Thanks, Daniel, this is an excellent essay, most of which I actually understood, and I learned a good deal too. I'm fearful of what I'm learning at the moment, actively wrangling my emotions as I search for glimmers of hope. I seem to keep coming back to the need to develop my stoicism in the face of the unpleasant odds.
So-called rational self-interest, it seems, inevitably sums to the tragedy of the commons. The hardest thing to swallow is the immense potential, our scientific progress, our staggering works of art, the unimaginable rise of a violent great ape to Enlightenment philosopher, our ability to analyse exactly what ails us, and seems likely to destroy us, while perhaps still not being able to execute a remedy.
I saw your comment on Informed Dissent, and I look forward - if that's the right phrase - to reading more of your substack. I noticed one typo, by the way, "This has lead to the absurd situation...", and I am apparently too vain not to mention it. Thanks again.
Thanks for the comment, John. I agree we need to remain hopeful, and for my part I do that by delving into these topics in an attempt to understand and share what I've found.
Lead versus led has caught me out! It's because I read it as 'lead' like the metal.
“Perhaps Adam Smith's 'invisible hand' turned out to be a phantom limb.”
Well said!
I ponder whether the ‘rubber hand illusion’ extends to this phantom limb: so many seem to have completely integrated the idea of such a (positive) force into their psyche, with any ‘harm’ to the ‘invisible hand’ perceived as an attack on the individuals themselves.
As illusionists, con men, and advertisers all know & show with their respective ‘successes’, the human brain is hackable in myriad and often surprising ways, without any awareness on the part of the hacked. Has capitalism’s original success also been subverted by the powerful in such a way as to keep the flocks fat, happy, and docile?
Thanks for the comment. I wonder if a time-travelling Adam Smith would be astonished that Britain today has government offices which fine private companies for failing to meet targets and standards set by government itself, but refuses direct intervention on the basis that there is supposedly a free market.
Unless the market fails, in which case government takes over companies it previously privatised, while also subsidising them (for example, rail companies).
Perhaps the worst of all possible models combined, and it does seem like a series of sleights of hand, as you say. The extraction of profits from British regional monopoly water and sewage companies, leaving them starved of capital and failing, is an economic magic trick gone wrong.
As long as “human” and environmental costs are treated as externalities, I can’t see this changing: if only traditional profits and losses are accounted for, extractive capitalism… extracts whatever profit it can at the expense of societies and ecosystems.
An interlocutor yesterday commented to me that Elon has a legal obligation to maximize profits for his shareholders, which pretty much paints the target: as long as plutocrats are writing those laws (cf USA Citizens United, as the most egregious example), then it’s completely unsurprising that those laws centre on the accumulation of wealth rather than on the greater needs of broader society and environment.
We (“the peoples”) desperately need laws that bring about consequences for such bad actors faster and more focused than the environment can … otherwise there’s little incentive for the narcissist to minimize his damage to others and to the future.
Thanks, Daniel, this is an excellent essay, most of which I actually understood, and I learned a good deal too. I'm fearful of what I'm learning at the moment, actively wrangling my emotions as I search for glimmers of hope. I seem to keep coming back to the need to develop my stoicism in the face of the unpleasant odds.
So-called rational self-interest, it seems, inevitably sums to the tragedy of the commons. The hardest thing to swallow is the immense potential, our scientific progress, our staggering works of art, the unimaginable rise of a violent great ape to Enlightenment philosopher, our ability to analyse exactly what ails us, and seems likely to destroy us, while perhaps still not being able to execute a remedy.
I saw your comment on Informed Dissent, and I look forward - if that's the right phrase - to reading more of your substack. I noticed one typo, by the way, "This has lead to the absurd situation...", and I am apparently too vain not to mention it. Thanks again.
Thanks for the comment, John. I agree we need to remain hopeful, and for my part I do that by delving into these topics in an attempt to understand and share what I've found.
Lead versus led has caught me out! It's because I read it as 'lead' like the metal.
“Perhaps Adam Smith's 'invisible hand' turned out to be a phantom limb.”
Well said!
I ponder whether the ‘rubber hand illusion’ extends to this phantom limb: so many seem to have completely integrated the idea of such a (positive) force into their psyche, with any ‘harm’ to the ‘invisible hand’ perceived as an attack on the individuals themselves.
As illusionists, con men, and advertisers all know & show with their respective ‘successes’, the human brain is hackable in myriad and often surprising ways, without any awareness on the part of the hacked. Has capitalism’s original success also been subverted by the powerful in such a way as to keep the flocks fat, happy, and docile?
Thanks for the comment. I wonder if a time-travelling Adam Smith would be astonished that Britain today has government offices which fine private companies for failing to meet targets and standards set by government itself, but refuses direct intervention on the basis that there is supposedly a free market.
Unless the market fails, in which case government takes over companies it previously privatised, while also subsidising them (for example, rail companies).
Perhaps the worst of all possible models combined, and it does seem like a series of sleights of hand, as you say. The extraction of profits from British regional monopoly water and sewage companies, leaving them starved of capital and failing, is an economic magic trick gone wrong.
As long as “human” and environmental costs are treated as externalities, I can’t see this changing: if only traditional profits and losses are accounted for, extractive capitalism… extracts whatever profit it can at the expense of societies and ecosystems.
An interlocutor yesterday commented to me that Elon has a legal obligation to maximize profits for his shareholders, which pretty much paints the target: as long as plutocrats are writing those laws (cf USA Citizens United, as the most egregious example), then it’s completely unsurprising that those laws centre on the accumulation of wealth rather than on the greater needs of broader society and environment.
We (“the peoples”) desperately need laws that bring about consequences for such bad actors faster and more focused than the environment can … otherwise there’s little incentive for the narcissist to minimize his damage to others and to the future.