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Musings Report 2024-45 11-9-24 What Kind of Society Will We Have?
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What Kind of Society Will We Have?
The question "what kind of society will we have?" doesn't arise very often, as politics and the economy dominate the zeitgeist. This is likely the result of our cultural conception of what constitutes the ideal social order, which is based on the idea that each of us is first and foremost a rational economic individual seeking to maximize our self-interest. We believe this pursuit of individual self-interest magically optimizes society to serve everyone's interests.
Broadly speaking, this is "the liberal order," in which "liberal" refers not to political persuasions but the liberalization of everything into a market of buyers and sellers. In this order, the economic model of markets as self-organizing, self-optimizing structures is applied to everything.
Politics becomes a marketplace in which buyers and sellers of influence jostle to maximize their own gains--politicians and regulators sell their control of policy and regulations to the highest bidder, and corporations / wealthy individuals hire lobbyists to extract the maximum private gains for the lowest price from the political-influence auction.
This is called "advocacy," which offers a high-brow gloss to the tawdry auction of the political marketplace.
When everything becomes a market, status, novelty and identity all become "products" competing for cognitive shelf space in the 24/7 frenzy of marketing our "product" and ourselves. As in all markets, spectacle offers a premium, as do exaggerated claims of benefits, you-snooze-you-lose "buy now" deals, high-gloss PR that leaves out the nasty side-effects, and a carefully curated mise-en-scene of the glorious happiness that awaits those who buy into whatever fantasy is being presented.
In this marketplace, idealized selves inhabit an idealized fantasy-world which can be yours for a price.
It's all fake, of course, and so it's unsatisfying. Whatever needs we have that can't be met by buying or selling something remain unmet. Note that "buying or selling something" isn't restricted to a tangible product or service; it includes "buying into" a fantasy and presenting a fantasy version of a product or ourselves.
What maintains order in this society?
What maintains order is the belief that the marketplace is open to all, a structure that homogenizes everything and everyone into an exchange of "value," a commodified transaction that can be recorded and tracked on a receipt, financial ledger or on social media as "likes" and "views."
There are winners and losers in this competitive marketplace of everything, but don't give up hope; your next product or selfie might hit the jackpot.
In this endlessly competitive cascade of transactions, relationships grease transactions. Relationships that don't serve to maximize each participant's self-interest go by the wayside, as there's little time or energy left for "unproductive" relationships.
What kind of society does this generate? We might start by asking, "what's the glue holding this social order together?"
There are various types of social "glue." One is the homogenization of a shared orthodoxy such as a religious faith or social belief that supports a hierarchy of authority--for example, Confucianism, which mandates authority in the family to the father and to the emperor in the state.
In a pluralistic society, competing nodes of power generate a dynamic stability as long as one node doesn't become dominant. In the U.S., the political power structure is designed to maintain a "balance of power" between the executive, legislative and judicial branches of government. This balance has been weakening for decades, as the "Imperial Presidency" has siphoned power from Congress, and an "activist" Supreme Court has siphoned power from both Congress and the Presidency.
In theory, these competing nodes of power, each hosting "advocates" for various interests, generate a "force field" that protects pluralistic diversity from the oppression of a central authority or orthodoxy. But in the real world, this doesn't generate what correspondent Yusuf Chan (aussieasabiyyah.substack.com) calls solidarity, which he describes in this way: "Real solidarity has hospitality for considering and holding opposing narratives, but with individuals still remaining loyal to each other."
In other words, being able to insult others online may well be excused as "pluralistic advocacy," but it certainly isn't a solidarity that has hospitality for considering and holding opposing narratives nor is it a social order in which individuals still remain loyal to each other despite their opposing opinions.
The current decline of sociability into seething divisiveness exposes the fundamental weakness on the "make everything into a market" ideology of the self-serving individual optimizing private gain as the foundation of the social order. Optimizing self-interest within a commoditized transactional marketplace doesn't generate any social glue.
