Public ideas
Maybe we have reached peak capitalism
We may have reached peak capitalism, but it would be unwise for the comrades to join hands and march down Collins Street singing The Internationale, because research by Blair Fix of York University, Toronto, suggests that capitalism may be giving way to a resurgent feudalism: Have we passed peak capitalism? in Real World Economics Review.
Fix does not go along with Marx’s attachment to historicism – the idea that there is some inevitable path of economic history. Rather, his interest is in ideologies as revealed in the use of language. To Fix, ideas matter.
His work is a linguistic analysis, looking at the long-term rise and more recent small decline of economic terms in mainstream English, and conversely finding a long-term fall and a more recent rise in the language used in Christian scripture, which he associates with the language of feudalism. The turning point of peak capitalism by this measure was around 1980.
How to design a city
When we travel we are attracted to ancient cities that have grown organically with narrow laneways and crowded crooked streets. By contrast at home we expect our planners to provide for convenience,with public and private transport infrastructure, rational zoning, and plenty of public space.
Perhaps we can leave reconciliation of these desires to artificial intelligence, drawing on the vast amount of data available from cell phones, security cameras and credit card transactions, and using computers’ capacity to process that data to design optimal urban spaces.
That’s the subject of a podcast by PhD student Claire Daniel – Are computer-generated cities the future? – hosted by the University of New South Wales Centre for Ideas.
In her 30-minute session (12 minutes presentation, 18 minutes Q&A) