27 ms·

Side Effects of the Growth of Wealth (1999)

80 points by howrude 10y ago

stefco_ 10y ago
"The god of the market-worshipers that celebrate the glories of turbo-capitalism is Adam Smith, but theirs is a devotion that crucially depends on not reading him." I found this amusing. It seems that fanatical devotion to dogmatic source texts is always predicated on not having read the source text to begin with. (Thinking the words in your head without digesting their meaning does not qualify as reading IMO.)
- M_Grey 10y ago
  That kind of thing is the basis of a lot of crazy orthodoxies. For example Jehovah's Witnesses are often encouraged not to read the bible, but to read JW bibles or writings instead. It's incredibly easy to control people when you make insularity a virtue, and they buy into it.
- hkmurakami 10y ago
  A somewhat OT anecdote: I met one of my good friends in SF serrindipitously because... he was reading Wealth of Nations next to me at the cafe bar and I struck up a conversation with him about it. And perhaps naturally, he's as far from dogmatic devotion as one can get.
- zeckalpha 10y ago
  In fact, he warned of this very thing. No one listens.
  - dredmorbius 10y ago
    Where, specifically? (Genuinely curious, as I, too, strongly advocate actually reading Smith: https://www.reddit.com/r/dredmorbius/comments/4cyroa/adam_smiths_lost_legacy_or_why_you_should_read/ https://www.reddit.com/r/dredmorbius/comments/4cyroa/adam_sm...)
jondubois 10y ago
There is definitely something in it when the article links turbo-capitalism to "the destruction of authenticity". I find that wealthy people lack authenticity and more often than not, they seem to be completely unaware of their predicament. They've seemingly lost their ability for self-reflection (if they ever had it) - That's why many of them trust financially-motivated personal growth gurus, success coaches, high-end psychologists and advisors to guide them. A lot of wealthy people don't seem to fully appreciate that absolutely everyone around them is constantly trying to milk them - Eventually, they get so used to it that they start to think that they're living in some pink cloud surrounded by friendly people and they forget that these so-called friends always have their skinny hands on those fat udders of theirs.
- WalterBright 10y ago
  > wealthy people lack authenticity What is "authenticity"? > seemingly lost their ability for self-reflection ???
- skybrian 10y ago
  How many wealthy people do you know? How do you know how much self-reflection they do?
  - jondubois 10y ago
    Several, including a close family member and several relatives. I've also met lots of others and the pattern looks very clear to me.
    - jacobn 10y ago
      The wealthy people I personally know do not follow the pattern you describe.
    - zodo123 10y ago
      The plural of 'anecdote' is not 'data'.
- 10y ago
mabbo 10y ago
> In the end, he offers no prescription for turbo-capitalism, merely predicts that "the wave of the future could be populism," the essence of which is always "a revolt of the less educated against elite rule, elite opinions, elite values and the elite's consensus on how government and the economy should be run." Published in 1999. Sounds like he got at least some things right.
dpark 10y ago
> As for Rule Three, it is for the non-Calvinists who reject Rule Two, "who are not paralyzed by guilt and who are too uneducated to express their resentment legally." For them "there is only one possible form of expression: to break the law, by engaging in criminal activities such as murder, armed robbery, violent assault, rape and the smoking of marijuana in pipes or home-made cigarettes." Followers of Rule Three end up in prison. This feels really out of touch. Aside from the stilted language ("home-made cigarettes" in 1999, really?), lumping people who use marijuana with rapists and murderers is absurd. Might as well lump in people who jaywalk.
- doubleunplussed 10y ago
  I think that might be the point.
- macawfish 10y ago
  Not everyone who jaywalks is following the third law, but jaywalking might be a good indication that you are! From what I can tell, the idea of those three laws is to emphasize the first two. Anyone who isn't falling for the mentality of the first two risks, by their 'out of the box' tendencies, being tossed in the clink with the rapists and murderers. In ultra-capitalist America, they are saying, money's power is protected at the cost of some human freedoms, such as the freedom to smoke homemade cigarettes that didn't feed into the industry. If you don't make the sacrifices required by the first two laws, you might find yourself sacrificed. It's safest to conform.
fluxic 10y ago
>Using the Microsoft Corporation as his benchmark, Mr. Luttwak says that the new high-tech titans produce much capital but relatively few new jobs. The rich get richer, but those driven out of work by the computer revolution are forced to take lower-paying service jobs. The unskilled they displace turn rationally to criminal activity like drug dealing. Prescient. Facebook is a $400B corporation, one of the world's most valuable, and it employs, what, 15k people? Before, your bigcorps like Carnegie Steel and Standard Oil employed hundreds of thousands. We no longer need labourers for factory work, to fight wars, to flip burgers or drive trucks. People say that automation will only create more jobs and freedom, but I have a hard time believing that. Automation is the ultimate triumph of capital over labour. The rich don't need Middle America any more, because most Middle Americans don't have any worthwhile skills. Americans in "flyover country" are increasingly unemployed, filing for disability, and dying of opioid overdoses. And people wonder why Trump got elected. I'm parroting the points made in this delightful talk here, by a YC alum no less: https://www.facebook.com/antonio.f.garcia.martinez/posts/10106466808735263 https://www.facebook.com/antonio.f.garcia.martinez/posts/101...
- gragas 10y ago
  I think you are right that "automation is the ultimate triumph of capital over labour," but I'd really like to point out that knowledge capital is a huge part of this. Having an employable skill these days is becoming more and more synonymous with having some sort of knowledge capital, because essentially everything that doesn't require knowledge capital can be automated away. >Americans in "flyover country" are increasingly unemployed, filing for disability, and dying of opioid overdoses. That's not true in general, and it implies that states like California don't face these same issues. If you look at the unemployment rate of states, the 25 states with the lowest unemployment rates are all "flyover country." [1] I think the root of these problems are caused by structural unemployment. Living in a flyover state is a great predictor of these problems, but it is not the cause. 1. https://www.statista.com/statistics/200017/state-unemployment-rate-in-the-us/ https://www.statista.com/statistics/200017/state-unemploymen...
  - fluxic 10y ago
BrailleHunting 10y ago
Turbo-capitalism's full name is "suicidal, greedy, libertarian, utopian delusions worshipping anarchy and extinction, while scapegoating sensible democratic socialism (government and commonwealth) as 'the great Satan.'"

