Sympathizing: Must Loving Fishtown Equal Hating Belmont?

 

We have plenty of folks on Ricochet who inhabit Belmont, more or less, but identify with Fishtown. It seems the easiest way to signal this sympathy is to be a self-hating Belmontonian. But what if you don’t hate everything about Belmont? Is it possible to sympathize with Fishtown even then? I would say yes. Though I would not, at this point, expect to be believed.

I recently reviewed Dreamland, a reporter’s magnum opus on the opiate addiction epidemic. My interest in its devastation isn’t academic. After all, I, too, have known chronic pain, death-wish despair, and repeated exposure to opioids through injury and surgery. Nor am I the only one in my family to have had these problems. Yet we’ve been spared from narcotics addiction, and the buffer of Belmont customs is at least partly to thank for this. Growing up, I hadn’t thought of myself as “Belmont.” My parents’ one sacrifice to dwarf all others was buying us a precarious perch in a Belmont neighborhood so we could attend its famed Belmont schools. It meant money was always tight. We dressed in the kind of secondhand clothes that made other kids point and laugh. In Belmont, we were at the bottom of the food chain, and that, plus my family’s right-leaning distaste for Belmont smugness, left us thinking of ourselves as outsiders, crypto-Fishtowners. It took leaving Belmont to find out how Belmont we’d become.

Being Belmont isn’t such a bad thing. There’s much more to Belmont than smugly looking down on the rubes. We rely on Belmont to support much of the finest flower of Western civilization – the arts, the sciences. As Charles Murray noted, Belmont neglects to preach the morals it still practices, while Fishtown struggles to practice what it preaches. But practice is not nothing, especially for youngsters who get to grow up surrounded by the practice. In my teens, I began attending about the Belmontiest church you could imagine – folks way richer than us, socialites on the “in” when I was “out,” with everybody reluctant to preach what they practiced. But among the things they practiced was traditional worship music (it’s why I went) and, as Lutherans like to say, music is its own sermon. You can get a pretty good Christian formation in one of those churches by ignoring what’s spoken and taking to heart what’s sung. And oh, the music!

Whenever I’m around other classical-music lovers, I can pretty much guarantee that I’ll be in the political minority. Loving classical music seems very Belmont, and my family never did adopt Belmont’s progressive politics. It can grate to hear other musicians and music-lovers toss off progressive opinions like they’re sure everyone agrees. It can grate that the arts aren’t “owned” by the faction whose stated political project, after all, is preserving the best of Western tradition from whatever threatens it. It can grate, but what does not grate is listening to and making music – participating in the perpetuation of that tradition – with these progressives. We decry progressive attacks on aesthetics when Belmontonians support modern works that don’t deserve to be included among works of historic greatness – but that only happens because works of historic greatness are still being performed, largely thanks to Belmont’s support. Music, at least, is something traditional conservatives do with Belmont. Not without it.

From music, and the tacit-but-powerful pressure to stay on the straight and narrow, to all the other social resources and little customs which can fortify a family in the face of pain and despair, my family owes Belmont too much gratitude to really hate it. If proof of loving Fishtown is denouncing Belmont, I’m in trouble. Should it be?

According to some, perhaps:

If the poor have vicious habits, whose fault is it — theirs or the people who made fortunes encouraging and refining these habits with the help of international consulting firms?

Supposing the indictment against international consulting firms were true, not every Belmontonian makes money with the direct help of such a firm. But just being part of the Belmont class – or even getting along ok with the Belmont class – might seem like tacit approval of those who do. As @jon just observed,

Elitism is Belmont hating Fishtown. Populism is Fishtown hating Belmont. Either is just Americans wanting to hurt their fellow Americans, which is where our politics has been for at least a decade.

Is it still possible to be neither an elitist nor a populist? To have sympathy for those who are hurting without hating the better-off?

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  1. EJHill Podcaster
    EJHill
    @EJHill

    ValiuthSo what is the complaint?

    My complaint is folks like you reciting canards like “creative destruction.” Shipping jobs overseas is not creating anything.

    When the automobile destroyed the livery business it created millions of jobs to replace the ones lost. Lose a buggy whip job, create a thousand leather working jobs to make car interiors.

    What are you offering today? A barista’s job for a job that wasn’t destroyed, just moved? The garmet still gets made, the air conditioner and the auto still get produced, they’re just imported.

    • #31
  2. James Lileks Contributor
    James Lileks
    @jameslileks

    Anecdotal cabbie conversations are the worst, and prove nothing, but I had two interesting Uber rides last week:

    The first driver was an immigrant  – here for 3 years, originally from Somalia. Grateful to be in America. Worked another job and was going to school to learn IT – coding, networking. Skilled labor.  The other was a native-born young woman with a Graphic Arts degree who didn’t have a job in Graphic Arts, but she had a website, and was hopeful something would come along. She didn’t know how to code and kept telling herself she should learn HTML5 and CSS. She could tinker with a WordPress template, which is the tech equivalent of being a waitress at a hash house.

    Neither lives in Fishtown or Belmont, but I think the first one has a better shot at watching his kids move into the latter.

    • #32
  3. Snirtler Inactive
    Snirtler
    @Snirtler

    DocJay (View Comment):
    It’s possible to see the good in the vast majority of human beings regardless of where they are from. It’s possible to see the good in both areas for there is good in both areas.

    Arahant (View Comment):
    Some folks talk about people.
    Some folks talk about events.
    Some folks talk about ideas.

    Some folks are builders.
    Some folks are destroyers.

    Some folks are thoughtless and impulsive.
    Some folks consider each move before they act.

    There’s at least a little of some folks in all of us.

    Doc goes for pith and Arahant goes for poetry.

    • #33
  4. Brian Wolf Inactive
    Brian Wolf
    @BrianWolf

    Regulation does matter not only because of the cost of the regulation but because of the cultural assumptions it builds in.

    So for instance my parents married in the 1950s they bought a house had my sisters in quick succession and adopted me much later.  They had trouble making ends meet so they started side businesses.  My mother basically opened a day care in her home, grew vegetables, and took odd jobs, like mending garments as they came her way.  All these jobs let her stay at home around her daughters when they came home from school.

    My father worked on cars, rebuilt them, took construction labor jobs and worked full service gas  station.

    Now most of what my father did on cars would now be illegal and the cars he rebuilt would be illegal, the way that my Dad did the construction jobs would be illegal and I think almost everything my Mom did for extra money would not be illegal.

    When my parents were making it they thought everything was possible and would have been shocked to find out some idea they had was illegal to do.  Now people grow up assuming their ideas are illegal, even when they are not.  Immigrants think America is the land of possibility and they just work their dreams hoping they will not run into the law.  In other words the immigrants and native American expectations are different and so they make their run on life from different angles and with different effort.

    The reason for that is that our state and regulatory agencies have grown dramatically and small businesses are constantly under threat and Americans like to play by the rules, even if the rules are not well enforced.  Immigrants most likely don’t know our care about rules and only fear enforcement which is spotty at best.  That has a very broad impact on culture.

    Also politically this is why Reagan’s attitude, rhetoric made a huge impact on the American people their attitudes and leaders since Reagan have had less impact.  Regulatory regimes don’t need to chance so much if the way people look at those regimes change.

    • #34
  5. Robert McReynolds Member
    Robert McReynolds
    @

    Midget Faded Rattlesnake (View Comment):

    Robert McReynolds (View Comment):
    Is it possible to think that some in Belmont have encouraged government policy that keeps people in Fishtown while those in Belmont get rich off of the situation?

    Of course that’s possible. We always thought there were – for example, regulatory schemes that were disproportionately harder on the poor.

    Well then I think that answers, in part, the question of your OP.

    • #35
  6. I Walton Member
    I Walton
    @IWalton

    Isn’t the whole point that we live as of we believed in traditional values, enjoy stable relationships, value many inherited traditions, but for some  reason support progressivism for the poor and the lower middle class in spite of what it has done to them.  Maybe it’s guilt of knowing that we don’t really care and are indeed caught up in empty materialism.  Or perhaps that we know we enjoy white privilege, but it isn’t white it’s being in a position to benefit from the administrative state, the economies of scale of modern technology and globalism.  I don’t know.  I don’t understand progressives and don’t want to explain them in some marxist economic determinist abstraction.  I don’t think it all holds together for any of us for long without being part of traditional values inherited from our families and our churches.

    • #36
  7. Umbra Fractus Inactive
    Umbra Fractus
    @UmbraFractus

    Midget Faded Rattlesnake:

    Is it still possible to be neither an elitist nor a populist? To have sympathy for those who are hurting without hating the better-off?

    I hope so, considering that’s pretty much Marxism 101. We spent eight years decrying the politics of envy. That should not change just because we have “our own” populist in power.

    • #37
  8. Umbra Fractus Inactive
    Umbra Fractus
    @UmbraFractus

    EJHill (View Comment):

    Valiuth: If people are given the choice they will chose wrong and we will all be worse off.

    And this is the worst of it. See the connotation? You chose wrong. You deserve what you got.

    If you went to college or trade school in the 80s and your job got outsourced you deserve it, ’cause you should have seen it coming. When those politicians said free trade was all about you and your company competing on an equal playing field you shoulda known that was a lie, you rube. Sure, we told you to study computers. But you had to know that guy from India was gonna come over here for less.

    Er, you missed his point. His statement that you quoted is actually a mockery of your position, which seems to be that the government should do something to take away the perfectly rational competitive advantage that certain products have because you don’t like the consequences.

    • #38
  9. Midget Faded Rattlesnake Member
    Midget Faded Rattlesnake
    @Midge

    Robert McReynolds (View Comment):

    Midget Faded Rattlesnake (View Comment):

    Robert McReynolds (View Comment):
    Is it possible to think that some in Belmont have encouraged government policy that keeps people in Fishtown while those in Belmont get rich off of the situation?

    Of course that’s possible. We always thought there were – for example, regulatory schemes that were disproportionately harder on the poor.

    Well then I think that answers, in part, the question of your OP.

    Then Americans don’t have to hate each other based on class?

    • #39
  10. Midget Faded Rattlesnake Member
    Midget Faded Rattlesnake
    @Midge

    I Walton (View Comment):
    Isn’t the whole point that we live as of we believed in traditional values, enjoy stable relationships, value many inherited traditions, but for some reason support progressivism for the poor and the lower middle class in spite of what it has done to them.

    But obviously we don’t all support progressivism for the poor and lower middle class, even if we’re Belmontonians.

    Being “Belmont” is a cultural and geographic designation, not a political designation. For it to be conflated with having Progressive politics is problematic for several reasons: it encourages blaming members of politically heterogeneous class for a kind of politics they don’t all share, and it encourages those in that class who don’t share those Progressive politics to feel more isolated than they really are. I mentioned that, in the classical music world I’m familiar with, that’s already pretty isolated, but classical music selects for that bohemian artist streak (which has pretty much always been Progressive) on top of selecting for Belmonticity.

    The way I see it, it’s hard to share the traditional values Belmontonians still largely practice but are ashamed to preach with Americans whose misfortunes have alienated them from those values by adopting a blanket shame of Belmont, since blanket shame includes shame over those tacit traditional values, too.

    Murray’s argument is that Belmontonians are so immersed in the tacit residue of those traditional values, they’re like fish who don’t know what water is. So Belmontonians misattribute what makes Belmontonians happy and productive to stuff like organic baby food, and try to push that on the poor instead of those tacit values. And Fishtowners, understandably, find the organic baby food pointlessly snobbish and tell Belmontonians to shut up. And if Belmontonians take the “shut up” advice to heart, they won’t start sharing what really makes their lives good with those who’ve had the misfortune to be alienated from the good life.

    It’s easy to conflate “let me share my Belmont values with you” with “let me share my Progressive politics with you”. There are Belmontonians who make that conflation themselves. Assuming that all Belmontionians do, though, is license to never listen to the Belmontonians who don’t.

    • #40
  11. Midget Faded Rattlesnake Member
    Midget Faded Rattlesnake
    @Midge

    Midget Faded Rattlesnake (View Comment):
    It’s easy to conflate “let me share my Belmont values with you” with “let me share my Progressive politics with you”. There are Belmontonians who make that conflation themselves. Assuming that all Belmontionians do, though, is license to never listen to the Belmontonians who don’t.

    I don’t know how much of the red-state anger currently directed at Sasse stems from the fact that he’s a bright, highly driven youngish male, and many bright, exceedingly driven youngish males are awkwardly oblivious to how arrogant and condescending they seem to others; and how much of the anger comes from the “license to never listen to the Belmontonians who don’t” share Progressive politics, simply because they are Belmontonians, and therefore dismissable as essentially fake people who cannot possibly have any idea of what life is like for real people.

    • #41
  12. skipsul Inactive
    skipsul
    @skipsul

    EJHill (View Comment):
    What are you offering today? A barista’s job for a job that wasn’t destroyed, just moved? The garmet still gets made, the air conditioner and the auto still get produced, they’re just imported.

    The US still produces a high volume of vehicles.  What has changed is how and why.  There was a time when an automotive plant complex would employ 20,000 people.  Now it might employ 5000 but still put out roughly the same volume.

    My electronics company employs only 5 people in production where our volume would have required 20 in the 1990s, that’s just the reality of things.

    Another issue is the bizarre mix of US labor laws and import laws riding up against the pressure on large companies to homogenize their products for worldwide sale.  Old and outdated protectionist import duties on many vehicles types in many many countries make for just weird manufacturing schemes that make it cheaper to build some types of cars abroad, but more profitable to build others here (see:  The Chicken Tax).  The US is hardly alone in having obstructionist laws on auto manufacturing.

    My wife’s minivan, a Toyota, was built here.  Many of my neighbors work at the Marysville Honda plant where Civics and Accords are built, but Ford has to build its small cars in Mexico or elsewhere.  Why is that?  It’s not a simple picture.

    • #42
  13. skipsul Inactive
    skipsul
    @skipsul

    My parents’ families were definitely of the Fishtown type, but my parents pulled themselves into Belmont.  I’ve always moved rather freely between both, and have seen the pathologies of both up close.  My best friend came from one of the poorest of Columbus’s neighborhoods, and both he and his brother worked their way out of it, while their sister squandered her many opportunities to do so.  We’ve all seen the antagonisms between both ends.

    • #43
  14. bridget Inactive
    bridget
    @bridget

    I grew up in (what was) a very middle class town. Many of my friends’ parents were teachers, nurses, and cops.  Almost everyone’s parents had been married to each other before the kids were born and stayed married.  The town generally votes about 60% Republican in statewide elections, despite being in a deep blue state.

    Some stupidly high percentage of the kids went to college immediately after high school (over 90%, if memory serves me correctly).  Many went to state; the kids at the top of the class tended to go private. We had good schools for the price and outstanding sports teams.  There were often field trips to Symphony Hall and the MFA because our teachers and families wanted us to appreciate the arts.

    This was not Belmont but was not a far drive from Belmont.  My dad – a man with no taste for snobbery – enjoys telling people at ritzy functions where he lives, to watch their faces scrunch up in contempt.

    Thanks to the massive bubble that Massachusetts is riding, tiny Cape-style houses there are now going for $400k.  Split levels, built in the 1960s with no frills? $600k.  MA is riding the higher education bubble and the health care bubble.

    (Shrug)  So I guess my opinion is that various policies are pricing normal people out of healthy, affordable towns.  That wealthy liberals do fund the arts that we so love… but a lot of that support does in fact come from the middle-class people who buy a ticket or two every season to the symphony.  They make up for in numbers what they lack in volume per person.

    (The MET is located in very progressive Manhattan, but I wonder how much of its ticket revenue comes from nice Republicans on vacation in the big city.)

    Maybe it’s a regional thing, because I also spent seven years living in a town that might just be richer and snottier than Belmont (voting patterns: pretty much straight down the middle), but the commentary about how we conservatives don’t properly support the arts grates on me.  Maybe we just don’t shove it in people’s faces… and maybe there’s also perfectly respectable art – real art – in smaller, less flashy citie in red states.

    • #44
  15. Misthiocracy Member
    Misthiocracy
    @Misthiocracy

    Bryan G. Stephens (View Comment):
    I am born and raised in Belmont, and so are my kids. Mostly.

    Feasting on truffles and swan, living off the blood of the proletariat!

    You make me sick.

    ;-)

     

    • #45
  16. Lois Lane Coolidge
    Lois Lane
    @LoisLane

    EJHill (View Comment):
    You say, well you have a choice. Do you really? No you don’t. It would be one thing to have blind faith in the market if we didn’t already have so many of layers of governing skewing it.

    I think you’ve made a great counter, @ejhill, but it doesn’t mean that free market ideology is bad.  What you’ve described is the distorting of markets, which is not free at all.  I mean, I personally believe free markets do work the best, but we’ve tied them up and bound them to suit various special interest groups, which sometimes includes the generic “big business.”

    Also, I’ll fully concede the destruction part of “creative destruction” sucks, but that’s not necessarily related to “free trade” with other countries.  That’s most about technology, and… well…  It’s all a bit more complicated than exporting factories, as I’m sure you know.

    I know that you view “creative destruction” as a trite phrase, but the irony there is that Joseph Schumpeter who coined the term predicted it would be the reason capitalism ultimately fails….  (Understandably, whoever is attached to that which is destroyed cares less about the long run advantages of creation and more about the rubble in which he/she is standing.)

    • #46
  17. Robert McReynolds Member
    Robert McReynolds
    @

    Midget Faded Rattlesnake (View Comment):

    Robert McReynolds (View Comment):

    Midget Faded Rattlesnake (View Comment):

    Robert McReynolds (View Comment):
    Is it possible to think that some in Belmont have encouraged government policy that keeps people in Fishtown while those in Belmont get rich off of the situation?

    Of course that’s possible. We always thought there were – for example, regulatory schemes that were disproportionately harder on the poor.

    Well then I think that answers, in part, the question of your OP.

    Then Americans don’t have to hate each other based on class?

    I would certainly hope not, but I would definitely not second guess one who felt like they were being held back another particularly when the one doing the holding back was profiting. I don’t care if someone is rich or if they are poor. I care if someone is using the coercive power of the state to do harm to another person. Particularly if that harm causes the benefit of the one doing the harm.

    • #47
  18. Robert McReynolds Member
    Robert McReynolds
    @

    While it is true that many in Fishtown are there because of their own life choices and failings, is it not also true that some in Belmont are there because of arrangements made via the government that harm people in Fishtown?

    • #48
  19. Judithann Campbell Member
    Judithann Campbell
    @

    Umbra Fractus (View Comment):

    Midget Faded Rattlesnake:

    Is it still possible to be neither an elitist nor a populist? To have sympathy for those who are hurting without hating the better-off?

    I hope so, considering that’s pretty much Marxism 101. We spent eight years decrying the politics of envy. That should not change just because we have “our own” populist in power.

    Is envy really that much of a problem in America? Compared with other places? I don’t think so. My husband comes from Scotland, and he was pretty well off there: he used to drive very expensive cars, which would often get keyed by envious people. People keyed his car for no reason other than, they were jealous; he says that there is remarkably little envy in America compared with Scotland. Of course, he doesn’t drive expensive cars anymore, and there is no question that lots of people in America are not above stealing a car, but that isn’t the same thing as just being pointlessly destructive.

    I have always thought that conservative concerns about envy in America are overwrought; the most envious people I know live in Belmont, are part of the 10 or 20 percent, and are jealous of the 1%. They vote, and they are the people liberals are trying to appeal to. Most if not all of the hatred for the rich that I witness actually comes from people who are relatively wealthy themselves.

    • #49
  20. Valiuth Member
    Valiuth
    @Valiuth

    EJHill (View Comment):
    What are you offering today? A barista’s job for a job that wasn’t destroyed, just moved? The garmet still gets made, the air conditioner and the auto still get produced, they’re just imported.

    What’s wrong with being a barista? I guess we think less of service jobs than manufacturing jobs, partly because of pay partly because of mythology? How did manufacturing jobs get to be so good?

    At the start of the industrial revolution factory work was extremely cheap, employees did not make a lot of money not comparatively to other jobs, but the best jobs were in short supply and factory jobs were plentiful and booming populations meant a lot of people needed work. But a few things happened to improve the lot of factory workers. For one over time factories ended up drying up the excess labor pool so now you needed to pay more to attract workers. Also skilled factory workers became in higher demand and could charge more for their work.  Concurrent with that you also had labor movement began to organize that created leverage of factory workers in negotiations. At the very end of the Industrial Economic boom highly paid manufacturing workers with strong Unions were able to command very respectable wages. Our service economy is not that old, our information economy is even younger. Maybe once we have filled the world with coffee shops baristas will be able to compete for higher wages. Maybe we need the International Brotherhood of Coffee Makers to organize and negotiate fair labor contracts for baristas.

    My point is this being an independent farmer at the start of the industrial revolution was far more prestigious and profitable than being a sweatshop worker. The baristas of today are the sweatshop workers of yesterday. We moved beyond that through economic growth and technology. But that was of little comfort to the people suffering the indignity of not owning and farming their own land.

    Today we seem to be in a similar flux. I imagine we will in our apprehension and frustration at our circumstances find ourselves taking similar steps as to what our ancestors took. their answer to the problems of industrialization was the welfare state. Our answer to the problems of the service/knowledge economy will be a bigger welfare state. The argument that folks like me make is that this is a self correcting problem, which I grant is rather heartless because I don’t think the correction will come in time to be of much good to many of those whose lives have been up ended so far. Which is why I expect that we will increase welfare to pacify them and ameliorate our guilt at being lucky to not be in their shoes.

    The danger I see in your complaint @EJHill is that you have a vision of what the ideal economy and labor force should look like. This is the essence of the flawed economic planing of socialism.

    • #50
  21. Valiuth Member
    Valiuth
    @Valiuth

    Robert McReynolds (View Comment):
    While it is true that many in Fishtown are there because of their own life choices and failings, is it not also true that some in Belmont are there because of arrangements made via the government that harm people in Fishtown?

    I think it is more likely that many in Belmont are there because of being lucky enough to be born into it. More than any scheme of the governments. Though certainly there are rent-seekers in Belmont there are just as many in Fishtown. And it is the former that engenders the feelings of guilt or resentment at unearned success that underscore all of this.

    • #51
  22. Robert McReynolds Member
    Robert McReynolds
    @

    Valiuth (View Comment):

    Robert McReynolds (View Comment):
    While it is true that many in Fishtown are there because of their own life choices and failings, is it not also true that some in Belmont are there because of arrangements made via the government that harm people in Fishtown?

    I think it is more likely that many in Belmont are there because of being lucky enough to be born into it. More than any scheme of the governments. Though certainly there are rent-seekers in Belmont there are just as many in Fishtown. And it is the former that engenders the feelings of guilt or resentment at unearned success that underscore all of this.

    There is certainly no doubt that what you are saying is true, and quite possibly could be the majority in both camps. I do think that there are some in Belmont who earned their way there just as there are some in Fishtown who are kept there and have a legitimate complaint against some in Belmont.

    • #52
  23. Misthiocracy Member
    Misthiocracy
    @Misthiocracy

    Robert McReynolds (View Comment):
    While it is true that many in Fishtown are there because of their own life choices and failings, is it not also true that some in Belmont are there because of arrangements made via the government that harm people in Fishtown?

    Belmont is a suburb of D.C.

    • #53
  24. Misthiocracy Member
    Misthiocracy
    @Misthiocracy

    Valiuth (View Comment):
    What’s wrong with being a barista?

    It depends entirely on where the barista works.

    • #54
  25. Lois Lane Coolidge
    Lois Lane
    @LoisLane

    Judithann Campbell (View Comment):
    My husband comes from Scotland, and he was pretty well off there: he used to drive very expensive cars, which would often get keyed by envious people.

    That is so interesting that actually happened.  I had an English lady explain to me once in Bristol why she loved going to FL so much.  She said almost verbatim that in the UK people key cars that are nicer than theirs, whereas in the US people work harder to buy a nicer car.

    I haven’t read Murray’s book, but I am wondering…. Is Fishtown just blue collar?  And Belmont white collar?  Beltown is the suburbs?  Can someone give me some help on where the demarcation lines are?

    For example, my mother was a teacher.  Teachers don’t make a lot of money, but that’s a white collar job.  Where did she live?

    • #55
  26. Valiuth Member
    Valiuth
    @Valiuth

    Lois Lane (View Comment):

    EJHill (View Comment):
    You say, well you have a choice. Do you really? No you don’t. It would be one thing to have blind faith in the market if we didn’t already have so many of layers of governing skewing it.

    I think you’ve made a great counter, @ejhill, but it doesn’t mean that free market ideology is bad. What you’ve described is the distorting of markets, which is not free at all. I mean, I personally believe free markets do work the best, but we’ve tied them up and bound them to suit various special interest groups.

    Also, I’ll fully concede the destruction part of “creative destruction” sucks, but that’s not necessarily related to “free trade” with other countries. That’s most about technology, and… well… It’s all a bit more complicated than exporting factories, as I’m sure you know.

    What does the best look like? Free markets increase efficiency and efficiency increase growth. But the very argument of people critical of free markets is that the growth is ill distributed. As EJ points out what good is cheaper imported Wal-Mart goods if you loose your job making over priced American goods? What people want ins’t economic efficiency it is certainty for themselves. The nature of Liberal Capitalism in the west has been to create inefficiencies in the market to recompense the looser of efficiency gains, but at the same time maintaining the process of efficient turnover going. Free markets are like nature cruel and arbitrary to the needs of individuals. We don’t want to live in nature we want a garden.

    • #56
  27. Michael Brehm Lincoln
    Michael Brehm
    @MichaelBrehm

    Misthiocracy (View Comment):
    What’s it called when you grew up on a rural road with five (pretty nice) houses on it, ten kilometres from nowhere, with an hour-long school bus ride twice a day?”

    I don’t know what you call it where you’re from, but in my neck of the woods we call it Greble Road. ;-)

    • #57
  28. Lois Lane Coolidge
    Lois Lane
    @LoisLane

    Valiuth (View Comment):

    Lois Lane (View Comment):

    EJHill (View Comment):
    You say, well you have a choice. Do you really? No you don’t. It would be one thing to have blind faith in the market if we didn’t already have so many of layers of governing skewing it.

    I think you’ve made a great counter, @ejhill, but it doesn’t mean that free market ideology is bad. What you’ve described is the distorting of markets, which is not free at all. I mean, I personally believe free markets do work the best, but we’ve tied them up and bound them to suit various special interest groups.

    Also, I’ll fully concede the destruction part of “creative destruction” sucks, but that’s not necessarily related to “free trade” with other countries. That’s most about technology, and… well… It’s all a bit more complicated than exporting factories, as I’m sure you know.

    What does the best look like? Free markets increase efficiency and efficiency increase growth. But the very argument of people critical of free markets is that the growth is ill distributed. As EJ points out what good is cheaper imported Wal-Mart goods if you loose your job making over priced American goods? What people want ins’t economic efficiency it is certainty for themselves. The nature of Liberal Capitalism in the west has been to create inefficiencies in the market to recompense the looser of efficiency gains, but at the same time maintaining the process of efficient turnover going. Free markets are like nature cruel and arbitrary to the needs of individuals. We don’t want to live in nature we want a garden.

    Yes.  I added the following to my comment above, which you may not have read, as I’d already posted my other thoughts.  It speaks to what you say though:

    “I know that [EJHill views] ‘creative destruction’ as a trite phrase, but the irony there is that Joseph Schumpeter who coined the term predicted it would be the reason capitalism ultimately fails…. (Understandably, whoever is attached to that which is destroyed cares less about the long run advantages of creation and more about the rubble in which he/she is standing.)”

     

    • #58
  29. Umbra Fractus Inactive
    Umbra Fractus
    @UmbraFractus

    Lois Lane (View Comment):
    That is so interesting that actually happened. I had an English lady explain to me once in Bristol why she loved going to FL so much. She said almost verbatim that in the UK people key cars that are nicer than theirs, whereas in the US people work harder to buy a nicer car.

     

    I’ve been saying for a while that socialism is the belief that keeping up with the Joneses is immoral, but wanting to drag the Joneses down is perfectly fine.

    • #59
  30. Lois Lane Coolidge
    Lois Lane
    @LoisLane

    Umbra Fractus (View Comment):

    Lois Lane (View Comment):
    That is so interesting that actually happened. I had an English lady explain to me once in Bristol why she loved going to FL so much. She said almost verbatim that in the UK people key cars that are nicer than theirs, whereas in the US people work harder to buy a nicer car.

    I’ve been saying for a while that socialism is the belief that keeping up with the Joneses is immoral, but wanting to drag the Joneses down is perfectly fine.

    I’m trying to remember what Veblun said about “conspicuous consumption.”  I know he wasn’t a fan of the profit motive and the Joneses’ flagrant display of wealth on the top of the hill, but I can’t recall him offering viable alternatives….  (Granted, I don’t have a degree in economics.)

    • #60
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