,
5 tweets,
1 min read
Read on Twitter
Economic history has been dominated by basics: growing food & fuel, mating & child rearing, fighting wars, clothing & shelter, worrying about afterlife. Occasionally there have been major agricultural surpluses, which have been spent in a bizarre variety of ways (thread) /1
Agricultural surpluses have been spent on military parades, crown jewels, tall cathedrals, vast priesthoods, gigantic tombs, arrays of monoliths, treasure fleets, moon shots, & a dizzying variety of other things. /2
These seem like irrational bubbles, yet in many cases persisted for or recurred across centuries or millennia. We moderns seem to be trending towards competitions for scholastic credentials & efforts at longer & healthier lives, each of which appeal to insatiable needs. /3
Almost any way developed countries spend our titanic industrial surpluses will be epic frivolity by historical standards, whether it be sprawling regulatory & scholastic priesthoods or a “service economy” where mobile servants wait on the tables of secular priests & investors. /4
There are no solid standards of historical precedent or economic rationality that can help us much in predicting which forms of frivolity will dominate, rather they point to the optionality & unpredictability among a vast universe of choices. /5
