I’ve written about capitalism’s global triumph, first displacing traditional agrarianism and then surviving the socialist alternative. And I’ve described the resulting dispensation as a global capitalist “monoculture” to highlight the novel circumstances in which we now find ourselves: for the first time in centuries, we live in a world with no real competition among rival social systems. As I explained an
Sep 19, 2023·edited Sep 19, 2023Liked by Brink Lindsey
Hi Brink, I've recently come across and highly appreciate your writings and find then really resonate with me in a way that no single source of insight on the problems in American society has provided before. I hope to be able to contribute solutions towards exactly the lack of flourishing that's growing evermore prevalent.
When you refer to "subcultures of independent production" is this merely the alternative methods of production of goods and services? Such an example would be baugruppen housing with community gardening for food production? Or are you referring to the production of other intangible goods of self actualization, community, and soul building experiences that are not mediated through capitalistic market dynamics?
I really appreciate having discovered your writings and hope to conceptualize then actualize solutions to help Sisyphus find his happiness.
Thanks, once again, Brink, for these. I especially enjoyed the review of your journey from Ayn Rand to pluralism in your last post. And this post is a worthy successor. I have two observations about monoculture and pluralism: First, monocultures are weak because they are subject to viral diseases that rage through their unprotected genotype. I would suggest that our social monoculture is weak in the same way. And the virus that seems to be sweeping through our social "memotype" is authoritarianism. We seem to be losing the ability to think for ourselves, perhaps because it is so easy and convenient to adopt the prevailing monoculture. This seems top leave us susceptible to conspiracy theories and power-hungry leaders. Just add it to the list of reasons in support of pluralism.
Second, pluralism is hard because opting out of the prevailing system involves significant risk, both as an individual and as a community. And as we know, fear of downside risk often overwhelms upside potential because we can go down to zero, which is very painful, while upside benefits are unknown and uncertain.
To me, this argues for a form of "social insurance" on the downside that empowers experimentation and risk and enables the benefits of pluralism. This might be some form of universal income or even a literal insurance program for communities or individuals interested in trying alternative forms of social organization. Just a suggestion....
It seems to me you're talking about two related but distinct problems here: the monoculture of consumption and production as supreme ends rather than means to more fulfilling ends, and the loss of what Yuval Levin calls formative institutions. The latter is IMO largely due to the increasingly visible failures and flaws of those institutions and the resulting "revolt of the public"-- man, you should really get on a panel sometime with Levin and Martin Gurri and hash all this out!
Anyway, it's clear how creating a greater variety of distributed communities of production can help with the consumption/production monoculture. It's not clear that that by itself can help with the formative institutions problem. If you think you can tell a story about how distributed productive communities can be incubators of new and better such institutions, that would be a valuable subject for another post.
I have some personal stake in this, as a graduate of an old-line East Coast prep school that pushed the WASP noblesse oblige thing really hard and still does so to a large extent, and also as a recent-ish escapee from a lucrative Big Tech management career in favor of consulting and music. I can testify that the concept of "wealth as a means to an end" is key to both of those kinds of pursuit of non-market ends: it is so, so much easier to feel noblesse oblige and to follow creative and connective dreams when you start with a large measure of financial security. I can't really blame anyone who hasn't had my material advantages for not doing what I did.
On that note, here's another pitch for a future post: what can a distributed community-production future learn from the FIRE movement of early "retirees"? My sense as a spectator of that movement is that while to a degree the participants are escaping from the consumer monoculture, they're doing so in pursuit of pretty narrow, short-term and self/nuclear-family-centered ends; there is not an obvious ethos there of building broad sets of fulfilling relationships or cooperative experiments in living. But maybe I'm wrong-- or maybe I could be wrong if the energy of that movement were nudged in just a slightly different direction.
There are five comments here and all seem to publish on Substack. Why doesn't the mainstream media speak of the monoculture? You're the guy on the back row of a seminar screaming words that no one hears. I read Robert Reich every day and often call him Cassandra. Every time you publish one of these, I forward it to about thirty people, mostly Democrats but some Republicans, mostly with college degrees, some without. The best I can tell, two retired lawyers and a writer in Canada read them. You, too, seem a Cassandra. Thinkers like you will only be heard once the "monoculture" has destroyed itself. You've read enough history to know there is no messiah. You've read enough philosophy to know there is no absolute. And you've read enough mythology to subscribe to Sisyphus. In fact, you are a Sisyphus! He/she/it found meaning in pushing that boulder back up that mountain, as did Homer, Socrates, Aristotle, Petrarch, Terrance, Voltaire, Camus, Democritus, Seneca, Marcus Aurelius, Thomas Paine, FDR, and many more whose ideals we admire long after they are gone and yet we continue to proffer. Reading those names remind me of seeds long buried beneath the sand in the desert and resurrected with a drop of water to live again. Sisyphus and all those names above understood that paradox and maintained the struggle.
Sep 19, 2023·edited Sep 19, 2023Liked by Brink Lindsey
Another excellent essay.
