Reading – Page 10 – Christopher Wink

Capitalism & Freedom

Is capitalism the cause of differences or the reason why those differences are so small?

Influential Nobel Prize-winning economist Milton Friedman (1912-2006), who is a champion or a scourge depending on your political persuasion, long argued the latter. First published at the height of the Cold War in 1962, Friedman argued in “Capitalism and Freedom” that economic freedom is an essential component of political freedom, and that a capitalist system is the best way to promote both. This book serves as essentially the foundation of his status as a kind of public intellectual, though even his critics must acknowledge he went beyond punditry — he won the 1976 Nobel Prize in economics due to his scholarly work on monetary policy.

Attacks of capitalism often confuse what that economic system causes with what it exposes. As Adam Smith wrote and Friedman quotes: “There is much ruin in a nation.”

I read a 2002 edition, but when it was originally published the book was the beginning of a movement that led to Friedman’s bestselling Free to Choose (first published in 1980 alongside a PBS series of the same name) and is often associated with the Reagan Revolution. Friedman’s work heavily influenced conservative American politics.

In this earlier book, Friedman argues that government intervention in the economy, such as through regulation and redistribution, is detrimental to individual freedom and economic prosperity. He also advocates for the privatization of certain government services, such as education and healthcare.

The book was published during a time of Cold War tensions and the rise of socialist and interventionist economic policies in the United States and around the world. Friedman has lasting influence. For one, his description of monetary policy having “long and variable lags” has been often referenced to this pandemic era. In 1970, his ‘Friedman doctrine’ that companies existed to maximize profit for shareholders came to define the modern era, and experienced a revival 50 yers later.

Read my notes from the book below.

The Journalist the Murderer

Journalism can only be done adversarially — or immorally.

So argues the 1990 book The Journalist the Murderer by Janet Malcolm, which was first a serialization the year before in New Yorker. The nonfiction book is today considered a seminal work in journalism ethics, and related fields. Though frequently referenced in other works I’ve read, I only now finished the short book.

Malcolm focuses on the relationship between a journalist named Joe McGinniss and a man named Jeffrey MacDonald, who was accused of murdering his wife and children. McGinniss wrote a 1983 bestselling book about the case, which then became a popular movie, but was later criticized for his handling of the relationship with MacDonald, resulting in a high-profile libel case. In short, McGinniss was accused of portraying himself as sympathetic to MacDonald but always planning a damning book. Malcolm takes this narrow example to draw wider conclusions, including the nature of truth and how it is represented in journalism.

Below find my notes for future reference.

The Greatest Invention: notes on language and writing

Writing is one of humanity’s greatest inventions, and both it and language evolved in predictable ways. They are related but distinct.

That’s a theme from this year’s March 2022 book “The Greatest Invention: A History of the World in Nine Mysterious Scripts” written by Silvia Ferrera.

Below I’ve captured my notes for future reference.

The Value of Everything

The way we count how big our economy is gets determined by a set of changeable decisions. Those decisions have changed over time, and they can change in the future.

That is a major theme from the 2017 book The Value of Everything by economist Mariana Mazzucato.

Below I share my notes from reading the book, which are for my own purposes for review later.

The Culture of New Capitalism

The digital economy encourages each of us to be further individualized, quantified and atomized.

That’s a big theme from the 2006 book “The Culture of the New Capitalism” written by sociologist Richard Sennett. The nature of work and the organization of companies was shifting for decades but he spotted a marked shift he called “new capitalism.” This new form of capitalism is characterized by a focus on flexibility, innovation and the constant search for new markets and technologies.

Though 15 years old, the book is still relevant and serves as a good landscape of the academic research and philosophy that underpins an understanding of where we are today.

He argues that this shift led to a culture in which individuals are expected to adapt and learn in order to succeed, and so longterm commitments and relationships are devalued. The book is critical of how this new culture shifts individual identity and community, and the impact it has on social and economic inequality.

Below I share my notes from the book for future reference.

