I am not American, but I do believe that the issue of being a responsible citizen is one that needs to be discussed in all democratic societies. Part of the issue, I believe, is the many layers of government and the complexities of their relationships. Often people are not even sure which level of government is responsible for what, and the answer to that is not always a simple one. There is also an increasing lack of transparency in government and people in government are often influenced by agencies other than that of the people who elected them. I think that some people have just ‘given up’, and one of the things that we all need to do is simplify the system, ensure transparency and accountability. Finally, can I just say that I have come to hate the term ‘critical thinking’. I find it is often used by one group of people to ‘flagellate’ another- insisting that ‘they’ are the critical thinkers and the group which disagrees with them is not.
Is there a better term than critical thinking that illuminates the difference between those who are capable of processing evidence and formulating a reasonable theory about it, and those who can't? Those who understand the difference between facts and truthiness, and those who don't? I mean, you can say they lack critical thinking and deductive reasoning skills, or you can just call them idiots, I suppose.
I feel just the opposite about the term critical thinking. If every single student was required to take critical thinking classes, and if we started them in high school, I believe we would have a far better informed electorate. Let me rephrase... perhaps not better informed, as the latter does not necessarily follow from the former, but certainly better able to detect bullshit arguments and thus not being as susceptible to the ol' okey doke.
I agree with you there. In 2014, the English National Curriculum changed from a skills based curriculum to a ‘fact-based’ curriculum. In History classes, I used to teach children about bias and propaganda, but now I just teach them facts. With my own son, I have had many, many discussions about bias, perspective, questioning the agenda of the person presenting the information, doing your own research etc, etc. I think that children should be taught to think critically, but what I object to is people who claim to think critically and tell those people who do not agree with them that they do not, thereby ‘weaponising’ the term critical thinking.
Agreed. A disagreement should be addressed via valid arguments, not by being an ass, nor by dismissing or insulting people (with any term) just because they challenge you. I understand how, if you witness that kind of behavior enough times, it can start to rub you the wrong way, but I just don't want to throw the baby out with the bath water! ;-) I think the term is important and the skills behind it should be far better understood/learned by the masses, but yes, it should never be weaponized. Weaponizing might shut down an argument, but it does diddly-squat for elevating a discussion or potentially changing minds, not to mention it's a rather dehumanizing tactic.
All that said, I do want to say one more thing. I also understand how incredibly frustrating it can be for someone who is having a heated discussion with a person, and said person does not have the capacity to be able to connect dot A to dot B to dot C. And the argument just goes round and round and round. You're a teacher, so perhaps you have first hand experience! These days in the United States, many of those conversations require the patience of a saint, and most of us are pretty low on patience.
100% I wish you were around to help me articulate this to my economics teachers and professors over the years. They all seemed to think the economy was a machine with switches and levers that merely needed a tweak here or there to dial in growth or contraction in real-time. I meanwhile, was a fan of Freakonmics (Dubner and Levitt). Humans and the systems they create, aren't always as predictable as most people would like to think. Freakonomics didn't get everything right either, but it has some amusing anecdotes about when decision-makers got it wrong.
"We do not teach the question: how do you know what you know?"
It's much deeper than you acknowledge in your essay; we no longer, in general, teach deductive reasoning or critical thinking. When I was a child in California in the 70s, I was lucky to have teachers who (mostly) taught reasoning and thinking, and parents who did the same. But those skills are harder to test for than to memorizing a bunch of facts and figures; it's so much easier to test whether students know what year the Civil War happened, or what the names of the constituents of atoms are, rather than teaching why the Civil War happened, or how we know what the constituents of atoms are and how many false paths were travelled to get there. (And then there are always those why actively deny the reasons that the Civil War happened, and still revel in its "glory", or that deny that atoms exist and that we can know about them.) And so American education became "teaching the test" rather than "teaching how to think".
On top of this, there was an outcry about children having their development hurt by being held back in school (I tutored several of my friends so they would not get held back when I was a child), so they didn't even have to pass the test to advance.
