What do you think?
Rate this book
The Genius of the Beast: A Radical Re-Vision of Capitalism
Is global capitalism on its last legs? Is the era of American leadership over? Has the West begun a decline into a new Dark Age? Does American civilization deserve to survive? These are the unnerving questions raised by the Great Crash of 2009. This book presents a radically new answer, insisting that global society has only begun to realize its full potential. Author HowardBloom argues that there's a hidden mandate beneath the surface of "It's struggling to whisper and rumble its message to you and me. That hidden imperative can lift us from economic crisis, can make us a leader in the next-generation economy, and can dramatically upgrade our ability to empower our fellow human beings." Bloom sees crisis as opportunity, opportunity for the whole human race.In more than eighty short, fast chapters, insights appear suddenly, like the quick bursts of flashbulbs, taking the reader on a sweeping tour of human history, from the Stone Age to the present. Every chapter conveys a radically new way to see the astonishing mechanism we call "Western Civilization." Bloom marvels at how humans have turned toxic waste into food and fuel, trash into treasure, and garbage into gold. He shows how we've produced material miracles based on immaterial things-passion, persistence, and fantasy. He shows that what many regard as the end is just the beginning. The beginning of something you've never before imagined. The author explains why the secret to capitalism's next great leap does not lie in new financial tricks, but in tapping things right under our noses in radically new ways-that is, tapping our imagination, our desire to feel useful, our desire to help others, and our desire to be recognized for contributing to the welfare of humanity. The key to next-generation capitalism lies in a big-picture view that's utterly unlike anything you've previously perceived. A big-picture view that will startle you. A big-picture view with which you can ignite the world, get a new handle on your life, and help transform society. This brilliant, inspirational work of daring ideas and breathtaking research offers more than hope. It offers unseen levels of understanding. Understanding that can literally redefine what it means to be a human being.
612 pages, Hardcover
First published November 1, 2009
39 people are currently reading
514 people want to read
About the author
Howard Bloom
26 books306 followers"I know a lot of people. A lot. And I ask a lot of prying questions. But I've never run into a more intriguing biography than Howard Bloom's in all my born days. " Paul Solman, Business and Economics Correspondent, PBS NewsHour
Howard Bloom has been called “next in a lineage of seminal thinkers that includes Newton, Darwin, Einstein,[and] Freud,” by Britain's Channel4 TV, "the next Stephen Hawking" by Gear Magazine, and "The Buckminster Fuller and Arthur C. Clarke of the new millennium" by Buckminster Fuller's archivist. Bloom is the author of The Lucifer Principle: A Scientific Expedition Into the Forces of History ("mesmerizing"—The Washington Post), Global Brain: The Evolution of Mass Mind from the Big Bang to the 21st Century ("reassuring and sobering"—The New Yorker), The Genius of the Beast: A Radical Re-Vision of Capitalism ("Impressive, stimulating, and tremendously enjoyable." James Fallows, National Correspondent, The Atlantic), and The God Problem: How A Godless Cosmos Creates ("Bloom's argument will rock your world." Barbara Ehrenreich). Bloom has been published in arxiv.org, the leading pre-print site in advanced theoretical physics and math. He was invited to tell an international conference of quantum physicists in Moscow in 2005 why everything they know about quantum physics is wrong. And his book Global Brain was the subject of an Office of the Secretary of Defense symposium in 2010, with participants from the State Department, the Energy Department, DARPA, IBM, and MIT. Bloom has founded three international scientific groups: the Group Selection Squad (1995), which fought to gain acceptance for the concept of group selection in evolutionary biology; The International Paleopsychology Project (1997), which worked to create a new multi-disciplinary synthesis between cosmology, paleontology, evolutionary biology, and history; and The Space Development Steering Committee (2007), an organization that includes astronauts Buzz Aldrin, Edgar Mitchell and members from NASA, the National Science Foundation, and the Department of Defense.
Bloom explains that his focus is “mass behavior, from the mass behavior of quarks to the mass behavior of human beings.” In 1968 Bloom turned down four fellowships in psychology and neurobiology and set off on a science project in a field he knew nothing about: popular culture. He was determined to tunnel into the forces of history by entering “the belly of the beast where new myths, new mass passions, and new mass movements are made.” Bloom used simple correlational techniques plus what he calls “tuned empathy” and “saturated intuition” to help build or sustain the careers of figures like Prince, Michael Jackson, Bob Marley, Bette Midler, Billy Joel, Paul Simon, Billy Idol, Peter Gabriel, David Byrne, John Mellencamp, Queen, Kiss, Aerosmith, AC/DC, Grandmaster Flash and The Furious Five, Run DMC, and roughly 100 others. In the process, he generated $28 billion in revenues (more than the gross domestic product of Oman or Luxembourg) for companies like Sony, Disney, Pepsi Cola, Coca Cola, and Warner Brothers. Bloom also helped launch Farm Aid and Amnesty International’s American presence. He worked with the United Negro College Fund,the National Black United Fund, and the NAACP, and he put together the first public service radio campaign for solar power (1981). Today, his focus on group behavior extends to geopolitics. He has debated one-one-one with senior officials from Egypt’s Moslem Brotherhood and Gaza’s Hamas on Iran’s Arab-language international Alalam TV News Network. He has dissected headline issues on Saudi Arabia’s KSA1-TV and on Iran’s global English language Press-TV. And he has appeared fifty two times for up to five hours on 500 radio stations in North America.