80 points by howrude 10y ago

"The god of the market-worshipers that celebrate the glories of turbo-capitalism is Adam Smith, but theirs is a devotion that crucially depends on not reading him." I found this amusing. It seems that fanatical devotion to dogmatic source texts is always predicated on not having read the source text to begin with. (Thinking the words in your head without digesting their meaning does not qualify as reading IMO.)

M_Grey 10y ago
That kind of thing is the basis of a lot of crazy orthodoxies. For example Jehovah's Witnesses are often encouraged not to read the bible, but to read JW bibles or writings instead. It's incredibly easy to control people when you make insularity a virtue, and they buy into it.
hkmurakami 10y ago
A somewhat OT anecdote: I met one of my good friends in SF serrindipitously because... he was reading Wealth of Nations next to me at the cafe bar and I struck up a conversation with him about it. And perhaps naturally, he's as far from dogmatic devotion as one can get.
zeckalpha 10y ago
In fact, he warned of this very thing. No one listens.
- dredmorbius 10y ago
  Where, specifically? (Genuinely curious, as I, too, strongly advocate actually reading Smith: https://www.reddit.com/r/dredmorbius/comments/4cyroa/adam_smiths_lost_legacy_or_why_you_should_read/ https://www.reddit.com/r/dredmorbius/comments/4cyroa/adam_sm...)

jondubois 10y ago

There is definitely something in it when the article links turbo-capitalism to "the destruction of authenticity". I find that wealthy people lack authenticity and more often than not, they seem to be completely unaware of their predicament. They've seemingly lost their ability for self-reflection (if they ever had it) - That's why many of them trust financially-motivated personal growth gurus, success coaches, high-end psychologists and advisors to guide them. A lot of wealthy people don't seem to fully appreciate that absolutely everyone around them is constantly trying to milk them - Eventually, they get so used to it that they start to think that they're living in some pink cloud surrounded by friendly people and they forget that these so-called friends always have their skinny hands on those fat udders of theirs.

