Book: The Misfit Economy By Alexa Clay and Kyra Maya Phillips
Krishna
Nice and interesting idea on how people who do not conform to society create business empires. But I am afraid that it is a one idea book that keeps repeating itself from different angles. The author praises the ‘hustle’ of the people, who do anything it takes to get the job done and do not take no for an answer. She says that these people not only exist in legitimate economy but also among pirates and drug dealers (the owners of the business not the poor guys who distribute it and take all the risk).
She also points out that what China did by making fake products is also done by others – for instance US stole all the designs of spinning machines etc in the cotton gin industry after the industrial revolution.
Other vignettes impress – for instance how food was in the US in late eighteen hundreds: ‘Candy was laced with (little) arsenic to improve taste, milk enhanced with both chalk and sheep brains, candy was dyed with copper chloride to improve the colour, beer was added with an extract of a tree (in fact the poison strychnine) in order ‘to improve taste’; what was sold as ‘Fine Old Java’ contained only one fifth coffee – the rest were powdered dried peas and chicory.
Also very interesting examples of how Watt’s engine, patented and unavailable, was killed with knowledge sharing for free (kind of ‘open source movement’ of the earlier era) of Woolf and Trevithick in 1811. While his argument that all patents are evil may seem strange in today’s intellectual property era, there are some examples that make you pause and think.
He also makes powerful arguments about how the lack of patent system is the one that has aided technological progress in most cases. And how patent has actually obstructed progress and in the past how the patent system itself was too highly priced and protected only the wealthy in any case.
The author talks about the hacker movement. How fixing things and thinking out of the box are good. But some of the ‘hacking’ is small scale and fringe movement but I guess that is the point. The educational reforms, the camel milk forming… yeah, they are novel but are they really proving a point? I do not see it.
The book also talks about disruptive prankish demonstrations for a good cause that got the press noticed and got attention to ‘good causes’. (As defined by those organizations.) Some ‘members inside the organizations’ wrote to these groups saying they silently support them. Huh? Provocative and disruptive behaviour is hacking? Are we going a bit way off here?
When he talks about the “poor little drug dealers” who were motivated by “prejudice against them” and wanted to “show the world how they can make a difference” you get a little disgusted as it seems to be a defense of their choice of the profession.
The argument for Dr John Mack who goes from a Harvard Medical College alumni and a Harvard professor with tremendous reputation to an alien abduction believer using scientific methodology is interesting, and he is certainly a misfit but the support he gets for all his wacky ideas from the author is a bit frustrating. So is the ‘non success’ of a guy who tries to sell a plant in Amazon forest that has coffee like properties and make it into a worldwide phenomenon. He has so far ‘not gained much success’ the author ruefully admits. Yes, success in business or public opinion is not the gauge by which these people should be judged but what is the point the author is trying to make? That such people exist? That they believe in an offbeat idea to the exclusion of everything else? I fail to see the point.
Then there is the plugging of her dad’s life and how he rose from simple origins and rose to important position with his misfit attitude shoehorned into the narrative. Hm. Not enough to make you wonder if this is at least partially about the author and her father, in disguise as a management book? She has a plug for her own company in conclusion! Hm again.
Also I have a big beef with her definition of misfits. She seems to define it so loosely that it covers every situation where a person overcame odds for success, and in many cases, where they did not. This means the whole humanity is a sea of misfits, except those who passively accept their plight without trying to do something about it. Come on: Piccasso? Hemingway? Joyce? Then why not Steve Jobs, Sergey Brin and Mark Zuckerberg? Why not my colleague who by determination changed his career into something more passionate? At the same time, she seems to admire anarchy and rebellion with no specific alternates provided : just anger. And seems to think that ‘extreme democracy’ is the way to go. It has been shown to be an unworkable failure in many instances. There is no strong argument to convince anyone except those who are already convinced.
All in all, I say meh.
3/ 10
– – Krishna