Book Review: Thomas d'Aquino Private Power, Public Purpose

Book Review

 

 

d'Aquino, Thomas;

Private Power, Public Purpose: Bronowski, Jacob, The Ascent of Man; 

Private Power Public Purpose: Adventures in Business, Politics

and the Arts 

Published by Signal, an imprint of McLelland and Stewart; 2023 

462 pages, plus a 10-page index. 

This is yet another book I found in a book box, and one of the most interesting I have read in recent years. In his time, d’Aquino was almost a force of nature on the global stage.  

The author spent five decades at the intersection of political and business power in this country. As the long-serving chief executive of the Business Council of Canada, he was an adviser to three generations of prime ministers on the political side, and to business CEOs in the corporate world. 

 

I don’t know whether d’Aquino has an astonishing memory or keeps detailed records: I suspect both are true. Think back on almost any important economic issue in your lifetime: Free trade, the National Energy Program, Quebec separation, the global financial crisis. D’Aquino was a central player in these dramas, and in many more.  

The book is riveting from start to finish – a a superb commentary on Canadian and global business since Expo 67, which was about the time he finished university. It’s a dissertation on the evolution of Canadian public policy, but it also delivers warnings about what ails Canada, and ideas about how to fix it.

 

Ever wondered what happens in Davos, when business and political elite gather in the Swiss Alps for the World Economic Forum? D’Aquino captures – and defends – the magic of these meetings by detailing a 1995 dinner that saw him, hedge-fund billionaire George Soros and mining entrepreneur Peter Munk conclude their meal by writing a sternly worded letter to then-finance minister Paul Martin. The trio warned that Canada’s soaring deficits were turning the country “into an honorary member of the Third World.” Several weeks later, d’Aquino says, Martin tabled the first in a series of austerity budgets and vowed to slay the deficit. 

The child of Italian immigrants, d’Aquino spent the early years of his career as a lawyer and business consultant, with stints in London and Paris. His international experience shaped a belief that corporate leaders have a right, and an obligation, to be engaged in influencing public policy. That view was at odds with the two solitudes of business and government that prevailed in Canada through to the 1970s.

When the CEOs running a predecessor to the Business Council of Canada hired d’Aquino in 1981 to bridge the deep divide by building ties to government, they endorsed his vision of capitalism linked to social purpose. D’Aquino was an early advocate of the concept that chief executives must serve multiple stakeholders, not just investors. It’s now a mainstream view. 

To illustrate just one of the ideas he covers, consider Chapter 17, titled “Special Moments with Leaders.” Here he covers interviews he had with political and businesspeople we all know: Joe Clark, Jimmy Pattison, Paul Desmarais Sr., Beverly McLachlin, David Johnston, Peter Lougheed, Jean Chretien – the list goes on, and his commentaries are superb.

  

Summary? I love this book. It's superb!

 

 

The Ascent of Man: Book Review by Peter McKenzie-Brown

 

 The title of the book is The Ascent of Man, by Jacob Bronowski, with a forward by Richard Dawkins. Published by BBC Books; 330 pages, plus a four-page bibliography and a 15-page index.

The book was released to correspond to a 13-episode BBC commentary on the evolution of humankind. It is worth noting that the series’ title is a pun on Charles Darwin’s book The Descent of Man. For the record, you can still watch the entire series on the BBC website.

Jacob Bronowski (18 January 1908 – 22 August 1974) was a Polish-British mathematician and philosopher, according to an extensive write-up in Wikipedia, which says “He is best known for developing a humanistic approach to science, and as the presenter and writer of the thirteen-part 1973 BBC television documentary series, and accompanying book, The Ascent of Man.

I chose to buy the book because I had been totally mesmerized by the BBC series. I think I got DVDs from the public library, but I checked: If they were once available there, they aren’t anymore.

There is a vast amount of depth in this book, from start to finish. To whet your collective appetites, I will end these notes by quoting the first two paragraphs of Chapter One, which is titled “Lower than the Angels.”:

Man is a singular creature. He has a set of gifts which make him unique among the animals: so that, unlike them, he is not a figure in the landscape – he is a shaper of the landscape. In body and in mind he is the explorer of nature, the ubiquitous animal, who did not find but has made his home in every continent.

It is reported that when the Spaniards arrived overland at the Pacific Ocean in 1769 the California Indians used to say that at the full moon the fish came and danced on these beaches. And it is true that there is a local variety of fish, the grunion, that comes up out of the water and lays its eggs above the normal high-tide mark. The full moon is important, because it gives the time needed for the eggs to incubate undisturbed in the sand, nine or tend days, between these very high tides and the next ones that will wash the hatched fish out to sea again….

What makes humankind different, he continues, is that humankind “is distinguished from other animals by his imaginative gifts. He makes plans, inventions, new discoveries, by putting different talents together; and his discoveries become more subtle and penetrating, as he learns to combine his talents in more complex and intimate ways. So the great discoveries of different ages and different cultures, in techniques, in science, in the arts, express in their progression a richer and more intricate conjunction of human facilities, an ascending trellis of his gifts.”

That quote comes from page 20 of this superb text. Don’t miss the 320 pages that follow.