Bloom is a former visiting scholar in the Graduate School of Psychology at NYU and a former core faculty member at the Graduate Institute in Meriden, Connecticut. He has written for Th
Howard Bloom has been called “next in a lineage of seminal thinkers that includes Newton, Darwin, Einstein,[and] Freud,” by Britain's Channel4 TV, "the next Stephen Hawking" by Gear Magazine, and "The Buckminster Fuller and Arthur C. Clarke of the new millennium" by Buckminster Fuller's archivist. Bloom is the author of The Lucifer Principle: A Scientific Expedition Into the Forces of History ("mesmerizing"—The Washington Post), Global Brain: The Evolution of Mass Mind from the Big Bang to the 21st Century ("reassuring and sobering"—The New Yorker), The Genius of the Beast: A Radical Re-Vision of Capitalism ("Impressive, stimulating, and tremendously enjoyable." James Fallows, National Correspondent, The Atlantic), and The God Problem: How A Godless Cosmos Creates ("Bloom's argument will rock your world." Barbara Ehrenreich). Bloom has been published in arxiv.org, the leading pre-print site in advanced theoretical physics and math. He was invited to tell an international conference of quantum physicists in Moscow in 2005 why everything they know about quantum physics is wrong. And his book Global Brain was the subject of an Office of the Secretary of Defense symposium in 2010, with participants from the State Department, the Energy Department, DARPA, IBM, and MIT. Bloom has founded three international scientific groups: the Group Selection Squad (1995), which fought to gain acceptance for the concept of group selection in evolutionary biology; The International Paleopsychology Project (1997), which worked to create a new multi-disciplinary synthesis between cosmology, paleontology, evolutionary biology, and history; and The Space Development Steering Committee (2007), an organization that includes astronauts Buzz Aldrin, Edgar Mitchell and members from NASA, the National Science Foundation, and the Department of Defense.
Bloom explains that his focus is “mass behavior, from the mass behavior of quarks to the mass behavior of human beings.” In 1968 Bloom turned down four fellowships in psychology and neurobiology and set off on a science project in a field he knew nothing about: popular culture. He was determined to tunnel into the forces of history by entering “the belly of the beast where new myths, new mass passions, and new mass movements are made.” Bloom used simple correlational techniques plus what he calls “tuned empathy” and “saturated intuition” to help build or sustain the careers of figures like Prince, Michael Jackson, Bob Marley, Bette Midler, Billy Joel, Paul Simon, Billy Idol, Peter Gabriel, David Byrne, John Mellencamp, Queen, Kiss, Aerosmith, AC/DC, Grandmaster Flash and The Furious Five, Run DMC, and roughly 100 others. In the process, he generated $28 billion in revenues (more than the gross domestic product of Oman or Luxembourg) for companies like Sony, Disney, Pepsi Cola, Coca Cola, and Warner Brothers. Bloom also helped launch Farm Aid and Amnesty International’s American presence. He worked with the United Negro College Fund,the National Black United Fund, and the NAACP, and he put together the first public service radio campaign for solar power (1981). Today, his focus on group behavior extends to geopolitics. He has debated one-one-one with senior officials from Egypt’s Moslem Brotherhood and Gaza’s Hamas on Iran’s Arab-language international Alalam TV News Network. He has dissected headline issues on Saudi Arabia’s KSA1-TV and on Iran’s global English language Press-TV. And he has appeared fifty two times for up to five hours on 500 radio stations in North America.
Bloom is a former visiting scholar in the Graduate School of Psychology at NYU and a former core faculty member at the Graduate Institute in Meriden, Connecticut. He has written for Th
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 30 of 38 reviews
February 4, 2010
I'm biased. I wrote it.
May 12, 2010
At first blush, this book looks quite interesting. The author, drawing from research in physics, biology, economics, history, and even religion, sketches a new vision of what capitalism can be in the 21st century. However, careful readers will quickly be struck by substantial liberties in details. One might forgive this in an essay or informal, philosophical work, but not in a work dressed as a serious work of scholarship, complete with 80 pages of endnotes.
As a single example, on pg. 65 the author states that bacteria are "astonishingly social" (has that remarkable claim been established by serious peer-reviewed research?). He then claims that if there is enough food, a bacterium will divide "seventy-two times a day" -- "it will multiply, surrounding itself with 144 daughters every twenty-four hours" (absurdly miscalculating an exponential rate of growth). More importantly, the whole point of this section is that the boom-and-bust nature of the business cycle "is in your DNA." Has this extraordinary claim been verified in quantitative, peer-reviewed scientific research studies?
The book's level of scholarship does not improve as the author ventures into other fields. On pg. 288-290, in a section about medieval religion, the author states that the Dark Age version of Christianity "feared knowledge" (has someone asked Augustine and Thomas Aquinas about this?), that it made gluttony a sin greater than murder (really?), and that "the most important gift of the cultural rebirth of the 1100s may well have been frivolity" (not art, literature or science?).
A reality check is needed here: The author is not a physicist; he is not a biologist; he is not an economist; he is not a historian; and most assuredly he is not "the next Stephen Hawking," as someone claimed on the jacket! Sadly, however, for every reader who smiles at the author's entertaining excursions but takes them with a grain of salt, ten others will think that they really are reading solid scientific, scholarly material. But they are not.
Real science, and real scholarship in general, is not just techno-talk. Real science is a growing body of crisp, quantitative, carefully worded, testable hypotheses that have survived withering scrutiny in peer-reviewed literature. And in an age where 45% of the U.S. public believe that the earth was created in the past 10,000 years, where similar fractions deny that any global warming is occurring, and where students in first-world nations (especially the U.S.) are falling behind students elsewhere, we can ill afford another work of pseudo-scholarship masquerading as science.
As a single example, on pg. 65 the author states that bacteria are "astonishingly social" (has that remarkable claim been established by serious peer-reviewed research?). He then claims that if there is enough food, a bacterium will divide "seventy-two times a day" -- "it will multiply, surrounding itself with 144 daughters every twenty-four hours" (absurdly miscalculating an exponential rate of growth). More importantly, the whole point of this section is that the boom-and-bust nature of the business cycle "is in your DNA." Has this extraordinary claim been verified in quantitative, peer-reviewed scientific research studies?
The book's level of scholarship does not improve as the author ventures into other fields. On pg. 288-290, in a section about medieval religion, the author states that the Dark Age version of Christianity "feared knowledge" (has someone asked Augustine and Thomas Aquinas about this?), that it made gluttony a sin greater than murder (really?), and that "the most important gift of the cultural rebirth of the 1100s may well have been frivolity" (not art, literature or science?).
A reality check is needed here: The author is not a physicist; he is not a biologist; he is not an economist; he is not a historian; and most assuredly he is not "the next Stephen Hawking," as someone claimed on the jacket! Sadly, however, for every reader who smiles at the author's entertaining excursions but takes them with a grain of salt, ten others will think that they really are reading solid scientific, scholarly material. But they are not.
