The Fix

By Phar Kim Beng

Founder/Chair

Strategic Pan Indo-Pacific Arena

Strategicpipa.info

Twitter: @indo_pan

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/Strategicpipa

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Jonathan Tepperman doesn’t waste your time in telling you where the problems are. He just lists them down, and get to work at the word get-go. Problems like inequality; lack of political leadership; policy gridlock; immigration impasses; resource curse; and the works, formed the major themes of his marvellous book.

Unless and until a country is able to resolve all the problems, either all at one go, or, some of them, a country would be consigned to the periphery. This is also a good book due to such treatment of the subject matter, between the core and the periphery.

Be that as it may, countries become rich or poor due to the priorities they placed on economic development. One’s ardent embrace of capitalist culture, especially motivated by some sense of greed and insecurity, invariably, to have more and more of everything, including prosperity and material abundance, ideally evenly distributed across different groups, will be the key determinants of a country’s success. Greed seems to be good.

More importantly, Jonathan Tepperman’s concept of “The Fix” presents a very different picture. The book reveals the often-overlooked success stories, offering a provocative, indeed, an unconventional take, on the answers hiding in plain sight. For example, it identifies ten pervasive and seemingly impossible challenges, including immigration reform, economic stagnation, political gridlock, corruption, and Islamist extremism, and more, to shows that contrary to the general consensus, each has a solution, and not merely a hypothetical one. The value of the book, therefore, lies in explaining what these solutions are.

More impressively, Tepperman has traveled the world over, to write this book, conducting more than a hundred interviews with the people behind the making of their policies. Meticulously researched and deeply reported, “The Fix” presents practical advice for problem-solvers of all stripes, and stands as a necessary corrective to the hand-wringing and grim prognostication that dominates the news, making a data-driven case for optimism in a time of crushing pessimism.

The key lies in getting people to talk about the book, rather than to resign their countries, or communities, to the same fate. Indeed, it helps to know that the author is now the editor of Foreign Policy, a a key magazines, where key issues are debated, often from US perspective, though not necessarily confined to it. This book is a must read and must keep.