In a strange way, we reserve the derogatory term “bubble” only to those who don’t succeed. The difference between Amazon, the online retail giant we all know, and Pets.com, the obscure 1990s startup that only financial nerds now talk about, is that Amazon succeeded. In hindsight, that’s obvious; from the point of view of 1999, it wasn’t.
There are entrepreneurs everywhere who are setting to work to solve the most pressing problems of our present and our future. The businesses those innovators introduce to the world will be all the more significant for the hurdles they surpassed.
Democracy will be pushed to the margins in even traditionally democratic countries by the forces of surveillance capitalism, coupled with increasing citizen feelings of powerlessness against these forces, along with manipulation of information and elections.
For evidence, consider President George W. Bush’s presidency, when, for a time, Republicans controlled both the House and Senate. During that time, we saw the creation of a new department (Homeland Security) and of a new entitlement (Medicare Part D), and spending exploded. Data confirm that unified government does not keep government restrained, even if the controlling party is supposedly the enemy of big government.
The key to the cultivation of alternative poles of social power begins with order, specifically the ordering of one’s own life. This is not an idea original to me. Canadian psychologist Jordan Peterson has recently popularized this idea in a secular manner with his refrain of “clean your room.”
So while the suspension of Trump’s Twitter account, Facebook’s ejection of the 45th president, and Amazon’s role in the disappearance of Parler may have conservatives marveling at the power of tech firms bent on insulting them, rest assured that all three of the aforementioned moves demonstrate how unnerved Twitter, Facebook and Amazon must be.
Markets coordinate the division of labor and the division of knowledge. We cooperate to mutual advantage and deploy for our purposes expertise and skills we don’t have for purposes other people may not understand. Exchange collapses the incomprehensibly complex into simple bids and offers whereby people decide whether or not they want and are willing to pay for what is on offer at the requested price.
Top-down political beliefs and the governments they directed were created long before we had any knowledge and understanding of how these natural systems work. But now we do know of these fact- and reality-based processes. Our political beliefs and governmental organizations should adjust to these recently discovered facts immediately.
Freedoms which, until a few months ago, we had taken for granted, have been taken away. We now have to make do with enforced social distancing, stay-at-home orders, and warnings of Armageddon to come if we do not comply. As a consequence of such harsh restrictions, we have been robbed, ultimately, of the freedom to be ourselves.
Painful though they are, recessions are a necessary cleansing, much like a hangover after tying one on the night before. An economy gets purged of its excess and bad practices, and resources are consequently redeployed to more valuable endeavors. When left alone, an economy is much more likely to snap back strongly, quickly.
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