domain:novum.substack.com
Since the Great Recession, the Fed has transformed itself into an entity more and more responsible for asset prices. This was the stated goal since 2009 as the Fed adopted a new philosophy called the "Wealth Effect." The thinking behind it was simple: growth in asset prices would translate to an increase in consumer spending and hence demand itself. It was a 'trickle down' economic philosophy an increasingly financialized economy.
This backdrop has defined our post-2009 era which stirred certain pathologies that were reflected in the greater culture and politics. It was the time when 'finance became a culture' and actual-productivity plummeted across most developed economies, especially the United States. But somehow in spite of the accumulating dysfunction across most key areas, everything kept trudging along, partly thanks to investors being satiated with record returns.
While the near-zero interest rate regime may now be ending, it is worth considering how much of the water we were all swimming in excused poor state capacity, distorted economic fundamentals, and how it even kept a lid on the dysfunction potentially blowing up in our faces. Now that we have to reckon with these realities, it may be wise to ask how many worldviews were simply products of the the cheap money regime - which is now, in a shock to many, coming to a close. Whether or not it will easily be let go, however, is another matter.
Fewer friends, relationships on the decline, delayed adulthood, trust at an all-time low, and many diseases of despair. The prognosis is not great.
In 2000, political scientist Robert Putnam published his book Bowling Alone to much acclaim and was first comprehensive look at the decline of social activities in the United States. Now, however, all those same trends have fallen off a cliff. This particular piece looks at sociability trends across various metrics—friendships, relationships, life milestones, trust, and so on—and gives a bird's eye view of the social state of things in 2022.
A piece that I wrote that really picked up on HackerNews recently with over 300+ comments. Some excellent comments there, I suggest reading it over.
This article is written by yours truly. I'm a historian by study and have been thinking more and more about civilizational politics. I'm willing to bet this is going to be a big mover of geopolitics in the next decade onward.
With the ongoing 'rise of the rest,' we're living in a time of great narrative-building by rising powers who want a seat at the table. Although I'm not a subscriber to the 'clash of civilizations' thesis by Huntington at all, I do think that civilizational narratives are potent justifications for spheres of influence. They are so malleable and vague, thus making them valuable chips for geopolitics.
With globalization as we knew it waning, there have been efforts to repackage the nation-state order into looser blocs justified by culture. Many people take liberal universalism for granted, but I believe cultural particularism could potentially become the dominant form of international relations. Alliances are already forming on these grounds. It's arguably the single biggest obstacle to Fukuyama's "End of History" thesis.
In this piece, I first open with some background on 'civilizational theories of history' and why they were initially a fad. I then profile four states who are now leveraging such narratives to project power abroad.