And now we're well into...let's see..the third generation, by my count, of Americans who were taught to pass the test, or just plain passed from grade to grade without learning anything. And they didn't teach their children any different.
I loathe Trump. And can’t help but feel pity for his MAGAtard voters who are stupid enough to believe his lies, especially that he’s a genius businessman who could fix the economy. But we also need to be perfectly candid about what fools the last three democratic candidates were. Hilary, who called the MAGAtards “deplorables” and never set foot in the swing states where elections are decided. Joe, who violated his own promise not to run again after one term, even though he was years past his sell-by date. And Kamala, who never seemed to have any policies and didn’t respond to or repudiate Trump’s last minute adverts about they/them. We can all hate on Trump and his base ad nauseum, but we’d damn well better ensure that the democratic candidates in 2026 and 2028 aren’t PC fools - or we’ll end up with JV Dunce as commander in chief.
I am not trying to dismiss your words. But I must confess that I'm unsure of the relevance of your thoughts to the philosophical argument I made in this piece.
An interesting article and I find myself both agreeing and disagreeing with it in parts.
It is absolutely true what we refer to as “the economy” is so complex and discussions about it so oblivious to the complexity that discussions about “the economy” fall into the basket of opinionology, heavily influenced by confirmation bias. One sees in “the economy” what one wants (or fears) to see.
However, there are policy decisions of government that have direct and predictable effects on the economy, mainly by adding to, or detracting from, the amount of money the bottom 80% has to spend day to day.
The consumer economy runs on exchanges of goods and services for money. Wage income is the biggest component of that, and when that wage income shrinks (absolutely due to lack of work—absent government support—or relatively due to prices rising faster than wage income increases) the consumer economy shrinks. People notice.
When the government adds income to people (who are unemployed or directly as was the case during COVID), the economy expands. In that respect at least the government can have an impact on “the economy” in a way the average person will perceive.
"However, there are policy decisions of government that have direct and predictable effects on the economy, mainly by adding to, or detracting from, the amount of money the bottom 80% has to spend day to day."
Nothing I said contradicts this. My general point is that the traditional socialist alternative was to use economic planning commissions, who would try to replace regular market mechanisms like wages and prices, with pre-planned production schedules, and then try to distribute those things based on perceived need, through surveying the public. The experiments at removing the market mechanism that socialist movements in the 20th century attempted, resulted in the complete collapse of economies. Including major famines. In China. In the Soviet Union, with the Ukrainian Holodomor.
Experiments with it in democratic countries in the West, with state-run industries and supply management led to stagnant economies, declining living standards. And these experiments are what gave rise to the neoliberal movement in the 1980s.
The Scandinavian model avoided these traps. Sweden and Norway are purely market economies, with a cradle-to-grave welfare state, high taxation, with low government consumption on that taxation, instead directed to direct transfer payments.
So I hold firm in my position that "markets are better than central planning". And Scandinavia, that many democratic socialists hold up as a example, actually make my point. And many socialists agree with me. There is a school of socialism known as "market socialism".
C'mon MIke, we all know that the Illuminutty and the underground race of the crab people in conjunction with the Underpants-Gnomes manage the economy. /s
Like Rick Knight, I’ve been waiting for this. Or maybe it’s more that I’ve wondered why it isn’t obvious to everyone. If one pays any attention, it’s obvious that the various threads that make up the tapestry of a living system are going to be very difficult to parse.
I majored in economics but not because I have any affinity for it; rather because I have a mind that I knew wouldn’t pick it up without forced discipline. My bent is more toward psychology (never studied it but have a life long passion for observation).
What I think I see happening in the realm of our economy is that there are people with a mindset that enjoys the challenge of formulating theories that look ever so neat and satisfying. They can be written down and referred to, which makes them seem more substantial and enduring. They can also be the basis for acclaim and perhaps provide the reinforcement of attracting a following. Over time a number of theories have succeeded one another (I happen to like Keynesian) and the people who construct our public policies become so entrenched in the accuracy of their chosen system that their ego investment becomes so strong that it becomes existential to warp and twist every passing current in the environment to suit their chosen theory.
I feel like we are constantly struggling to get out of the economic/political cages that are built by very sincere and smart people. In our frustration, those who disagree become threats, even enemies. Then of course there is always a cast of vultures who cynically work the political field; they are unattractive but an unavoidable part of life. They may even be useful in that we can easily see the dark side of them whereas our own shadow is hard to see. I find the Buddhist idea of enemies being your potential best teachers a good way of keeping unpalatable people out of my head.
Taught for 40 years. It is a fallacy that teachers “teach to the test.” Memorizing facts and figures? Do visit your nearest school and ask if that’s what their teachers are spending time on. So tired of hearing this as a statement of fact. While you’re there ask to look at the curriculum the teachers are using. Then take a day and watch what happens in a classroom. Putting this “societal deficit” on teachers fails the test of critical thinking or deductive reasoning.
I have children, and far too much of their curriculum has been created to pass the standardized tests and far too little to actually teach in an interesting and engaging way. And far too often, teachers who teach in an interesting or engaging way are driven from the profession because they brought up something "controversial". And the blame is not on the teachers; I place more of it on the parents, because far too many of the children I've seen are undisciplined little brats who don't know the meaning of the word "no", and on the system that graduates kids from high school who can't functionally read, write, or do basic maths.
I don't blame teachers at all. But I learnt very little world history and almost zero politics until I was at University. Unlike my parent's generation we were brought up on individualism, art and creativity were given priority over 'boring' subjects like history. I talk to my kids - 11 and 16 and they know nothing about WWII let alone WW1, no American history, no world history, just a smattering of cultural/history from their own country. I know there's a lot in curriculums, and teachers have an insane amount of stuff to deal with, but somehow we need to get politics and history back into classes. Kids this age should be able to look at the news and talk about it intelligently, and be learning about how to sort fact from fake etc. When you think a lot will quit school at around 18, you better hope we've armed them with enough information not to be sucked into another MAGA dictatorship. And to understand the horror and dangers of war. And the importance of democracy and keeping an eye on politics and politicians. I feel like our generation was too busy learning how to be selfish.
I am a high school history and music teacher. One of my core responsibilities to teach evaluation of evidence and reasoning specifically in how it applies to participating in a democracy. While a majority of my students are capable of doing so, there is a sizable minority that is worryingly far from it. The system only works if the ones capable of reasoning choose to participate.
As a socialist and democrat, I disagree on the economics. The obvious counterexample is the period after 2008 when austerity policies proved disastrous.
But also, how should we deal with people who watched Trump's insurrection and voted for him anyway on the basis of "feels". If Dems turn them around on the same basis, they will switch back as soon as the economy turns down, bringing the Repubs back to complete the shift to dictatorship.
The only win worth having is a complete repudiation of Trump and the entire Republican party. Dispelling the narrative of economic competence is part of that, but running on affordability isn't (though of course fine when running for NYC mayor)
I'm not sure that I understand my intervention here to implicate matters of austerity. I am somewhat of a neo-Keynesian dispositionally, so I would have some amount of agreement with you, I think, about how to think of public expenditure and monetary policy during times of economic distress—although public account issues complicate this now.
The market mechanism as a superior model to planned production patterns is, I believe, beyond dispute. That being true does not imply that our economy should be 100% market driven. Interventions in terms of the regulation of negative externalities, the redistribution of wealth in pursuit of economic justice, the limiting of capital's political power are all things that are orthogonal to the general point.
Great piece, Mike, thank you. This is the kind of stuff that keeps me reading you even if I often think you are too pessimistic and sometimes overly abrasive. It puts the electorate's lack of critical thinking in a specific context that illuminates both its origins and effects in a way most commentary doesn't.
I think you arguably underrate the possibility of negative trends reversing themselves, and the possibility of a restoring a healthy society within a framework that looks more similar to where we started than many expect. I think that true cataclysm is both avoidable and unnecessary.
