I must admit that I rarely seek out books on economics, which ends up being a flaw of mine when trying to discuss my opposition to capitalism. I usually end up reading these sorts of things when a publisher sends them out with another book I’ve requested which is the case with this book in particular. That said, I found Losing Interest to be quite interesting, no pun intended.
This is an academic text that starts off quite readable but gets a bit more jargony as it progresses. It still was something I was able to grasp with effort. The discussion is generally around ideas of degrowth, using interest as the central point of discussion. This book made me realize that even as an anti-capitalist, there is a lot of internalized capitalism that I didn’t even realize I had rattling around in my skull. It is so ingrained in USAmerican culture and politics to constantly be seeking some sort of growth and progress of the economy, that it almost seems to be the default state of things. As if it is some sort of constant that will exist no matter what or at least should be supported without question.
In this short text, Scott W Schwartz proposes the idea that we just stop. It’s well understood that constant growth, production, destruction, and exploitation of the planet and and all who inhabit it is beyond unsustainable, yet there is still this idea in every politician’s mind, even those who lean to the left, that growing the economy is one of the most important goals. It’s interesting reading the history of how this was not only not always the case, but very frowned upon and cultures across the world. Growing wealth was not only disdained, but often regulated against and various government systems. Capitalism and other forces changed this and lead us to the dystopia that we live in today.
Schwartz discusses banking, insurance, and investment systems in this text. Those are all to be expected in this sort of discussion. The end of the text focuses a bit on the idea of the future. This impending thing that we all must always be preparing for. This idea strengthens the urge to be constantly growing wealth in some way in order to prepare. The author challenges this idea. At this point the book was on the more academic side and I can’t fully summarize the argument in a small space like this. I can say that it really had me thinking about my leftist prepper mindset and the financial aspects of it.
Overall, this book was a worthwhile and somewhat accessible read that got me thinking about things a little differently.
This was also posted to my goodreads and storygraph.