Holy smokes, you must have been chewing on these ideas for a while.. this was fantastic!
Not sure if intentional (I suspect so) but you really trojan horse some of the strongest ideas into this piece the way it's structured.
I think even some of my Biff-like acquaintances may nod most of the way through it before their brows subtly furrow and confusing feelings bubble within 🥲
Interesting point about the structure... in general I try to write in ways that don't immediately alienate everyone, so perhaps there is a subtle trojan horsing going on
Good essay. Thanks. I love James Schneider's concept of the two personalities of capitalism and their relative dominance being reflective of the security of capitalism's status quo. I hadn’t heard that before. The release of cognitive dissonance in the rejection of ESG also rings true.
I'm hoping for an additional exploration of the flipside.
By the flipside I mean the release of cognitive dissonance the ESG crowd feels when it finally stops trying to reform capitalism and ditches it completely. How do we ditch capitalism? How do you proceed when you've already ditched your belief in capitalism but most activism truly does look like virtue signaling? How do you proceed when you understand the appeal of patriotism, nationalism, family, and church – after all, the only clear means of security is a paying job in the national economy, and family and church offer much needed belonging – but you're surrounded by Lady Sybil types who think those wrong-headed 1950s people are the problem? How do you ditch capitalism when the entire international structure encloses people into nation-states that define citizens as producers in a global capitalist economy? How do you ditch capitalism when culture itself is enclosed by a global system of compulsory schooling that replicates competitive capitalist culture, yet everyone around you who complains about capitalism reveres universal schooling?
Too big an ask, I know. You’re doing a lot by offering tools of explanation. I guess that’s one answer to “How do you proceed?”
On second thought, I just realized that the question I’m trying to ask is this: How do we create an alternate source of security? I’m unconvinced that activism and union support can resolve the underlying insecurity that capitalism thrives on. I know unions can be helpful, but I’m not all in. I think I’m struggling with the false dichotomy between the individual and the collective. Capitalism doesn’t care about Individual freedom. Capitalism steals freedom. Capitalism crushes individuals. Autonomous individuals are naturally motivated to find community. I’m tired of leftists targeting individual liberty as the enemy. It’s both false and counterproductive. It’s like we keep insisting that “9 out of 10 workers agree, autonomous individuals prefer capitalism!” It’s a pretty shitty sales pitch. I want individual liberty back. We don’t have to sacrifice the rights of individuals for the sake of collectives. We need freedom from capitalist constraints to regain our autonomy so we can fulfil our inherent desire for collective belonging.
That’s what most of us are looking for: security in belonging. I’m also convinced that our fucked-up concept of education pulls that out from under us before we have any chance of becoming something other than capitalist cogs.
I hope this doesn’t come across as criticism. I love your essays and videos. I’m just searching for something I haven’t found.
Perhaps the pursuit of security in belonging (status within a moral community) by liberals left and right is frustrated by their mistaking liberalism for a moral ideology and community. Perhaps a liberal institution is only functional as an amoral substrate, supporting the innovation of and economic competition between, a plurality of moral communities.
Seems to me that our money game, and the economic hierarchy it produces can only be subverted by the constitution of a vastly more inclusive, amoral money game, that credits entrepreneurs held responsible for the welfare of populations beneath them.
Brilliant as usual Brett, with lots of interesting insights, but also frustrating. It's like a diagnosis of a terrible cancer that there currently appears to be no way to treat. If you look at the history of treating cancer you see one failure after another until we started to really understand the genetic basis of most cancers and the details of how that all works. I feel like you are groping your way through the darkness towards an equivalent deep understanding of capitalism. Understanding the way the stories we are surrounded by (our cultural DNA) interact with our hominoid psychology, all within the communities of which we are parts, seems to be a project equal or greater in scale to the project to figure out how cancer works. It's a massive undertaking and we need to figure out some way to do it together.
This was incredibly insightful and honest. I am with you. I feel sorry for Biff, but - more than that - I feel sorry for everyone he will harm. That’s why I will fight him.
So, this makes me think that the wealthy capitalist class trying purchase liberal do-good offsets for their badness is actually tarnishing image of the robust class of run of the mill educated liberals who actually earnestly care about these things -- but they all get thrown into one big bucket of un-nuanced, liberal, elite, technocratic class.
These ideas seem to intersect with what I'm reading currently, Doppleganger, by Naomi Klein. She makes the point that the rejection of vaccination mandates in certain groups in many ways sprouts from it's contradiction to everything individualistic capitalism has taught them. This mandate from above suddenly, to adopt a sacrificial, and collectivist mindset, fused with anti-vacc conspiracism to create a toxic backlash. Your ideas here about re-embrace of macho align with what she writes about the far-out "wellness/fitness crowd" and their embrace of anti-vacc as backlash to their businesses threatened or destroyed by covid shutdown, mixing in with the "survival of the fittest" mindset.
I'm glad there isn't! I want my brain to work, not slide frictionless over prepackaged ideas. Taking my time to digest something meaningful is really good for my mental health — and it's just interesting!
I love this. 100% aligned to my worldview. I wonder how corporates and governments would react if we integrated the contents to our Value Exchange process? The point being it easy for me (aligned to tge content) but a long way from neo-liberal or other worldviews. So somehow is would be good to find more common ground between this and the ESG/CSR worldviews. So perhaps co-existence to promote a healthier and less violent transition which is undeniably IMHO in process right now.
Spot on analysis in my view. You're describing, amongst other things, the psychological impact on various groups of people under Capitalism. I too would like to hear about the psychological flourishing of various groups within (insert variable)ism.
I've thought for some time that the fact of money being spent into existence is a key insight into that (variable)ism. Seems like some version of 1) increasing the genuinly valuable and necessary activities (in a flourishing and vital sense) money is spent into existence for, paired with 2) a corresponding reduction in need and ability to get OTHER peoples money, and 3) a necessity/ luxury demarcation for deletion, balance, or "taxation" (optimal money supply) would quite obviously head in the direction of such flourishing.
It's a matter of selection pressures, and the niches we want and need. What are we selecting for? If sociologist, psychologist, thermodynanamists, ecologists, philosophers, game theorists, and yes economists, and politicians etc. can come to understand that insight then we'll all begin to wake up to it, and we'll demand and create a system more worthy of our hearts.
Wow, what a phenomenal read. I’d been playing with some work-within-the-system kumbaya thoughts for an essay, but this set me back quite a bit. Really clear and eloquent stuff here.
Excellent essay. I have plenty of thoughts. I was involved in ESG early on and quickly worked out that it was a fools errand, ignored or easily manipulated and used to justify mass surveillance (e.g. satellite environmental monitoring) or hold back meaningful progress. Those working in it were well meaning and ambitious, but because the ideas were conceptual didn’t really fuss about the negative consequences.
Fast forward to now and people running businesses in the real world are fed up with these ideas that in practice are simply red tape and a giant tax with zero benefit. Eg beef farmers in Australia are facing land use regulations based on a model developed by the EU which is completely inappropriate for the conditions here. Added to that, people like yourself have been convinced eating meat is bad, without a complete understanding of how beef farming actually works in various contexts. Then Bill Gates starts telling the farmers that cattle need to eat seaweed, which he just happens to be selling, to lower their carbon emissions. None of this is going to stop beef farming, it is simply a tax that pushes out the small players.
There is a universality in ESG of good and bad which hasn’t had the chance to stand up to local contexts. There is an arrogance to those who purport what is good and bad without actually having a clue of the challenges to make a business actually work. Their ideas aren’t challenged through political discourse, they simply learned them from their peer group who are increasingly isolated from the real world.
The premise that capitalism is “bad” is also a flawed one. E.g. people don’t flee capitalist societies. Capitalist societies are by far the most prosperous and egalitarian. The problem is not capitalism, it is a political class that runs unchecked.
To give an example, we blame western capitalism on poverty in many African nations. But, what political systems in Africa enabled them to face such a state? Was there corruption at the highest levels of government that enabled it? Would a government backed by a strong civil society with low levels of corruption face the same fate?
Holy smokes, you must have been chewing on these ideas for a while.. this was fantastic!
Not sure if intentional (I suspect so) but you really trojan horse some of the strongest ideas into this piece the way it's structured.
I think even some of my Biff-like acquaintances may nod most of the way through it before their brows subtly furrow and confusing feelings bubble within 🥲
Glad you liked it Jason!
Interesting point about the structure... in general I try to write in ways that don't immediately alienate everyone, so perhaps there is a subtle trojan horsing going on
Good essay. Thanks. I love James Schneider's concept of the two personalities of capitalism and their relative dominance being reflective of the security of capitalism's status quo. I hadn’t heard that before. The release of cognitive dissonance in the rejection of ESG also rings true.
I'm hoping for an additional exploration of the flipside.
By the flipside I mean the release of cognitive dissonance the ESG crowd feels when it finally stops trying to reform capitalism and ditches it completely. How do we ditch capitalism? How do you proceed when you've already ditched your belief in capitalism but most activism truly does look like virtue signaling? How do you proceed when you understand the appeal of patriotism, nationalism, family, and church – after all, the only clear means of security is a paying job in the national economy, and family and church offer much needed belonging – but you're surrounded by Lady Sybil types who think those wrong-headed 1950s people are the problem? How do you ditch capitalism when the entire international structure encloses people into nation-states that define citizens as producers in a global capitalist economy? How do you ditch capitalism when culture itself is enclosed by a global system of compulsory schooling that replicates competitive capitalist culture, yet everyone around you who complains about capitalism reveres universal schooling?
Too big an ask, I know. You’re doing a lot by offering tools of explanation. I guess that’s one answer to “How do you proceed?”
On second thought, I just realized that the question I’m trying to ask is this: How do we create an alternate source of security? I’m unconvinced that activism and union support can resolve the underlying insecurity that capitalism thrives on. I know unions can be helpful, but I’m not all in. I think I’m struggling with the false dichotomy between the individual and the collective. Capitalism doesn’t care about Individual freedom. Capitalism steals freedom. Capitalism crushes individuals. Autonomous individuals are naturally motivated to find community. I’m tired of leftists targeting individual liberty as the enemy. It’s both false and counterproductive. It’s like we keep insisting that “9 out of 10 workers agree, autonomous individuals prefer capitalism!” It’s a pretty shitty sales pitch. I want individual liberty back. We don’t have to sacrifice the rights of individuals for the sake of collectives. We need freedom from capitalist constraints to regain our autonomy so we can fulfil our inherent desire for collective belonging.
That’s what most of us are looking for: security in belonging. I’m also convinced that our fucked-up concept of education pulls that out from under us before we have any chance of becoming something other than capitalist cogs.
I hope this doesn’t come across as criticism. I love your essays and videos. I’m just searching for something I haven’t found.
"We need freedom from capitalist constraints to regain our autonomy so we can fulfil our inherent desire for collective belonging." Lovely.
Perhaps the pursuit of security in belonging (status within a moral community) by liberals left and right is frustrated by their mistaking liberalism for a moral ideology and community. Perhaps a liberal institution is only functional as an amoral substrate, supporting the innovation of and economic competition between, a plurality of moral communities.
Seems to me that our money game, and the economic hierarchy it produces can only be subverted by the constitution of a vastly more inclusive, amoral money game, that credits entrepreneurs held responsible for the welfare of populations beneath them.
Brilliant as usual Brett, with lots of interesting insights, but also frustrating. It's like a diagnosis of a terrible cancer that there currently appears to be no way to treat. If you look at the history of treating cancer you see one failure after another until we started to really understand the genetic basis of most cancers and the details of how that all works. I feel like you are groping your way through the darkness towards an equivalent deep understanding of capitalism. Understanding the way the stories we are surrounded by (our cultural DNA) interact with our hominoid psychology, all within the communities of which we are parts, seems to be a project equal or greater in scale to the project to figure out how cancer works. It's a massive undertaking and we need to figure out some way to do it together.
This was incredibly insightful and honest. I am with you. I feel sorry for Biff, but - more than that - I feel sorry for everyone he will harm. That’s why I will fight him.
Glad you like it Tammy, and good to know you're on side!
Superb essay.👏👏
This is a great essay. The squaring the circular metaphor is so simple but explains so much. Brilliant.
🔥🔥🔥
Damn, this is good!
Will the Biff fight be live streamed?
So, this makes me think that the wealthy capitalist class trying purchase liberal do-good offsets for their badness is actually tarnishing image of the robust class of run of the mill educated liberals who actually earnestly care about these things -- but they all get thrown into one big bucket of un-nuanced, liberal, elite, technocratic class.
These ideas seem to intersect with what I'm reading currently, Doppleganger, by Naomi Klein. She makes the point that the rejection of vaccination mandates in certain groups in many ways sprouts from it's contradiction to everything individualistic capitalism has taught them. This mandate from above suddenly, to adopt a sacrificial, and collectivist mindset, fused with anti-vacc conspiracism to create a toxic backlash. Your ideas here about re-embrace of macho align with what she writes about the far-out "wellness/fitness crowd" and their embrace of anti-vacc as backlash to their businesses threatened or destroyed by covid shutdown, mixing in with the "survival of the fittest" mindset.
Is there an abridged version? LOL
This is the abridged version
Lol. I read the whole thing twice.
I'm glad there isn't! I want my brain to work, not slide frictionless over prepackaged ideas. Taking my time to digest something meaningful is really good for my mental health — and it's just interesting!
TL:DR bad boy politics & good boy politics = both dumb
I love this. 100% aligned to my worldview. I wonder how corporates and governments would react if we integrated the contents to our Value Exchange process? The point being it easy for me (aligned to tge content) but a long way from neo-liberal or other worldviews. So somehow is would be good to find more common ground between this and the ESG/CSR worldviews. So perhaps co-existence to promote a healthier and less violent transition which is undeniably IMHO in process right now.
Spot on analysis in my view. You're describing, amongst other things, the psychological impact on various groups of people under Capitalism. I too would like to hear about the psychological flourishing of various groups within (insert variable)ism.
I've thought for some time that the fact of money being spent into existence is a key insight into that (variable)ism. Seems like some version of 1) increasing the genuinly valuable and necessary activities (in a flourishing and vital sense) money is spent into existence for, paired with 2) a corresponding reduction in need and ability to get OTHER peoples money, and 3) a necessity/ luxury demarcation for deletion, balance, or "taxation" (optimal money supply) would quite obviously head in the direction of such flourishing.
It's a matter of selection pressures, and the niches we want and need. What are we selecting for? If sociologist, psychologist, thermodynanamists, ecologists, philosophers, game theorists, and yes economists, and politicians etc. can come to understand that insight then we'll all begin to wake up to it, and we'll demand and create a system more worthy of our hearts.
Wow, what a phenomenal read. I’d been playing with some work-within-the-system kumbaya thoughts for an essay, but this set me back quite a bit. Really clear and eloquent stuff here.
Excellent essay. I have plenty of thoughts. I was involved in ESG early on and quickly worked out that it was a fools errand, ignored or easily manipulated and used to justify mass surveillance (e.g. satellite environmental monitoring) or hold back meaningful progress. Those working in it were well meaning and ambitious, but because the ideas were conceptual didn’t really fuss about the negative consequences.
Fast forward to now and people running businesses in the real world are fed up with these ideas that in practice are simply red tape and a giant tax with zero benefit. Eg beef farmers in Australia are facing land use regulations based on a model developed by the EU which is completely inappropriate for the conditions here. Added to that, people like yourself have been convinced eating meat is bad, without a complete understanding of how beef farming actually works in various contexts. Then Bill Gates starts telling the farmers that cattle need to eat seaweed, which he just happens to be selling, to lower their carbon emissions. None of this is going to stop beef farming, it is simply a tax that pushes out the small players.
There is a universality in ESG of good and bad which hasn’t had the chance to stand up to local contexts. There is an arrogance to those who purport what is good and bad without actually having a clue of the challenges to make a business actually work. Their ideas aren’t challenged through political discourse, they simply learned them from their peer group who are increasingly isolated from the real world.
The premise that capitalism is “bad” is also a flawed one. E.g. people don’t flee capitalist societies. Capitalist societies are by far the most prosperous and egalitarian. The problem is not capitalism, it is a political class that runs unchecked.
To give an example, we blame western capitalism on poverty in many African nations. But, what political systems in Africa enabled them to face such a state? Was there corruption at the highest levels of government that enabled it? Would a government backed by a strong civil society with low levels of corruption face the same fate?
Thank you for the article.
And to think that the strongest contradiction isn't still out... :
Real powerfull people, real "winners", real "alpha-whatever", aren't capitalists... capitalists are the infamous weirdos of a sane society...