I have walked this walk home through Soho countless times over the last 20 years. Down Dean Street with people of all fashion and colours singing, drinking and loving in the same but different ways.
For all our moans, this microcosm of London, this microcosm of liberal democracy is thriving and living and has - if anything - grown stronger over 20 years.
For sure, for example, queers must fight their good fight and allies must support them. But here they are as open as ever, I sense. There is even some disability access (yes there should be more). Wealth has crept up on us.
I travel by the Elizabeth line. A new piece of transport infrastructure. Yes, we can still build! (if but a little slow). We can travel to Shenfield in the east directly in under an hour, leaving at midnight. The people of 1922 would be astonished. The people of 1822 would think this fantastical magic. The people of 1722 would not even comprehend.
Think! Today! This seems to me almost how we might view an octopus’ life… so far out of our ability to understand yet a clever sentient being.
I'm walking down Dean Street after listening to Tyler Cowen along with David Goodhart and Stephen Bush, chaired by Munira Mirza.
Purportedly this panel were debating if liberal democracies were feeling stuck. But John Gray the philosopher known for some of his critiques here was sick so was not present.
(I will shout out Munira's new venture, Civic Future. She is hoping to train people for civic life. Non partisan although she is associated with Boris Johnson and the right / centre right, her advisory board is mixed politically - so centrist-ish.)
Tyler Cowen started by arguing:
The stagnation he identified for the last 20 or so years is on the cusp of being over. This is driven by
biomedical innovation (in part catalysed by vaccines (mRNA, COVID, deepmind [my addition])
step change in AI
even green energy might be getting somewhere
He conceded there is still much too regulation (and “supply side reform” eg ease of permitting would be helpful) in all areas except (1) finance and (2) environment.
Tyler argued this innovation cusp is in part from markets and in part from governments.
He suggested if you are conscientious, work hard, and try hard that the opportunities have never been better.
You will need to work with and get used to AI, but so be it, the world will be better. We had the transition from horses to cars. From letters to email. So be it.
This is a fundamental change to human condition. Human are no good at seeing the invisible growth which is key to this, we prefer stories and anecdotes, but none the less this is the important thing - economic growth (tempered by environment cf. being ⅔ utilitarian and Stubborn Attachments, see earlier blog).
There was some concession to the difficulties of “splitting the pie fairly” rather than growing the pie, but growing the pie was the important thing. (This does follow from economic history also from recent work by eg Brad De Long, centre left economist, Slouching to Utopia; and Mark Koyama/Jared Rubin, How the World Became Rich - see my podcast previously with Mark)
Stephen Bush mostly agreed, harking back to life in 1900s. Goodhart was a little more pessimistic but seemed to have been overcome by Tyler’s optimism and charisma on this. [Although his microphone was also quieter, so I think I might have missed his comments. ED: Goodhart replied on twitter, so I now have his arguement in brief: his argument "was arguing that after 30 year liberal run, we had political push back (2016) from left behinds creating an nywhere/Somewhere stalemate. Politics more democratic but more stuck + despite policy consensus on many big things pols less good herders of cats… See this New Statesman piece and whole book on it)
(Mirza seemed almost surprised by this too thinking Tyler might still be worried about stagnation and regulation; she offered in passing the strongest rebuttal in evoking the people outside London, poorer and with different opinions perhaps).
Tyler suggested perhaps the centrist who want to get on may in some ways be the most politically homeless as the left and right mirror each other and need each other to feed off.
Tyler ended up evoking London as his piece of culture to understand the world (citing current art exhibitions including: Cezanne and Stephen Bush chose Ali and Ava (I’ have not seen but my friend also recommends)
I asked:
What do you make of median voter theory?
Should we have 10% less democracy?
Tyler, and the rest thought median voter theory was working in the UK and US.
Tyler argued for 7% less democracy but to not over do it here as democracy was still great. Bush suggested UK had about the right amount of democracy.
Other questions and thoughts: what about VR? (real life is better) Do we have “the wrong kind of voters” ? (Not really, but revealed vs stated preferences). Should creatives and professionals be worried about AI (we will have to live with AI. Suck it up). ? Is the UK health service an example of a failing, stuck service. (Panel I didn’t think really answered this) Does Yarvin want a US monarchy ? Should we be worried about an ageing society ? Should we be worried about work identity wars ? No. Identity wars are a small side show - mainly over-egged in universities - and not the major story. (Weak universities are being outcompeted by the internet in any case)
My other two takeaways are around:
Vividness
Humour
Tyler is very vivid in real life. I suppose everyone is. In the remote world, in-person meetings and events are perhaps under rated (see my blog on UnConferences on this). His distinctive prosody is clear and he is funny.
Tyler had good comic timing and - to my mind - was listening hard to the audience as well as the panel. By listening, I mean, the active technique of surveying and assessing your audience. He was much funnier than I was expecting. (I don’t see too much of this humour in his podcasts, but it oozes out of him in real life).
As aside:
I didn’t get such a good read on Goodhart. (In part his mic wasn’t picking up his sound very well). I was fairly impressed by Bush (East London to Balliol, Oxford) who I thought held his own although readers of his columns wouldn’t have picked up too much new. He did argue COVID and Brexit were a form of unluckiness in the political cycle, and argued pro-migration/anti-migration was a long cycle pattern in the last 100 years of British history, which I haven’t heard expressed that way before. He did seem to draw upon his knowledge of history.
Civic Futures: Would this make me want to consider being trained for public life? (Given I already do a lot of small charity work, podcast, make theatre, and interact on investment/ESG with policy) Probably not. But I guess if I already had some ambitions here this would be a good place to start.