Since 2016, I’ve done a great deal of reading, writing, thinking, talking, and brooding about the crisis of liberal democracy we’re now living through — how it originated, what powers it, and how possibly to defuse it or at least muddle through it.
Capitalism is the best tech humans ever invented for local optimization in the short run. It drives the chance to surpass material needs on average as you mentioned. But while some are experiencing your nervous breakdown post-abundance, they are mostly just elites.
The moment for most is opposite: absolute economic terror. People realize they are unsuited to prosper in the future economy, they have no safety net, the world keeps accelerating, the news is scary, robots are coming, and so is climate catastrophe. In short, most people feel like they are in 3rd class on the Titanic. The lack of secure future then makes it ok to lie, cheat, and steal for survival, just as men wore wigs to get onto lifeboats, and everyone feels like they have to do whatever it takes to get something while they can. Hence the naked corruption and self-interest, instead of leadership, that we see among politicians (and their donors) at this moment.
Bravo - an excellent introduction and a noble project. When you wrote "I will also be seeking to highlight new possibilities for advances in social technology — new institutions, new forms of organization, and new living arrangements that can strengthen our fraying social bonds and reorient social life in ways better suited to promoting widespread flourishing and wellbeing" it became immediately apparent to me how starved I (and presumably most people) have been for serious discourse on exactly these themes. When Keynes was writing 90+ years ago, such discourses were commonplace in civil society but appear to have substantially died out in recent times. I appreciate you self-ascribed charter and will be reading your subsequent entries with great interest.
The connection you make between the content of Keynes' "Economic Possibilites ..." essay and our contemporary political and social challenges is important and I look forward to your exploration.
Capitalism has been spectacular at *generating* the material output and services required for an "Age of Abundance", but the *distribution* of that output has not kept pace. Not just the income distribution itself, but all the processes of education, cultural or spiritual development that might address the root causes of extreme inequality.
Is the decline of war really due to the spread of "liberal democracy"? There are still Communist dictatorships like China & North Korea, but they don't actually seem to get involved in more wars than the US (if anything, fewer). My guess is that war has declined as it got less profitable due to the shift of the economy from resource extraction to post-industrialism. Nukes presumably also played a role.
There's a literature on democracy/liberalism and peace. Bottom line: liberal democracies don't fight each other, so that at extent at least the spread of liberal democracy spreads peace.
This essay danced around gender--the increasing superfluity of the male gender in the bottom 75% (the essay's number), and the elision of gender in the top 25%. The ideology of masculinism--good wolves protect the sheep they own from from bad wolves--has lost whatever connection it had to producerism. It is now just a close cousin to fascism. Gender, gender, gender.
Knowledge work is in a lot of ways worse then work work. At least as a plumber, I fix some pipes. Take away the extra pay/comfort/security and the fact that a lot of knowledge workers really have realized Keynes dream in terms of *actual* work hours, and I bet they are less satisfied with the core nature of their work.
I'd hyper focus on family and cultural continuity. If people were all married with 2.5 kids and confident of the world they are growing up in, fulfillment would manage itself.
I have lived Keynes future for the past 21 years. Retired from NASA in 2001. Had no trouble finding a higher purpose. What can be higher than my wife, our children and our friends. Secondary purposes of building boats, skiing, racing sailboats and watching our grand children move from the puppy/kitten phases to interesting human beings. My wife is having the time of her life flying her small plane, riding horses, Skiing, Scuba and grand children.
A brilliant start on a journey we all need to be on, think and argue about (civilly of course), and no one is better positioned to help guide as than Brink
For one possible approach to what Keyne's was writing about you might look at this non-fiction eutopia in which I explore the general idea of factories in the countryside run on part-time jobs: the new lifestyle such factories would make possible, how they can be made to run faster and more efficiently than conventional factories employing full-time labor, and the new kinds of families, neighborhoods, and towns that might develop around them.
Thanks for the reply. The cited paper is paywalled, so I'll have to download at work. Moore's law (a focus of that article) is a good example of inevitable diminishing returns, in that it posits an exponential process that must reach hard physical limits at the atomic level. Indeed, almost any apparently exponential change must ultimately deviate from exponential, in a real world.
Speaking as an elderly academic biologist, it's not clear to me that "progress" per researcher is slowing. Indeed I'm not sure how one could measure it suitably, though it's clear (for example) that the primary sequence of the amino acids comprising a protein, which 50 years ago might take a researcher 20 years to establish, was down to a month or less 20 years ago (due to automated sequencing), and is now down to a few mouse clicks.
This is great, the right discussion to have.
Capitalism is the best tech humans ever invented for local optimization in the short run. It drives the chance to surpass material needs on average as you mentioned. But while some are experiencing your nervous breakdown post-abundance, they are mostly just elites.
The moment for most is opposite: absolute economic terror. People realize they are unsuited to prosper in the future economy, they have no safety net, the world keeps accelerating, the news is scary, robots are coming, and so is climate catastrophe. In short, most people feel like they are in 3rd class on the Titanic. The lack of secure future then makes it ok to lie, cheat, and steal for survival, just as men wore wigs to get onto lifeboats, and everyone feels like they have to do whatever it takes to get something while they can. Hence the naked corruption and self-interest, instead of leadership, that we see among politicians (and their donors) at this moment.
BINGO
Bravo - an excellent introduction and a noble project. When you wrote "I will also be seeking to highlight new possibilities for advances in social technology — new institutions, new forms of organization, and new living arrangements that can strengthen our fraying social bonds and reorient social life in ways better suited to promoting widespread flourishing and wellbeing" it became immediately apparent to me how starved I (and presumably most people) have been for serious discourse on exactly these themes. When Keynes was writing 90+ years ago, such discourses were commonplace in civil society but appear to have substantially died out in recent times. I appreciate you self-ascribed charter and will be reading your subsequent entries with great interest.
The connection you make between the content of Keynes' "Economic Possibilites ..." essay and our contemporary political and social challenges is important and I look forward to your exploration.
Capitalism has been spectacular at *generating* the material output and services required for an "Age of Abundance", but the *distribution* of that output has not kept pace. Not just the income distribution itself, but all the processes of education, cultural or spiritual development that might address the root causes of extreme inequality.
BINGO
Is the decline of war really due to the spread of "liberal democracy"? There are still Communist dictatorships like China & North Korea, but they don't actually seem to get involved in more wars than the US (if anything, fewer). My guess is that war has declined as it got less profitable due to the shift of the economy from resource extraction to post-industrialism. Nukes presumably also played a role.
There's a literature on democracy/liberalism and peace. Bottom line: liberal democracies don't fight each other, so that at extent at least the spread of liberal democracy spreads peace.
This essay danced around gender--the increasing superfluity of the male gender in the bottom 75% (the essay's number), and the elision of gender in the top 25%. The ideology of masculinism--good wolves protect the sheep they own from from bad wolves--has lost whatever connection it had to producerism. It is now just a close cousin to fascism. Gender, gender, gender.
Richard Reeves's new book "Of Boys and Men" looks very interesting.
Knowledge work is in a lot of ways worse then work work. At least as a plumber, I fix some pipes. Take away the extra pay/comfort/security and the fact that a lot of knowledge workers really have realized Keynes dream in terms of *actual* work hours, and I bet they are less satisfied with the core nature of their work.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cgg9byUy-V4
I'd hyper focus on family and cultural continuity. If people were all married with 2.5 kids and confident of the world they are growing up in, fulfillment would manage itself.
I have lived Keynes future for the past 21 years. Retired from NASA in 2001. Had no trouble finding a higher purpose. What can be higher than my wife, our children and our friends. Secondary purposes of building boats, skiing, racing sailboats and watching our grand children move from the puppy/kitten phases to interesting human beings. My wife is having the time of her life flying her small plane, riding horses, Skiing, Scuba and grand children.
A brilliant start on a journey we all need to be on, think and argue about (civilly of course), and no one is better positioned to help guide as than Brink
I look forward to seeing what you put out!
Our current biggest problem is our corruption in our systems, which we fix like this: https://joshketry.substack.com/p/how-to-fix-corrupt-government-in
Oh then yea I am at the main campus too
We can sum up all of today's problems in one word: NEOLIBERALISM.
For one possible approach to what Keyne's was writing about you might look at this non-fiction eutopia in which I explore the general idea of factories in the countryside run on part-time jobs: the new lifestyle such factories would make possible, how they can be made to run faster and more efficiently than conventional factories employing full-time labor, and the new kinds of families, neighborhoods, and towns that might develop around them.
https://www.amazon.com/SEVENTH-MILLENNIUM-Lifes-Possibilities-Before/dp/1735316008/ref=sr_1_1?Adv-Srch-Books-Submit.x=0&Adv-Srch-Books-Submit.y=0&qid=1644013754&refinements=p_27%3ALuke+Lea%2Cp_28%3AThe+Seventh+Millennium&s=books&sr=1-1&unfiltered=1
Some of the technical appendices might also be of interest.
Good start. You've piqued my interest. Look forward to more.
I'm not convinced that scientific and technological progress is slowing, though I suppose it depends on how you choose to measure it...
I'll write more on the topic down the line. What's clear enough is that scientific/technological progress per researcher/engineer is slowing. https://www.aeaweb.org/articles?id=10.1257/aer.20180338#:~:text=The%20number%20of%20researchers%20required,are%20getting%20harder%20to%20find.
Thanks for the reply. The cited paper is paywalled, so I'll have to download at work. Moore's law (a focus of that article) is a good example of inevitable diminishing returns, in that it posits an exponential process that must reach hard physical limits at the atomic level. Indeed, almost any apparently exponential change must ultimately deviate from exponential, in a real world.
Speaking as an elderly academic biologist, it's not clear to me that "progress" per researcher is slowing. Indeed I'm not sure how one could measure it suitably, though it's clear (for example) that the primary sequence of the amino acids comprising a protein, which 50 years ago might take a researcher 20 years to establish, was down to a month or less 20 years ago (due to automated sequencing), and is now down to a few mouse clicks.
Link didn’t work. “Tell Congress, Pass a Federal Jobs Guarantee" On change.Org is the petition. Thanks
Please sign the Petition for a "Federal Jobs Guarantee". Here's a link.
Jobs for All!