Min mest intressanta läsning av bok/artikel/paper under oktober 2010 – my most interesting reading of books/articles/papers in October 2010 (5):
29 november, 2010
Naisbitt, John / Naisbitt, Doris. 2010. China’s Megatrends. The 8 Pillars of a New Society. HarperCollins
John Naisbitt, the author of the bestseller “Megatrends Asia” some ten years ago, has recently written a new megatrend book with his wife Doris, this time exclusively about eight important Chinese trends. These eight megatrends are, according to the Naisbitts (without further comments on these trends):
# Emancipation of the mind
# Balancing Top-Down and Bottom-Up
# Framing the Forest and Letting the Trees Grow
# Crossing the River by Feeling the Stones
# Artistic and Intellectual Ferment
# Joining the World
# Freedom and Fairness
# From Olympic Medals to Nobel Prizes.
The trend research of the Naisbitts is exciting to read and certainly my favorite reading in October. I appreciated particularly the chapter “Joining the World”. The book contributes well to the improved historical and social, and psychological understanding of China. It has, consequently, a modern interdisciplinary approach, clearly telling us that we should not compare Chinese achievements with Western standards.
An interesting conclusion for the future is particularly “that the West is a teaching society and China a learning society”. Learning societies are – as we all know – ambitious and working continuously for new objectives. This may be – according to my own conclusions – China’s most important comparative advantage in the longer run.
However, I find the economic part of the book too uncritical and not profound enough. It should not be forgotten that the Naisbitts are both professors in economics. Probably the Naisbitts wanted to concentrate on trend analysis only. But does this objective rule out more critical analysis of income disparities, regional imbalances, insufficient financial markets, institutional shortcomings, the environment, lagging social security, etc?
Anyway, I liked to read the new book of the Naisbitts because of important observations and sometimes unexpected conclusions.
Read on! Enjoy!