Now at a panel called "Deaths of Despair and the Future of Capitalism", with Anne Case, Angus Deaton, Robert Putnam, Raghuram Rajan, and Kenneth Rogoff.
Should be fun.
Should be fun.
Case: Capitalism isn't working for people without a college degree. In America that's about 2/3 of working age people.
It's not inequality that's killing people so much as unfairness, which generates both inequality AND despair.
It's not inequality that's killing people so much as unfairness, which generates both inequality AND despair.
Case: Since 1990, mortality has fallen dramatically for:
A) Black Americans
B) Citizens of every other rich country
White American mortality has risen, driven by people dying in mid-life.
A) Black Americans
B) Citizens of every other rich country
White American mortality has risen, driven by people dying in mid-life.
Part of the plateau of mortality rates, she says, has been due to slowed progress in treating heart disease. Some is due to a rise in alcohol, drug overdose, and suicide. These things are all worse for people without college degrees.
She shows data that "deaths of despair" have increased for *every* 5-year age group among non-Hispanic whites.
She shows a graph of smooth increases. It's not the Great Recession, she says.
Wonder if she'll address the question of composition effects.
Wonder if she'll address the question of composition effects.
The rises in deaths of despair are much less for people with college degrees, leaving the question of whether things have gotten so much worse for the non-college group is partly due to more people getting college degrees.
Case shows data that claims of pain are on the rise among non-college whites, then claims that fMRI evidence shows that social exclusion is similar to pain.
Hmm...not so convincing.
Hmm...not so convincing.
Case's basic story: Good jobs replaced by outsourcing, resulting in social exclusion and deaths of despair.
It's a pretty common, plausible idea. Loss of meaning, money, and status, resulting in drinking, drugs and suicide.
It's a pretty common, plausible idea. Loss of meaning, money, and status, resulting in drinking, drugs and suicide.
Case: falling non-college marriage rates and religious attendance among the white working class are part of the same phenomenon.
This talk so far is basically an updated version of Charles Murray's "Coming Apart"...
This talk so far is basically an updated version of Charles Murray's "Coming Apart"...
She also adds de-unionization and automation to the story, in addition to globalization and outsourcing.
She also excoriates the U.S. healthcare system for ruining people economically whole failing to prove health as much as it should.
She also excoriates the U.S. healthcare system for ruining people economically whole failing to prove health as much as it should.
Case: the U.S. healthcare system is "like tribute to a foreign power, bit we do it to ourselves."
Case: De-unionization, noncompetes, crappy health care system, globalization, automation, outsourcing...all are to blame!!
Next up is Robert Putnam, who I suddenly realize looks kind of like @kevin2kelly.
Putnam links inequality, social isolation, and deaths of despair to...cultural individualism??
Reminds me of this thread of mine:
Putnam also links these negative trends to political polarization.
Hmm, I'm not sure. How many seemingly negative social trends can we tie together? How powerful can a Grand Unified Theory of Social Dysfunction be?
Hmm, I'm not sure. How many seemingly negative social trends can we tie together? How powerful can a Grand Unified Theory of Social Dysfunction be?
Putnam shows various graphs showing that various social indicators - joining organizations, going to church, etc. - have gone down and down since around 1960.
Putnam is now going off on a tangent about the frequency of the use of the words "the" and "laser".
Ahh. He shows that the relative frequency of "we" and "I" went up from 1900 to the early 60s, then plummeted again. He interprets this as a rise and fall in collectivism relative to individualism.
Putnam: There's no simple story for why we shifted from an "I society" to a "we society" and then back again.
He says it's not economic inequality, because inequality lags individualism. (He suggests individualism causes people to tolerate/seek more inequality)
He says it's not economic inequality, because inequality lags individualism. (He suggests individualism causes people to tolerate/seek more inequality)
Putnam: Policy solutions have to address all our problems at once.
(Me: What? Does this actually follow from the fact that the problems are correlated across time???)
(Me: What? Does this actually follow from the fact that the problems are correlated across time???)
Putnam: We're repeating the society of the Gilded Age, and we need to use the same approach they used to get out of the individualism trap. We need lessons from the early 20th century.
But to find out exactly what they did, you will apparently have to buy his new book...
amazon.com/Upswing-Americ…
amazon.com/Upswing-Americ…
Next up is Rajan. He pins at least part of the problem on the movement of economic activity from small towns to big cities. Basically the Moretti explanation.
Rajan's explanations are standard econ/technology stuff. Skill-biased technological change, globalization, supply chains, etc.
Rajan: Instead of nationalizing and internationalizing our problems we should devolve power and embrace localism.
Anyway, time to leave this panel! In the end, I was left with little new knowledge and no new answers to the big questions. Guess I'll try Putnam's new book, though!
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