Solid presentation of the facts surrounding the mass privatization and commodification of paranoid Cold War war-hawking gadgets by corporations. There is a continual glaring omission (particularly in the green energy sections) of the negative impacts these technological innovations have had on the global south. In natural Keynesian fashion, there is scant a mention of international exploitation of resources and cheap labor that goes into the production of more or less all of the modern age’s products (rare earth mining and abusive labor practices are touched on only at the end of the book).

There are rather glaring blinders when it comes to typical business practices and behaviors that have been present in Marxian economic analysis for over 150 years. For a scholar that is well versed in the plundering of public coffers for the benefit of a select few, there seems to be little objection made to this act. It is passively described for the most part and briefly condemned in a vague, abstract way the conclusion. The conclusion also highlights the fatal flaws in Keynesian supposed “third way” types of thinking, with toothless appeals to capital and governance to get better in some nebulous way. While communism is mentioned as a great boogie man used to attack Keynesian policy, China is mentioned often in the green energy section. While the policies referred to largely come out of the economic reforms of Deng Xiaoping, and the results praised, function of the Chinese government in contrast to capitalist states is never addressed. To a Western audience (especially from so-called leftists) these policies are Keynesian and not Marxist, but the historical and material conditions that led China to pursue this economic direction are very different than post-New Deal America. The introduction of markets to stimulate economic dynamism saved China from the stagnation that was the death of the USSR and the Keynesian economic order in the USA. The government of China occupies a fundamentally different role in economic development than other countries, like the USA. China is not a triumph of Keynesian policy, it is a reassessment of Socialist economic planning. The guardian of development that is argued for in the conclusion is to emulate that of China (although a Capital-sympathetic economic scholar may think that is too far). Even rejecting Deng Xiaopeng theory’s level of state control and involvement requires a political will and concrete economic vision that non-Marxists just don’t have. Taxing US corporations more would be fine, but American politics are structured in a way that grants out-sized influence to those who control large reserves of capital. Those political bodies would never act against their patrons economic interests, in fact that have personal economic incentive not to. The author seems unwilling to address the economic reality of Western politics, which is evident throughout.

Don’t get me wrong, the case study of the iPhone’s technologies are honestly wonderful! They don’t dwell too long on nuts-and-bolts of functionality and the author frames genuinely complicated technology into layman’s terms without sacrificing nuance. The conclusion and ideological biases throughout the book, unfortunately diminish that research and any outlook for a sustainable economic future.