WalterBright 10y ago
> wealthy people lack authenticity What is "authenticity"? > seemingly lost their ability for self-reflection ???
skybrian 10y ago
How many wealthy people do you know? How do you know how much self-reflection they do?
- jondubois 10y ago
  Several, including a close family member and several relatives. I've also met lots of others and the pattern looks very clear to me.
  - jacobn 10y ago
    The wealthy people I personally know do not follow the pattern you describe.
  - zodo123 10y ago
    The plural of 'anecdote' is not 'data'.
10y ago

mabbo 10y ago

> In the end, he offers no prescription for turbo-capitalism, merely predicts that "the wave of the future could be populism," the essence of which is always "a revolt of the less educated against elite rule, elite opinions, elite values and the elite's consensus on how government and the economy should be run." Published in 1999. Sounds like he got at least some things right.

dpark 10y ago

> As for Rule Three, it is for the non-Calvinists who reject Rule Two, "who are not paralyzed by guilt and who are too uneducated to express their resentment legally." For them "there is only one possible form of expression: to break the law, by engaging in criminal activities such as murder, armed robbery, violent assault, rape and the smoking of marijuana in pipes or home-made cigarettes." Followers of Rule Three end up in prison. This feels really out of touch. Aside from the stilted language ("home-made cigarettes" in 1999, really?), lumping people who use marijuana with rapists and murderers is absurd. Might as well lump in people who jaywalk.

doubleunplussed 10y ago
I think that might be the point.
macawfish 10y ago
Not everyone who jaywalks is following the third law, but jaywalking might be a good indication that you are! From what I can tell, the idea of those three laws is to emphasize the first two. Anyone who isn't falling for the mentality of the first two risks, by their 'out of the box' tendencies, being tossed in the clink with the rapists and murderers. In ultra-capitalist America, they are saying, money's power is protected at the cost of some human freedoms, such as the freedom to smoke homemade cigarettes that didn't feed into the industry. If you don't make the sacrifices required by the first two laws, you might find yourself sacrificed. It's safest to conform.

fluxic 10y ago

>Using the Microsoft Corporation as his benchmark, Mr. Luttwak says that the new high-tech titans produce much capital but relatively few new jobs. The rich get richer, but those driven out of work by the computer revolution are forced to take lower-paying service jobs. The unskilled they displace turn rationally to criminal activity like drug dealing. Prescient. Facebook is a $400B corporation, one of the world's most valuable, and it employs, what, 15k people? Before, your bigcorps like Carnegie Steel and Standard Oil employed hundreds of thousands. We no longer need labourers for factory work, to fight wars, to flip burgers or drive trucks. People say that automation will only create more jobs and freedom, but I have a hard time believing that. Automation is the ultimate triumph of capital over labour. The rich don't need Middle America any more, because most Middle Americans don't have any worthwhile skills. Americans in "flyover country" are increasingly unemployed, filing for disability, and dying of opioid overdoses. And people wonder why Trump got elected. I'm parroting the points made in this delightful talk here, by a YC alum no less: https://www.facebook.com/antonio.f.garcia.martinez/posts/10106466808735263 https://www.facebook.com/antonio.f.garcia.martinez/posts/101...

gragas 10y ago
I think you are right that "automation is the ultimate triumph of capital over labour," but I'd really like to point out that knowledge capital is a huge part of this. Having an employable skill these days is becoming more and more synonymous with having some sort of knowledge capital, because essentially everything that doesn't require knowledge capital can be automated away. >Americans in "flyover country" are increasingly unemployed, filing for disability, and dying of opioid overdoses. That's not true in general, and it implies that states like California don't face these same issues. If you look at the unemployment rate of states, the 25 states with the lowest unemployment rates are all "flyover country." [1] I think the root of these problems are caused by structural unemployment. Living in a flyover state is a great predictor of these problems, but it is not the cause. 1. https://www.statista.com/statistics/200017/state-unemployment-rate-in-the-us/ https://www.statista.com/statistics/200017/state-unemploymen...
- fluxic 10y ago

BrailleHunting 10y ago

Turbo-capitalism's full name is "suicidal, greedy, libertarian, utopian delusions worshipping anarchy and extinction, while scapegoating sensible democratic socialism (government and commonwealth) as 'the great Satan.'"