SLOUCHING: Front Matter

Long Notes to "Slouching Towards Utopia?: An Economic History of the Long 29th Century", forthcoming from Basic Books

Jul 31, 2021

Title

1) Yes, the title is a reference is to what may be the most-cited twentieth-century poem in the English language: William Butler Yeats, “The Second Coming”. The Dial Vol. 69 (1920), p. 466 <https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Michael_Robartes_and_the_Dancer/The_Second_Coming>.

(Plus, secondarily, it is a reference to Joan Didion, Slouching Towards Bethlehem: Essays, New York: Simon and Schuster, 1979 <http://books.google.com/?id=hsUgAQAAIAAJ>).

A Few Words About Notes:

2) I have limited the endnotes in this volume to direct quotations, close paraphrases, markers for where my thought and knowledge has been predominantly shaped by a single source, and places where I think a reference for “what to read next to go more deeply” is appropriate.

I have done so even though I am well aware that such notes are grossly inadequate.

Nearly every single paragraph needs to be substantially buttressed, for each certainly could be—and, I hope, will be—be fiercely disputed by at least one person of great intelligence and knowledge. Moreover, where I am swimming with (or against) a current, I have not dropped a note to any of the people who make up that current, save where I think I can recommend a best entry point into the literature. And even where I think I am original… put it this way: Keynes wrote of the madmen in authority who thought they were hearing voices in the air when actually academic scribblers had insinuated themselves into their minds. Machiavelli wrote of how his books were his friends who he spoke to, and they answered—as he spun-up from black marks on white pages sub-Turing instantiations of the minds of the authors which he then ran on his wetware. Even where I think that I am most original, I am almost surely simply repeating something that my internal model of some wiser person’s mind has said to me in my internal dialogue.

So there should for justice’s sake be many more notes. But there are stringent limits to how effective lengthy footnotes can possibly be. And there are even more stringent limits to how effective endnotes can be.

So this book also has this supporting- and contradicting-arguments website at <https://braddelong.substack.com/s/slouching-towards-utopia-long-notes>. Come on over, and read and comment, please.

Situating This Book:

This also seems to be the appropriate place for me to situate this book:

Elevator Pitch:

The long 20th century—the first whose history was primarily economic, with the economy not painted scene-backdrop but rather revolutionizing humanity's life every single generation— taught humanity expensive lessons. The most important of them is this: Only a shotgun marriage of Friedrich von Hayek to Karl Polanyi, a marriage blessed by John Maynard Keynes—a marriage that itself has failed its own sustainability tests—has humanity been able to even slouch towards the utopia that the explosion of our science and technological competence ought to have made our birthright. Whether we ever justify the full bill run up over the 146 years from 1870 to 2016 will likely depend on whether we remember that lesson.

Friedrich von Hayek—a genius—was the one who most keen-sightedly observed that the market economy is tremendously effective at crowdsourcing solutions. The market economy, plus industrial research labs, modern corporations, and globalization, were keys to the cage keeping humanity desperately poor. Hayek drew from this the conclusion: “the market giveth, the market taketh away: blessed be the name of the market.” Humans disagreed. As genius Karl Polanyi saw, humans needed more rights than just property rights. The market’s treating those whom society saw as equals unequally, or unequals equally, brought social explosion after explosion, blocking the road to utopia.

Not “blessed be the name of the market” but “the market was made for man, not man for the market” was required if humanity was to even slouch towards a utopia that potential material abundance should have made straightforward. But how? Since 1870 humans—John Maynard Keynes, Benito Mussolini, Vladimir Lenin, and others—have tried solutions, demanding that the market do less, or different, and other institutions do more. Only government, tamed government, focusing and rebalancing things to secure more Polanyian rights for more citizens have brought the Eldorado of a truly human world into view.

Brad DeLong, Professor of Economics at UC Berkeley and a sometime Deputy Assistant Secretary of the US Treasury, has tried throughout his career to straddle the fields of economics, history, and public education. He has been lucky enough to have been taught by the very best—both while a student by the best possible teachers and while a professor by the best possible colleagues at UC Berkeley.

Ten Original Contributions of the Book, in Order of Declining Importance:

The long (rather than the short) 20th century 1870-2010.
The first century whose history was primarily economic.
Forefronting that every generation from 1870-2010, changes in the economy revolutionized pretty much all of human society in a way never seen before.
Success at “slouching towards utopia” coming only with a temporarily-successful shotgun marriage of Friedrich von Hayek to Karl Polanyi, blessed by John Maynard Keynes.
The importance of the modern corporation and industrial research lab as key prerequisites for the explosion of our science and technological competence.
The struggle between “the market giveth, the market taketh away: blessed be the name of the market” and “the market was made for man, not man for the market”.
Using the interpretive frame of Karl Polanyi: humans needed more rights than just property rights.
The conflict between market and government on the one hand and “society” on the other: the market’s (or the government’s) treating those whom society saw as equals unequally, or unequals equally, brought social explosion after explosion, blocking the road to utopia
All past centuries would believe that utopia ought to be at hand given our potential material abundance today.
Tracing the end of the 20th century story to the years around 2010 of the Great Recession, of “coalitions of the willing”, and of the failure to restore the pace of global-north productivity growth

Competitor and Partner Books:

Here are just ten, each with a very brief note as to where our angles of vision differ:

Eric Hobsbawm, The Age of Extremes—examines the “short” rather than the “long” 20th century, and sees the story as the tragic defeat of socialism rather than humanity grappling with the potential of abundance made possible by technology…
Thomas Piketty, Capital in the 21st Century—both broader, looking back to 1600, and narrower, looking only at the political economy of inequality…
Edward Ross Dickinson, The World in the Long Twentieth Century: An Interpretive History—a much more “ecological” and less societal take…
Robert Gordon, The Rise and Fall of American Growth: The U.S. Standard of Living since the Civil War—US only, and focused on technology and production rather than on political economy…
John Lukacs, A Short History of the 20th Century—not nearly enough on the economics, but a book I envy…
Robert Allen, Global Economic History: A Very Short Introduction—goes much further back, and gives the political-economy essentials of economic history relatively short shrift…
Karl Polanyi, The Great Transformation—written only halfway through the long 20th century, but got a good deal of the essentials right…
Paul Johnson, Modern Times: From the Twenties to the Nineties—covers only the short 20th century, and imposes a neoconservative frame that in my view is grossly inadequate to the task…
Ivan Berend, Economic History of Twentieth Century Europe—focuses on Europe only, not on the world or even the North Atlantic…
Giovanni Arrighi, The Long Twentieth Century: Money, Power and the Origins of Our Times—looks much further back, really a history of the past millennium, and deploys an obsolete and creaky semi-orthodox Marxist frame that is inadequate to the task…

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