What does it mean when economists start to praise moral (moralistic?) critiques of society from establishment conservatives? Here is Tyler Cowen on Ross Douthat's new book:
What saved us then was the Vietnam war and then stagflation, which combined to discredit the technocrats. What will save us this time? Perhaps nothing. The technocrats efforts to change the middle east through the use of the military have been no more successful than the previous generations efforts in Korea and Vietnam were. That has not discredited them however.
Again, as with the 1960s we have a massive generational shift that seems to be facilitating the rise of the technocrats. I say "seems to be" for two reasons. First because what we see now is not driven so much by the new generation rising as the older generation fading. Second because the boomers ultimately split on those issues with enough of them joining the more skeptical members of the silent and great generations to reject the technocrats. It's way too early to judge what the younger generations will be and everything that has been reported of them so far is just older people projecting their beliefs back onto younger generations.
I leave you with a juxtaposition:
1958 The Affluent Society: A literate and expert revision of the basic ideas
2019 The Decadent Society: How we became victims of our own success
The experts are once again pessimistic.
Excellent book! It has a real dose of Peter Thiel (and some Tyler Cowen), and most of it comes as fresh material even if you have read all of Ross’s other columns and books. Imagine the idea of technological stagnation tied together with a conservative Catholic critique of decadence, and in a convincing manner with a dose of pro-natalism tossed in for good measure.I think, as my title for this post indicates, that you can see evidence of a realignment here. People who didn't used to be political bedmates are becoming political bedmates. I think the real motion here, just to be clear, is on Douthat's part. We see people who used to be establishment conservatives—Douthat, Kristol, Goldberg, Dreher, Ponnuru, French—embracing technocrats. As with so many other things, we're turning back to the 1960s.
What saved us then was the Vietnam war and then stagflation, which combined to discredit the technocrats. What will save us this time? Perhaps nothing. The technocrats efforts to change the middle east through the use of the military have been no more successful than the previous generations efforts in Korea and Vietnam were. That has not discredited them however.
Again, as with the 1960s we have a massive generational shift that seems to be facilitating the rise of the technocrats. I say "seems to be" for two reasons. First because what we see now is not driven so much by the new generation rising as the older generation fading. Second because the boomers ultimately split on those issues with enough of them joining the more skeptical members of the silent and great generations to reject the technocrats. It's way too early to judge what the younger generations will be and everything that has been reported of them so far is just older people projecting their beliefs back onto younger generations.
I leave you with a juxtaposition:
1958 The Affluent Society: A literate and expert revision of the basic ideas
2019 The Decadent Society: How we became victims of our own success
The experts are once again pessimistic.
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