Real science, and real scholarship in general, is not just techno-talk. Real science is a growing body of crisp, quantitative, carefully worded, testable hypotheses that have survived withering scrutiny in peer-reviewed literature. And in an age where 45% of the U.S. public believe that the earth was created in the past 10,000 years, where similar fractions deny that any global warming is occurring, and where students in first-world nations (especially the U.S.) are falling behind students elsewhere, we can ill afford another work of pseudo-scholarship masquerading as science.
January 11, 2022
Mr. Bloom does something that seemed to be popular in the earlier 2000s; This take on comparing things that you would not expect to compare ("what a suma wrestler can tell us about capitalism"). This annoying shit was made popular by the book "FREAKONOMICS" and everyone was trying to make a clever connection between things to be viewed as "intellectual" (why peanuts and the pythagorean theorem leads to buying fancy cars). I just made up those two shitty examples, but you get the idea of how annoying this shit is "look I am comparing these two unrelated things, aren't I clever"? No your a moron, shut up, and sit down until you have something enlightening to say. Any who...
A bit of sloppy writing, a bit redundant (how many times can you say "fission-fusion strategy"? We get it!), a bit patched together (all over the place) .The writing wears very thin (just like my hair line) in parts to the point of terrible (somewhere in the middle the book gets very bad). He's trying to turn a 20 page pamphlet into a 500 page book (even including navel gazing about how he is a genius; which is annoying). This is a common theme for people with some good ideas, but have no idea how to write a book or know what being a writer is (just a patched together journal entry). The beginning is great, the middle sucks, and now it is getting better again towards the end.
With that said, I am still reading it. The chapters are super short, which I love. It does present some interesting nuggets and perspectives on capitalism (Boom and Busts) being imparted in nature (everything from bees to galaxies go thru a boom and bust; to evolve to survive). Very Ying and Yangy/ Taoism sort of stuff. For this, he gets some points for at least being original in some sort of thought (something nearly impossible to find today). Essentially he treats capitalism as a religion (Capitalism has done more to uplift human kind than any political system or religion). The innovation and advancements from Capitalism has lead many to be uplifted from poverty. I guess this argument could be further fine tuned as the writing isn't the best (Ayn Rand is a better writer on this subject). And yes, Capitalism rocks, you commie scum; get off my lawn!!!
Anyways, if he would stop rehashing some points and move on to other insights rather than saying the same thing over and over (much like this review), it could be better (much like this review is not). Also, I think the title is a bit lofty "A Radical Re-vision of Capitalism". It's should be "A observation and capitalism". I get it, he's a bamboozler, so he had to come up with a crazy over the top title like "The Genius of the Beast". Get off your high horse, Bloom.
A bit of sloppy writing, a bit redundant (how many times can you say "fission-fusion strategy"? We get it!), a bit patched together (all over the place) .The writing wears very thin (just like my hair line) in parts to the point of terrible (somewhere in the middle the book gets very bad). He's trying to turn a 20 page pamphlet into a 500 page book (even including navel gazing about how he is a genius; which is annoying). This is a common theme for people with some good ideas, but have no idea how to write a book or know what being a writer is (just a patched together journal entry). The beginning is great, the middle sucks, and now it is getting better again towards the end.
With that said, I am still reading it. The chapters are super short, which I love. It does present some interesting nuggets and perspectives on capitalism (Boom and Busts) being imparted in nature (everything from bees to galaxies go thru a boom and bust; to evolve to survive). Very Ying and Yangy/ Taoism sort of stuff. For this, he gets some points for at least being original in some sort of thought (something nearly impossible to find today). Essentially he treats capitalism as a religion (Capitalism has done more to uplift human kind than any political system or religion). The innovation and advancements from Capitalism has lead many to be uplifted from poverty. I guess this argument could be further fine tuned as the writing isn't the best (Ayn Rand is a better writer on this subject). And yes, Capitalism rocks, you commie scum; get off my lawn!!!
Anyways, if he would stop rehashing some points and move on to other insights rather than saying the same thing over and over (much like this review), it could be better (much like this review is not). Also, I think the title is a bit lofty "A Radical Re-vision of Capitalism". It's should be "A observation and capitalism". I get it, he's a bamboozler, so he had to come up with a crazy over the top title like "The Genius of the Beast". Get off your high horse, Bloom.
January 1, 2020
The subtitle of this book, A Radical Re-vision of Capitalism, is spot on. Howard Bloom is not "revising" capitalism in the sense of altering it, he's "re-vising" by looking at this hugely influential, oft-maligned aspect of human culture in a different way. He puts well-known facts (and lesser-known facts) together to show that a reflexive dismissal of capitalism as the cause of most human ills misses its true purpose and virtue: capitalism works not because of acquisitive power brokers hiding in the shadows, manipulating the masses, but because it has tapped into deeply rooted human needs since before written history. Bloom proves his point with historical anecdote; tales of scientific research that relate, for example, the behavior of ants to human behavior; and personal stories from the various industries he's worked in.
Bloom's theories are compelling, his stories are excellent and (mostly) apropos, and he makes connections that made me think twice about what I thought I knew. I admire him for his even-handed treatment of religion and religious belief, even though he has been a self-proclaimed atheist since he was 13. It's possible that his retellings of the stories of such religious heavyweights as Noah and Isaiah, casting them as salesmen of the greatest stories ever, might offend some believers, but to me they were clever and insightful. (Isaiah as a champion protester? King David of Judah as a pioneer in the field of mood shifting? Gotta love it.)
So why only two stars? In a word, organization.
Bloom is clearly going for a structure like that of the TV show Connections (this is reinforced by James Burke's laudatory cover blurb). In that show, Burke took two seemingly unrelated things or events or concepts and traced out a path between them. Sometimes he'd go off on a tangent, but would always explicitly remind viewers later of how and where it connected to the main story. Bloom tries to do this, and in my opinion fails. The chapters are all short enough that an idea is barely developed before a new chapter brings in a completely new idea to dance around for a few pages, and so on. Bloom refers back to concepts often enough, but without a solid structure, it's hard to link new explanations to earlier ones. (The inside cover blurb says, "In more than seventy short, fast chapters, insights appear suddenly, like the quick bursts of flashbulbs." This is true and accurate. It's also not a great endorsement; flashbulbs burst and are gone, leaving behind no lasting mark.)
