Arthur Diamond: When I think about creative destruction, I think first about a phrase that Deirdre McCloskey used in her trilogy, Bourgeois Trilogy. She talked about the 'Great Fact of economic history.' And, I like that phrase because it gets you on the edge of your chair: 'Okay, what is going to be the Great Fact? What is it?' And, it turns out that what she's talking about is that for tens of thousands of years, people like us--homo sapiens--lived lives that were 'poor, nasty, brutish, and short'--to use Hobbes's phrase [Thomas Hobbes, "Leviathan"]. And then something spectacular happened--the Great Fact--somewhere around 250 years ago. The lives of many people, at first in Europe mainly but then throughout the world, got substantially better. And that's just the blink of an eye, in terms of the whole history of beings like us. And so that, the Great Fact, raises the great question, which is: How do you explain the Great Fact? And the way that I think the Great Fact is best explained is starting with Schumpeter [Joseph Schumpeter]--the idea of creative destruction. Schumpeter has this great book, Capitalism, Socialism, and Democracy, and he wrote it after he was depressed that what he thought was going to be his great book was not well-received and everybody was reading Keynes [John Maynard Keynes]. So he then wrote this off[?]. And in the 7th chapter, that's the chapter where he talks about creative destruction. And one of the goals he has is to try to say, in this whole book, especially this middle part of the book, is to say that capitalism has been mis-portrayed. That it is the force in the world that makes ordinary people's lives better. And, he says that capitalism has--the key, the essential fact of capitalism--is creative destruction. Creative destruction is the process through which old ways of doing things are replaced by new things. The creative part is the car. The destructive part is that carriages go away. The creative part is the plow, the mechanized plow. The destructive part is the wooden part goes away. And you can go example after example. I use that phrase in my book, in the title of my book. It's not my favorite way of describing what he's talking about. And I don't know if this is the time to get into that. But, McCloskey, when she talked about writing--one of the points she made--is that you should always put at the end of a piece of writing what matters most. So, if you talk about a sentence, the last word is what should matter. If you are talking about a book, the last chapter of your book is what most matters. And so the phrase, creative destruction--what's last in that phrase is 'destruction.' And one of the things I learned as I was working on this project--and it was one of the things I found most exciting in the process of doing this book--was that the creative part of the process hasn't been emphasized enough. It's been underestimated. And the destructive part has been overestimated. What I found is people are afraid of losing jobs. And some jobs are lost. But not as much as people think. And the jobs that replace them are much better jobs. So, whereas people are afraid of the destructive part because they don't understand that, they should--if they saw a more realistic picture of what it is, I think they wouldn't be quite as afraid. I'm saying they shouldn't be quite as afraid. So, I say openness is important. And the 'openness' is in the title because I'm trying to make the case that, yes, there is some--things could go wrong for some people. But not as often or as bad as most people think. And that the benefits are huge; the costs aren't as great. And I think openness gives us great benefits in terms of the quality of the jobs we have, in terms of the goods we get, in terms of how long and comfortable life is. But also in terms of an area that I don't think has been sufficiently emphasized, which is, in terms of the quality of the work we are able to do. And I think work is an important part of life. So, that would be my first pass, I guess, at answering that question.
[ ALM] FromMyBook: Don’t be afraid to MERGE
I am deeply honored to receive an Honorable Mention for Emergency Parking Only in Americana, Amateur. The photo was taken along a desolate stretch of highway in central Wyoming on a long drive. I was concerned with the storm that clearly lay ahead when I passed the sign in the photo. I was so amused - the surrounding country was flat and featureless. No structures, no trees, nothing of note was in sight. Who would ever park there except for an emergency?!? I had to stop and back up to get the photo. Thank you,Bob Ruble
This audience was composed of the individuals for whom the text was primarily intended, and who belonged to Arabia in the Late Antique/Pre-Islamic Period (ca. sixth-seventh century CE; Cf. jahiliyyah) and Early Islamic Period (Cf. sadr al-islam; the Sufyanids). This time period was centuries prior to the development of the traditional forms of Islam that emerged in the Classical Period of Islam (ca. tenth-thirteenth century CE). 2ff7e9595c
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