‘GOVERNMENT FOR A NEW TOMORROW’ by Anthony Horn begins with a
thought provoking remark, 'that political parties always represent the extremes
of opinion, always is the view, of only a negligible few'. The book tries
to identify the problems of tomorrow, and examines sustainability, complexity,
shortage of resources, and a few others. Author notes, as estimated by scientists, while the world is busy adapting
to Western levels of consumption (as they are rapidly doing), the resources of 'four planet Earths' will be required to support the population. At the same
time, people can and want to throw off oppressive regimes. The present balance
of international trade also is under threat, even though China is the largest
lender of USA, it continues to get foreign aid from US. In search of a root
cause, the book identifies that the various symptoms that we presently mistake
as the cause for world problems, like overpopulation, needs to be examined
further.
While examining human history from the very beginning, author
finds that humans, abandoning their groups and communities, joined in favor of
subservience and bondage to a larger body (powerful rulers, government). That
was by believing a lie, that all our questions will be taken care of, and we will
have nothing to worry about. We have been living in an artificial existence
since then, and time is coming now to group ourselves according to our natural
propensity. The author proposes concrete steps for achieving this, both for the
United States and for rest of the world.
A set of questions and answers is provided in the book to
further elaborate the proposal clearly, while answering many of the questions
of its implementation.
I find, as the author has pointed out at many places in this book, the most
significant problem facing modern communities, whether in governance, distribution
of resources, meeting the needs of people, or of survival, is the alarming rise
of world population. The author attributes this to our ‘unsuccessful’ living.
He has a point I think. The increase in population is giving us a false sense
of success, effectively barring us from realizing our failures. While reading
the book, mainly owing to the nonconformist ideas encountered at each flip, I
could find myself saddled with a lot of questions. The author foresaw this I think;
an extensive set of questions and answers found at the end of the book was
greatly helpful in clearing many of those. This book left me with a lot to
think, especially after I closed the back cover.
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