For my part, I am glad to celebrate a holiday every week: Shabbat. As a Jew who observes Shabbat, all work ceases for just over 24 hours (granted, the definition of "work" varies based on one's understanding of the word). It's a luxurious gift to enjoy: no work, no cooking, no laundry, etc. I spend time with family, friends, I enjoy long meals and good conversation, reading, etc. In a profound way, Shabbat was and is countercultural. I was just reading a book by the renowned Rabbi Art Green, "Judaism for the World", and one chapter is titled "Judaism as Counterculture", and he writes at length on various countercultural aspects of Judaism.
I am not advocating everyone become a religious Jew, of course, but I am saying that for me, Shabbat is a powerful counterweight to the forces of consumerism (as I cannot spend money on Shabbat unless it's a real emergency). It's a day of reflection, of contemplation, and not of production and consumption (in the consumer sense).
Another aspect of Judaism I enjoy is the peoplehood; the community. So many "modern" people are looking for community with others, and so many complain to me that it's been difficult or impossible for them to find that community. This is especially true for my secular friends as they search for community with others. Largely they find groups with a focus, like political activism or physical fitness, and while those are admirable pursuits, they don't offer the all-encompassing "meaningful" life that some of my friends yearn for.
On that note, I'd love to hear from Brink and others about what kind of community they have found, or have sought to found, that is not religious in nature. I am interested for my own sake, but also because I will send my friends any answers you would choose to share.
I enjoyed your post. I notice the same downsides in our culture from the dominance of capitalism. By the way we share the same birth year of 1962.
Perhaps because my professional background was in finance, I notice in particular the "financialization" of the culture. I'm not sure how we can get back to more balance.
In any case, I wrote a post a few days ago titled "Is Noblesse Oblige Still Relevant?" Link below. The post was a riff on one of my favorite novels, Appointment in Samarra by John Ohara.
This is the first time I've seen monoculture in the agricultural sense applied to the wider context of "capitalism". Very thought-provoking. It's a good way to remind people that capitalism and market economies have had forms in the past and across cultures.
"The American electorate has - since 1969 - given the Republican Party thirty two years of presidential power - as against the Democrats’ twenty one years. Which begs a Big Question: how did the GOP come to preside over a half-century-long erosion of so much that conservatives hold dear? The answer - the elephant (or more accurately the Leviathan) in the room - is that power gained at the ballot box is no match against the permanently entrenched power of a ‘progressive’ elite that has been drawn - for three or more highly impressionable college years - through a kind of intellectual sheep dip. Hence Robert Conquest’s apocryphal third law of politics: “Any organisation not explicitly right-wing will sooner or later become left-wing." https://grahamcunningham.substack.com/p/invasion-of-the-virtue-signallers
Hi Brink, I've recently come across and highly appreciate your writings and find then really resonate with me in a way that no single source of insight on the problems in American society has provided before. I hope to be able to contribute solutions towards exactly the lack of flourishing that's growing evermore prevalent.
When you refer to "subcultures of independent production" is this merely the alternative methods of production of goods and services? Such an example would be baugruppen housing with community gardening for food production? Or are you referring to the production of other intangible goods of self actualization, community, and soul building experiences that are not mediated through capitalistic market dynamics?
I really appreciate having discovered your writings and hope to conceptualize then actualize solutions to help Sisyphus find his happiness.
Thanks, once again, Brink, for these. I especially enjoyed the review of your journey from Ayn Rand to pluralism in your last post. And this post is a worthy successor. I have two observations about monoculture and pluralism: First, monocultures are weak because they are subject to viral diseases that rage through their unprotected genotype. I would suggest that our social monoculture is weak in the same way. And the virus that seems to be sweeping through our social "memotype" is authoritarianism. We seem to be losing the ability to think for ourselves, perhaps because it is so easy and convenient to adopt the prevailing monoculture. This seems top leave us susceptible to conspiracy theories and power-hungry leaders. Just add it to the list of reasons in support of pluralism.
Second, pluralism is hard because opting out of the prevailing system involves significant risk, both as an individual and as a community. And as we know, fear of downside risk often overwhelms upside potential because we can go down to zero, which is very painful, while upside benefits are unknown and uncertain.
To me, this argues for a form of "social insurance" on the downside that empowers experimentation and risk and enables the benefits of pluralism. This might be some form of universal income or even a literal insurance program for communities or individuals interested in trying alternative forms of social organization. Just a suggestion....
It seems to me you're talking about two related but distinct problems here: the monoculture of consumption and production as supreme ends rather than means to more fulfilling ends, and the loss of what Yuval Levin calls formative institutions. The latter is IMO largely due to the increasingly visible failures and flaws of those institutions and the resulting "revolt of the public"-- man, you should really get on a panel sometime with Levin and Martin Gurri and hash all this out!
Anyway, it's clear how creating a greater variety of distributed communities of production can help with the consumption/production monoculture. It's not clear that that by itself can help with the formative institutions problem. If you think you can tell a story about how distributed productive communities can be incubators of new and better such institutions, that would be a valuable subject for another post.
