Customer Reviews:
 A breath of fresh air January 12, 2006
Mr. Huw Edwards
23 out of 38 found this review helpful
Capitalism: As if the world matters is a very topical and thought provoking read. Jonathan Porritt addresses many key environmental issues for our plant and also opens up a discussion concerning why it is important to attempt to work with the capitalist social structure in which our society operates within if we are serious about actually addressing and solving serious long term environmental problems rather than instead trying to work against the capitalist social structure. It felt like I was reading a book that I had been waiting for somebody to write. A very enjoyable book.
The Definitive Message for the Future August 24, 2006
W. Stephens (Westonbirt, UK)
12 out of 21 found this review helpful
Porritt is THE leading environmental crusader in the UK and now vitally close to both governments and large corporations. Here is a man who has been working every minute god gives him for the last 40 years to promote social and environmental change. His knowledge of this subject is unequalled, all the major environmental analyses over the past 20 years are distilled within this elegant summary. His message is clear; -- Sure we could do with total social change but this isn't going to happen in the next 10 years and watching climate change in action we don't have longer - so we have to adapt our current system (capitalism) and use it to deliver the better world that we all long for. If you buy one book this year make sure this is it!
Important and Impressive February 23, 2007
carcassone
5 out of 14 found this review helpful
A hugely important and passionate book written by someone who has real gravitas in this field. The messages are profound and they are pragmatic.The weight of Porritts intellect, based on 40 years of engagement in the environmental cause, is staggering and stretches into economics, business, psychology and ecology.
Read it. Then read it again. And then get engaged in the debates that it raises. It matters.
A revelation June 3, 2007
Mr. A. K. Beck (London, UK)
2 out of 11 found this review helpful
A revelation. Really an excellent book. It should be read by all political and business leaders. It really should be read by everyone who is literate. Whether you think he's soft on capitalism or not, he recognises that the only solution is to work with it. And how.
 A bold new vision for capitalism April 4, 2007
Rolf Dobelli (Luzern Switzerland)
18 out of 23 found this review helpful
Activist Jonathon Porritt offers the startling proposal that capitalism may provide the best solution to poverty and global environmental degradation, though his solution requires reshaping capitalism. Porritt is aware that conventional environmental activists, greens and political academics favor socialism more than capitalism. However, he takes them to task for ignoring the power and potential of such capitalist mechanisms as markets and property rights and for their naivete in expecting voters or political leaders to embrace their dismal vision of environmental responsibility as asceticism. We find his book more suggestive than programmatic. It meanders like a river and is sometimes directionless. The author makes his passions apparent, including anti-Americanism and scathing criticism of certain forms of Christianity. Though Porritt does not offer a detailed description of his vision or the practical steps needed to realize it, he does suggest a path toward a utopian ideal; for that hope, he deserves appropriate attention.
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