If the arc of history turns towards justice, then this book is a real mind bender. While driving one night a few years back, I heard David Korten talking on the radio. It was the night George Bush was giving his first 'State of the Union' address. Such optimism, such vision, such confidence, Mr Korten. Yes, Greed can fade. Green can grow. Our children may yet have an inhabitable planet were there more David Korten minded folks calling the shots.

I share Korten's concern with out-of-control corporations and inequitable societies. I really like his When Corporations Rule the World, and recommended it as an antidote to Thomas Friedman's fantasies. (I'm glad that I read that before I read this.) This book is very disappointing. Korten uses as a metaphor a Star Trek episode; an elite class lives in a city, Stratos, in orbit around the planet, exploiting the majority who live in horrific conditions on the surface of the planer.

Korten is fairly specific on what Empire is, but the not-Empire is rather a hash. There is no particular path to the post-Empire world, Korten is convinced that enough people are disgusted with it and are self-organizing alternatives. I'll accept that possibility, but I have problems with the way that Korten lumps so many things together in the happy assumption that they will all become a harmonious system, and his rosy view of nature.

Korten argues that the natural world is inherently cooperative. For example, there is a tree and a fungus that have a symbiotic relationship: among other things, the fungus kills insects that attach the tree. Korten manages to ignore the fact that the relationship between the tree & fungus on one hand, and the insect, on the other, is competitive. In the book Meerkat Manor, the author tells us that meerkats are an extremely cooperative species. And so they are, when the females aren't engaged in violent struggles for dominance with the group, or carrying out sometimes murderous attacks on other groups.

He also on one hand, admires the cosmopolitan life of his children, who jet around the world and grew up with little contact with blood relatives other than their parents. But he wants us to move to a society where we live and work locally, and among the same people, in order to have tight communities. He holds up traditional lifestyles as an alternative to the Empire, ignoring the fact that many traditional people live within empires. Are they nonmaterialistic, or too exploited and poor to own much? He also doesn't deal with unpleasant realities such as intertribal warfare and traditional customs like genital mutilation.

If you read science fiction, you have probably come across mention of a society like Korten wants. It is something like Marie Antoinette's Petit Trianon, except that there are robots, computers, and other pieces of extremely high-technology hidden behind the rose arbors, in lieu of a lower class. The inhabitants lead a simple, fulfilling life freed from such inconveniences as famine and disease which stalk low-tech societies. I like the idea, but its simplicity is all on the surface. Maybe it can self-organize, like the Internet, but there is a long journey through unknown circumstances from here to there. Can we in fact maintain, let alone expand, technology while living a simpler lifestyle?

In the beginning, it appears that everything that is not part of the Empire is anti-Empire and good. But as he gets further into the book, he becomes considerably more specific. I am certainly not one of the dreaded Cloud-Dwellers, but Korten kicks me out of company of the virtuous with his attitudes regarding science (he supports Intelligent Design) and his spiritual requirements. He is by no means so narrow as most religions, but many people consider freedom of religion to include freedom from religion.

I hope that we are in fact turning away from Empire and toward a more sustainable, egalitarian lifestyle. This is more of a cheering section and wishlist than a plan or a trenchant observation. ( )

too much political correctness and a shallow, naive way of thinking. Utopia's are great for dreaming and I can imagine this book sometimes stimulates thinking how life on earth should be. However, only a small percentage of the people have to be after their narrow self interest and you create a prisoners dilemma. This book seriously lacks in solutions how we should deal with serious problems we are facing, taking our history as people into mind. Also the book is very selective in quoting history, namely only the facts that suit him and omits many others. ( )

This book begins as a critical commentary on corporations, in a way that is mostly just a compilation of factoids that have been thrown about over the course of the last couple decades. Korten's "environmentalist" stance reads like an absurd fantasy, like a child fleshing out a future utopia without any regard for reality and practical constraints. Maybe the popularity of this book is in its fantastical, absurd optimism, and its unstated idea that dreaming alone can create positive change. This approach frankly does more harm than good. ( )

A wonderful, thought provoking book about how to Save the World. Raises a lot of interesting questions and possible solutions to Corporate Greed, Golbal Warming and other ills of today. You have to be able though to overlook some mindless blather about feminism and a thorough trashing of religion as another attempt at male domination ... if you get past those flaws it will open your mind. ( )