That's not a prediction as much as it's a hedge. The cataclysm COULD be larger than even you expect. Who am I to say? But I could be misreading you, and of course there are plenty of variables that can affect how "pessimistic" one sees that interpretation.
I would hope that the fact that I engage with your work is adequate evidence that I'm not "burying my head in the sand" or in active denial about everything.
At least you've provided a good illustration of the abrasiveness. 🙂
I would suggest that I have predicted the downfall of this fascist movement. Not its consolidation of power. Your caricature of my stance leads me to believe you have not read my views on the subject very carefully.
What you're doing right now? Being confrontational toward someone who gave you a compliment, and assuming the worst of them intellectually? As far as I can tell, that is pretty well representative of how you regard all of humanity. If that's not pessimism I don't know what is.
I am not assuming anything. You made a statement about my prediction towards "cataclysm" and characterized it as a pessimistic view. These words have precise meanings. I read them as charitably as I could, and came to the conclusion that they starkly misrepresent my general view on the long run. I have, in fact, written quite optimistic takes over the past weeks, interspersed with my narrations on current events. Like this piece, for instance. Published just yesterday: https://www.notesfromthecircus.com/p/the-first-domino
Well, I’m sorry for any inaccuracy or misrepresentation in my description of your outlook. I don’t think you’re understanding me much more precisely than I am understanding you. But in any case, you come across as having a dim view of humanity, and if you’re not trying to, you might consider looking into why instead of being peevish with people who engage with you.
I am not American, but I do believe that the issue of being a responsible citizen is one that needs to be discussed in all democratic societies. Part of the issue, I believe, is the many layers of government and the complexities of their relationships. Often people are not even sure which level of government is responsible for what, and the answer to that is not always a simple one. There is also an increasing lack of transparency in government and people in government are often influenced by agencies other than that of the people who elected them. I think that some people have just ‘given up’, and one of the things that we all need to do is simplify the system, ensure transparency and accountability. Finally, can I just say that I have come to hate the term ‘critical thinking’. I find it is often used by one group of people to ‘flagellate’ another- insisting that ‘they’ are the critical thinkers and the group which disagrees with them is not.
Is there a better term than critical thinking that illuminates the difference between those who are capable of processing evidence and formulating a reasonable theory about it, and those who can't? Those who understand the difference between facts and truthiness, and those who don't? I mean, you can say they lack critical thinking and deductive reasoning skills, or you can just call them idiots, I suppose.
I feel just the opposite about the term critical thinking. If every single student was required to take critical thinking classes, and if we started them in high school, I believe we would have a far better informed electorate. Let me rephrase... perhaps not better informed, as the latter does not necessarily follow from the former, but certainly better able to detect bullshit arguments and thus not being as susceptible to the ol' okey doke.
That's an electorate I'd like to see.
I agree with you there. In 2014, the English National Curriculum changed from a skills based curriculum to a ‘fact-based’ curriculum. In History classes, I used to teach children about bias and propaganda, but now I just teach them facts. With my own son, I have had many, many discussions about bias, perspective, questioning the agenda of the person presenting the information, doing your own research etc, etc. I think that children should be taught to think critically, but what I object to is people who claim to think critically and tell those people who do not agree with them that they do not, thereby ‘weaponising’ the term critical thinking.
Agreed. A disagreement should be addressed via valid arguments, not by being an ass, nor by dismissing or insulting people (with any term) just because they challenge you. I understand how, if you witness that kind of behavior enough times, it can start to rub you the wrong way, but I just don't want to throw the baby out with the bath water! ;-) I think the term is important and the skills behind it should be far better understood/learned by the masses, but yes, it should never be weaponized. Weaponizing might shut down an argument, but it does diddly-squat for elevating a discussion or potentially changing minds, not to mention it's a rather dehumanizing tactic.
