Bests & Worsts Reviews from Amazon

This is one of the most important current affairs books I've read in the last few years. The author, a demographer and geographer, writes from an old-school liberal perspective rather than from the conservative or libertarian viewpoints that one might expect from a publication at Encounter. He foresees a small transnational tech/platform creator caste running our lives, supported by a clerisy of journalists, academics, and "helping professions" (besides the engineers that make it happen). The middle class will be hollowed out further and further, with a few joining the ranks of the lower clerisy and many more becoming gig-economy "precariat". At the bottom, the ranks of those living off public assistance will continue to grow. The ubiquitous control that tech platforms allow (cf. what is happening in China now) is admittedly counteracted to some degree by the relative ease with which alternative news and opinion can be spread on the 'net. Dr. Kotkin recognizes that, like the nobility and clergy of old, the interests of oligarchy and clerisy today may not be identical --- and that in some instances, at least, the oligarchy pays mere lip service (or indulgences) to clerisy interests while continuing to pursue other policies out of individual or collective self-interest. The Davoisie is not going to give up private jet travel for the sake of the environment... He recognizes that at least some parts of the oligarchy (not all) regard "Brave New World" (if not quite "1984") as a howto-manual rather than a cautionary tale, and notes the thinly veiled (or overt) admiration of many parts of the oligarchy and clerisy alike for the dystopian Chinese regime. But the book's message is not "we are doomed" but "wake up, we can still stop this".