ISBN 0-7145-2554-5 (UK hbk), 0-7145-2555-3 (UK pbk)

"With years of experience in British government and the world of finance behind him, James Robertson has now completed his second title in our Ideas in Progress series. In Profit or People? he examined the social role of money in a provocative new thesis, claiming that profit for its own sake is an outmoded pursuit. Now in Power Money & Sex he enlarges that theory to include our inherited ideas concerning sexual roles, political power and nationalism. The patterns of human behaviour which focus on these ideas no longer work; the old divisions are breaking down before we have developed any workable alternatives.

"With the failure of the viable nation-state and the increasing inadequacies of centralization, political power must be redistributed in a balanced way. Robertson suggests that this distribution take place on two levels -- one moving outward to the world, the other, perhaps more urgent, moving inward to small communities. The author sees inflation as a constitutional, rather than an economic crisis, caused by the attempt to maximize, rather than to balance, competing interests.

"With both technological and institutional imperatives out of control, people no longer feel in control of their own lives. Sexual repression has naturally entwined itself with the work ethic and nationalism in such a way that we have learned to rely on the traditional formula that strength and effectiveness is a direct result of combining power, money and women. Power Money & Sex offers valuable and unorthodox tentative suggestions for a harmonious change-over to new concepts of power and wealth. It perhaps marks the beginning of a survival course for the future." [jacket blurb, UK hbk, 1976]

Recommended.

• Biograph -- James Robertson