All that said, I do want to say one more thing. I also understand how incredibly frustrating it can be for someone who is having a heated discussion with a person, and said person does not have the capacity to be able to connect dot A to dot B to dot C. And the argument just goes round and round and round. You're a teacher, so perhaps you have first hand experience! These days in the United States, many of those conversations require the patience of a saint, and most of us are pretty low on patience.
I’ve been WAITING MY WHOLE LIFE FOR SOMEONE TO SAY THIS!
Actually, I did — sort of — but Mike is better.
Well, Mr. Knight. I am glad this long winter of yours has come to end here today!
It’s the pollsters that keep this stupidity alive, with their rep[orting on voters’ opinions on “President XYZ’s handling of the economy.”
100% I wish you were around to help me articulate this to my economics teachers and professors over the years. They all seemed to think the economy was a machine with switches and levers that merely needed a tweak here or there to dial in growth or contraction in real-time. I meanwhile, was a fan of Freakonmics (Dubner and Levitt). Humans and the systems they create, aren't always as predictable as most people would like to think. Freakonomics didn't get everything right either, but it has some amusing anecdotes about when decision-makers got it wrong.
Here: https://citizen99.substack.com/p/fallacies-inc-secrets-of-the-political-4eb?r=2sauq&utm_medium=ios
"We do not teach the question: how do you know what you know?"
It's much deeper than you acknowledge in your essay; we no longer, in general, teach deductive reasoning or critical thinking. When I was a child in California in the 70s, I was lucky to have teachers who (mostly) taught reasoning and thinking, and parents who did the same. But those skills are harder to test for than to memorizing a bunch of facts and figures; it's so much easier to test whether students know what year the Civil War happened, or what the names of the constituents of atoms are, rather than teaching why the Civil War happened, or how we know what the constituents of atoms are and how many false paths were travelled to get there. (And then there are always those why actively deny the reasons that the Civil War happened, and still revel in its "glory", or that deny that atoms exist and that we can know about them.) And so American education became "teaching the test" rather than "teaching how to think".
On top of this, there was an outcry about children having their development hurt by being held back in school (I tutored several of my friends so they would not get held back when I was a child), so they didn't even have to pass the test to advance.
And now we're well into...let's see..the third generation, by my count, of Americans who were taught to pass the test, or just plain passed from grade to grade without learning anything. And they didn't teach their children any different.
"Idiocracy" is a documentary. So is "They Live".
Love this piece, Mike. I especially like the opener. I'm in wonder that so many voters use that logic to explain why they vote the way they do.
I loathe Trump. And can’t help but feel pity for his MAGAtard voters who are stupid enough to believe his lies, especially that he’s a genius businessman who could fix the economy. But we also need to be perfectly candid about what fools the last three democratic candidates were. Hilary, who called the MAGAtards “deplorables” and never set foot in the swing states where elections are decided. Joe, who violated his own promise not to run again after one term, even though he was years past his sell-by date. And Kamala, who never seemed to have any policies and didn’t respond to or repudiate Trump’s last minute adverts about they/them. We can all hate on Trump and his base ad nauseum, but we’d damn well better ensure that the democratic candidates in 2026 and 2028 aren’t PC fools - or we’ll end up with JV Dunce as commander in chief.
I am not trying to dismiss your words. But I must confess that I'm unsure of the relevance of your thoughts to the philosophical argument I made in this piece.
Upon further reflection, you make a good point.
An interesting article and I find myself both agreeing and disagreeing with it in parts.
It is absolutely true what we refer to as “the economy” is so complex and discussions about it so oblivious to the complexity that discussions about “the economy” fall into the basket of opinionology, heavily influenced by confirmation bias. One sees in “the economy” what one wants (or fears) to see.
However, there are policy decisions of government that have direct and predictable effects on the economy, mainly by adding to, or detracting from, the amount of money the bottom 80% has to spend day to day.
The consumer economy runs on exchanges of goods and services for money. Wage income is the biggest component of that, and when that wage income shrinks (absolutely due to lack of work—absent government support—or relatively due to prices rising faster than wage income increases) the consumer economy shrinks. People notice.
