The Complacent Class (Episode 1/5)
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 7 ก.ย. 2024
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Restlessness has long been seen as a signature trait of what it means to be American. We've been willing to cross great distances, take big risks, and adapt to change in way that has produced a dynamic economy. From Ben Franklin to Steve Jobs, innovation has been firmly rooted in American DNA.
What if that's no longer true?
Let’s take a journey back to the 19th century - specifically, the Chicago World’s Fair of 1893. At that massive event, people got to do things like ride a ferris wheel, go on a moving sidewalk, see a dishwasher, see electric light, or even try modern chewing gum for the very first time. More than a third of the entire U.S. population at that time attended. And remember, this was 1893 when travel was much more difficult and costly.
Fairs that shortly followed Chicago included new inventions and novelties the telephone, x-ray machine, hot dogs, and ice cream cones.
These earlier years of American innovation were filled with rapid improvement in a huge array of industries. Railroads, electricity, telephones, radio, reliable clean water, television, cars, airplanes, vaccines and antibiotics, nuclear power - the list goes on - all came from this era.
After about the 1970s, innovation on this scale slowed down. Computers and communication have been the focus. What we’ve seen more recently has been mostly incremental improvements, with the large exception of smart phones.
This means that we’ve experienced a ton of changes in our virtual world, but surprisingly few in our physical world. For example, travel hasn’t much improved and, in some cases, has even slowed down. The planes we’re primarily using? They were designed half a century ago.
Since the 1960s, our culture has gotten less restless, too. It’s become more bureaucratic. The sixties and seventies ushered in a wave of protests and civil disobedience. But today, people hire protests planners and file for permits. The demands for change are tamer compared to their mid-century counterparts.
This might not sound so bad. We’ve entered a golden age for many of our favorite entertainment options. Americans are generally better off than ever before. But the U.S. economy is less dynamic. We’re stagnating. We’re complacent. What does mean for our economic and cultural future?
What topic should we do next? bit.ly/2nwRjys
A bit more opinionated that the usual videos. Sometime it is refreshing. You guys are doing a tremendous job. Thanks for everything.
The plateau makes sense. We're no longer physically struggling in this era and thus, no longer feel the need to innovate for this purpose as much. The struggles have shifted from physical to mental.
Back then, toiling and hard work was the way of life and there wasn't much room for emotional issues if you wanted to survive. If you crumbled mentally in those days, you'd be selected out. The hard labour also strongly incentivized people to invent devices to make life easier.
Nowadays, it takes merely "words" to break people as there are no more "sticks".
What about, Internet, drones, autonomous cars, 3d printers, industrial robots, MRI, GPS, Photovoltaic system, Genetic sequencing, IVF and selfie stick?
followumesh1 all more or less useless things at this point
One of those is not like the others, haha.
How are those things useless?
Such an important message.
Great insight!
Interesting but might have been better as a debate topic video since it was more opinion than facts. Just watch Shark Tank, entrepreneurialism is alive and so is innovation, just maybe not the kind you prefer. The internet and the impact of technology cannot be underestimated. But MRU is great. I truly appreciate these videos!
The "one third of the US population visiting the Chicago World's Fair" cannot be right. More likely, 2.5 million people in the greater Chicago region visited the fair ten times, after paying the entrance fee once. That makes more sense than imagining one third of the US traveling to Chicago.
Yeah we don't know what % of the population visited - that data doesn't exist as far as I know. We just know that 25 million visited the fair and the the 1890 census was 63 million. Even the 25 million figure differs a bit based on what source you read, some have it at 27 or 28 million.
You're guess is as good as mine in terms of repeat visitors vs. unique visitors. However, from the accounts one reads, it doesn't appear to be mostly local traffic. For example, there are lists of foreign dignitaries and famous Americans who traveled to Chicago (including Mark Twain, who failed to make it!) for the fair. You also read about hotels being built just for the fair and then overflowing with guests.
-Roman
That's generally how visits to parks, and fairs work, dude.
Some users on Safari might have trouble clicking to the next video. If so, here's the link: bit.ly/2nwPRvW
-Roman
Would you say the human race is in a bubble that is about to pop? What brought such rapid growth is oil and our banking system, we are running out of oil and might have hit peak oil and low interest rates are creating more debt than there is assets and liquidity. When the credit bubble burst our world will look like Greece and Venezuela, no more EBT cards massive unemployment and world war just like how the great depression lead to WWII.
While studying stadistics for University, I was listening to some music to help focus. When suddenly, this video interrupted my music. I didn't realize at first, but then I've heard some words as how the world was evolving, and shocked me. Even though I'm argentinean and my english is not perfect, I understood and stopped studying to listen to this. I totally agree, and will have to mention this on my Radio program , in where we talk about science and tech. Congrats for this video, will continue with the other 4 episodes
This video is so great and accurate! :)
I was thinking about this kind of thing this morning. My daughter is finishing her associates in gen eds to go on to study mechanical engineering. She decided against the advisors wishes to take communications classes and some programming classes- my daughter's thoughts are that mechanical engineering is going to continue on into mass 3-d printed materials and objects for more than just prototype inventions but into mass market production. The communications classes are because to get funding for your inventions there has to be the ability to stress the need to investors to fund your invention. I agree with my daughter that the advisors are wrong in pushing for "just the standard classes for engineering". In one case my daughter actually had to go to the head of computer sciences to get permission to take basic java and force the advisor to sign off on her class.
Thank you for making this available.
The falling off of travel rate increases has everything to do with saturation in energy density, not a lack of innovation. Similarly when a new area opens up you expect rapid change at first then a slowing once you near saturation.
So glad I found this channel tonight. Questions I've been asking myself
Glad you found us too!
-Roman
Great Reset seems closer than ever.
Interesting
everything is too expensive to keep moving. housing is too expensive to move all the time. once you find a place you like and can afford, you stay put.
I am wary of claims attributing economic performance to culture; culture varies widely between subsets. Look forward to the future videos as always though.
You shouldn't be. This should be self-evident to most people. Culture clearly affects economic performance. Western culture vs Eastern culture vs African culture. You can clearly see a cause and effect relationship between economic productivity and culture. Rule of law, property rights, etc. are all things that are attributable to culture.
unfortunately we never know is it culture or genes.
There is nonetheless a broader culture that all subsets within a given population live by, which should be as plain a fact as any. I really don't think I'm being hyperbolic when I say that this sort of obsequious relativism is destroying civilization...
TheGerogero we don't know, to what extent we are shaped by culture, and how much we shape it?
Self-evidence is not enough; it must be backed by research. Specifically, it must account for endogeneity.
If you close your eyes, Cowen can sound like Grand Nagus Zek from Deep Space 9.
Where else to go? We look up and are scared at the challenge of the final frontier !
When I was your age...
Been waiting for the other episodes. When will they be out?
We release new videos every Tuesday; the next episode in this series will be out tomorrow (3/07).
You can sign-up for updates on this series here: learn.mruniversity.com/everyday-economics/tyler-cowen-on-american-culture-and-innovation/
-Meg
Hey MRU. can you guys activate the CC editor in the video. I believe many people could help, even myself, to spread your content for non english speakers.
Hi there,
Right now, we pay for translations for several languages, but we can't "lock" the paid translations. We're currently transitioning our translation services so that we'll be able to allow the community to edit CCs while keeping the paid translations locked down. I hope that makes sense.
We appreciate that so many people in the community want to help translate!
-Meg
This one was a uncharacteristically unempirical. Not sure about your angle on your "now vs then" comparisons regarding what kids are doing and its bearing on innovation: 'safe spaces' and health and safety culture in schools are a storm in a teacup, perpetuated mostly by the easily outraged on social media.
Only a small minority of students have ever seen or participated in a 'safe space'. Students are still doing drugs and reading questionable philosophy (are you seriously arguing that legions of Marxist hippies "tuning in and dropping out" in the late 60s was somehow beneficial to economic dynamism?). As for health and safety, kids are still entretaining themselves with mildly perilous physical activity (see FailArmy and hundreds of thousands of kids' parkour videos on TH-cam and Instagram for more detail on this).
Sorry guys, but this one smells too much like 'juvenoia' (Google it) for me.
Hi Chris! This video series accompanies Tyler's new book, also titled _The Complacent Class_, which dives more deeply into the supporting data. -Meg
Ah, jolly good - hope it stands up to scrutiny!
Chris McSweeney I agree with your initial assessment above, this seems like nostalgia for a different type of economy rather than somehow incisive. How did your own reading and conclusions work out?
Revolt against the modern world
No quiz?
Mr. Tyler's lament that society has lost its pioneer spirit is called *Feminization* .
At 6:00 - about the millenials, can we have the source of this data? This really intrigued me.
deadal nix sure. The following is a list of fortune 500 companies founded by millennials: facebook. Here is a list of sweeping societal changes caused be millennials: Bernie Sanders. Here is a complete list of societal changing inventions created by millennials: ....
wweeks hahaha. nicely said. this is certainly a reference, but i'm really concerned about the data. maybe this facts are clear for you, but i'm just a brazilian guy, living in Brazil. my reality about millenials is a little different, and a research about the behaviour of this generation in others countries could be useful. oh yeah, and mruniversity, thanks, you make great content (and sorry for my english ).
Bernie Sanders is not a sweeping social change. He is an old, dusted off, regurgitated idea that should have dies decades ago.
Dimas Casco
To be fair I've read a lot to the effect that Brazilian Millenials are amongst the most libertarian/entraprenurial in the world.
North Americans and Europeans on the other hand.....
Last Giant yeas. that piece of information make me think about some diferences... we study a lot about business and etc, and is very commom the use of internacional examples (usually USA). this frame about north american millenials is unexpected. made me curious.
😊
Ok boomer
Tyler is wrong. The generation did not become risk-adverse, Ayn Rand said the primary purpose of companies is not to provide goods and services, the primary purpose of companies is to make the most amount of profit possible regardless of the consequences. The consequences are reduced expenditures, aka reduced R&D, which is literally reduced innovation, and reduced wages with higher prices. Thanks to the money being stolen from the working and middle classes through high prices and low wages, the working and middle classes cannot afford to make up the cuts in corporate R&D through their own innovation.
Um... you've either not read Ayn Rand, of you've taken a quote of hers out of the greater context of her work. She believed and wrote almost explicitly about innovation.
Anno Domini You are mistaken. In one interview, when asked about the social responsibility of companies, she stated that the only social responsibility of companies is to maximize profits no matter the consequences, and that free enterprise would take care of the rest.
Ayn Rand was the first Tea Party nut job. Even Trump admits that companies will not do the right thing unless forced to by the government.
Did I not say: 'either you've not read Ayn Rand, of [should be or] you've taken a quote of her out of the _greater_ [emphasis added] context of her work'.
Of course it is the job of a company to maximise profits. I don't see for a minute how that should impact productivity, and certainly not innovation. Her entire body of work was about innovation, about a person rising above the dross of the complacent class and really creating. You are literally focusing on one part of creation, which is the generation of capital. If you don't have dosh, you cannot create. Most of the characters in her creation/building novels ran into problems with capital, which stopped cold their ability to create.
Maximizing profits has a direct negative impact on innovation. Privately-held companies, you know, those still owned by the idealistic founders who have a dream of doing great things, aka innovating, spend double the percentage of their operating revenue on R&D. Then when they go public and greedy 'investors' get their hands on the wheel, all investment, including innovation investments in R&D, drop in the name of maximizing profits.. If the government forced companies to invest the same percentage of their operating revenue on R&D as was spent before they went public, innovation would literally double.
Apple is proof. Apple got rid of Steve Jobs, and then immediately cut all investments ('expenses' as the corporate people call it). For over a decade Apple went no where. Steve Jobs came back, said Fuck You to all the corporate people, and spent as much of Apple's money on R&D no matter what complaints the greedy corporate people had. First the iMac, then the iPod, then the iPhone, and now Apple makes more money than the government, which is amazing considering that the government literally prints money..
Yes, Steve Jobs was not the government, but he did still force the greedy corporate people to open the vaults and spent the money on R&D/innovation. Unfortunately there are too few Steve Jobs in the private sector to bully the greedy corporate people into doing the right thing; there are thousands of companies, so it would take thousand of Steve Jobs to fix this problem. But it only takes a few dozen lawmakers to pass the laws needed to make companies invest in R&D, and bankrupt the ones that don't.
There are literally trillions of dollars headed to offshore bank accounts that can be diverted to R&D. Forcing innovation instead of greedy would change the world for the better. Companies maximizing profits is crushing human potential (don't take my word for it, look at what happened to Apple and Amazon when maximizing profits took a backseat to innovation)..
'If the government forced...'
There are multiple examples of governments controlling private R&D and other expenditures, the most extreme of which is nationalisation. In no instance does this increate innovation.
too much government regulation
According to Marx, capitalism will evolve to socialism. He was right.
native english speakers use "great" as in “the great reset” way too much
Sober analysis and very disturbing. Even the Christian church has retreated into a sort of spiritual safety (which is anathema to God).
half of this shit its not murican
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