Efficient Society: Why Canada is as Close to Utopia as It Gets [Mass Market Paperback]

Joseph Heath (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: May 16, 2005

In this fascinating account of what makes Canada such a successful society, Joseph Heath celebrates the much-maligned value of efficiency and asks some searching questions about the forces that threaten to undermine our quality of life. In Canada, personal liberty takes precedence over collective well-being, which makes it an efficient society, but this efficiency is under siege. Can we resist the allure of shortsighted tax cuts? Can we maintain our quality of life in the face of relentless pressure to increase our productivity-both at work and at home? This is a profound and important look at how government and business conspire to improve our lives-and at the dramatic changes that will decide our social and economic future.

Product Details

• Reading level: Ages 18 and up
  
• Mass Market Paperback: 339 pages
• Publisher: Penguin Global; First Printing edition (May 16, 2005)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0140292489
• ISBN-13: 978-0140292480
• Product Dimensions: 8.4 x 5.5 x 0.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 10.4 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 4.2 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (6 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #504,970 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

8 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Everyone should read this book, September 25, 2007

By 

A user. (Toronto, Canada) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Efficient Society: Why Canada is as Close to Utopia as It Gets (Mass Market Paperback)

This is the only book I have ever read that I could truly say imposed a radical change on my political beliefs. The brilliance of this book is that it takes a very simple idea and demonstrates how it applies to so many distinct areas of modern political dispute, all the while undercutting most of the traditional political debates, and by doing so makes you wonder "why hadn't I thought that way about it before?"

The idea in question is that of the "collective action problem". In essence this is a situation where if everyone acts according to their own self interest, everyone ends up worse off than they would have been if they had accepted a compromise instead. Collective action problems cause inefficiencies, hence the title of the book. Heath's point is that a great many of the institutions in our societies can be explained, and more importantly justified, as means for avoiding falling into collective action problems.

So rather than thinking of a social welfare system or a public health care system as justified on moral grounds (equality, fairness), we should really see these institutions for what they are: means of promoting efficiency by avoiding collective action problems. In other words, what we tend to pay for through coercive taxation are things that, if we were left to pay for individually through the free market, would cause collective action problems and result in inefficiencies and wastage. So far from being a justification for heartless exploitation, it turns out that efficiency is a moral value that is central to our lives and institutions, and most importantly can be used to justify many government programs.

So if you ever wondered whether those people who claim that government is necessarily inefficient were right, Heath's book will prove to you beyond all shadow of doubt that they are mistaken and that government is in fact the central efficiency promoting institution in the modern world.

23 of 28 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars An inefficient book, about one big idea., February 23, 2003

By A Customer

This review is from: The efficient society: Why Canada is as close to utopia as it gets (Hardcover)

I recently read THE EFFICIENT SOCIETY, at the advice of a friend. The introduction and conclusion present the central ideas of the book: i.e., that Canada is much better off than most Canadians think, because we efficiently make the best of a combination of market economics and government programs. None of these, in itself, is perfect or ideal; but the coombination is the best mix that we can get at this time, yielding a high quality of life (ranked no. 1 for many years in UN rankings, and close to the top in the last year or so (I wrote this in Feb. 2003).
The problem is that all of this, with a few key illustrative examples, fits into 20-30 pages. The book is close to 300 pages. The author has written an excellent essay, with a provocative idea; he should have kept it to an essay. Instead, he has padded it out to a book. Much of this book details simplistic or pedantic presentations of "general ideas" about key concepts (e.g., a tedious chapter on the history of efficiency that regurgitates boiler plate bits about Aristotle, Taylor and Gilbreth the early efficiency experts, and a badly potted synopsis of Vilfredo Pareto. In effect, 250 pages or so represent badly prepared tidbits or hors d'ouevres that sound very much like the half-baked musings of a junior philosophy lecturer.
Little more is written to tell us more about the Canadian situation. Much is left out: nothing on foreign relations, not much on export markets or economic relations with other countries, particularly the U.S., nothing about the froth (the play on anti-Americanism, the play on Federalism and natioanl unity) that passes for political thinking and strategic poicy thrusts in this country.
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Read the intro and conclusion of this book, get a general idea of its main argument, check the index, and then read up on some of the details yourself.

8 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Excellent overview of Canadian "values", November 11, 2003

By A Customer

This review is from: The efficient society: Why Canada is as close to utopia as it gets (Hardcover)

This book gives a quick overview of Canadian values, and summarizes the perspective of a new type of society emerging in Canada. The concept of a society built not around liberty or equality, but rather, just making as many people happy as possible.

An excellent addition to my collection.