Richard Reeves - Capitalism used to promise a better future. Can it still do that?
Capitalism is
intrinsically futuristic. The ideas that underpin market economies – growth,
accumulation, investment – express an unspoken assumption, that tomorrow will
be different, and probably better, than today. The question that murmurs
through markets is not “What is good?” or “What is fair”, but: “What’s new?”
NB: The comments beneath this piece are interesting and reveal its propagandistic features DS
NB: The comments beneath this piece are interesting and reveal its propagandistic features DS
This future
orientation is one of the most striking hallmarks of modernity. Pre-capitalist
societies looked to the past – to founding myths, old religions and ancestral
lines. Capitalist societies look to the future – to new inventions, broader
horizons and greater abundance. “Oh, the places you’ll go!” is an ur-text of
market capitalism. Change is of course a
mixed blessing. Opportunity and uncertainty go together. Critics of capitalism
sometimes point out that it creates an uncertain future. Economic growth
requires change and disruption – Schumpeter’s “creative destruction”, which can
impose some immediate social costs.
This is true in the details – nobody knows
where market dynamics will lead us. Nobody predicted Facebook and Twitter. But
it’s false for the overall picture. If the economy grows, as a result of market
capitalism, we can predict with confidence that the future will be better than
the present.
Capitalism has kept
this promise quite well over the broad span of history. Compared with earlier
periods in history, the material conditions of life have improved dramatically
since the birth of capitalism. For the 500 years up to around 1700, economic output
per person was flat. In other words, the median person in 1700 was no better
off, economically speaking, than the median person in 1200.
Work by the team at The World in Data,
led by Max Roser, makes the point visually – and dramatically. The idea of economic
improvement is now so culturally embedded that even half a decade of no
progress sends alarm bells ringing, let alone half a millennium. “The past is another
country”, is the opening of LP Hartley’s 1953 novel The
Go-Between. “They do things differently there.” Hartley’s is a deeply
modern though now uncontroversial sentiment. In previous eras, the past was
almost exactly the same country, at least in economic terms, where they did
things pretty much the same as now. In a feudal or agricultural economy, things
today were likely to be quite similar to things a century ago, as well as to
things a century later... read more:
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