I charted out the chapters by basic themes, and there are coherent threads. One is the biological development of human physiology and nature. Another traces animal and insect behaviors and relates them to humans. A third tells historical stories, chronologically, from before written history to the present. A smaller thread includes Bloom's experiences in the music industry and the lessons he learned that apply to capitalism in any industry. A nested thread takes historical stories and examines them from an economic standpoint. Could reading the book by thread rather than sequentially make a difference? Possibly.
And then there's the stylistic...quirks. I'll make a brief note of Bloom's airy and informal style, which didn't work for me; he dumbs down his scientific examples way more than I like, and his manner of addressing the reader...well, I didn't care for it, but I don't think it's actually a flaw, and for all I know it works to make the book very broadly accessible. I also got tired of his coy concealing of a famous person's identity so he could have the Big Reveal at the end of an anecdote.
But there was one thing that seriously got on my nerves, that I do think is a flaw. A big, annoying flaw. The literary term anaphora means repeating the first few words of a sentence or clause in the following sentences or clauses. Dickens' famous phrase "It was the best of times, it was the worst of times" is an example. It's a powerful device that heightens meaning and emotion in literature. And Howard Bloom overuses it until the points he wants to emphasize just fall flat. He probably doesn't do it in every chapter, which is how it felt to me, but it happened frequently enough that I started getting frustrated every time I got to the next one.
Bloom's ideas are good, but in the end it wasn't worth it to me to finish the book, and I'm genuinely sorry about that. I plan to read at least one more of his books, The God Problem: How A Godless Cosmos Creates, and I hope I like it better.
Bloom's theories are compelling, his stories are excellent and (mostly) apropos, and he makes connections that made me think twice about what I thought I knew. I admire him for his even-handed treatment of religion and religious belief, even though he has been a self-proclaimed atheist since he was 13. It's possible that his retellings of the stories of such religious heavyweights as Noah and Isaiah, casting them as salesmen of the greatest stories ever, might offend some believers, but to me they were clever and insightful. (Isaiah as a champion protester? King David of Judah as a pioneer in the field of mood shifting? Gotta love it.)
So why only two stars? In a word, organization.
Bloom is clearly going for a structure like that of the TV show Connections (this is reinforced by James Burke's laudatory cover blurb). In that show, Burke took two seemingly unrelated things or events or concepts and traced out a path between them. Sometimes he'd go off on a tangent, but would always explicitly remind viewers later of how and where it connected to the main story. Bloom tries to do this, and in my opinion fails. The chapters are all short enough that an idea is barely developed before a new chapter brings in a completely new idea to dance around for a few pages, and so on. Bloom refers back to concepts often enough, but without a solid structure, it's hard to link new explanations to earlier ones. (The inside cover blurb says, "In more than seventy short, fast chapters, insights appear suddenly, like the quick bursts of flashbulbs." This is true and accurate. It's also not a great endorsement; flashbulbs burst and are gone, leaving behind no lasting mark.)
I charted out the chapters by basic themes, and there are coherent threads. One is the biological development of human physiology and nature. Another traces animal and insect behaviors and relates them to humans. A third tells historical stories, chronologically, from before written history to the present. A smaller thread includes Bloom's experiences in the music industry and the lessons he learned that apply to capitalism in any industry. A nested thread takes historical stories and examines them from an economic standpoint. Could reading the book by thread rather than sequentially make a difference? Possibly.
And then there's the stylistic...quirks. I'll make a brief note of Bloom's airy and informal style, which didn't work for me; he dumbs down his scientific examples way more than I like, and his manner of addressing the reader...well, I didn't care for it, but I don't think it's actually a flaw, and for all I know it works to make the book very broadly accessible. I also got tired of his coy concealing of a famous person's identity so he could have the Big Reveal at the end of an anecdote.
But there was one thing that seriously got on my nerves, that I do think is a flaw. A big, annoying flaw. The literary term anaphora means repeating the first few words of a sentence or clause in the following sentences or clauses. Dickens' famous phrase "It was the best of times, it was the worst of times" is an example. It's a powerful device that heightens meaning and emotion in literature. And Howard Bloom overuses it until the points he wants to emphasize just fall flat. He probably doesn't do it in every chapter, which is how it felt to me, but it happened frequently enough that I started getting frustrated every time I got to the next one.
Bloom's ideas are good, but in the end it wasn't worth it to me to finish the book, and I'm genuinely sorry about that. I plan to read at least one more of his books, The God Problem: How A Godless Cosmos Creates, and I hope I like it better.
April 11, 2013
Not his best.
Read global brain.....much better.
J. Gza
Read global brain.....much better.
J. Gza
February 13, 2020
Bloom lays out, what I would say is, his FAVORITE pattern. He shows how this pattern maps out human behavior. As well as multiple complex systems that no one understands. Good read!
July 14, 2019
A passionate celebration of human nature and capitalism
The real beast here needing a revision is not capitalism. The real beast (and the genius of that beast) is human nature. And what it needs is a rediscovery.
And the real hero of this book is the hero of every successful book: the reader (in the person of the author). Howard Bloom himself plays that role with zest and feeling as he repeats again and again "you and me." You and me against the elites of the media who look down on the masses; you and me against the stupid hypocrites who rail against the capitalist system even while they benefit from its largesse; you and me against the lies and exploitation of false capitalists who fail to serve the needs of those who would make them rich; you and me against the world of cliché mongers and top-down managers who never walk outside and never talk to their employees or the people who would buy their products.
In other words, the genius of the beast is empathy and truth, or as Bloom phrases it, "tuned empathy" and "the truth at any price including the price of your life." And, by the way, take a look right under your nose and see what's there in a new way, in a way that penetrates the very essence of what it is that you care about. If you do you might just set the world aflame with the power of your vision and understanding (and make a few bucks to boot).
In other words, this is at its heart a passionate book about Howard Bloom and his success, about the socially inept, science nerd Howard Bloom who learned how to make various businesses and people successful in spite of themselves, who turned failing enterprises around, who saw the talent and enchantment where others did not, who found the magic in various enterprises by caring more than anyone else and by working harder to identify with and deeply understand the dreams and fantasies of those he would serve. And then to fulfill those dreams and fantasies.
Along the way Bloom champions robber barons and P. T. Barnum, frivolous desire and cosmetic cravings, jewelry and status symbols, naked self-promotion, Martin Luther and Christopher Columbus and a myriad of other likely or unlikely superstars. He sees the creativity in a market crash, the bottom line potential in jealousy and vanity, riches in toxic waste and power in the lust for novelty. In other words, Bloom is here to tell us as he did some years ago in his fascinating opus "The Lucifer Principle" that a lot of what we think is right and true ain't necessarily so.
His style is rhetorical and repetitive, succinct and long-winded by turns, eloquent and folksy, and filled with the kind of passion and energy most of us can only admire. Is six hundred pages too long? Couldn't he have achieved the same effect with half as many words? I'm pretty sure somebody told him that and I'm equally certain that he ignored them. I read every word, impatiently at times, wondering at times how far he might stretch the relevance, but at other times pleased to learn something I didn't know about the lives and eccentricities of famous men, about the secret lives of bees and bacteria and how their lives relate to ours, about why Marx got it wrong and how Kublai Khan got it right by turning a young Marco Polo into a tax collector and settler of disputes. (Yes.)
Here's really the essence of what Bloom has to say about capitalism:
"Capital is stored fantasy, stored daring, stored promotion, stored advertising, and stored social organization. Capital is stored ego. (Keep the ego hidden, but don't be ashamed of the fact that it's there.)
"Be true to yourself and you'll serve others. Be true to yourself but keep the people you want to reach deep in your heart." (p. 476)
Bloom shows how CBS, General Motors and other successful corporations began to implode when they lost sight of where their capital really was and what it really was. It was people and their knowledge, energy and passion. Too much of a top down management style that fails to understand the needs and desires of its customers and the creativity of its workers and staff can turn even the mighty into failures. He also shows how he performed various miracles with the music fan magazine "Circus," with pop stars like Stephanie Mills, REO Speedwagon, and Prince--see especially the "tale of the speech that saved Prince's Purple Rain," beginning on p. 163.
Here are a few of Bloom ideas and what I might call "Bloomisms":
Reason without emotion and passion is insane.
"Any good thing in excess is poisonous."
"…Capitalism of the soul…"
"…the evolutionary search engine" and "…the secular genesis machine…"
"Capitalism isn't about making yourself look good to the folks with offices on your floor and on the floors above you…. It's about the people you never see. It's about the people you serve. It's about the people who will save you if there's catastrophe." (p. 451)
By the way, the book is splendidly edited and proofed.
--Dennis Littrell, author of “The World Is Not as We Think It Is”
The real beast here needing a revision is not capitalism. The real beast (and the genius of that beast) is human nature. And what it needs is a rediscovery.
And the real hero of this book is the hero of every successful book: the reader (in the person of the author). Howard Bloom himself plays that role with zest and feeling as he repeats again and again "you and me." You and me against the elites of the media who look down on the masses; you and me against the stupid hypocrites who rail against the capitalist system even while they benefit from its largesse; you and me against the lies and exploitation of false capitalists who fail to serve the needs of those who would make them rich; you and me against the world of cliché mongers and top-down managers who never walk outside and never talk to their employees or the people who would buy their products.
In other words, the genius of the beast is empathy and truth, or as Bloom phrases it, "tuned empathy" and "the truth at any price including the price of your life." And, by the way, take a look right under your nose and see what's there in a new way, in a way that penetrates the very essence of what it is that you care about. If you do you might just set the world aflame with the power of your vision and understanding (and make a few bucks to boot).
In other words, this is at its heart a passionate book about Howard Bloom and his success, about the socially inept, science nerd Howard Bloom who learned how to make various businesses and people successful in spite of themselves, who turned failing enterprises around, who saw the talent and enchantment where others did not, who found the magic in various enterprises by caring more than anyone else and by working harder to identify with and deeply understand the dreams and fantasies of those he would serve. And then to fulfill those dreams and fantasies.
Along the way Bloom champions robber barons and P. T. Barnum, frivolous desire and cosmetic cravings, jewelry and status symbols, naked self-promotion, Martin Luther and Christopher Columbus and a myriad of other likely or unlikely superstars. He sees the creativity in a market crash, the bottom line potential in jealousy and vanity, riches in toxic waste and power in the lust for novelty. In other words, Bloom is here to tell us as he did some years ago in his fascinating opus "The Lucifer Principle" that a lot of what we think is right and true ain't necessarily so.
His style is rhetorical and repetitive, succinct and long-winded by turns, eloquent and folksy, and filled with the kind of passion and energy most of us can only admire. Is six hundred pages too long? Couldn't he have achieved the same effect with half as many words? I'm pretty sure somebody told him that and I'm equally certain that he ignored them. I read every word, impatiently at times, wondering at times how far he might stretch the relevance, but at other times pleased to learn something I didn't know about the lives and eccentricities of famous men, about the secret lives of bees and bacteria and how their lives relate to ours, about why Marx got it wrong and how Kublai Khan got it right by turning a young Marco Polo into a tax collector and settler of disputes. (Yes.)
Here's really the essence of what Bloom has to say about capitalism:
"Capital is stored fantasy, stored daring, stored promotion, stored advertising, and stored social organization. Capital is stored ego. (Keep the ego hidden, but don't be ashamed of the fact that it's there.)
"Be true to yourself and you'll serve others. Be true to yourself but keep the people you want to reach deep in your heart." (p. 476)
Bloom shows how CBS, General Motors and other successful corporations began to implode when they lost sight of where their capital really was and what it really was. It was people and their knowledge, energy and passion. Too much of a top down management style that fails to understand the needs and desires of its customers and the creativity of its workers and staff can turn even the mighty into failures. He also shows how he performed various miracles with the music fan magazine "Circus," with pop stars like Stephanie Mills, REO Speedwagon, and Prince--see especially the "tale of the speech that saved Prince's Purple Rain," beginning on p. 163.
Here are a few of Bloom ideas and what I might call "Bloomisms":
Reason without emotion and passion is insane.
"Any good thing in excess is poisonous."
"…Capitalism of the soul…"
"…the evolutionary search engine" and "…the secular genesis machine…"
"Capitalism isn't about making yourself look good to the folks with offices on your floor and on the floors above you…. It's about the people you never see. It's about the people you serve. It's about the people who will save you if there's catastrophe." (p. 451)
By the way, the book is splendidly edited and proofed.
