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How Much is Enough?: Money and the Good Life Paperback – Illustrated, August 20, 2013

4.0 4.0 out of 5 stars 109 ratings
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A provocative and timely call for a moral approach to economics, drawing on philosophers, political theorists, writers, and economists from Aristotle to Marx to Keynes

   What constitutes the good life? What is the true value of money? Why
do we work such long hours merely to acquire greater wealth? These
are some of the questions that many asked themselves when the
financial system crashed in 2008. This book tackles such questions
head-on.  
   The authors begin with the great economist John Maynard Keynes.
In 1930 Keynes predicted that, within a century, per capita income
would steadily rise, people’s basic needs would be met, and no one
would have to work more than fifteen hours a week. Clearly, he was
wrong: though income has increased as he envisioned, our wants
have seemingly gone unsatisfied, and we continue to work long hours.
   The Skidelskys explain why Keynes was mistaken. Then, arguing
from the premise that economics is a moral science, they trace the
concept of the good life from Aristotle to the present and show how
our lives over the last half century have strayed from that ideal. Finally,
they issue a call to think anew about what really matters in our lives
and how to attain it. How Much Is Enough? is a work of deep intelligence
and ethical commitment accessible to all readers.
Previous page
  1. Print length
    272 pages
  2. Language
    English
  3. Publisher
    Other Press
  4. Publication date
    August 20, 2013
  5. Dimensions
    5.5 x 0.56 x 8.25 inches
  6. ISBN-10
    1590516346
  7. ISBN-13
    978-1590516348
  8. See all details
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Editorial Reviews

Review

"What perfect timing!  How Much is Enough? is what every graying Baby Boomer I know is asking right now. The Skidelskys argue that time is not ONLY money, as many driven New Yorkers seem to think, and urge workaholic Americans to devote more of it to pursuing the good life.  Sounds like wise advice to me. As my desk mate at the New York Times in the 1990s used to remind me at least once a day: All you really HAVE is your TIME ." —Sylvia Nasar, author of Grand Pursuit: The Story of Economic Genius

"Deeply provocative and intellectually suggestive...Offers some bold and lucid proposals about what we can do to rein in the fever of reductive economism and toxic acquisitiveness." —Prospect, Rowan Williams, Archbishop of Canterbury

"The Skidelskys ask a pivotal question: Is there no end to our constant quest for more and more wealth? As the world economy stutters and we look for ways to restart the engine, their arguments pull us up short. Are we not prosperous enough already and missing a far richer life without the perpetual quest for needless economic growth?" —Nicholas Wapshott, author of Keynes Hayek: The Clash That Defined Modern Economics

"The over-all thrust of their polemic is a welcome call to reinvigorate society's ethical aspect and bring about the good life for everyone." —The New Yorker

"How Much Is Enough? is a delightful book. It addresses a Big Question without the jargon and obfuscation that pollutes so much philosophy. The prose is lucid, and all the relevant issues are raised and addressed." —The Wall Street Journal

“The authors turn to historical fiction, philosophy, and political theory, drawing on Faust, Marx’s critique of capitalism, and Aristotle’s uses of wealth. Their conclusion that concepts like respect, friendship, and community are more likely to contribute to satisfaction and overall happiness than wealth makes for a fascinating, if cerebral, read.”  —Publishers Weekly

“A provocative and articulate discourse on the dismal science and moral philosophy.” —Kirkus

“The Skidelskys move seamlessly from the abstract to the concrete; from philosophy to public policy.” —The Independent

"There is a rigor in their view of leisure. It is productive, but not so much of things as of experiences animated by intrinsic motivation. Eliminate the propulsive force of self-interest narrowly pursued, and leisure becomes a form of social wellness, a striving for the common good rather than the individual accumulation of more and more." —Portland Book Review

"[An] intelligent, impassioned, provocative treatise to those who wonder if materialism is necessary to the good life." —Get Abstract

"[B]reath-taking analysis of capitalism as a Faustian bargain with the devil." —Book News

About the Author

Robert Skidelsky is Emeritus Professor of Political Economy at the University of Warwick. His biography of the economist John Maynard Keynes received numerous prizes, including the Lionel Gelber Prize for International Relations and the Council on Foreign Relations Prize for International Relations.