When the government adds income to people (who are unemployed or directly as was the case during COVID), the economy expands. In that respect at least the government can have an impact on “the economy” in a way the average person will perceive.
"However, there are policy decisions of government that have direct and predictable effects on the economy, mainly by adding to, or detracting from, the amount of money the bottom 80% has to spend day to day."
Nothing I said contradicts this. My general point is that the traditional socialist alternative was to use economic planning commissions, who would try to replace regular market mechanisms like wages and prices, with pre-planned production schedules, and then try to distribute those things based on perceived need, through surveying the public. The experiments at removing the market mechanism that socialist movements in the 20th century attempted, resulted in the complete collapse of economies. Including major famines. In China. In the Soviet Union, with the Ukrainian Holodomor.
Experiments with it in democratic countries in the West, with state-run industries and supply management led to stagnant economies, declining living standards. And these experiments are what gave rise to the neoliberal movement in the 1980s.
The Scandinavian model avoided these traps. Sweden and Norway are purely market economies, with a cradle-to-grave welfare state, high taxation, with low government consumption on that taxation, instead directed to direct transfer payments.
So I hold firm in my position that "markets are better than central planning". And Scandinavia, that many democratic socialists hold up as a example, actually make my point. And many socialists agree with me. There is a school of socialism known as "market socialism".
C'mon MIke, we all know that the Illuminutty and the underground race of the crab people in conjunction with the Underpants-Gnomes manage the economy. /s
Like Rick Knight, I’ve been waiting for this. Or maybe it’s more that I’ve wondered why it isn’t obvious to everyone. If one pays any attention, it’s obvious that the various threads that make up the tapestry of a living system are going to be very difficult to parse.
I majored in economics but not because I have any affinity for it; rather because I have a mind that I knew wouldn’t pick it up without forced discipline. My bent is more toward psychology (never studied it but have a life long passion for observation).
What I think I see happening in the realm of our economy is that there are people with a mindset that enjoys the challenge of formulating theories that look ever so neat and satisfying. They can be written down and referred to, which makes them seem more substantial and enduring. They can also be the basis for acclaim and perhaps provide the reinforcement of attracting a following. Over time a number of theories have succeeded one another (I happen to like Keynesian) and the people who construct our public policies become so entrenched in the accuracy of their chosen system that their ego investment becomes so strong that it becomes existential to warp and twist every passing current in the environment to suit their chosen theory.
I feel like we are constantly struggling to get out of the economic/political cages that are built by very sincere and smart people. In our frustration, those who disagree become threats, even enemies. Then of course there is always a cast of vultures who cynically work the political field; they are unattractive but an unavoidable part of life. They may even be useful in that we can easily see the dark side of them whereas our own shadow is hard to see. I find the Buddhist idea of enemies being your potential best teachers a good way of keeping unpalatable people out of my head.
Taught for 40 years. It is a fallacy that teachers “teach to the test.” Memorizing facts and figures? Do visit your nearest school and ask if that’s what their teachers are spending time on. So tired of hearing this as a statement of fact. While you’re there ask to look at the curriculum the teachers are using. Then take a day and watch what happens in a classroom. Putting this “societal deficit” on teachers fails the test of critical thinking or deductive reasoning.
I have children, and far too much of their curriculum has been created to pass the standardized tests and far too little to actually teach in an interesting and engaging way. And far too often, teachers who teach in an interesting or engaging way are driven from the profession because they brought up something "controversial". And the blame is not on the teachers; I place more of it on the parents, because far too many of the children I've seen are undisciplined little brats who don't know the meaning of the word "no", and on the system that graduates kids from high school who can't functionally read, write, or do basic maths.