I have some personal stake in this, as a graduate of an old-line East Coast prep school that pushed the WASP noblesse oblige thing really hard and still does so to a large extent, and also as a recent-ish escapee from a lucrative Big Tech management career in favor of consulting and music. I can testify that the concept of "wealth as a means to an end" is key to both of those kinds of pursuit of non-market ends: it is so, so much easier to feel noblesse oblige and to follow creative and connective dreams when you start with a large measure of financial security. I can't really blame anyone who hasn't had my material advantages for not doing what I did.
On that note, here's another pitch for a future post: what can a distributed community-production future learn from the FIRE movement of early "retirees"? My sense as a spectator of that movement is that while to a degree the participants are escaping from the consumer monoculture, they're doing so in pursuit of pretty narrow, short-term and self/nuclear-family-centered ends; there is not an obvious ethos there of building broad sets of fulfilling relationships or cooperative experiments in living. But maybe I'm wrong-- or maybe I could be wrong if the energy of that movement were nudged in just a slightly different direction.
There are five comments here and all seem to publish on Substack. Why doesn't the mainstream media speak of the monoculture? You're the guy on the back row of a seminar screaming words that no one hears. I read Robert Reich every day and often call him Cassandra. Every time you publish one of these, I forward it to about thirty people, mostly Democrats but some Republicans, mostly with college degrees, some without. The best I can tell, two retired lawyers and a writer in Canada read them. You, too, seem a Cassandra. Thinkers like you will only be heard once the "monoculture" has destroyed itself. You've read enough history to know there is no messiah. You've read enough philosophy to know there is no absolute. And you've read enough mythology to subscribe to Sisyphus. In fact, you are a Sisyphus! He/she/it found meaning in pushing that boulder back up that mountain, as did Homer, Socrates, Aristotle, Petrarch, Terrance, Voltaire, Camus, Democritus, Seneca, Marcus Aurelius, Thomas Paine, FDR, and many more whose ideals we admire long after they are gone and yet we continue to proffer. Reading those names remind me of seeds long buried beneath the sand in the desert and resurrected with a drop of water to live again. Sisyphus and all those names above understood that paradox and maintained the struggle.
Another excellent essay.
For my part, I am glad to celebrate a holiday every week: Shabbat. As a Jew who observes Shabbat, all work ceases for just over 24 hours (granted, the definition of "work" varies based on one's understanding of the word). It's a luxurious gift to enjoy: no work, no cooking, no laundry, etc. I spend time with family, friends, I enjoy long meals and good conversation, reading, etc. In a profound way, Shabbat was and is countercultural. I was just reading a book by the renowned Rabbi Art Green, "Judaism for the World", and one chapter is titled "Judaism as Counterculture", and he writes at length on various countercultural aspects of Judaism.
I am not advocating everyone become a religious Jew, of course, but I am saying that for me, Shabbat is a powerful counterweight to the forces of consumerism (as I cannot spend money on Shabbat unless it's a real emergency). It's a day of reflection, of contemplation, and not of production and consumption (in the consumer sense).
Another aspect of Judaism I enjoy is the peoplehood; the community. So many "modern" people are looking for community with others, and so many complain to me that it's been difficult or impossible for them to find that community. This is especially true for my secular friends as they search for community with others. Largely they find groups with a focus, like political activism or physical fitness, and while those are admirable pursuits, they don't offer the all-encompassing "meaningful" life that some of my friends yearn for.
On that note, I'd love to hear from Brink and others about what kind of community they have found, or have sought to found, that is not religious in nature. I am interested for my own sake, but also because I will send my friends any answers you would choose to share.
This is really valuable. I've approached these questions from a socialist/social democratic perspective, but with many of the same conclusions https://jacobin.com/2013/01/john-quiggin-on-the-red-and-the-black/
I enjoyed your post. I notice the same downsides in our culture from the dominance of capitalism. By the way we share the same birth year of 1962.
Perhaps because my professional background was in finance, I notice in particular the "financialization" of the culture. I'm not sure how we can get back to more balance.
In any case, I wrote a post a few days ago titled "Is Noblesse Oblige Still Relevant?" Link below. The post was a riff on one of my favorite novels, Appointment in Samarra by John Ohara.
I think you'd enjoy reading it.
https://robertsdavidn.substack.com/p/is-noblesse-oblige-still-relevant
robertsdavidn.substack.com/about
This is the first time I've seen monoculture in the agricultural sense applied to the wider context of "capitalism". Very thought-provoking. It's a good way to remind people that capitalism and market economies have had forms in the past and across cultures.
"The American electorate has - since 1969 - given the Republican Party thirty two years of presidential power - as against the Democrats’ twenty one years. Which begs a Big Question: how did the GOP come to preside over a half-century-long erosion of so much that conservatives hold dear? The answer - the elephant (or more accurately the Leviathan) in the room - is that power gained at the ballot box is no match against the permanently entrenched power of a ‘progressive’ elite that has been drawn - for three or more highly impressionable college years - through a kind of intellectual sheep dip. Hence Robert Conquest’s apocryphal third law of politics: “Any organisation not explicitly right-wing will sooner or later become left-wing." https://grahamcunningham.substack.com/p/invasion-of-the-virtue-signallers