It is more akin to a Dark Star whose weak gravitational field pulls the chaotic interactions of millions of individuals into a fragile orbit, an unstable orbit that can be cleared by a few collisions, in an analog of the Kessler Syndrome, in which debris from collisions of satellites with debris generate more collisions, leading to a chain reaction that cascades into a mass of collisions that clears the entire orbit of everything, leaving a void.
Since everything is a market now, the other analog is a "market clearing event" in which markets become bidless--there are no buyers, only sellers, and the value of everything for sale goes to zero.
In this context, our reliance on online social contacts makes sense, as the "frictionless flow" of online transactions is easier and "costs less" in terms of time and effort than real-world interactions.
But as with all "value," lower "investment" means we care less about the transaction or relationship. This feeds the instability of the social order's orbit around optimizing self-interest as the primary organizing principle of society.
What kind of society will we have should a social Kessler Syndrome clear the unstable social order?
Optimizing self-interest works in an expansive economic tide that's raising all boats to some degree. In an economic ebb tide, what will provide the common ground needed to cooperate on the common good? A transactional marketplace is neither a foundation for common ground nor the social glue needed to pursue the common good.
What kind of society will we have? The answer is far from clear. A shared national purpose grounded in a new mythology would provide the foundation and the social glue for cooperating on the common good. If there is another functional foundation and form of social glue at the national scale, it's not yet visible.
The kind of society we will have may well depend on the kind of community we live in, as common ground and the common good are more visible locally, and localized efforts to nurture cooperative foundations / social glue more likely to bear fruit.
Highlights of the Blog
Unaffordable Housing and Homeless Encampments: How Did It Get This Bad? 11/8/24
The Limits of Government 11/6/24
Central Planning: China's Miracle--and Malaise 11/4/24
Best Thing That Happened To Me This Week
Made a good start on strengthening our 70-year old house to withstand hurricanes, should one impact the islands directly again. (The last direct hit was Hurricane Iniki which devastated Kauai in 1992.) To protect the galvanized Simpson ties from weathering, I painted them all with oil-based primer, the only truly durable coating.
What's on the Book Shelf
The Myth of Artificial Intelligence: Why Computers Can’t Think the Way We Do (via B.J.)
From Left Field
NOTE TO NEW READERS: This list is not comprised of articles I agree with or that I judge to be correct or of the highest quality. It is representative of the content I find interesting as reflections of the current zeitgeist. The list is intended to be perused with an open, critical, occasionally amused mind.
Many links are behind paywalls. Most paywalled sites allow a few free articles per month if you register. It's the New Normal.
Why We Need to Rethink the Way We Grow Rice: As the planet warms and its population grows, rice cultivation methods honed over centuries may no longer be sustainable.
Why Owning (and Buying) a Florida Condo Has ‘Turned Into a Nightmare’
The Plan to Save Frank Lloyd Wright’s Only Skyscraper Isn’t Going as Planned.
China demands schoolteachers hand in their passports.
3 Reasons You Shouldn’t Worry About The Mercury Levels in Fish.
Owning a home in Florida is a huge gamble. Some people are starting to question whether it's worth it.
‘Don’t invest in SF, because you won’t make it’: Facing closure, chef unloads on city.
Slash and burn: is private equity out of control? -- yes....
A Woman Won South Korea’s First Literature Nobel. That Says a Lot.
Rents and the High Cost of High Finance: Epstein and Montecino argue that the total cost of the financial system is comprised of rents, misallocation costs, and the costs of the 2008 crisis.
Why everything you think about living to 100 might be wrong.
After Marie Kondo: the return of Japan’s joyful clutter.
Your diet can change your immune system — here’s how: Claims about food and immunity are everywhere. Now scientists are exploring exactly how nutrition acts on the immune system to boost health and treat disease.
"The object in life is not to be on the side of the majority, but to escape finding oneself in the ranks of the insane." Marcus Aurelius
Thanks for reading--
charles |
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