Stephen S. Roach, Mark Roe, and more for PS Read More

The Age of Surveillance Capitalism, by Shoshana Zuboff; Narrative Economics, by Robert J. Shiller; 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 Stephen S. Roach, a faculty member at Yale University and former chairman of Morgan Stanley Asia. We also highlight a recent work by Harvard Law School's Mark Roe. And don't miss recommendations from Northwestern University's Nancy Qian and Columbia University’s Anya Schiffrin. Stephen S. Roach Recommends... [Narrative Economics: How Stories Go Viral and Drive Major Economic Events]( By [Robert J. Shiller]( With its long-standing penchant for the “mathiness” of modeling, the economics profession often loses sight of the cultural and behavioral aspects of major economic challenges. Shiller, who won the Nobel Prize for his contributions to behavioral economics, stresses the importance of narratives in shaping public debate, catalyzing action, and ultimately deciding outcomes. The book highlights how this phenomenon has affected perceptions of – and responses to – financial crises, housing cycles, automation, and stock-market bubbles. I find the logic to be equally applicable to the US-China rivalry, with the dissemination of false narratives heightening the risk of an accidental conflict. [The Age of Surveillance Capitalism: The Fight for a Human Future at the New Frontier of Power]( By [Shoshana Zuboff]( With all the attention paid to Chinese surveillance – the 2022 book [Surveillance State: Inside China’s Quest to Launch a New Era of Social Control]( by Josh Chin and Liza Lin was a runner up for this list – it is easy to lose sight of a different strain of eavesdropping that pervades open democracies. Zuboff’s tour de force challenges us to face it. The business models of powerful firms like Alphabet (Google), Meta (Facebook), and Amazon extract and monetize enormous troves of data, which are then used to alter the behavior and buying patterns of unsuspecting customers (i.e., consumers). Who are we to criticize the surveillance of autocracies when we enable comparable practices in our own countries? True, there is an important distinction: in countries like China, surveillance is used to strengthen an authoritarian government’s political control. But there can be no denying the far-reaching impact of information distortion by powerful social media platforms in the West – not least on political polarization. Zuboff forces us to ponder whether this is a false equivalency. [Leadership: Six Studies in World Strategy]( By Henry Kissinger We live in a troubled world that is facing a major leadership deficit. We lack leaders who bring to bear clarity, instinct, and often courage in assessing tough circumstances. In Kissinger’s nineteenth book, the 99-year-old statesman views the leadership challenge through the lens of six heads of state he knew best: Konrad Adenauer, Charles de Gaulle, Richard Nixon, Anwar Sadat, Lee Kuan Yew, and Margaret Thatcher. While they were all very different, Kissinger emphasizes that they shared a few key features: directness, vision, the ability to act boldly, understanding the importance of solitude, and, surprisingly, divisiveness. The shift from aristocracy to meritocracy in governance allowed these six leaders, with their considerable skills, to help shape post-World War II history. Kissinger concludes his book with provocative questions about a “faltering meritocracy,” which is being eroded by new technologies such as social networks and artificial intelligence. This trend makes it particularly difficult to find candidates to fill the worrisome leadership void at a time when this troubled world made it most. Don't miss Roach's discussion of his new book, [Accidental Conflict: America, China, and the Clash of False Narratives]( in his recent Say More interview. [Read now](. By a PS Contributor [Missing the Target: Why Stock-Market Short-Termism Is Not the Problem]( By [Mark J. Roe]( Roe says: “The popular view is that stock-market short-termism is pervasive and pernicious, that is fuels climate change, causes environmental degradation, starves firms of cash, and kills corporate investment and R&D. But, I show in Missing the Target, the truth that emerges from examining academic work on the subject is that the problem of stock-market short-termism is minor, if it matters at all. Yet for an idea that has only mixed and limited academic support, solutions abound. I show how several of the solutions comport with the goals of corporate interest groups, and largely would not help to address even the small amount of short-termism that there is. In other words, they miss the target. I also look at the political value of attacking stock-market short-termism. It gives Wall Street's critics a useful cudgel. It provides public cover to politicians and pundits who are leery of criticizing American capitalism in general, but dislike financial power and want to reflect and sympathize with citizens’ anxieties about the economic system and its outcomes." In a recent Say More interview, Roe argues that stock-market short-termism is not killing R&D, describes a corporate-tax reform that would provide a real boost to the US economy, explains why pressure on corporations to advance the public good is misguided, and more. [Read now](. More Contributor Recommendations Nancy Qian Recommends... [Stalin: Paradoxes of Power, 1878-1928]( By Stephen Kotkin For rich narratives of the early Soviet era, look no further than Kotkin’s biographies of Stalin – which also include Stalin: Waiting for Hitler, 1929-1941 – and Victor Sebestyen’s Lenin: The Man, the Dictator, and the Master of Terror. These works give readers a visceral understanding of how extreme personalities with exceptional ability created a sprawling state by implementing brutal methods in a terrible environment. I found the human experiences described in these books disturbing. But I also came away feeling optimistic, because they make clear how much economic, political, and moral progress the last century has brought. (From 2021) [Read more](. --------------------------------------------------------------- Anya Schiffrin Recommends... [The Warmth of Other Suns: The Epic Story of America’s Great Migration]( By Isabel Wilkerson This book – which describes the migration throughout the twentieth century of black people from the American South to northern and western cities in search of jobs – had been on my “to-read” pile for a few months. Now I cannot put it down. A Pulitzer Prize-winning author, Wilkerson shows how the South was essentially an open-air prison for black people, and those who fled were fighting for their lives. Sharecroppers, fruit-pickers, even educated people were in danger of being lynched at any moment. The cruelty and exploitation Wilkerson portrays are truly horrifying. (From 2020) [Read more](. [Register now for our upcoming virtual event, The Energy Revolution.]( [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. 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