Stubborn Attachments
author and economist, a contemporary moral case for economic growth--and a dose of inspiration and optimism about our future possibilities. Growth is good. Throughout history, economic growth in particular has alleviated human misery, improved human happiness and opportunity, and lengthened human lives. Wealthier societies are more stable, offer better living standards, produce better medicines, and ensure greater autonomy, greater fulfillment, and more sources of fun. If we want to continue our trend of growth--and the overwhelmingly positive outcomes for societies that come with it--every individual must become more concerned with the welfare of those around us. So how do we proceed? Tyler Cowen, in a culmination of 20 years of thinking and research, provides a roadmap for moving forward. In Stubborn Attachments: A Vision for a Society of Free, Prosperous, and Responsible Individuals, he argues that our reason and common sense can help free us of the faulty ideas that hold us back as people and as a society, allowing us to set our sights on the long-term struggles that maximize sustainable economic growth while respecting human rights. Stubborn Attachments, at its heart, makes the contemporary moral case for economic growth, and delivers a great dose of inspiration and optimism about our future possibilities.
Stats for nerds
7recommend
12mentions
11people
2018–2022years
67% recommend33% neutral
Mentions per year
What Hacker News says
- It’s a good question.
The reason that GDP growth is so important is because it raises the standard of living for those who aren’t yet born. If you accept the premise that lives in the future matter just as much as those today, then the vast majority of human lives are yet to be born and therefore deserve consideration about what to do __today__.
Even small changes in GDP growth (e.g. 1-2% per year) has dramatic compounding effects over a multi decade timeframe.
For a great book on this, I recommend Tyler Cowen’s Stubborn Attachments which discusses the ethics of economic growth: https://press.stripe.com/stubborn-attachments
- For me it comes down to a few things.
- I think wealth can be created and isn't always a zero sum transfer
- I think we want to incentivize wealth creation
- I think economic growth constrained by protection for human rights and environmental destruction is the best way to improve the quality of life for the most people the fastest.
- I think wealth taxes disincentivize a lot of these things with knock on effects (forcing people to liquidate their company equity, etc.). It's also repeatedly taxing the same money every year eventually down to whatever the cap is.
I'd rather set taxes/caps at generational wealth transfer if you're going to try and incentivize something - might as well go after dynastic wealth and the children that benefit from it without creating anything. I think focusing on housing and land use/zoning would also directly benefit more people by fixing existing perverse incentives.
PG writes about some of this in essays, Tyler Cowen's book Stubborn Attachments was also interesting on the growth aspect (though wealth taxes aren't specifically mentioned).
Why do we think wealth will be better allocated by a government? This money is largely already taxed either via capital gains or income. I'd suspect a lot of our problems are problems of incentives and competing priorities, not of available cash flow for government programs.
That's my take anyway, I suspect a 'hate the rich' motivated reasoning position pushing the idea of a wealth tax more than any serious thinking about incentives and what it might do. It seems political.
(I am nowhere near the level where the proposed tax would start and probably never will be.)
- I appreciate the thoughtful back and forth - I also think we agree more than we disagree.
> "...given that the proposition is such a strong one the burden of proof is on the proposer"
I should clarify that I'm not arguing so much that capitalism is the best possible system that could exist and it's always worth thinking about ways things than can be better. There is a lot of evidence in favor of capitalism though compared to other systems that have existed, mostly in the amount of created wealth it has enabled via growth and the speed at which that improvement happened. Then looking at all of the societal metrics that have improved in that context (infant deaths, violent crime reduction, poverty, etc.)
It's the best structure I'm aware of and a lot of idealized proposals of alternatives fall flat.
The Stubborn Attachments book makes this argument in a way I found pretty convincing.
> "But where we disagree, possibly, is that money is the only driver which causes people to start companies. The IBD banker in your example, would start the company regardless of whether the payout was lower, but by implementing a wealth tax, maybe the we could give the opportunity to the teacher with the great idea about educational technology to create _their_ business and enrich society."
I think you can give this opportunity without a wealth tax and its associated negative incentives (I think these issues are unrelated). I also don't think money is the only driver, but you don't want to dis-incentivize growth when you don't have to.
- > "If you think more young people should be spending their time doing research and development and less people should be doing management consulting then the answer is simple. Subsidize it."
He is. Tyler Cowen lead the creation of Emergent Ventures. (https://www.mercatus.org/emergentventures)
From the opening of their application which he shared on his blog:
> "We want to jumpstart high-reward ideas—moonshots in many cases—that advance prosperity, opportunity, liberty, and well-being. We welcome the unusual and the unorthodox.
> Our goal is positive social change, but we do not mind if you make a profit from your project. (Indeed, a quick path to revenue self-sufficiency is a feature not a bug!)
> Projects will either be fellowships or grants: fellowships involve time in residence at the Mercatus Center in Northern Virginia; grants are one-time or slightly staggered payments to support a project.
> We encourage you to think big, but we also will consider very small grants or short fellowships if they might change the trajectory of your life. We encourage applications from all ages and all parts of the world."
Incredibly, they're taking no stake in successful ventures. They're just subsidizing high-reward ideas to encourage them.
If you read The Complacent Class and Stubborn Attachments—both highly recommended, you'll get a better idea of where Tyler is coming from and why this issue of decreasing dynamism is an issue he's so concerned about.
- Tyler Cowen has a book with basically that premise - that in the long run, economic growth is the only thing that matters. It's called Stubborn Attachments.
It's not an intuitive position for most people, but it's a pretty convincing argument - it's certainly been the most important thing in the last 100 years, in my mind (think the incredible increase in health, standards of living, etc, which, even if they aren't spread close to equally, have benefited literally almost everyone).
- The interesting part is not in the reading of the words but the understanding of the concepts.
I listened to this podcast and rarely read transcripts. When listening to podcasts, at least for me, the "umms" and "awws" allow me time to think about what is being said.
If you prefer reading. Read the article that the interview is based upon: https://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2018/11/diminish...
And Stubborn Attachments by Tyler Cowen: https://www.amazon.com/Stubborn-Attachments-Prosperous-Respo...
