University of Minnesota - UMN Executive Leadership Insights
The Genius of the Beast
Book

The Genius of the Beast

A Radical Re-Vision of Capitalism

Howard Bloom
Prometheus Books, 2009
Buy book or audiobook

Read or listen offline

Amazon Kindle
  • 0.5×
  • 0.75×
  • 1×
  • 1.25×
  • 1.5×
  • 1.75×
1×

Editorial Rating

8

Qualities

  • Analytical
  • Innovative
  • Scientific

Recommendation

Since the 2008 crash, capitalism has received a bad rap. Experts and pundits, some still licking their fiscal or psychic wounds, question its future. Renaissance man Howard Bloom says blame does not lie with the system, but with the way people perceive it and what they bring to it. Bloom, a businessman, scientist and philosopher, lays out, in dizzying, swooping detail, how all life, from the smallest bacteria to human beings, is genetically programmed to flourish under the free market system. He jumps from era to era to illustrate the whys and wherefores of human thinking and progress. He argues that capitalism, as imperfect as it is, enables the best and brightest to emerge. He advocates reviving moribund business by injecting it with emotion, desire and passion. Bloom’s book – at its zenith soaring and fascinating, and at its nadir meandering and infuriating – stalls only when he lingers over his time as an ’80s pop impresario. It leaps back to life when he races from microbes to chimps and from ancient Rome to Marco Polo to make his case for capitalism. While readers may debate some of Bloom’s conclusions – not to mention some of his examples – getAbstract suggests his book as a breath of fresh air amid the usual staid economic texts.

Summary

Feed the Beast

Most people associate capitalism with an unfeeling, automated, numbers-based society. The common phrases “crass materialism,” “commodification” and “consumerism” connote the disdain with which most onlookers, even in capitalist societies, view the Western way of life. The 2008-2009 recession shook the capitalistic ethos to the core, and many question how the West will carry on, given the free markets’ downfall. They do not understand that capitalism is a “human” concept, ingrained in all living beings and intrinsic to their humanity. Capitalism is the “mechanism” or “metabolism,” for Western civilization; it is the “genius of the beast.”

“Industrialism, capitalism, pluralism, free speech” and “democracy” are at the core of what makes human beings tick, what makes them happy and what advances them. Capitalism currently lacks emotion, the very trait that distinguishes humans from other life forms. Capitalism must reapply emotion to help society move ahead and to bring individuals contentment. The desires, feelings and passions that drive people fuel the engine of capitalism.

Capitalism has accomplished more than any other creed in history. Through...

About the Author

Howard Bloom is a businessman, scientist and philosopher. He is also the author of The Lucifer Principle: A Scientific Expedition into the Forces of History and Global Brain: The Evolution of Mass Mind from the Big Bang to the 21st Century.

Comment on this summary