--Dennis Littrell, author of “The World Is Not as We Think It Is”
May 13, 2023
A paean to capitalism from one of the successful happy pigs sitting smugly on a huge pile of gold and devoting his days to enlightening the rest of us with his ‘wisdom’. You are probably familiar with the type.
Supposedly it’s all righteous and just. All of its critics are self-serving whiners who just don’t get it. It’s not crassly exploitative or deeply rigged. Or insanely obsessed with short term greed above all else. Rabidly consumeristic and trivializing. Environmentally self destructive to a soon to be catastrophic extant if not already.
It is more than just righteous and just it’s part of the deep patterns of nature which the author seems to think he is so expert in discerning. The evolutionary search engine! (A strangely mixed metaphor.) Survival of the fittest. The excitingly inevitable sequences of boom and bust, where the strong grow richer and the weak are ‘re-purposed’ or just die off as nature intended. Too bad. So sad. All as preordained by these ferocious but richly effective processes.
As is often the case in books like this one the author never actually defines ‘capitalism’. And the term is used so broadly that it could mean almost anything. But we get the gist. It’s all about the gold dude. And should be. Combined with a heady dose of ‘evolution in action’. Justifying the wealth and privileges of the ‘successful’ few. They are not just cut throat liars and thieves. (Like in some other countries … ) Or smugly contented inheritors. They earned it. It’s all for the best, for ‘all’ in the long run. Etc etc. ‘Nothing personal, just business.’ ... ‘Greed is good’. It’s all been said before. Milo Minderbinder from Catch 22 comes to mind. Spencer’s social darwinism. Even Pangloss from Candide. But Blooms gushing self asserting self aggrandizing exuberance exceeds them all. On the cover supposedly the Newton, Einstein, Darwin and Freud Of the 21st century. Really !!
A former publicist. The author is so full of himself its amusing. But nevertheless the book still gets four stars because he writes well and he is always interesting. Though in this case deeply mistaken. But to explain why would take more than just another book.
Supposedly it’s all righteous and just. All of its critics are self-serving whiners who just don’t get it. It’s not crassly exploitative or deeply rigged. Or insanely obsessed with short term greed above all else. Rabidly consumeristic and trivializing. Environmentally self destructive to a soon to be catastrophic extant if not already.
It is more than just righteous and just it’s part of the deep patterns of nature which the author seems to think he is so expert in discerning. The evolutionary search engine! (A strangely mixed metaphor.) Survival of the fittest. The excitingly inevitable sequences of boom and bust, where the strong grow richer and the weak are ‘re-purposed’ or just die off as nature intended. Too bad. So sad. All as preordained by these ferocious but richly effective processes.
As is often the case in books like this one the author never actually defines ‘capitalism’. And the term is used so broadly that it could mean almost anything. But we get the gist. It’s all about the gold dude. And should be. Combined with a heady dose of ‘evolution in action’. Justifying the wealth and privileges of the ‘successful’ few. They are not just cut throat liars and thieves. (Like in some other countries … ) Or smugly contented inheritors. They earned it. It’s all for the best, for ‘all’ in the long run. Etc etc. ‘Nothing personal, just business.’ ... ‘Greed is good’. It’s all been said before. Milo Minderbinder from Catch 22 comes to mind. Spencer’s social darwinism. Even Pangloss from Candide. But Blooms gushing self asserting self aggrandizing exuberance exceeds them all. On the cover supposedly the Newton, Einstein, Darwin and Freud Of the 21st century. Really !!
A former publicist. The author is so full of himself its amusing. But nevertheless the book still gets four stars because he writes well and he is always interesting. Though in this case deeply mistaken. But to explain why would take more than just another book.
June 8, 2018
First the cons: Bloom likes to make grand, sweeping statements on history but he does so in brief (2-5) chapters with very few sources. Some... but few. Given the grandiosity of many of his claims I’d like him to dive more and leave no doubt about his interpretations. But then the book would be 5,000 pages instead of 500.
Ok, now the pros: Bloom’s view of capitalism is that it should be uplifting to humanity. I liked his (oh my god overused) phrase of us as part of a secular genesis machine - a search engine for what works. He advocates compassion and empathy to all walks of life and all (? Maybe most) impulses as it is our evolution in progress.
I do feel that he discounts how difficult this kind of “search engine” is ecologically - he doesn’t bring it up. But if he were to write an updated version it would probably fit in - that if we look to the future generations compassionately we’ll hit upon an untapped market (although starting to be tapped now, exciting!). And that would fit in his secular genesis machine.
Ok, now the pros: Bloom’s view of capitalism is that it should be uplifting to humanity. I liked his (oh my god overused) phrase of us as part of a secular genesis machine - a search engine for what works. He advocates compassion and empathy to all walks of life and all (? Maybe most) impulses as it is our evolution in progress.
I do feel that he discounts how difficult this kind of “search engine” is ecologically - he doesn’t bring it up. But if he were to write an updated version it would probably fit in - that if we look to the future generations compassionately we’ll hit upon an untapped market (although starting to be tapped now, exciting!). And that would fit in his secular genesis machine.
January 4, 2025
howard always finds a way to tell you related stories in a way to sum of a narrative.
while less convincing than the Lucifer Principle, he takes on a novel view of capitalism as a natural extension of all life forms (expand and condense). this book seems to rest more on his personal/professional life experiences to structure the argument unfortunately.
while less convincing than the Lucifer Principle, he takes on a novel view of capitalism as a natural extension of all life forms (expand and condense). this book seems to rest more on his personal/professional life experiences to structure the argument unfortunately.
April 26, 2025
An incredible book for anyone who wants to understand capitalism at its core, its place in the grand story of humanity's rise on the planet, its problems, cycles, our place in it, but most importantly, its future. Highly recommended... this book will surely inspire and ignite your creativity, sense of understanding and hunger to make an impact.
March 3, 2018
I read this when I have know knowledge to economic or politics.
An interesting starter book to read.
An interesting starter book to read.
July 18, 2019
Wow! Howard Bloom is an original thinker with an original perspective. Respect! Read Now.
September 25, 2023
Really interesting perspective on capitalism.
