We should be more concerned with the fragility of our civilization.
Stubborn Attachments: A Vision for a Society of Free, Prosperous, and Responsible Individuals by Tyler Cowen.
The message - Economic growth is good but conscience is more important than that. Unlike his other books where he was very blunt; Tyler changed his tone to be more mellow. A thousand books have been written on this topic and not much changed. A change at a conscience level has to come at a fundamental level. This book doesn’t answer that and to be fair there is no straight forward answer either.
Economic growth does helps us focus on reducing suffering but history and current events has taught us human nature has much more deeper roots with infinitesimal and insatiable needs. But economic growth has been only path so far which has improved human and animal welfare albeit extremely slowly.
Tyler in his own style comes up with timeless one-liners:
- When it comes to most “small” policies affecting the present and the near-present only, we should be agnostic.
- Policy should more forward-looking and more concerned about the more distant future.
Tyler explains (in the appendix) why the ideas in the book cannot resolve animal welfare issues.
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