Capitalism, Govt Causes Culture Woes?
Many have noticed a key time coincidence. The last few centuries have seen both a rise in many lamentable changes to key social practices and norms, and also a great rise in the influence non-traditional social structures on our lives, including both more capitalism and more government. They suggest: the second trend caused the first, and thus that the first might be reversed by reversing the second. That is, with less capitalism and/or governments, we’d live better lives.
Of course most such folks dislike many of the cultural values and norms from a few centuries ago. They aren’t hoping for a general RETVRN, but instead to just reverse a few trends they don’t like, not all the others. But how plausible is that?
Well first, let’s agree that these changes have been correlated with big increases in wealth, health, and peace, which has greatly reducing cultural selection pressures. (I might give more credit to markets than govt, but that’s another debate.) And cheaper world trade and talk has also reduced cultural variety. All of which is increasing cultural drift, a plausible cause of worse social norms. In addition, as I discussed a few days ago, social change generally makes it harder for old norms to discourage selfishness and myopia. So tech, market, and govt changes should have such effects.
However, these are equally arguments against anything that causes change, wealth, health, and peace. And few seem willing to oppose this overall packages of features.
Some want to blame more capitalism far more than they do more government for any negative trends. But I just don’t see that. It is true that capitalism offends the sacred sensibilities of many, as they see money as profane. But we don’t actually behave more badly around stuff we see as less sacred.
What about the idea that capitalism and government have been “taking over” areas of life once handled via other social mechanisms? That seems true, but in cultural evolution terms, how healthy that is depends on levels of variety and selection pressures. If anything, compared to traditional social mechanisms, capitalism has stronger selection pressures, and plenty of variety. But government has much weaker variety and selection pressures than both capitalism and traditional social mechanisms.
In fact, it would be a pretty total solution to our cultural drift problem if we were to let capitalism run all of our social areas and choices, including fertility and government. But there’s little appetite for that and strong opposition, so it seems unlikely anytime soon.
I think a possible proposal for welfare is to contract local groups to oversee the administration. I sense that nobody expects purely private charity to support the poor after government has weakened that social muscle. But it also seems that the inability to hold people accountable for their behavior means that welfare becomes a trap for entire social groups
Perhaps, experimentally, local entities with local knowledge could bid to direct welfare in the area. Conservative politicians who might be interested in this policy would likely choose orgs who say their charity will depend on behavior. An alarming concept to modern ears, but then our slums would be very alarming to people from decades ago
"What about the idea that capitalism and government have been “taking over” areas of life once handled via other social mechanisms?"
What is the name of the third category that isn't capitalism or government? If Adam barters two cows to Eve for seven apples, that seems like capitalism?