Not sure how the stories about the author's life were relevant.
Not sure how the stories about the author's life were relevant.
November 22, 2023
Another fun and chock full of ideas book in his unfinished Magnum Opus which I hope he Finishes :)
February 29, 2024
Stopped at about 50% of it. Smooth read. Some interesting points and good storytelling. I’m not sure I’d agree with all inferences made. Sources are cited, how they are interpreted however feels a bit stretch at times. Book also gets into so many details across a variety of topics that I got lost on the larger thesis being made and having trouble summarizing what I read/learned. In light of the latter chose to put this book down.
March 12, 2017
Absolute rubbish. I don't like the authors style, which seems to be to dumb it down, overuse metaphor and anthropomorphise everything. I'm not sure what point he was trying to make: it was lost in the repetition. Get to the point!
April 11, 2012
In the style of James Burke’s BBC television show “Connections”, Howard Bloom’s “The Genius of the Beast a Radical Re-vision of Capitalism” is not all that radical of a perspective on our beloved western system of commerce(well not for Bloom). Perhaps the most radical parts of this work is the dismissal of the Kondratiev’s wave and Adam Smith’s invisible hand, but that has been done before. The true insight in this book comes from Bloom’s understand of the human condition and the way he puts all the pieces together providing a fresh and very interesting perspective on the roll of capitalism. I love Bloom’s work including the Lucifer Principle, and The Global Brain, and this is a great extension on previous work with fresh wonderful ideas. However if you’ve read his other work you will not be at all surprised by his thesis.
Bloom’s overall thesis is quite compelling, littered with personal anecdotes to illustrate his points keeping it light and captivating so you won’t feel the weight of 483 pages of this economic theory. However because of the style of the book, and the brevity on subjects like Marxism, and the ideas of Adam Smith, I feel there is not enough meat to expand his thought process. That said if you’ve read his other works and know his references it will make all the more sense where his is going and why he is calling it radical. To me it almost reads as a love story of capitalism equal to that of Ann Rand’s Atlas Shrugged. Ignoring or explaining away the horrible offenses of men like Rockefeller, J.P. Morgan, and others pointing out the greater good that has come from the “evolutionary search engine” that is the (you guessed it) The Genius of the Beast.
The book is full of deserts, a feel good about our system peep rally lacking the robust meat and potatoes meal needed for a truly “radical revision” of the banquet we call western capitalism. Nevertheless life is short, Bloom is a genius and I love deserts. Bloom makes wonderful points about the value of capitalists in our society and is totally worth the read.
Bloom’s overall thesis is quite compelling, littered with personal anecdotes to illustrate his points keeping it light and captivating so you won’t feel the weight of 483 pages of this economic theory. However because of the style of the book, and the brevity on subjects like Marxism, and the ideas of Adam Smith, I feel there is not enough meat to expand his thought process. That said if you’ve read his other works and know his references it will make all the more sense where his is going and why he is calling it radical. To me it almost reads as a love story of capitalism equal to that of Ann Rand’s Atlas Shrugged. Ignoring or explaining away the horrible offenses of men like Rockefeller, J.P. Morgan, and others pointing out the greater good that has come from the “evolutionary search engine” that is the (you guessed it) The Genius of the Beast.
The book is full of deserts, a feel good about our system peep rally lacking the robust meat and potatoes meal needed for a truly “radical revision” of the banquet we call western capitalism. Nevertheless life is short, Bloom is a genius and I love deserts. Bloom makes wonderful points about the value of capitalists in our society and is totally worth the read.
September 10, 2010
getAbstract Book Review: The Genius of the Beast
Since the 2008 crash, capitalism has received a bad rap. Experts and pundits, some still licking their fiscal or psychic wounds, question its future. Renaissance man Howard Bloom says blame does not lie with the system, but with the way people perceive it and what they bring to it. Bloom, a businessman, scientist and philosopher, lays out, in dizzying, swooping detail, how all life, from the smallest bacteria to human beings, is genetically programmed to flourish under the free market system. He jumps from era to era to illustrate the whys and wherefores of human thinking and progress. He argues that capitalism, as imperfect as it is, enables the best and brightest to emerge. He advocates reviving moribund business by injecting it with emotion, desire and passion. Bloom’s book – at its zenith soaring and fascinating, and at its nadir meandering and infuriating – stalls only when he lingers over his time as an ’80s pop impresario. It leaps back to life when he races from microbes to chimps and from ancient Rome to Marco Polo to make his case for capitalism. While readers may debate some of Bloom’s conclusions – not to mention some of his examples – getAbstract suggests his book as a breath of fresh air amid the usual staid economic texts.
Read more about this book in the online summary:
https://www.getabstract.com/summary/1...
Since the 2008 crash, capitalism has received a bad rap. Experts and pundits, some still licking their fiscal or psychic wounds, question its future. Renaissance man Howard Bloom says blame does not lie with the system, but with the way people perceive it and what they bring to it. Bloom, a businessman, scientist and philosopher, lays out, in dizzying, swooping detail, how all life, from the smallest bacteria to human beings, is genetically programmed to flourish under the free market system. He jumps from era to era to illustrate the whys and wherefores of human thinking and progress. He argues that capitalism, as imperfect as it is, enables the best and brightest to emerge. He advocates reviving moribund business by injecting it with emotion, desire and passion. Bloom’s book – at its zenith soaring and fascinating, and at its nadir meandering and infuriating – stalls only when he lingers over his time as an ’80s pop impresario. It leaps back to life when he races from microbes to chimps and from ancient Rome to Marco Polo to make his case for capitalism. While readers may debate some of Bloom’s conclusions – not to mention some of his examples – getAbstract suggests his book as a breath of fresh air amid the usual staid economic texts.
Read more about this book in the online summary:
https://www.getabstract.com/summary/1...
April 21, 2012
Definitely a very interesting take on the idea of capitalism actually is. Instead of looking at dollar figures, economic theories, or number crunching, Bloom looks at the premise of what drives human beings. He sets out to define our experiences and desires and how that leads to our decisions. He defines capitalism more in terms of our inner workings.
Bloom spans across human history, from Jericho to Prince, from the 2008 economic crash to not just 1929, but to 1852 and even back to the 16th century. He brings up stories, analogies, and experiences that vary from business to biology to myth and more.
If you are looking for a unique take on what drives humans to make decisions, our history, and how it connects, influences, and drives us and the economy, look no further. However, if you want a book that gets more to the point of capitalism and how it best works, I would recommend "Economics on One Lesson" by Henry Hazlit.
Bloom spans across human history, from Jericho to Prince, from the 2008 economic crash to not just 1929, but to 1852 and even back to the 16th century. He brings up stories, analogies, and experiences that vary from business to biology to myth and more.
If you are looking for a unique take on what drives humans to make decisions, our history, and how it connects, influences, and drives us and the economy, look no further. However, if you want a book that gets more to the point of capitalism and how it best works, I would recommend "Economics on One Lesson" by Henry Hazlit.
January 10, 2011
I really like Howard Bloom. Global Brain was brilliant, as was The Lucifer Principle. But "The Genius of the Beast"? Not so much. It read rather like a first draft that really needed someone to edit it. It felt aimless, disorganized, with teeny chapters that hopped from subject to subject with not much more to connect them beyond his repeating various phrases ad nauseum. Mind you, there was still some good content in there - there's some really interesting stuff in there about his dealings in the record industry, along with some interesting historical stuff that meshed well, and I'm still glad I read it for those sections. Too much slogging through the other areas, though, and too much repetition. It also felt a bit dumbed down compared to his previous books, for that matter. No good at all!
May 29, 2013
Howard Bloom's best book IMO, explaining floridly how capitalism is a cycle of nature similar to other forms of life, consisting of tremendous swings of booms & busts. These cycles benefit us as a species, despite the pitfalls and 'busts' that appear to be self-destructive. Our hope, he explains, is in our unnatural awareness of these cycles and potentiality to BE aware of them and take action to harness them. The book has you thinking about the nature of our very existence and the economic cycles we conceive as 'man-made', and just how much is in our control, and how much COULD be in our control if we 're-vision' capitalism as a symptom of our natural tendencies rather than a disease.
Highly recommended for a more global view of Capitalism and the nature of Entrepreneurship, Business-Ownership, Government, and Protesters.
Highly recommended for a more global view of Capitalism and the nature of Entrepreneurship, Business-Ownership, Government, and Protesters.
February 8, 2012
I've tried and tried to finish this book but parts of it just rub me the wrong way.
I don't have a problem with the main thesis. I'm a capitalist deep down to the bone, and the invisible hand can do a better job than any human administrator.
The book presents too many silly anthropomorphisms, and I don't like many of the anthropomorphic metaphors used.
I think the book overemphasizes the importance of salesmanship and marketing. For that matter, too much of the book is about Bloom glorifying himself, talking about his past career as a supposedly ground-breaking entertainment marketing consultant. At times the book itself reads like it's trying to sell you something or be a Tony Robbins style pro-capitalist motivational paean.
I don't have a problem with the main thesis. I'm a capitalist deep down to the bone, and the invisible hand can do a better job than any human administrator.
The book presents too many silly anthropomorphisms, and I don't like many of the anthropomorphic metaphors used.
I think the book overemphasizes the importance of salesmanship and marketing. For that matter, too much of the book is about Bloom glorifying himself, talking about his past career as a supposedly ground-breaking entertainment marketing consultant. At times the book itself reads like it's trying to sell you something or be a Tony Robbins style pro-capitalist motivational paean.
April 28, 2012
Very interesting read by Howard Bloom, gives you a whole new look on capitalism and the way it lifted the human condition, advocating reviving moribund business by injecting it with emotion, desire and passion. Bloom explains in this book the power of what he labels the secular genesis machine, the evolutionary search engine, and the two rules of science: the truth at any cost, including the cost of your life, and to look at what is right under your nose as if it is the first time you have seen it, then proceed from there.
September 12, 2016
This is one (astonishingly experienced and inquisitive) man's interpretation of material he has accumulated through lengthy research and a long road to wisdom.
It's not science - science doesn't have pictures on the front - but Howard makes his points with such ferocious support from case studies in comparable systems that your intellect is satisfied economics is yet another system that follows simple behavioural patterns.
I don't see any governments directly employing these insights onto their economic strategy, though, its informal and enjoyable tone makes for subversive reading!
It's not science - science doesn't have pictures on the front - but Howard makes his points with such ferocious support from case studies in comparable systems that your intellect is satisfied economics is yet another system that follows simple behavioural patterns.
I don't see any governments directly employing these insights onto their economic strategy, though, its informal and enjoyable tone makes for subversive reading!
Read
April 22, 2010After hearing this author speak on a recent NPR interview, I was very excited to read this book. However, I soon found out that I don't like this particular style of writing. Within the first 16 pages of writing, the author asks 33 questions. I felt like all I was doing was reading questions, often with vague and unsatisfying answers. I put the book down and 2 weeks later, I'm still not inspired to continue reading it. Oh well.....maybe another time.
September 3, 2014
A fast-paced and passionate exploration of the Messianic-aspect of capitalism. I believe there's truths in this book that many people choose to ignore or deny. This perhaps enables an interesting debate in favor of capitalism, even during these unsteady times. I particularly enjoyed the infectious descriptions of capitalism's key mechanisms: the transcendence engine, the secular genesis machine and the fission-fusion, expand and contract maneuvers of a biology 'Googling' its potential.
December 28, 2014
A somewhat unorthodox writing style makes this book slightly ADD in it's change in topics, but the underlying theme of capitalism stemming from natural evolutionary cycles is an interesting premise. I would ignore the two star reviews here and read this one with an open mind. Some of the history that Bloom writes about is fascinating, especially the insight into the music industry. I would still recommend this book for any fan of nonfiction writings.
August 15, 2010
I loved The Lucifer Principal and really liked the Global Brain. This one is not quite as good. Not sure why - I really enjoyed the memoir portion. I liked hearing his biology and history and how it relates to capitalism. And what is needed to make capitalism great - basically checks and balances. A fun read - but at times a bit repetative.
February 11, 2012
So this book defends capitalism as being a natural progression of our biological impulses and its not...total...bullshit? His other work, The Lucifer Principle, is one of my favorites and although he seems a little full of himself, this is worth reading even if you don't completely agree with the premise.
Displaying 1 - 30 of 38 reviews