My quest to understand why Americans are so grouchy despite living through what looks to me like the best fifty years in human history has led me to Austrian economist Joseph Schumpeter (1883-1950). Schumpeter prophesied that capitalism would end, not because of its failures, but because of its success.
Schumpeter's theory had two related parts. First, he imagined that ever-rising material wealth would lead people to become more sensitive to the insecurity and constant change that capitalism inevitably causes:
Secular improvement that is taken for granted and coupled with individual insecurity that is acutely resented is of course the best recipe for breeding social unrest.The second part of the theory has to do with the rise of a large intellectual class. Growing wealth leads to ever more education, and some fraction of people become intellectuals. By "intellectuals" Schumpeter meant what others have called the "chattering classes," the people who have lots of opinions that they constantly share with the public:
Intellectuals are people who wield the power of the spoken and the written word, and one of the touches that distinguish them from other people who do the same is the absence of direct responsibility for practical affairs….By their nature, intellectuals are a critical bunch, and Schumpeter predicted that as capitalism created more and more wealth, intellectuals would become ever more critical of it. One usually sees this argument cited against the post-World War II Left, the "cultural Marxists," all that stuff about the inauthenticity of consumer capitalism and so on. (All the discussion of Schumpeter I have found this morning comes from conservatives.) But it seems to me that it applies equally to the nationalist right, the people who constantly complain about the decline in manufacturing jobs and the hollowing out of small towns left behind by the economy. Capitalism creates constant change; that is its essence. If you are a conservative because you want to preserve what John Boehner called "the world I grew up in," then you fit into Schumpeter's model just as well as Herbert Marcuse.
I find much about this persuasive; if our unhappiness requires a rationale, maybe this is it. I am not sure, though, that there is really anything to explain. Part of me thinks that evolution shaped human nature to be perpetually unsatisfied, and nothing else is really need to explain why the wealthiest and most free people in history think their society sucks.
6 comments:
Very interesting. I wonder a little about the stereotype of the critical intellectual. Does that define intellectuals as a species, or is it culturally determined? Does Schumpeter have anything to say about intellectuals who seem to be boosters for their own society? What about figures like Samuel Smiles or Norman Vincent Peale? If one isn't satisfied with calling such people intellectuals, what about Edmund Burke? Or Aquinas, who isn't known for social critique--and I'm skeptical that this was because he was afraid of reprimand from authorities. One does find critical types in traditional societies--Francis, the Bab, the Buddha, the Hebrew prophets--but do they qualify exactly as intellectuals in the sense that Schumpeter means?
Could the critical intellectual be more the culturally-specific flip side of that intellectualized expectation of progress you were posting about a few weeks ago?
Curious also, how might one relate Schumpeter to the contents of that "Interesting 11-minute video on South Korea, which connects the low birth rate to widespread resentful misery." (I haven't watched it.) Are their intellectuals telling South Koreans they should be miserable?
All that said, I think there's a lot in the idea that evolution has left humans as such, at least a good number of us, incapable of being satisfied. Perhaps there's room for a True Detective 1/Thomas Ligotti argument that consciousness is a poor fit with organic existence? (Not that I have any sympathy with Ligotti's, and from him the Rust Cohle character's, anti-natalist and pro-extinctionist attitudes.)
Or maybe it's the unspeakable wealth inequality that is crippling our nation, but that you steadfastly refuse to acknowledge, John?
Maybe it's the fact that no matter what side of the political spectrum you're on, if you're an ordinary person, you're being taken advantage of by ruthless billionaires and corporations who actively promote public human suffering in exchange for greater private profits, which they then steadfastly refuse to share?
Maybe it's the fact that we live in an age of such plenty, but the top 1% globally own more wealth than the bottom 95% do? Or the fact that here in America, the average member of the top 1% has literally 1000x the wealth as the average member of the bottom 50% of American?
And maybe it's the fact that those wealthy elites are TERRIFIED of enough the rest of us finally figuring out the scam, and so they INTENTIONALLY employ their massive resources to foment unrest and shape public opinion so that we all are busy FIGHTING EACH OTHER, instead of uniting in our exploitation and seeking actual justice?
The men who own news networks and media companies are all too happy to hand out megaphones in order to get people arguing over immigrants, and vaccines, and all the rest. The more we squabble amongst ourselves, the more distracted we are, the happier THEY are. And it has been that way for a very long time in the modern world.
@G-
I didn't say our world is perfect, I said it is the best 50 years in human history. If you think inequality was not a problem in prior societies, you should read more. Even owning only 5% of the wealth makes ordinary Americans wealtheir than anyone else in history. If you think inequality is the cause, why? Why should knowing that some people are wealthier make people unhappy even when they themselves are the wealthiest ordinary people in history?
"Why should knowing that some people are wealthier make people unhappy even when they themselves are the wealthiest ordinary people in history?"
I realize the question isn't addressed to me, but isn't the answer obvious? Envy is a thing, and I speak of it without condemnation. It is simply human. And then there is how people explain their status to themselves or have it explained by others, which, whatever the explanation involves (from evil conspiracy, to They Hate Us, to "your father and I always said you just didn't work hard enough," to "If I didn't say such dumb things all the time," etc., etc., etc.), must be psychologically wounding in various ways.
I would say human psychology and social dynamics simply do cause a variety of forms of unhappiness, including plain exhaustion, in many, many people. And perhaps there are (is?) a small number of people who are immune to such things as social tension, self-doubt, fear of disapproval, etc., etc., and they become the ones who wonder why everyone else is so unhappy. I would contend this immunity is rarely self-chosen, but either just happens, or comes more easily to some than others.
I keep thinking about those unhappy South Koreans. I wonder if there isn't an element of, "I can barely make it to the office every day, and you're asking me if I want to become a parent?" Not to mention the intricacies of social relationship and hierarchy management that, we are told (although I have no idea with what accuracy), characterize East Asian societies. I personally find American social relations, which we are told are so relaxed, difficult enough.
This sort of thing is on my mind partly because, well, it's the way I am, but more emphatically at the moment because I'm listening to Erving Goffman's _The Presentation of Self in Everyday Life_. I recommend it as a study in the reality of social life as many, I would say most, people experience it.
And then there is the knowledge of death. For many, again I would say most, no helping of the vast supply of bromides on the subject will alleviate that one.
Or maybe I'm just projecting my own neuroses onto everyone else, so as to create a self-reassuring but entirely false analysis of society. Having suggested that to myself, I'm going to go feel bad about it.
Thank you, I'll be here all week.
I absolutely do not mean to suggest we do not have more structural-type social problems that might be amenable to reform, or that our current level of inequality isn't a blight on our society in itself. Nor do I mean to hand the likes of Musk an elitist security blanket of "the trogs are just jealous." FWIW, one of my dearest political desires to see our society return to, say, a 50% income tax on the wealthiest Americans (the number is not important, and I could see going higher; I'm speaking loosely in order to convey a principle).
I guess with envy, what I really meant was the sense of diminished status, and the pain of that. See Goffman's _Stigma: Notes on the Management of Spoiled Identity_.
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