I don't blame teachers at all. But I learnt very little world history and almost zero politics until I was at University. Unlike my parent's generation we were brought up on individualism, art and creativity were given priority over 'boring' subjects like history. I talk to my kids - 11 and 16 and they know nothing about WWII let alone WW1, no American history, no world history, just a smattering of cultural/history from their own country. I know there's a lot in curriculums, and teachers have an insane amount of stuff to deal with, but somehow we need to get politics and history back into classes. Kids this age should be able to look at the news and talk about it intelligently, and be learning about how to sort fact from fake etc. When you think a lot will quit school at around 18, you better hope we've armed them with enough information not to be sucked into another MAGA dictatorship. And to understand the horror and dangers of war. And the importance of democracy and keeping an eye on politics and politicians. I feel like our generation was too busy learning how to be selfish.
Any concrete ideas for an eighth grade civics teacher? Please share!
I am a high school history and music teacher. One of my core responsibilities to teach evaluation of evidence and reasoning specifically in how it applies to participating in a democracy. While a majority of my students are capable of doing so, there is a sizable minority that is worryingly far from it. The system only works if the ones capable of reasoning choose to participate.
As a socialist and democrat, I disagree on the economics. The obvious counterexample is the period after 2008 when austerity policies proved disastrous.
But also, how should we deal with people who watched Trump's insurrection and voted for him anyway on the basis of "feels". If Dems turn them around on the same basis, they will switch back as soon as the economy turns down, bringing the Repubs back to complete the shift to dictatorship.
The only win worth having is a complete repudiation of Trump and the entire Republican party. Dispelling the narrative of economic competence is part of that, but running on affordability isn't (though of course fine when running for NYC mayor)
I'm not sure that I understand my intervention here to implicate matters of austerity. I am somewhat of a neo-Keynesian dispositionally, so I would have some amount of agreement with you, I think, about how to think of public expenditure and monetary policy during times of economic distress—although public account issues complicate this now.
The market mechanism as a superior model to planned production patterns is, I believe, beyond dispute. That being true does not imply that our economy should be 100% market driven. Interventions in terms of the regulation of negative externalities, the redistribution of wealth in pursuit of economic justice, the limiting of capital's political power are all things that are orthogonal to the general point.
You might like my book, Economics in Two Lessons: Why Markets Work so Well and Why they can Fail so Badly
Great piece, Mike, thank you. This is the kind of stuff that keeps me reading you even if I often think you are too pessimistic and sometimes overly abrasive. It puts the electorate's lack of critical thinking in a specific context that illuminates both its origins and effects in a way most commentary doesn't.
Pessimistic? I take umbrage at the notion I am a pessimist. What words of mine have you perceived as pessimistic?
I think you arguably underrate the possibility of negative trends reversing themselves, and the possibility of a restoring a healthy society within a framework that looks more similar to where we started than many expect. I think that true cataclysm is both avoidable and unnecessary.
That's not a prediction as much as it's a hedge. The cataclysm COULD be larger than even you expect. Who am I to say? But I could be misreading you, and of course there are plenty of variables that can affect how "pessimistic" one sees that interpretation.
I would hope that the fact that I engage with your work is adequate evidence that I'm not "burying my head in the sand" or in active denial about everything.
At least you've provided a good illustration of the abrasiveness. 🙂
I would suggest that I have predicted the downfall of this fascist movement. Not its consolidation of power. Your caricature of my stance leads me to believe you have not read my views on the subject very carefully.
What you're doing right now? Being confrontational toward someone who gave you a compliment, and assuming the worst of them intellectually? As far as I can tell, that is pretty well representative of how you regard all of humanity. If that's not pessimism I don't know what is.
I am not assuming anything. You made a statement about my prediction towards "cataclysm" and characterized it as a pessimistic view. These words have precise meanings. I read them as charitably as I could, and came to the conclusion that they starkly misrepresent my general view on the long run. I have, in fact, written quite optimistic takes over the past weeks, interspersed with my narrations on current events. Like this piece, for instance. Published just yesterday: https://www.notesfromthecircus.com/p/the-first-domino
Well, I’m sorry for any inaccuracy or misrepresentation in my description of your outlook. I don’t think you’re understanding me much more precisely than I am understanding you. But in any case, you come across as having a dim view of humanity, and if you’re not trying to, you might consider looking into why instead of being peevish with people who engage with you.