21st century changes at speed of light: How can we thrive?

“The Wealth of Choices”
By Allan Murray
Crown Publishers, 2000



“It’s a great moment to be alive.”

This is second to the last line on page 250 of a book that will enable the reader to catch up with the dizzying changes now happening in the 21st century. This is an unusual beginning for a review of the book “The Wealth of Choices” by Allan Murray.

But this isn’t a work fiction, and we are not depriving the reader the excitement moving toward the denouement of a suspenseful plot. A dramatic statement like that is actually meant to kindle, not dampen, the reader’s interest to read from the beginning to find out if the author’s conclusion is really called for. The spontaneous question shall be: “What is the author talking about?”

Mr. Murray, a literature major who drifted into economics – and who became Washington bureau chief of the Wall Street Journal and columnist of SmartMoney magazine – has come up with a book that is not only reader-friendly; it gives the reader new eyes by which to observe every little detail that’s profoundly altering people’s lives in this incredible century. He even suggests how we can thrive in every area of our life.

The writer in the author is immediately noticeable with the structure he crafted for an otherwise complicated subject. He begins with a comparison between two economies under the heading, “Not My Father’s Economy,” telling readers at once that a revolution has just happened – between two generations!

Going for the sense of the new economy, Murray declares: “The balance of power has shifted away from those who have capital and toward those who have ideas.”
Isn’t this truly liberating, especially for people who only have their brilliant minds to lose or use?

Then Murray brings you along on his “personal journey in the New Economy,” from the world of thought reading John Kenneth Galbraith’s “The New Industrial Estate” who, Murray says, erroneously predicted that large corporations, due to their sheer size and production capacity, would dictate the products to the consumers. “Technology, in Galbraith’s view, didn’t work in favor of a consumer driven-free market; it worked directly against it,” Murray quotes Galbraith. But Murray quickly adds: “How wrong he was.”

Murray takes the reader by the hand to visit or revisit major economic theories – what worked and did not work – and even political developments like the ascendancy of Margaret Thatcher in England and Ronald Reagan in the U.S. whose policies affirmed the truth that indeed “the consumer is sovereign” in this century.

The book is easy and fun to read. Witty repartees and jokes abound in the book -- like this one:

Three men gathered in front of Lucas Cranach’s painting of Adam and Eve, naked in the Garden of Eden. The first who was British, speculated that the two people were British, since in no other society would a man and a woman share an apple in such a civilized way(!). The second, who was French, said the figures in the painting were French, since in no other society would a woman give her body to a man for merely an apple (!!). But the third man, a Russian, said Adam and Eve were obviously Russian: they had no clothes, no shelter, only a single apple to eat between them – and someone had told them they were in paradise (!!!).

Obviously, the author is a believer of Adam Smith, author of Wealth of Nations, written 230 years ago, and therefore a non-believer of Karl Marx, author of Das Kapital.

The new economy is telling us to be familiar with the “new economics.” Just to illustrate how even old theories have to be shed off, he quotes Greg Mankiw, an economist, who defines economics as “the study of how society manages its scarce resources.” Murray debunks this: “But networks often obliterate scarcity. A great novel or a brilliant new piece of software may be costly to create; but once created, it can be reproduced and distributed to millions, even billions, at little or no cost.”

Murray does not load us with theories. He devotes sections to practical questions on how we can be street smart as we shop in the new economy, offering tips on surviving and thriving. For instance, he advises: Don’t be fooled by a product distinction between “silver” or “gold.” (I don’t know about him, but I prefer Vortex Gold to Vortex Silver for my car’s fuel.)

He has really smart advice on health care choices, haggling for lesser tuition fees in Harvard (it doesn’t apply here yet – later, maybe for Ateneo, La Salle or AIM). The sections, “Your Mind Is Your Best Investment” and “You Are Your Own Brand,” is giving one powerful message: Never in the history of humankind has the individual so much power in his/her hands to shape his or her future.
Here’s one book that makes us live with a sense of excitement about the 21st century living. He offers a bunch of lists and guidelines on how to win – and even get rich -- in the 21st century, which is truly upon us. Two types of people view these changes: the realist (who sees both dark and light) and the optimist (who would rather focus on the marvelous light). No wonder, the author’s optimism in the very last line in the book, which can serve as the century’s slogan, is this: “Make the most of it.”