Customer Reviews

Zen and the Art of Funk Capitalism: A General Theory of Fallibility

5 star:		(2)
4 star:		(0)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

A white dwarf is a star of massive density. A book qualifies as a "white dwarf" if it is so packed with content that it can be read many times and still yields more insights and understanding each time. This book is only a hundred pages in length and it covers a range of fundamental issues from philosophy, the nature of freedom and discovery, law and government, money and banking, entrepreneurship and education, the problems of developing countries. It is clearly written and provides an excellent bibliography, including web sites, for futher investigation of his themes.

Karun Philip is a practical dreamer, with his head in the clouds of abstract ideas and his feet planted in the earth of the commercial marketplace. In my view this book is almost a white dwarf because the author has managed to convey so many insights by unpacking the implications of the "axiom of fallibility" which is the central organizing principle of the book. He attributes most of the novelty and power of his ideas to the pioneering work of F A Hayek, a man who he describes as too market-oriented for the left but not sufficiently laissez-faire to satisfy the libertarians.

The axiom of fallibility tends to meet a mixed reception. Some people consider that it represents a capitulation to irrationalism, to relativism and the feckless attitude of "anything goes". Others consider that it is old hat, everyone knows about the uncertainty of human knowledge. However the secret of creative scholarship is to take a simple idea and pursue its less obvious consequences and implications. If the idea is sound and the scholar is both resolute and lucky in his sources, influences and insights, the results can change the direction of civilisation.

One would have to be a polymath to judge whether Philip's insights are robust in all the areas that he has addressed. In addition, the exposition is too brief to answer the myriad of doubts and objections that critics will provide. It may be that this is not quite a white dwarf, and perhaps Philip's next book, elaborating the themes of this volume, will qualify.

Rafe Champion
Independent Scholar, Sydney, Australia

Awesome. That's the only way I can describe it. You're going to read this, and then think "damn, this is *deep*, I need to read it again." You'd think that a book like this would be a lot longer - I mean, it took Ayn Rand a thousand pages to do Atlas Shrugged, and 1984 was something like 350 pages. And all the other stuff is too hard to read, it's badly written.

This book is readable, as in, it makes sense to an average guy. (I'm a computer repair tech with certifications instead of college degrees.) It's well-written and understandable, and it all makes sense. And you have a whole LOT crammed into about 120 pages. It's all about philosophy and how we don't know anything truly for sure, and how you've got to do everything based on those assumptions. As in, about how all the stuff in the modern capitalist west is based somewhat on those - like democracy, the jury system, capitalism, all of it. Think of it as being a bit like The Matrix as written by George Orwell, the guy who did 1984 and Animal Farm.