By: Jonathan Haidt

In: Centers for Humans and Nature

Date: 28 September 2015

Key Concepts:

• Our world is changing fast.
  • Ecologically, economically, demographically, etc.
• Most of us are disoriented by these changes.
  • Rapid changes change our ethics.
• “Most important graph in the world.”

The “hockey stick” of rapid recent prosperity. Source: Derek Thompson (2012), based on Angus Maddison data.

• • GDP per capita from the year 1 to the year 2001.
  • Shows how capitalism changed the West and Japan in the blink of an eye.
  • Foretells a similar transformation in the rest of the world.
• How does this transformation make you “feel”.
  • Asia: people respond positive love to it (prospect of future progress).
  • West: ambivalent, hostile to capitalism (worries about environment, etc.).
• Rising prosperity changes people – Inglehart-Welzel culture map.
  • Traditional, survival: life is tough and uncertain, religion helps (pre-industrial).
  • Secular, survival: still hard, but materialism increases (exploitative phase).
  • Secular, self-expression: rising security, rights, freedom (expressive phase).
• Developed world moves towards progressive, left.
  • Consensus on social and environmental issues shifts leftward.
• Capitalism and the wealth it creates changes nature and humanity simultaneously.
  • Capitalism got us into this ecological mess, back when most people had materialist values and cared little for the environment.[
  • But as values and cultures shift toward post materialism all over the world, capitalism might just get us out.

Thoughts:

• The march from religious survival to secular self-expression perhaps applies to a simple, mechanical world.
• The world has gotten more connected and complex.
  • Capitalism doesn’t only reduce uncertainty.
  • It can also dramatically increase it for large groups of people.
• Societies may become more adaptive over time, people may not.
  • Especially under conditions of higher uncertainty.
  • People may become more focused on survival (focus on keeping what I have).
• Harder to interpret or control impact of capitalism.
  • What are good and what are bad outcomes?
  • Which externalities matter and how much and for whom?
  • Scale and time frame of its impact becomes more extreme over time.