The Raging 2020s

Companies, Countries, People - and the Fight for Our Future

By: Alec Ross

Narrated by: Alec Ross

Length: 9 hrs and 23 mins

Publisher's Summary

This program is read by the author.

In the face of unprecedented global change, New York Times best-selling author Alec Ross proposes a new social contract to restore the balance of power between government, citizens, and business in The Raging 2020s.

For 150 years, there has been a contract. Companies hold the power to shape our daily lives. The state holds the power to make them fall in line. And the people hold the power to choose their leaders. But now, this balance has shaken loose.

As the market consolidates, the lines between Walmart and the Halls of Congress have become razor-thin. Private companies have begun to behave like nations, and with the government bogged down in bureaucratic negotiations and partisan wars, people look to nimble powerful firms to solve societal problems - and to be our moral standard-bearers. As Walter Isaacson said about Ross’ first book: “The future is already hitting us, and Ross shows how it can be exciting rather than frightening." 

Through interviews with the world’s most influential thinkers and stories of corporate activism and malfeasance, government failure and renewal, and innovative economic and political models, Ross proposes a new social contract - one that resets the equilibrium between corporations, the governing, and the governed.

A Macmillan Audio production from Henry Holt and Company

©2021 Alexander John Ross (P)2021 Macmillan Audio

A Broader View of Corporate Success

Excellent book!

I enjoyed how this book pulls together a broader view of what it means for a corporation to succeed, beyond the simplistic "shareholder value" that has governed things for too long. Taking all stakeholders into account - employees, suppliers, government/taxes, local communities - is how we need to view success. As citizens, we need to actually see corporations as another type of governance, parallel to our elected officials. The policies of Amazon or Walmart or Goldman Sachs affect us just as much as the policies of our own government - and those corporations have influence over many countries' citizens, not just one.

I especially like that Alec Ross frames the problem and his ideas in a fairly neutral manner; not trying to point at anyone as the villain or scapegoat. This is especially helpful because we will need everyone's help to make his suggested changes.

Personally, I think that the metric for stakeholder value might turn out to come from the Future-Fit Business Benchmark, which has been created by a cross-functional group of forward thinking people around the world.

I hope this book becomes a clarion call for all citizens and corporations and governments to flip the ground rules (i.e. legislation) to ensure that companies are taking into account their entire shareholder "portfolio."

Mouthpiece for Marxism

Without critical analysis, the author spews his academia-induced rhetoric while mixing in words like “capitalism” and “agricultural revolution” to seem like an economic historian. Not a single punch gets landed. I picked up this book hoping to get a glimpse into the thoughts about the future from a guy whose job is to research, analyze, and report on the present and future with intellectual dignity. What I discovered is hollow and unoriginal theorizing that disrespects logic.

Not buying it

I am not buying this lightweight assemblage of we need more government. C****. Open your eyes.

Excellent Book on Some Much Needed Basics

A lot of this stuff is common sense, but the book serves as a good refresher on some pretty important common sense topics, and the topics he mentions are so wide-ranging and diverse, that at the very least this book will make you a smarter-sounding dinner companion. You won't learn anything new or revelatory, but you'll keep your smart friends.

A valuable high level perspective!

Alex Ross's US State Department experience and global perspective sheds light on situations and actors that are beyond the focus of most of us, yet will ultimately have a huge impact on our lives.
The challenge we all have is to take the insights from this book and relate them to our local communities in a way that our cumulative actions will ultimately have an impact on the global stage.

good book the recording had some issues

the recording had same gaps. The narrator would stop and start from another paragraph apparently a few times. The book was good though

Compelling arguments.

Compelling arguments for levers that can be pulled by capital and governments to improve social contracts around the world.