I think it inevitable that the book you write is not exactly that which we read, just as you have never read the precise book that anyone else has written. But you may have exaggerated the degree to which Tim Noah has misread you, rather than simply having different concerns and interests.
You have a grand narrative arc that runs something like this: sometime around 1870, certain parts of the world got really good at baking bigger pies every year than the year before. This change was prefigured by a similar but lesser change in 1820 and an even lesser one in 1500, but the dramatic inflection point is around 1870 and also that is when this pie baking skill began to spread inexorably throughout the world.
Eventually, the degree to which each pie was bigger than the year before began to decline, but the decline came not with a bang but with a fizzle, for we still increase the size of pies faster than we did before 1870. From this perspective, it is difficult to bring your narrative to a satisfactory conclusion.
Within the grand narrative of the long 20th century, there is a sub-narrative of a short 20th century during which we got better at dividing and tasting pies; a bridge between gilded ages, let us say from about 1919 to 1980. Thereafter, we became worse at dividing and tasting pies again, although we have not yet declined to J.P. Morgan's heyday.
You have chosen to bring your grand narrative and sub-narratives to a close simultaneously in 2010 by marking the "exhaustion of the final attempt to find a satisfactory solution" to the conflict inherent in the social changes required to keep increasing the size of pies while also dividing them fairly. It helps that this seems roughly to coincide with a negative inflection point in the rate of pie size increase. But someone, say Tim Noah, may accept both your greater and lesser narrative arcs without accepting that we have indeed exhausted our final attempts at dividing pies. And I do think that the weakest part of your story lies in explaining what was special about the bridge between gilded ages and why it will not come again.
Second, I love how you get off the grand narrative often enough to provide telling details (like your mini, wealth-trajectory-based bio of Herbert Hoover), and that you let these speak for themselves.
Third, about the grand narrative (and perhaps this speaks to comments like those of Tim Noah), I'm wondering whether the thematic Hayek-Polanyi tension that you establish masks other relevant tensions, whether we don't need even a bit more Schumpeter than we get, and whether Schumpeter doesn't get closest to your key theme that the dynamism that creates our wealth also costs us (or some of us) everything we have. Why do some populations (at some times, in some situations) embrace this level of change, while others make "embedded" complaints of the sort you describe? Is the dynamism you describe in the book (and above) sustainable? Have its technological and social aspects diverged? Did the latter arise from a nothing-to-lose moment in history that perhaps can't be repeated in now-rich countries? anyway, I'm wondering all these things - only 1/3 through the book - and it's a rich experience.
[Aside:I have to admit Karl Polanyi mystifies me as much today as he did when Manny Wallerstein assigned parts of "The Great transformation" for his "Transformation of Society in the 19th and 20th Centuries" class, 50 years ago. At the highest level - one which you summarize very well - Polanyi's thesis seems both important and correct, but he makes so many historical and logical errors in establishing it that I just couldn't follow him as an undergraduate. I grant that it didn't take much back then to throw me off a scent - but I still have trouble with that book.]
Unfortunately, many of us read not for knowledge but re-enforce already held opinions. I am guilty of the same blindness, which is why I try to read articles from different political and economic perspectives.
It seems that unfettered capitalism is self-destructive in that only a few control more and more capital. At some point, the mass of people will resist this unbalanced economic model, and the changes may not be what we would want.
If possible, we should start to make some changes now, before events force changes that may not be the best solution to this problem.
I think it inevitable that the book you write is not exactly that which we read, just as you have never read the precise book that anyone else has written. But you may have exaggerated the degree to which Tim Noah has misread you, rather than simply having different concerns and interests.
You have a grand narrative arc that runs something like this: sometime around 1870, certain parts of the world got really good at baking bigger pies every year than the year before. This change was prefigured by a similar but lesser change in 1820 and an even lesser one in 1500, but the dramatic inflection point is around 1870 and also that is when this pie baking skill began to spread inexorably throughout the world.
Eventually, the degree to which each pie was bigger than the year before began to decline, but the decline came not with a bang but with a fizzle, for we still increase the size of pies faster than we did before 1870. From this perspective, it is difficult to bring your narrative to a satisfactory conclusion.
Within the grand narrative of the long 20th century, there is a sub-narrative of a short 20th century during which we got better at dividing and tasting pies; a bridge between gilded ages, let us say from about 1919 to 1980. Thereafter, we became worse at dividing and tasting pies again, although we have not yet declined to J.P. Morgan's heyday.
You have chosen to bring your grand narrative and sub-narratives to a close simultaneously in 2010 by marking the "exhaustion of the final attempt to find a satisfactory solution" to the conflict inherent in the social changes required to keep increasing the size of pies while also dividing them fairly. It helps that this seems roughly to coincide with a negative inflection point in the rate of pie size increase. But someone, say Tim Noah, may accept both your greater and lesser narrative arcs without accepting that we have indeed exhausted our final attempts at dividing pies. And I do think that the weakest part of your story lies in explaining what was special about the bridge between gilded ages and why it will not come again.
First, I'm enjoying the book hugely.
Second, I love how you get off the grand narrative often enough to provide telling details (like your mini, wealth-trajectory-based bio of Herbert Hoover), and that you let these speak for themselves.
Third, about the grand narrative (and perhaps this speaks to comments like those of Tim Noah), I'm wondering whether the thematic Hayek-Polanyi tension that you establish masks other relevant tensions, whether we don't need even a bit more Schumpeter than we get, and whether Schumpeter doesn't get closest to your key theme that the dynamism that creates our wealth also costs us (or some of us) everything we have. Why do some populations (at some times, in some situations) embrace this level of change, while others make "embedded" complaints of the sort you describe? Is the dynamism you describe in the book (and above) sustainable? Have its technological and social aspects diverged? Did the latter arise from a nothing-to-lose moment in history that perhaps can't be repeated in now-rich countries? anyway, I'm wondering all these things - only 1/3 through the book - and it's a rich experience.
[Aside:I have to admit Karl Polanyi mystifies me as much today as he did when Manny Wallerstein assigned parts of "The Great transformation" for his "Transformation of Society in the 19th and 20th Centuries" class, 50 years ago. At the highest level - one which you summarize very well - Polanyi's thesis seems both important and correct, but he makes so many historical and logical errors in establishing it that I just couldn't follow him as an undergraduate. I grant that it didn't take much back then to throw me off a scent - but I still have trouble with that book.]
Unfortunately, many of us read not for knowledge but re-enforce already held opinions. I am guilty of the same blindness, which is why I try to read articles from different political and economic perspectives.
It seems that unfettered capitalism is self-destructive in that only a few control more and more capital. At some point, the mass of people will resist this unbalanced economic model, and the changes may not be what we would want.
If possible, we should start to make some changes now, before events force changes that may not be the best solution to this problem.