Edward Skidelsky is a lecturer at Exeter University, specializing in aesthetics and moral philosophy. He contributes regularly to the New Statesman, Telegraph, and Prospect on philosophy, religion, and intellectual history.

Product details

  • Publisher ‏ : ‎ Other Press; Illustrated edition (August 20, 2013)
  • Language ‏ : ‎ English
  • Paperback ‏ : ‎ 272 pages
  • ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 1590516346
  • ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-1590516348
  • Item Weight ‏ : ‎ 10.9 ounces
  • Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 5.5 x 0.56 x 8.25 inches
  • Customer Reviews:
    4.0 4.0 out of 5 stars 109 ratings

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4 out of 5 stars
4 out of 5
109 global ratings

Top reviews from the United States

Chip
5.0 out of 5 stars A very good analysis of the confused relationship between wealth and happiness
Reviewed in the United States on June 5, 2017
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This book provides a very good analysis of the problems that arise as we confuse the relationship between wealth and happiness. The authors cover this misalignment by organizing their knowledge of history, philosophy, and economics in to a series of interesting and sensible chapters. Their observations are particularly relevant in a world that seems to value quarterly earnings above preservation of our humanity.

Beyond just a description of where things have gone wrong in society, The Skidelskys provide a clear and thoughtful description of "the good life", a life that is worth living. They also describe some steps that we might follow to place ourselves on a more sustainable path to a better world. I think their narrative is extremely topical, and relevant to all societies struggling with extreme inequality in the midst of unprecedented productivity.

I see some comments in these reviews that the analysis of climate change is misplaced. I respectfully disagree. This is yet another symptom of ethics being removed from our daily thought process and is quite relevant as the US chooses to abandon the rest of world in addressing this threat.

If I have any criticism about this book, it is that the writing can occasionally be extremely dense, requiring a level of sophistication on the reader's part. This is perhaps because the authors are both university professors who desire to be extremely thorough in covering this complex subject matter. As social media and news sound-bites have shortened our attention spans, it will take some concentration to understand the full scale of the authors' message. A simpler and less rigorous discourse would have made this book more digestible to a wider audience. Still, I think this book is well worth the time for anyone who looks outside and wonders how there can be so many problems in a world that has such advanced technical capabilities and amazing potential.

We'd all be better off if the concepts in this book played a higher priority in our lives.
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Acorn
3.0 out of 5 stars important ideas but a muddled analysis
Reviewed in the United States on January 6, 2013
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Robert Skidelsky is a noted economic historian and author of a three-volume biography of John Maynard Keynes. His son Edward is a lecturer in philosophy at the University of Exeter. Together they re-examine Keynes's idea of the `good life'. In the midst of the Great Depression, Keynes envisaged a future capitalist economy where technology and wealth meant that we would only need to work for a small amount of time to satisfy our wants and the rest of the time we could pursue other interests - the good life. You don't have to be a genius to spot that the world we live in is not quite like that. In aggregate terms, we are extraordinarily rich compared to any time in the past, but Keynes failed to see the rapid growth of populations, the return of crushing inequality with the neo-liberal economic reforms of the 1980s, and that fact that people's wants have grown far beyond basic needs and the odd luxury to become virtually insatiable.

So does this mean we are all on a hiding to a consumerist hell? The authors are optimistic that this need not be the case and argue that the `good life' is still possible. They discuss various approaches to wealth and consumption through history and across cultures and show that other ways of living are feasible. The central problem is that we are now slaves to consumption but oddly in this book there is no discussion of recent works on affluence and its role in modern capitalism. The authors' examination of the topic doesn't get beyond Kenneth Galbraith and Herbert Marcuse, both interesting thinkers but published decades ago.

Father and son are rightly scornful of gross domestic product as a measure of how well we live, but also reject the idea of using happiness as a measure. Happiness has been championed by both left and right in recent years - David Cameron the prime minister of Britain is a fan, and Bhutan has incorporated the idea into its national statistics. But there are good reasons why it is a poor indicator and the authors rehearse these in the book. They argue that more concrete measures are needed and it is difficult to disagree.

