I think the success of these off-kilter theories is strongly connected to many people's lives becoming off-kilter.
This society has increased both social isolation and material poverty over the last twenty years. Moreover, most people depend on the relative sanity of others to balance their own impulses and so a decline in rationality can have cumulative effect.
> This society has increased both social isolation and material poverty over the last twenty years.
Can you please support this claim with credible data? Sincere question - I'm just reading a book recommended by Bill Gates that claims that the world is way better today than it was 20 years ago.
Gates' claims are entirely concerning a world wide decrease in people living on "pennies a day". This is essentially just that group of people who lived outside the economy entirely now finally entering it. It really has nothing to do with the conditions of the average person already living in a money based economy.
We have seen a decrease in US median income over the last however many years [1]. The way rent tends to be excluded from this underestimates the increase in impoverishment here imo also. There are also the frequent articles concerning how many people are $500/$1000/etc away disaster.
For increased social isolation, Robert Putnam's Bowling Alone is the classic (Note, Gates is neither an economist nor a sociologist. Putnam is a well recognized sociologist).
Note that the Average American's life span decreased for the second year in a row. This is notable since increases in medical technology tend to increase this life expectancy even when nothing else changes[2]. A big factor in the reduced life expectancy is what's termed "deaths from despair".
"It really has nothing to do with the conditions of the average already living in a money based economy."
I'm not sure the median American is representative of the global citizen "living in a money based economy". I have not read Gates' book, but I think it likely you are being overly dismissive.
I think the average person in the world has an income of maybe $10K a year, which is not "pennies a day", but it's low by American standards. It seems at least plausible that people on this level have become better off.
Life expectancy has been decreasing in other places besides the US. I was just reading an article that said it's down in the UK. Russia hasn't been doing so well either, I seem to recall. But I figure there is a biological limit and the newest medical tech doesn't have much effect in the aggregate. So it's the countries that still have low life expectancies that are going to show uniform gains.
Life expectancy has been decreasing in other places besides the US. I was just reading an article that said it's down in the UK. Russia hasn't been doing so well either, I seem to recall. But I figure there is a biological limit and the newest medical tech doesn't have much effect in the aggregate.
Or actually quality of life for the working class world-wide could decreasing? Medical research has had an effect for quite a while most places, including the US. It seems like you are the one dismissing facts with unverified speculation.
Life expectancy generally goes down these days either in war-torn places, or other extreme - people overeating on tons of junk food, and generally not compensating their eating habits with adequate physical activity. We are very far from times when medicine and science can properly fix bodies destroyed by such a lifestyle.
Russia & former soviet union countries are a bit special but within same category - their alcoholism contributes heavily to their lower life expectancy.
To me it looks like a perfect storm - people living more stressful lives getting their impulses more from cell phone than real world out there, eating worse and more of it, exercising less. I don't believe most of this is directly related to wealth, although many would like to connect these. More like some mental fortitude and strength to keep up some sane regime of healthy eating & exercising (really, you just need running shoes in most of the world, cheap yearly gym pass can easily cover 100% of your needs).
One small remark: you say "fraction" of people living on pennies a day. To me, at least, "fraction" implies a small group. To an American, it might be a small group, but world wide they were still the majority until 30 years ago. Even now, they're probably 30-40% of them world's population.
I have not read Bill Gates' book, but I have heard little dispute that the material conditions of the working class _in the developed world_ have not improved much in the last forty or so years. The "elephant curve" is the best simple depiction I've seen of this: https://www.economist.com/finance-and-economics/2016/09/17/s...
The article goes on to describe why it's not quite so bad as the original graph made it seem, but even the "Alternative" shows the same general pattern.
You could easily find lots of ways to find that fortunes have improved while objectively the majority wholly in the US have seen theirs decrease.
- The gains of a larger number of very poor much more than offset losses by a relatively smaller number.
- The total value of wealth can increase substantially even if almost all of it sticks to a minorities hands total/population still gives a higher number.
- The relative price of many goods could have fallen leading to more buying power ergo more stuff you don't objectively need to live while the cost of stuff you vitally need like a home and medicine have gone way up. Therefore you are more "wealthy" and worse off.
This society has increased both social isolation and material poverty over the last twenty years. Moreover, most people depend on the relative sanity of others to balance their own impulses and so a decline in rationality can have cumulative effect.