Howard Davies, Mariana Mazzucato, and more for PS Read More

The Price of Time, by Edward Chancellor; Vladimir, by Julia May Jonas; and more The PS Say More Newsletter | [View this message in a web browser]( [PS Read More]( In this week's edition of PS Read More, we share recommendations from Howard Davies, Chairman of NatWest Group and former Deputy Governor of the Bank of England. We also highlight a recent work by Mariana Mazzucato, Professor in the Economics of Innovation and Public Value at University College London. And don't miss recommendations from Brahma Chellaney, Professor of Strategic Studies at the Center for Policy Research, and Shlomo Ben-Ami, a former Israeli foreign minister and the vice president of the Toledo International Center for Peace. Howard Davies Recommends... [Anéantir (Annihilate)]( By Michel Houellebecq Unusually, this is a novel about a Treasury official: its protagonist, Paul Raison, is an adviser to a future French finance minister, a very thinly disguised representation of Bruno Le Maire. Anéantir is filled with Houellebecq’s characteristic misanthropy and gloom, but also has a (faintly) upbeat ending. No other novelist I know feels the pulse of our confused and confusing politics as sensitively. [Vladimir]( By Julia May Jonas This American campus novel explores wokeness and the #MeToo movement in a subtle yet provocative way. The story is told from the perspective of a middle-aged woman whose husband is accused of interfering with students. She sticks with him, and explores sexual fantasies of her own. Vladimir is brilliantly written, though it does have a melodramatic conclusion, which could have been omitted. [The Price of Time:]( [The Real Story of Interest]( By Edward Chancellor Chancellor advances a provocative attack on recent central-bank orthodoxy, arguing that zero or negative interest rates have caused more economic problems than they have solved. He takes a long view of the issue, beginning in Mesopotamia, moving through religious debates about usury, and examining John Law’s ill-fated scheme to revolutionize the finances of the French state. His current diagnosis is that ultra-low rates are responsible for low growth, high debt, and a slowdown in productivity gains. I cannot follow him on his whole intellectual journey, but the changes he proposes are never less than thought-provoking. Don't miss Davies' recent [Say More interview]( in which he fears that bringing the current bout of inflation under control will carry high costs, suggests ways monetary policymakers can protect their reputations, defends the UK Treasury from accusations that it is too powerful, and more. [Click here to read](. By a PS Contributor [Mission Economy: A Moonshot Guide to Changing Capitalism]( By [Mariana Mazzucato]( Mazzucato says: “Capitalism is stuck. It has no answers to the global challenges we now face, from climate change to rising inequality to the COVID-19 crisis and the urgent need for health for all. We can begin to find answers only if we fundamentally restructure capitalism to make it inclusive, sustainable, and innovative in tackling concrete problems. In Mission Economy, I take inspiration from ‘moonshot’ programs that have successfully coordinated the public and private sectors to produce positive impact on a massive scale, and propose a radical new way for achieving the UN Sustainable Development Goals. The key is to rethink the capacities and role of government within the economy and society, and structure its relationship with other actors in a more symbiotic and ‘mission-oriented way.’ We simply cannot afford not to!” In "Build Back the State," Mazzucato makes the case for a return to mission-oriented public-sector procurement and leadership in the common interest. [Click here to read](. More Contributor Recommendations Brahma Chellaney Recommends... [Midnight in Chernobyl: The Untold Story of the World’s Greatest Nuclear Disaster]( By Adam Higginbotham This well-researched book describes the 1986 meltdown of a reactor at the Chernobyl nuclear power complex in Ukraine, then part of the Soviet Union. The damage this wrought – from a human and environmental perspective – dwarfed that caused by the accident at Japan’s Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant 25 years later, even though the latter incident included three separate meltdowns. (From 2020) [Read more](. --------------------------------------------------------------- Shlomo Ben-Ami Recommends... [The Road to Unfreedom: Russia, Europe, America]( By Timothy Snyder This is a history of the present with a keen eye on its origins in the past, a tour d’horizon of the politics of authoritarianism from Vladimir Putin’s Russia to Donald Trump’s US. Beyond offering enlightening insights, particularly regarding Putin’s neo-imperial policies, it confirms that trust and truth are the building blocks of a democratic order. (From 2019) [Read more](. [Subscribe now to PS Digital]( [Facebook]( [Twitter]( [LinkedIn]( Project Syndicate publishes and provides, on a not-for-profit basis, original commentary by the world's leading thinkers to more than 500 media outlets in over 150 countries. This newsletter does not entitle the recipient to re-publish any of the content it contains. This newsletter is a service of [Project Syndicate](. [Change your newsletter preferences](. Follow us on [Facebook]( [Twitter]( and [YouTube](. © Project Syndicate, all rights reserved. [Unsubscribe from all newsletters](.