Books: Deep Economy

Standard

The main thesis of this book is that never ending economic growth turns out not to be such a wonderful idea. There’s lots of discussion about how local economies are good and far flung supply lines are liable to get disrupted, especially with cheap liquid transportation fuels getting expensive.

Deep Economy

Most of the examples used to illustrate this are from agriculture, and so the book covers a lot of the same ground as The Omnivore’s Dilemma which I read a little while ago.

It’s probably a good book for someone who hasn’t already read a lot of books about sustainability, but I got bored, and felt like the author was preaching to the converted.

Nonetheless, I did learn a few interesting things, like how Bhutan stopped caring about Gross National Product, and replaced it with Gross National Happiness, and how non-mechanized farming actually produces more food per acre (but less per dollar) than industrial agriculture.

Knowing this kind of trivia makes me very popular at cocktail parties.

I give Deep Economy 4 Jihadis out of 5.

4 jihadis out of 5

2 thoughts on “Books: Deep Economy

  1. “and how non-mechanized farming actually produces more food per acre (but less per dollar) than industrial agriculture.”
    More and more you appear fixated on the Amish. Sooner or later, you’re going to have to take the plunge.

  2. I have thought about joining them. The Amish hit every trendy buzzword nowadays, they’re carbon-neutral, organic, off-the-grid, local-food, anti war, etc.

    It’s all that fundamentalist Christianity stuff that I have a problem with.

    That, and I imagine there’s an awful lot of hard labor involved…

Leave a Reply to Bone Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *