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October 1 - October 9, 2025
We have to devise a system to ensure that everybody benefits from this Second Machine Age, a system that compensates the losers as well as the winners.
Just as we adapted to the First Machine Age through a revolution in education and welfare, so the Second Machine Age calls for drastic measures. Measures like a shorter workweek and universal basic income.
In the end, it is we humans who decide how we want to shape our destiny. The scenario of radical inequality that is taking shape in the U.S. is not our only option. The alternative is that at some point during this century, we reject the dogma that you have to work for a living. The richer we as a society become, the less effectively the labor market will be at distributing prosperity.
Technological progress may make a society more prosperous in aggregate, but there’s no economic law that says everyone will benefit.
“We have to save capitalism from the capitalists,”
“People do not get used to handouts,” Duflo succinctly points out. “They get used to nets.”
we are quixotic creatures, sometimes foolish and sometimes astute, and by turns afraid, altruistic, and self-centered.
In this era of “globalization,” only 3% of the world’s population lives outside their country of birth.
Economic growth isn’t a cure-all, of course, but out beyond the gates of the Land of Plenty, it’s still the main driver of progress.
Billions of people are forced to sell their labor at a fraction of the price that they would get for it in the Land of Plenty, all because of borders.
Borders are the single biggest cause of discrimination in all of world history. Inequality gaps between people living in the same country are nothing in comparison to those between separated global citizenries.
A person living at the poverty line in the U.S. belongs to the richest 14% of the world population;
mere eight people are richer than 3.5 billion put together.
Opening up our borders, even just a crack, is by far the most powerful weapon we have in the global fight against poverty. But sadly, it’s an idea that keeps getting beaten back by the same old faulty arguments.
Youth crime, the report stated, has its origins in the neighborhood where kids grow up. In poor communities, kids from Dutch backgrounds are every bit as likely to engage in criminal activity as those from ethnic minorities.
A bigger workforce means more consumption, more demand, more jobs. If we insist on comparing the job market to musical chairs, then it’s a version where new party animals keep showing up with more chairs.
Hardworking immigrants boost productivity, which brings paycheck payoffs to everybody.
However disruptive, migration has time and again proven to be one of the most powerful drivers of progress.
The grand total of global development aid adds up to about what a small European country like the Netherlands spends on healthcare alone.
The average American thinks their federal government spends more than a quarter of the national budget on foreign aid, but the real figure is less than 1%.
If all the developed countries would let in just 3% more immigrants, the world’s poor would have $305 billion more to spend, say scientists at the World Bank.56 That’s the combined total of all development aid–times three.
The difficulty lies, not in the new ideas, but in escaping from the old ones. John Maynard Keynes (1883–1946)
When reality clashes with our deepest convictions, we’d rather recalibrate reality than amend our worldview. Not only that, we become even more rigid in our beliefs than before.
Researchers at Yale University have shown that educated people are more unshakable in their convictions than anybody.2 After all, an education gives you tools to defend your opinions. Intelligent people are highly practiced in finding arguments, experts, and studies that underpin their preexisting beliefs,
The question is not can new ideas defeat old ones; the question is how.
A worldview is not a Lego set where a block is added here, removed there. It’s a fortress that is defended tooth and nail, with all possible reinforcements, until the pressure becomes so overpowering that the walls cave in.
A single opposing voice can make all the difference. When just one other person in the group stuck to the truth, the test subjects were more likely to trust the evidence of their own senses. Let this be an encouragement to all those who feel like a lone voice crying out in the wilderness: Keep on building those castles in the sky. Your time will come.
Friedman’s arrival marked the dawn of an era in which economists would become the leading thinkers of the Western world. We are still in that era today.
We inhabit a world of managers and technocrats. “Let’s just concentrate on solving the problems,” they say. “Let’s just focus on making ends meet.” Political decisions are continually presented as a matter of exigency–as neutral and objective events, as though there were no other choice.
But the question is, what is the value of free speech when we no longer have anything worthwhile to say?
What purpose does freedom of religion serve when we no longer believe in anything?
so many good ideas don’t get taken seriously? Overton realized that politicians, provided they want to be reelected, can’t permit themselves viewpoints that are seen as too extreme. In order to hold power, they have to keep their ideas within the margins of what’s acceptable.
The underdog socialist forgets that the real problem isn’t the national debt, but overextended households and businesses. He forgets that fighting poverty is an investment that pays off in spades. And he forgets that, all the while, the bankers and the lawyers are polishing turds at the expense of waste collectors and nurses. Reining in and restraining the opposition, that’s the sole remaining mission of the underdog socialist. Anti-privatization, anti-establishment, anti-austerity.
of the Good Samaritan. Sadly, the underdog socialist has forgotten that the story of the left ought to be a narrative of hope and progress.
Force banks to build bigger buffers so they don’t topple as soon as another crisis rolls around. Break them up, if need be, so that next time taxpayers won’t be left footing the bill because the banks are “too big to fail.” Expose and destroy all tax havens, so that the rich can finally be made to cough up their fair share and their accountants can do something worthwhile.
Let’s finally pay people according to their real contributions. Waste collectors, nurses, and teachers would get a substantial raise, obviously, while quite a few lobbyists, lawyers, and bankers would see their salaries dive into the negatives. If you want to do a job that hurts the public, go right ahead. But you’ll have to pay for the privilege with a heftier tax.
Imagine how different things might be if our generation’s best and brightest were to double down on the greatest challenges of our times. Climate change, for example, and the aging population, and inequality… Now that would be real innovation.
Just imagine what the eradication of child poverty might achieve. Solving these kinds of problems is a whole lot more efficient than “managing” them, which costs significantly more in the long run.
The biggest regret was: “I wish I’d had the courage to live a life true to myself, not the life others expected of me.” Number two: “I wish I didn’t work so hard.”
Calling my ideas “unrealistic” was simply a shorthand way of saying they didn’t fit the status quo. And the best way to shut people up is to make them feel silly. It’s even better than censorship, because people are almost guaranteed to hold their tongues.
And second, my advice is to cultivate a thicker skin. Don’t let anyone tell you what’s what. If we want to change the world, we need to be unrealistic, unreasonable, and impossible. Remember:
