I’m going to digress from my ongoing survey of the roots of the 21st century crisis of capitalism to discuss a great new book with a similar theme — Brad DeLong’s Slouching Towards Utopia. Brad tells the economic history of the “long 20th century” from 1870 to 2010, from the advent of the modern mass production economy to the dispiriting aftermath of the Great Recession. In other words, his narrative encompasses both humanity’s solving of the economic problem and the haunting arrival of the permanent problem.
Thank you! A very helpful (and well-written!) additional explication of your previous post. I look forward to Brad DeLong's response (it shouldn't be long!).
>Europe veered off course much less dramatically than we did. But what do they have to show for it?
They're much happier than people in the US, at least on average, and have a higher quality of life, on average. At least many of the countries. I'd rather be born at random in Germany or Denmark or Switzerland than in the United States.
Great post with very insightful significant disagreement among lots of agreement.
"The move did succeed in taming inflation, but it did not restore the vibrant growth rates of the postwar years; rather, it restored vibrant growth rates to the affluent and rich while income advances for everybody else slowed to a crawl." As I read this, I think of China after Mao (with Deng).
You explicitly and correctly note this:
"for humanity as a whole the honor surely goes to 1985-2015, as extreme poverty rates plummeted, a global middle class emerged, and what had been two humps of the global distribution of income merged as they shifted to the right. "
The low IQ folk in America and Western Europe lost their middle class factory jobs, which they were performing OK at, and no substitute for those "good jobs" has been created. Those jobs went to China (and Bangladesh, Vietnam ...) to reduce the extreme poverty in those countries (NOT North Korea).
To live "wisely and agreeably and well". The economic problem is the "well" part - a US middle class life, or better.
"Agreeably" means the ability to agree to disagree, peacefully. And Freedom requires the freedom to disagree. Too many people find disagreement too disagreeable to tolerate - and become intolerant.
"Wisely" must include avoiding the mistakes so many less wise folk choose when they make poor lifestyle choices.
Free toleration of sub-optimal choices of adults should not require gov't mandates to punish the wise so as to pay for the mistakes of the less wise.
What is a good life for low IQ men? << this is the current practical and almost permanent problem.
Thanks for your comments. I agree that "living wisely and agreeably and well" doesn't mean some perfectionist utopia: a free society must include the freedom to make dumb choices, and while policies might help to cushion the fall when people choose poorly, they can't turn failure into success. The challenge is broader, I think, than just for "low IQ" men -- it's how to make a good life for all people who, for whatever reason, lack specialized skills with high market value. How can they feel like valuable and valued contributors to their communities?
There has never been a more powerful political tool than religion. People need an illusion. They provide the energy to exist. Your Gramsci quote was perfect.
Of course, the English teacher hears Yeats in the title, and the poem that is prophetic for our time as well
The Second Coming
BY WILLIAM BUTLER YEATS
Turning and turning in the widening gyre
The falcon cannot hear the falconer;
Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;
Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,
The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere
The ceremony of innocence is drowned;
The best lack all conviction, while the worst
Are full of passionate intensity.
Surely some revelation is at hand;
Surely the Second Coming is at hand.
The Second Coming! Hardly are those words out
When a vast image out of Spiritus Mundi
Troubles my sight: somewhere in sands of the desert
A shape with lion body and the head of a man,
A gaze blank and pitiless as the sun,
Is moving its slow thighs, while all about it
Reel shadows of the indignant desert birds.
The darkness drops again; but now I know
That twenty centuries of stony sleep
Were vexed to nightmare by a rocking cradle,
And what rough beast, its hour come round at last,
Slouches towards Bethlehem to be born?
A great review. In my classic compromise position, you're both right, both the right and left are at fault. Can't wait to read your next entry
Thank you! A very helpful (and well-written!) additional explication of your previous post. I look forward to Brad DeLong's response (it shouldn't be long!).
>Europe veered off course much less dramatically than we did. But what do they have to show for it?
They're much happier than people in the US, at least on average, and have a higher quality of life, on average. At least many of the countries. I'd rather be born at random in Germany or Denmark or Switzerland than in the United States.
Great post with very insightful significant disagreement among lots of agreement.
"The move did succeed in taming inflation, but it did not restore the vibrant growth rates of the postwar years; rather, it restored vibrant growth rates to the affluent and rich while income advances for everybody else slowed to a crawl." As I read this, I think of China after Mao (with Deng).
You explicitly and correctly note this:
"for humanity as a whole the honor surely goes to 1985-2015, as extreme poverty rates plummeted, a global middle class emerged, and what had been two humps of the global distribution of income merged as they shifted to the right. "
The low IQ folk in America and Western Europe lost their middle class factory jobs, which they were performing OK at, and no substitute for those "good jobs" has been created. Those jobs went to China (and Bangladesh, Vietnam ...) to reduce the extreme poverty in those countries (NOT North Korea).
To live "wisely and agreeably and well". The economic problem is the "well" part - a US middle class life, or better.
"Agreeably" means the ability to agree to disagree, peacefully. And Freedom requires the freedom to disagree. Too many people find disagreement too disagreeable to tolerate - and become intolerant.
"Wisely" must include avoiding the mistakes so many less wise folk choose when they make poor lifestyle choices.
Free toleration of sub-optimal choices of adults should not require gov't mandates to punish the wise so as to pay for the mistakes of the less wise.
What is a good life for low IQ men? << this is the current practical and almost permanent problem.
Thanks for your comments. I agree that "living wisely and agreeably and well" doesn't mean some perfectionist utopia: a free society must include the freedom to make dumb choices, and while policies might help to cushion the fall when people choose poorly, they can't turn failure into success. The challenge is broader, I think, than just for "low IQ" men -- it's how to make a good life for all people who, for whatever reason, lack specialized skills with high market value. How can they feel like valuable and valued contributors to their communities?
There has never been a more powerful political tool than religion. People need an illusion. They provide the energy to exist. Your Gramsci quote was perfect.