I’m a globalist who favors free trade and open markets, so I hope people won’t take me the wrong way when I take a certain amount of umbrage with today’s capitalism. A new generation of leaders and thinkers need to rework the way in which decisions are made and resources are allocated. The actions of the market—which so many economists and businesspeople regard as sacrosanct–are hemming us in to a stale repetitive worldview, which is ultimately a trap.
The way we live now...
Capitalism is very good at creating captivating plastic rubbish, dangerous motor-vehicles, elaborate insurance for said vehicles, and erection pills, but it is less gifted at facilitating fundamental scientific research. Most of the really important technological innovations of the last century came from the military, from universities, or from crazy monopolies (before they got busted up). Capitalists refined these ideas and made them marketable, but they were not interested in the initial open-ended “blue sky” research which was expensive and did not always proceed logically to money making technologies. Virtually every part of the aerospace industry originated in military technology for solving cold war (or World War I & II) tactical problems. The internet grew up out of defense department computer and communications experiments. The capacitor was created in one of Ma Bell’s laboratories before AT&T was broken up. Antibiotics were discovered by an absent-minded professor with a messy lab!
Capitalists are necessary to refine and popularize great ideas, but they do not see farther than the bottom line…and the truly worthwhile discoveries are lurking out there in the wilderness beyond immediate financial recompense.
Yes, yes but where exactly are we going?
There are indeed avenues by which money travels into pure research. Rich bankers give money to universities and research hospitals. Taxpayers give money to NASA and the military. All of us give money to monopolies (which have an insidious way of forming despite legislation prohibiting them). These avenues are not enough. We are stagnating. Ask anyone. Or just look outside at a fossil fuel & automobile based world which seems pretty fundamentally similar to the 1920’s.
Dammit, that's what I figured. Can't you think bigger here for just a few minutes?
There is a world of wonder out there and our future could be bright indeed: By the end of my life we should have nanobots that eat cancers and repair brain damage. We should have space elevators and brilliant robot superservants which (or maybe I should say who) beat the Turing test. We should be crafting true artificial ecosystems that exist outside of this world (because it doesn’t take a genius to see that there are too many of us). However, the investment bankers and wallstreet power brokers need to rethink the utility of the (musty oligarchical) world they are building, and politicians are going to have to think beyond the end of their term. Otherwise the glowing future is never going to come.
A probabilistic functional gene network of the small plant Arabidopsis thaliana (Image: Insuk Lee, Michael Ahn, Edward Marcotte, Seung Yon Rhee/Carnegie Institution for Science)
I have no idea how to incentivize these things better. Maybe we should ask an economist. But don’t you want to live a much longer life? Don’t you want space elevators and robot servants? Then write to your congressperson and ask them to send more money towards research (or better yet, vote for a new legislator—none of the current ones seem much good). If you are a stockholder, vote out the current board. I am blaming our shortsightedness on our leaders but they are a manifestation of all of us. Our vaunted capitalist system needs to incentivize vastly more scientific research and it needs to reward bold long-term thinking (rather than myopic money-grubbing). We are going to have to stop thinking small and greedy–only then can we create a future which is truly big enough and great enough for our bright dreams.
A Bernal Sphere (painting by Don Davis)
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February 28, 2011 at 4:14 PM
ms.yin
As the wife of a science academic, I’d like to note that war seems to be good for science research funding. However, I’d also like to note that due to our egregious educational system (which is neither educational nor systematic for the most part) said husband is really excited when a domestic student is able to correctly answer 1/4 of the entrance exam he gives (in 3 years, the total number is 1) – and a great deal of defense related work requires that one be a citizen.
March 1, 2011 at 5:04 PM
Hieronymo
Dear Ms. Yin,
It’s mostly a political problem. Seniors are the ones who vote in this country which ensures that politicians can’t touch generous pensions, golden age entitlements, and expensive end-of-living medical expenses. Teachers’ unions demand clout and concessions while enshrining non-competitive management methodology. Taxpayers demand more cuts. Kids don’t vote and so education gets pared back–often in foolish and destructive ways.
But I think its also a cultural problem. It’s pretty obvious that many Americans don’t sacrifice first at the temple of Athena (I think even I might have gone over to Dionysus’ purple palace). This means that senior citizens and other voters don’t recognize that they are robbing the future by clipping education (and extra-curricular programs which keep kids interested in school).
Of course we always have plenty of immigrants who do worship learning (albeit sometimes a very parochial and frigid manifestation thereof) but our bloated homeland security apparatus seems to be choking that channel of talent somewhat.