Distopian extension of current trends in the U.S. Features ``Franchise Operated Quasi-National Entities'' defended by thugs. Sounds like a city-state to me. But what would I know? I haven't read it.
100 pages describing how power works. I dunno -- I haven't read it.
There are two ways of making a living: gathering from a territory, and trading. Each way of making a living has its own collection of naturally grouping behaviours that lead to good functioning in that domain. Over time, these collections of good behaviours develop a moral weight: they become the moral precepts of the commercial syndrome (for trading) and the moral precepts of the guardian syndrome (for gathering/taking/protecting).
If we mix the moral syndromes, then we get awful messes of corruption. Jacobs argues that we should practice morally flexibility: when operating in trading mode, use precepts from the commercial syndrome; when operating in gathering/taking/protecting mode, use precepts from the guardian syndrome.
I think Systems of Survival is absolutely brilliant. And yes, I've read it.
One member says: ``Though I still don't concede that John Ralston Saul is brilliant, I'll concede that he's pretty clever.''
After reading a quarter of the book, my take on the argument goes like this. Reason with capital R was conceived as an ally with morality and general common sense in the task of ending arbitrary absolutist rule. Reason is internally consistent and self-defending, and it unfortunately gives rise to a class of powerful technocrats who twist and control the structure of debate through their self-branded ``professionalism'' and jargon, as if they alone hold the keys to making good decisions and that no other point of view has worth. Morality and ordinary common sense are lost in the shuffle.
The Rational Elites have taken us from one precisely worked-out solution to another in search of fixing the world. But the real world is unwieldy and messy, and coldly calculated solutions fail. But the Rational Elite cannot comprehend the failure of the rational system: logic is infallible isn't it? But the Rational Elite is not equipped to reconsider their own methodology or systems point of view. Instead, they eradicate cultural memory. Past failures are forgotten in the construction of yet new more ambitious plans.
Saul argues that this madness should stop.
Saul is not afraid of shades of grey, presumably becuase he belives in being faithful to the richness of the real world. The stark considerations made in isolation by the Rational Elites are not good enough.