The Efficient Society
Why Canada Is As Close To Utopia As It Gets
In this fascinating account of what makes Canada such a successful society, Joseph Heath celebrates the much-maligned value of efficiency and asks some searching questions about the forces that threaten to undermine our quality of life. Canada is an efficient society, much more efficient than our neighbour to the south, where personal liberty takes precedence over collective well-being. This is one of the reasons, Heath argues, that the United Nations Annual Human Development Report consistently ranks Canada as the best place in the world to live. But this efficiency is under siege. Can we resist the allure of short-sighted tax cuts? Can we maintain our quality of life in the face of relentless pressure to increase our productivity - both…
JOSEPH HEATH is an associate professor at the University of Toronto, where he teaches in the Department of Philosophy and the School of Public Policy and Governance. He is the author of three previousbooks: Nation of Rebels: Why Counterculture Became Consumer Culture (with Andrew Potter); Communicative Action and Rational Choice, which won the Canadian Philosophical Association Book Prize for 2003; and The Efficient Society, a Maclean's and Globe and Mail bestseller selected by the Globe as one of the best books of 2001. He writes a monthly column for the journal Policy Options and is a frequent contributor to The Montreal Gazette.
