Living on Thin Air: The New Economy

Living on Thin Air attempts to understand and come to terms with the "swirling forces that are shaping our economic lives," forces which Leadbeater describes as "partly malign, but potentially beneficial." It is also a call to action, a proposal to begin reconstituting our social, political and economic institutions so that they are better equipped for the new knowledge era. Leadbeater is passionate in his beliefs and engagingly articulate. His sincerity has a warmth that makes compulsive reading. Ultimately, Living on Thin Air is concerned with the task of channelling the tensions and energy between the major forces in society towards a new era of harmonious collaboration: "a society devoted to financial capitalism will be unbalanced and soulless. A society devoted to social solidarity will stagnate, lacking the dynamism of radical new ideas and the discipline of the competitive market. A society devoted totally to knowledge creation would be intelligent but poor. When these three forces of the new economy work together, they can be hugely dynamic," he concludes. It makes a provocative manifesto.

The opening chapters are constructed around reassuringly familiar subjects (Delia, fancy seeing you here! Diana, what a wonderful surprise!) imparting a self-conscious nostalgia to proceedings and if the choices are a little arbitrary, stylistically, his prose has the confidence of a man who knows his subject and believes in his ideas.

Living on Thin Air is an impressive take on the future in the global information age. Better get stocking those intellectual shelves--these goods are at a premium. --Iain Campbell

You will get more out of this than reading 100 economics textbooks or the vast majority of business books.


A must-read for anyone with intellectual curiosity   December 27, 1999
Let me first declare an interest: I know the author and his work. And I like and admire him. So make allowances for that if you have to. But I spend my professional life reading journalistic/academic theses on political, economic and social affairs, and can spot the difference between an insight and a bag of cotton wool. "Living on thin air" has charm and a good story-teller's instinct for metaphor and popular imagery. But two features stand out in particular. First, the stories take us to places where we are challenged to upturn long-held assumptions about how bits of the world work. And second, there is an audacious sweep to this book which brings together entirely unexpected ideas, phenomena, events and insists that we see the connections between them. Anoraks who are already lined up in some corner or other of theological dispute about the knowledge society will probably not care for this book. Everyone else with any intellectual curiosity(including anyone, for instance, who bought a Brief History of Time, meaning to read it but never quite managing)should buy this book and make a new year's resolution to get to the end of it. It's not a blueprint for a revolution; it gets carried away with its optimism in parts; it doesn't tie all the ends up neatly; but it sure as hell makes you think. In fact the world will all seem a bit different afterwards, and what more could you ask for out of a book?


Good read for Uni students studying the 'new economy'   December 16, 1999
 1 out of 1 found this review helpful

This book sets out to depend and promote the central idea of a new economy based on knowldege and innovation that will take Britian into the 21st Century. It does so by analysing how to and why innovate and looks at social institutions that can promote the knowledge economy. It is a far reaching study of the situation that the economy is in and how to ensure its success in the new millenium


This is the definitive book for social entrepreneurs   December 13, 1999
This book is the clearest description I have read to date of the changing society that we are now living in, in the UK. Having spent the last 15 years working in the second poorest ward in the country, Charles Leadbeater describes clearly the changing forces that are greatley effecting the lives of the poor in Britain. He sees clearly that these changes can be both an opportunity and a problem, and offers some useful insights as to what needs to change in both the public and voluntary sector, if the opportunities that are now presenting themselves are to be grasped.

Charles Leadbeater understands the enterprise culture and its implications for a changing society. If academics and social commentators are to see and understand these changes, they will have to dump alot of their 1970's liberal theories, climb down from their ivory towers, and get their hands dirty in some of the communities that have payed the price of their theories.

Well done Charles Leadbeater, this is a groundbreaking book which gives hope to us all!