A new movement is taking shape around the idea of restoring "abundance." Uniting thinkers from across the political spectrum — including "supply-side progressives," "conservative futurists," and "state capacity libertarians" — the movement aims to jump-start technological and economic progress by removing artificial constraints on supply and improving the quality of government.
It is an interesting discussion but would seem to be inconsistent with Keynes’ point in Economic Prospects for our Grandchildren — that the whole growth mindset is misguided — that trying to solve the problem of happiness with abundance beyond the Malthusian point, only puts you on a hedonic treadmill — and once the growth/abundance stalls or stagnates, you really have a problem on your hands because increasing material abundance is what you equated with a good life.
But we continue to need technological progress to make our abundance sustainable. Most of us can back off the hedonic treadmill while some of us keep pushing the technological frontier forward -- technological progress is no longer a mass mobilization exercise.
PS I’m not sure you really need Rene Girard to understand the dynamics of rivalrous consumption and its corrosive effects on society - it is really on old idea. It is central to Rousseau and can easily be found in Smith. Probably the most systematic analyst of rivalrous consumption is Thorsten Veblen. But his suppression by orthodox economics has been remarkably complete. Robert Frank is the only economist I know of who seems to take Veblenian ideas seriously.
But I thought Keynes’ point is that if we can back of the hedonic treadmill we already have enough abundance - the problem being only one of distribution. There is nothing to stop technological innovation moving forward, but its deployment being dominated by meeting the insatiable demands of a consumerist society is the problem.
Brink, I am one who has gone back and forth between limits to growth and abundance. The "limits to growth" approach just seems like a dead end though, so thank you, and Eli, for promoting thee ideas, policies and technologies.
FYI - I recently heard a podcast with science fiction author Daniel Suarez. His well researched work on what we could do with current science and technology to expand technical and economic growth into space is inspiring. You should consider him for a future podcast.
I wrote a (broadly pro-abundance) piece recently arguing that the combination of spectacular improvements in ICT and near-stagnation in the industrial (goods) economy makes the concept of growth (including TFP growth) meaningless, and also renders the concept of degrowth incoherent.
Interesting to see that the "abundance" crowd is taking interest in the work of Joseph Tainter. And claiming that an "abundance agenda", whatever that may mean, is what is needed to defeat the tainterian dynamic of complexification/simplification. It's a fairly typical reaction when starting to understand that society might be heading towards the wall of excessive complexity to imagine that doubling down on the recipes that put us on that road could somehow help save us, without understanding that doing so would typically just hasten the process. All this is actually, in itself, part of the tainterian dynamic... If you're interested, I have been for several years writing about this dynamic in relation to current affairs: https://paularbair.wordpress.com/?s=tainter
1) Libertarians get upset that the state is coercive, but they get all mystical about private property. Private property is coercive. It's yet another government service. You get rid of coercion and you don't have much.
2) The abundance agenda seems to be supply side. We had high growth into the 1970s because we had demand side policy. Productivity continued to grow, but it was diverted to the wealthy rather than being allowed to flow through the economy. Give more people money and strictly enforce antitrust and productivity will rise just fine.
I'm so glad that El Dorado is a prominent spokesman for the abundance agenda
It is an interesting discussion but would seem to be inconsistent with Keynes’ point in Economic Prospects for our Grandchildren — that the whole growth mindset is misguided — that trying to solve the problem of happiness with abundance beyond the Malthusian point, only puts you on a hedonic treadmill — and once the growth/abundance stalls or stagnates, you really have a problem on your hands because increasing material abundance is what you equated with a good life.
But we continue to need technological progress to make our abundance sustainable. Most of us can back off the hedonic treadmill while some of us keep pushing the technological frontier forward -- technological progress is no longer a mass mobilization exercise.
PS I’m not sure you really need Rene Girard to understand the dynamics of rivalrous consumption and its corrosive effects on society - it is really on old idea. It is central to Rousseau and can easily be found in Smith. Probably the most systematic analyst of rivalrous consumption is Thorsten Veblen. But his suppression by orthodox economics has been remarkably complete. Robert Frank is the only economist I know of who seems to take Veblenian ideas seriously.
But I thought Keynes’ point is that if we can back of the hedonic treadmill we already have enough abundance - the problem being only one of distribution. There is nothing to stop technological innovation moving forward, but its deployment being dominated by meeting the insatiable demands of a consumerist society is the problem.
Should be “get off” not “ back of”
Brink, I am one who has gone back and forth between limits to growth and abundance. The "limits to growth" approach just seems like a dead end though, so thank you, and Eli, for promoting thee ideas, policies and technologies.
FYI - I recently heard a podcast with science fiction author Daniel Suarez. His well researched work on what we could do with current science and technology to expand technical and economic growth into space is inspiring. You should consider him for a future podcast.
Thanks for the recommendation!
I wrote a (broadly pro-abundance) piece recently arguing that the combination of spectacular improvements in ICT and near-stagnation in the industrial (goods) economy makes the concept of growth (including TFP growth) meaningless, and also renders the concept of degrowth incoherent.
https://johnquigginblog.substack.com/p/why-neither-growth-nor-degrowth-make
I look forward to reading, John!
Interesting to see that the "abundance" crowd is taking interest in the work of Joseph Tainter. And claiming that an "abundance agenda", whatever that may mean, is what is needed to defeat the tainterian dynamic of complexification/simplification. It's a fairly typical reaction when starting to understand that society might be heading towards the wall of excessive complexity to imagine that doubling down on the recipes that put us on that road could somehow help save us, without understanding that doing so would typically just hasten the process. All this is actually, in itself, part of the tainterian dynamic... If you're interested, I have been for several years writing about this dynamic in relation to current affairs: https://paularbair.wordpress.com/?s=tainter
1) Libertarians get upset that the state is coercive, but they get all mystical about private property. Private property is coercive. It's yet another government service. You get rid of coercion and you don't have much.
2) The abundance agenda seems to be supply side. We had high growth into the 1970s because we had demand side policy. Productivity continued to grow, but it was diverted to the wealthy rather than being allowed to flow through the economy. Give more people money and strictly enforce antitrust and productivity will rise just fine.