" become better models than true dynamist perspectives.
Rating: 
Summary: A provovative view of the future!
Review: Although the book has many interesting and provocative ideas about the forces which are likely to shape the next century, it is informed by a concervative ideology against the government's role in the economy. I believe that the author is wrong to suggest that government planning and managing change results always in stasis. Three, out of many historical examples, refute this thesis: The Manhattan Project's planning and development of nuclear fission produced the atomic bomb before Hitler. The U.S. Interstate Highway project was the result of government central planning that transformed life in America and generated enormous economic growth. Despite the author's dismissal of NASA as sluggish and noncompetitive, the agency has ushered in the space age and a plethora of technological marvels. Nevertheless, this book is worth reading and it will make a significant contribution to the debate about our future.
Rating:
Summary: Good philosophy, but Postrel misses the point.
Review: While it is true that dynamism is a philosophy that goes beyond "left" & "right", there are more deeper meanings to this philosophy that Postrel misses. This deeper point is that highly centralized institutions (ie Government, large corporations, and what is commonly known as "beauracracies") are what difines statist attitudes. She only seems to touch upon this point here and there when talking about Technocrats and critisizing the future predicted in "Brave New World". What needs to be done is not meerly coming up with neat new gizmos or ways of doing things, but decentralizing these institutions so that dynamism can be allowed to breathe free. Notice that a lot of new technology that exists comes from centralized institutions, and that some of the Luddites she critisizes are not meerly attacking the technology, but those who create the technology. If Postrel looked beyond the surface and stereotypes of Luddites, she would realize that some of them share the same dynamist philosophy.
Rating:
Summary: Wasp, where is thy sting?
Review: Postrel, a usually fantastic writer, is so apparently afraid of writing polemically that she has turned in the apposite direction completely, delivering a work all but devoid of any passion or, especially, exuberance. This is absolutely the last talking head book I will ever read; so much time is spend responding to critics that only other talking heads had heard of. I completely agree with Postrel's thesis, which makes the anemia in her prose all the worse.
Rating:
Summary: This is a must read to think about the future
Review: Postrel does an amazing job of explaining why the Luddites who fear technology and the Technocrats who claim they can manage it are the enemies of the future. She divides the world into stasists (who include people as diverse as Pat Buchanan and Al Gore) and dynamists. She describes the operating assumptions of both groups and then leads us through a series of discussions including the necessity for games and playful thinking for anyone who wants to think about the future. What is great about this book is both her clarity of style and her stunning insights. Anyone who is interested in either the new economy or the politics of technological development should read this book.
Rating:
Summary: Original political manifesto
Review: Virginia Postrel uses this brief (about 200 pages minus notes) book to lay out her philosophy of dynamism and explains how a dynamic world works. She is--unlike most political writers--very optimistic about the future of America and the world. The book is best when it used real-world examples to illustrate her theory, like beach volleyball, Vidal Sassoon and African hair weaving. Read the book for a unique take on politics and economics.
|