They also reject the idea of limits to growth, and in Chapter 5 conduct a long and rather tedious criticism of the green movement and environmental limits to growth. It is not clear why they do this as it is not central to their argument and many of the points they make have weak logical bases. They liken climate change to war or the plague, but neither of those affects the very medium in which we live. Climate change is a different order of problem. They also reject planning on the basis of uncertain climate change predictions, but all planning is based on uncertainties because we can never know the future with full accuracy. All we can do is apply analysis to what we know now, keep accumulating data and look at trends, and hypothesise from there. Some analytical methods are better than others but none will give us a certain picture of the future. Only if the issue is very narrow and our data very extensive will we get close. Few social policy problems are like that. The authors also accuse the green movement of scaremongering then use exactly the same tactic by highlighting the movement's Nazi antecedents (via Heidegger). The chapter does them no credit at all.

It is a pity that their obsession with the green movement leads them away from an informed discussion about sustainable growth. What might that look like and how would it fit into their concept of the `good life'? They favour it, but never explain what it is.

In the penultimate chapter they advance four criteria for determining elements of the `good life' then propose seven `basic goods' that would constitute this life. As is to be expected in any general theory, the seven basic goods are expounded in very broad terms. Discussion of each of them is limited and it is likely that readers will have very diverse understandings of what they entail. One of them is friendship, but clearly the authors have not read any of the now extensive anthropological literature on this topic. It is difficult to reduce it to the approach taken here. Similarly, respect is included in the seven, but it is never clear what this would look like in practice given the way power is exercised in modern states. Towards the end of the chapter the authors provide an overview of the current status of their seven basic goods and the picture is a rather depressing one. Modern capitalist societies - the rich countries of the world - are not doing well on any of them. Is this why we are all so miserable?

Some tangible suggestions for bringing about the `good life' appear in the final chapter, mainly focused on taxation and work reforms. They revive Nicholas Kaldor's idea of a consumption tax and consider reforms such as basic income provision and work sharing. There are the germs of some thoughtful proposals but in the end nothing much is elaborated.

The book focuses very much on the role of the state and the authors favour `non-coercive paternalism' to help achieve the `good life'. The approach owes a lot to the ideas set out in Thaler & Sunstein's Nudge (2008) though the authors do not acknowledge this. More ideas on the role of the private sector and civil organisations would have made their argument much stronger.

There are some important points in this book. One is the changing nature of modern capitalism where wealth creation is often the result of investment in financial instruments rather than in production. Investors seem to be running out of ideas for production except to export old-style manufacturing to poor countries. Another is the creation of endless wants through advertising and by isolating consumers so that their social interactions are mainly passive consumption of media or online conversations rather than meeting in person or forming groups. It is hard with increased social isolation to resist craving material goods for emotional satisfaction or to reassure ourselves of our social status. Everything is being given a money value and everything is up for sale, so it is difficult to avoid consumerist thinking. How do we address these trends in order to move to a more sustainable and satisfying way of life? The authors dabble around the edges of these issues but never tackle them head on.

It is ironic that Adam Smith, that icon of neo-liberal economists, believed that frugality was such an important part of self-interest that laws against excessive spending or wastefulness were utterly unnecessary. He failed to foresee how his modern devotees would glorify greed, waste money on things they never use and accumulate more money than they can ever spend. An Adam Smith frugality? Fab! Where can I buy one of those?

Robert Skidelsky in particular is such an eminent scholar of Keynes that I expected a more cogent argument about the `good life', what it might look like in practice and how we could achieve it. Instead, this is a jumble of half-hearted analyses and disjointed proposals that are unlikely to convince the sceptical reader. Rich countries are in an economic and social mess but the way forward is not much clearer after reading this book. I would still recommend you read it because it will challenge you and provoke you to consider your own values and lifestyle.
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Amazonkunde*seit*1999
3.0 out of 5 stars Geld oder Leben!
Reviewed in Germany on July 17, 2016
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Hatte mehr und anderes erwartet aber ist mir eher als Lebenshilfebuch vorgekommen. War OK zu lesen aber hat es nicht in meine Sammlung geschafft.
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smtip
5.0 out of 5 stars Amazing book
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on March 25, 2013
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This book helps to put our lives into perspective. the part where author goes through philosophical paradigms might seem a bit too long, but it's quite useful for the remaining part. A mist read!
One person found this helpful
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boeykens
3.0 out of 5 stars How Much is Enough
Reviewed in Germany on February 28, 2013
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I have not commenced the reading of this book;
So any further advise on the quality of this book should be considered as prejudicial.
One person found this helpful
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