Tyler Cowen, "The Complacent Class"
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- čas přidán 7. 03. 2017
- www.politics-prose.com/book/97...
Since Alexis de Tocqueville, restlessness has been accepted as a signature American trait. Our willingness to move, take risks, and adapt to change have produced a dynamic economy and a tradition of innovation from Ben Franklin to Steve Jobs.
The problem, according to legendary blogger, economist and best selling author Tyler Cowen, is that Americans today have broken from this tradition we re working harder than ever to avoid change. We're moving residences less, marrying people more like ourselves and choosing our music and our mates based on algorithms that wall us off from anything that might be too new or too different. Match.com matches us in love. Spotify and Pandora match us in music. Facebook matches us to just about everything else.
Of course, this matching culture brings tremendous positives: music we like, partners who make us happy, neighbors who want the same things. We re more comfortable. But, according to Cowen, there are significant collateral downsides attending this comfort, among them heightened inequality and segregation and decreased incentives to innovate and create.
The Complacent Class argues that this cannot go on forever. We are postponing change, due to our near-sightedness and extreme desire for comfort, but ultimately this will make change, when it comes, harder. The forces unleashed by the Great Stagnation will eventually lead to a major fiscal and budgetary crisis: impossibly expensive rentals for our most attractive cities, worsening of residential segregation, and a decline in our work ethic. The only way to avoid this difficult future is for Americans to force themselves out of their comfortable slumber to embrace their restless tradition again.
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Produced by Michael A. Kowaleski
Very interesting hearing him at 25:00 mention we are very unprepared for a major crisis...
I caught that too haha
It's playing out right in front of us at the turn of the decade.
I think bill gates said that too
Awesome interviewing, very good line of thoughtful questions
I agree with the basic observation that we are in decline; but Cowen's analysis is completely superficial. Madison and later Alexis de Tocqueville wrestled with the obvious fact that America was divided by race, class, economic and political interests. They did not suggest that this large scale problem could be ameliorated at all by "change" or "dynamism" or "matching" or by reduction of "bureaucracy" .
Please come out of the philosophical discussion of this issue. Those are the paradigms and structures for evaluating the problem in academic circles. It will align with reality but not match letter to letter.
The reality goes like this and is in alignment with the points raised by Me Cowan. I dont think his take was superficial. It’s grounded in reality quite well.
I clearly see the disinterest in American youth (kids born in the US and raised here irrespective of race & all that political aspect) to take up certain profession, changing places and how it leads towards increasingly the wealth being transferred into the ownership of immigrants and also for the exact reasons that Mr. Cowan highlighted.
Simply put people that come from a developing country are willing to take up jobs that the American youth isn’t willing to take up and no problem in moving between cities as none of the American cities are their home city and thus have less problem in living like nomads for a decade or two till they establish their base.
Eventually the immigrants are making decent money because of taking the opportunity irrespective of place and industry and working long enough. Which they finally invest in US real estate by purchasing it from an American.
With all that money from sale, Americans end up spending on things that are non appreciating assets. They don’t invest in appreciating real estate because one needs a steady job and income flow for paying off the 20 year loan for which they don’t have luxury
This is how Americans are increasingly losing ownership of the country their predecessors built from scratch.
You don't realize what older age' struggles are until you get to that old age 😐then you will find out😶
Conversation starts at 3:10
My hero @ 36:00
Wow, this comment section is quite poisonous, ain't it.
At 51:09 Cowen says the banks that pushed the subprime mortgages most ended up losing a lot from the 2008 mortgage market collapse. Not true. These (smaller, local) banks simply earned a commission/fee for originating the loans, and then (up)sold the loans to aggregators (the big banks) who repackaged the loans as derivatives, to sell in the financial markets at a profit.
The physician at 36:00 seems like she needs one of her coworkers to prescribe her some xans
How he casually dismisses the monumental developments and discoveries of his adult life is a painful example of someone far too eagerly arguing a false premise. Space travel, the internet, the mapping of the human genome. You know, nothing much.
Communications revolution changed everything. Computer miniaturization and Murphy's law affected daily life more than anything many processes becoming fully automated. Military industrial complex has evolved significantly: drones carrying out missions overseas. The entire business base has moved to a digital gig economy which is seminal. There are substantial shifts that are visible everyday. The true complacency is not seeing them.
when i cant vomit, i often think of Tyler Cowen to let it all out
how insightful
Stopped watching when the introducer said this guy runs a libertarian think tank. Just another snake oil salesman.
Cezariusz 88 that’s very unfortunate. Cowen is very unique even among libertarian scholars. He is very smart and unconventional and as someone who’s seen him speak in person, he is always open to being questioned and challenged
When you lack intellectual curiosity you react like this person.
@@nicmart The problem is that the basis of American libertarianism is 'fuck you, I've got mine', and that mentality only leads to one thing: the collapse of democracy. One has to understand that living in a society means thinking of and helping one's neighbor. Whereas if everyone acts like a greedy fuck that doesn't care about anyone else, nor takes responsibility of any of their own actions, it'll only destroy society, because society requires cooperation... consider that the inflation of 2022 and onwards is WHOLLY based on greed, it's been demonstrably proven that it's greed-flation!
@@rsr789 Your impression of American libertarianism bears no resemblance to the actual thing. Tell me which libertarian writers whose books you have read.