'Only the Super-Rich Can Save Us': Ralph Nader as Novelist, Sort of

   The man is smart. And well-informed. But those qualities do not make him a novelist.

   It’s not clear who Ralph Nader’s epic 733-page fantasy “Only the Super-Rich Can Save Us!â€� is written for. Fans will pick it up. But the idly curious will get bogged down in the dense prose which sounds like political propaganda from his failed presidential campaigns.  

   The conceit of the book is to have 17 well-known citizens (either because of their billionaire bank accounts or their boffo brain trusts) band together to save the world; as in remake it. Nader has fancifully promoted Ted Turner, George Soros, Barry Diller and Ross Perot, among them, to speak for him.

   Even if these people share his politics they might object to being forced to utter words such as in this speech by Warren Buffet in the first chapter: “My friends,…the world is not doing well. Its inhabitants have allowed greed, power, ignorance, wealth, science, technology, and religion to depreciate reality and deny potential. With our capitalist backgrounds, it’s easy for us not to be beguiled by the plutocracy’s self-serving manipulation of economic indicators. …â€�

   Buffet remade in the image of Nader. In fact, a variety of personalities all end up sounding exactly like Nader. If you make it to page 435, you’ll see Bernard Rapoport say in a speech, “Too much is wrong in our country. There’s too much greed and too much power….Too much poverty, illiteracy, hunger.â€� You get the idea. It’s pretty much the same throughout, except, and this is where it is a novel, albeit a science fiction one, the words are effective. People listen.

      When Nader took on the auto industry in 1965, with his book “Unsafe At Any Speed,â€� he confronted big business and exposed the lies of their marketing and advertising campaigns.

   He helped us figure out which products to buy — and in such a simple and straight-forward way.  Now 45 years later, he aims to remake our government and big-business model, both bereft of any moral compass; but his delivery needs work.