The Price of Civilization: Economics and Ethics After the Fall

One of the world’s most brilliant economists and the bestselling author of The End of Poverty, Jeffrey Sachs has written a book that is essential reading for everyone – politicians, people in business and industry, and you. Setting out a bold and provocative, yet responsible and achievable, plan, THE PRICE OF CIVILIZATION reveals why we must – and how we can – change our entire economic culture in this time of crisis.

The world economy remains in a precarious state after the recent global recession – where quick fixes were implemented instead of sustainable solutions to systemic problems. Jeffrey Sachs argues powerfully for a new co-operative, common-sense political economy, one that stresses practical partnership between government and the private sector, demands competence in both arenas and occasionally insists on carefully chosen public and private sacrifices. In this new era of global capitalism, Sachs believes that we have to forget partisanship and solve these enormous problems together, clinically and holistically, just as one would approach the eradication of a disease.

THE PRICE OF CIVILIZATION explains how government can be made to reform corporate culture by fairly policing compensation but not stifling competition and forced to improve our energy infrastructure by both taxing emissions and providing market incentives for innovation. Sachs shows how government, business and citizens can find common ground – on bank accountability, the decentralising of social services and taxing the super-rich – as a way to achieve our shared goals of efficiency, equity and sustainability.

Sparing no-one but potentially benefiting us all, THE PRICE OF CIVILIZATION is a masterful roadmap, a programme designed to bridge seemingly impossible divides in our society and a way forward that we – and our leaders – ignore at our peril.