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An excellent, incredibly insightful and informative book, somewhat marred by the tedium experienced in the authors' rehashing the ideas of organizations working for change. For most of this book, the writers masterfully tie together concepts in systems, mathematics, consciousness, the environment, society and biology, and for that, it is a brilliant read. My rating: 5 of 5 stars The Systems View of Life: A Unifying Vision by Fritjof Capra View all my reviews

The following quote, from the NY Times article, irritates me: "they now favor economic equality over freedom" The author associates economic equality with lack of freedom, when it would likely translate into more freedom, and certainly freedom from the control of others, in particular, corporations and government, controlling our lives. Economic freedom, as embodied in a lower GINI coefficient, as is enjoyed by France, Belgium, Scandinavia, and Japan, translates into a higher quality of life. High income inequality, as embodied in the US and UK, translates in worse living conditions, subtle fascism, and outright militarism, with most people working more hours for lower standards of living. It is not an either-or kind of choice. The idea of one against the other smacks of the kind of brainwashing, or at a minimum, an unthinking acceptance of other's ideology.

When I started learning economics and finance I soaked up the right-wing slant of The Economist. The magazine often exposed me to material of a more intellectual and academic nature, and its writers and editors wrote about market concepts without realizing that their presented material contradicted their dogma. I later went on to B-school, as student with 720 GMAT's and a 3.9 GPA, was a student member of the International Economics Honor Society, and I 'aced' the economic and finance courses; my understanding of economics is at least as good as the educated populace. Essentially, many economic aspects decried as socialism help the modern developed countries function and function better, i.e., big government, social security, universal healthcare, progressive taxation, financial regulation, income equality (low GINI coefficient), worker involvement/reward from production. My own private research - I was interested in publishing, and one idea was the relationship between econ...