The Age of AI

Artificial intelligence will be considered a new epoch in human history. The Enlightenment was defined by the age of reason, in which a process could ensure humans develop new and tested knowledge. Increasingly though, algorithmic learning is developing so rapidly that no human entirely understands the recommendations that AI makes. This will be seen as entirely new age.

So argues the Age of AI: And Our Human Future, a 2021 book written by former Secretary of State Henry Kissinger, former Google CEO Eric Schmidt and AI researcher Daniel Huttenlocher. That big idea was argued in an article Kissinger wrote for The Atlantic in 2018 entitled: How the Enlightenment Ends.

The book is neither dystopian nor breathlessly optimistic. It is not full of rich stories nor colorful visions. It is a clear-eyed book directed toward policymakers and business leaders. It outlines its authors view of current research and understanding about where AI research is heading.

I collected notes from the book below. I recommend reading it.

J.C.R. Licklider and his Dream Machine of personal computing

We interact with computers to help us think.

Both in the transactional sense that these machines can help us solve math problems or search across a vast array of indexed information, and in the deeper sense that we can patter our own behaviors around how a computer solves a problem. This wasn’t always inevitable.

Before the invention of the keyboard, computer mouse and graphical interface, and certainly before the government-funded creation of the internet, computers were seen charitably as oversized and expensive calculators. They may seem today like an appliance that is as valuable to our quality of life as an indoor toilet or a heating system. It took vision to make the change.

The people (yes, especially a particular man) behind that vision is the focus of The Dream Machine: J.C.R. Licklider and the Revolution That Made Computing Personal, a 2001 book by science journalist M. Mitchell Waldrop. The book tells the story of J.C.R. Licklider (1915-1990) and his role in the development of the modern personal computer. Licklider, a psychologist and computer scientist, was one of the pioneers of the concept of “interactive computing,” which envisioned a future in which computers would be accessible and easy to use for individuals, rather than just large institutions.

Money: The True Story of a Made-Up Thing

Money is a useful collaborative fiction to exchange and transfer value.

The 2020 book from former NPR Planet Money podcast co-host and economics reporter Jacob Goldstein is a fun and approachable social history of what we call money. It is light and breezy, full of familiar themes to those already interested in finance and economics while also a good starting point for someone who isn’t.

I captured notes for myself below. Go buy the book yourself.

Lenape Country before William Penn

The Lenape people controlled their territory, and they meaningfully shaped the society that developed in present-day Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, Delaware and New Jersey.

So argues the 2016 book Lenape Country Delaware Valley Society Before William Penn written by Lehigh University professor Jean R. Soderlund. A prevailing narrative is of a relatively weak and minor subgroup of the Alqonquian people but this book argues something more nuanced.

Other big themes: early Swedish settlers remained primarily trading partners with the Lenape, which contrasted with the Dutch and the English who over time seemed more interested in colonizing, though the English Quakers were on the whole far more peaceable than the Chesapeake, New Amsterdam and New England regions. The Lenape themselves shaped this reality.

This is a rich social-political history of the earliest recorded details of Lenape life. I strongly recommend buying a copy if you love history and the details of indigenous and European engagement. As is my custom, I share notes from my reading below for my future reference but please do pick up a copy.

Gödel, Escher, Bach: an Eternal Golden Braid

The universe isn’t remarkable because of stuff. It is remarkable because of the relationship between stuff.

That is something like a theme from the iconic and celebrated 1979 book by academic Douglas Hofstadter called Gödel, Escher, Bach: An Eternal Golden Braid, which won both Nobel and Pulitzer prizes. An entire secondary marketplace of ideas and debate centers around the meaning and intention of the book, so I will not attempt to contribute to that. The book did influence computer science, especially the development of artificial intelligence, but Hofstader has said he does not identify with technology or computer culture.

Overall, the dense book brims with interdisciplinary “strange loops,” or examples of the interrelationships between concepts that create systems.The book’s title comes famously from naming three men influential in very different fields: influential Hungarian-American logician Kurt Gödel (1906-1978); Dutch graphic artist M. C. Escher (1898-1972) and legendary classical composer Johann Sebastian Bach (1685-1750). All their work are used as examples of strange loops. I share a few notes below that I may return to in the future.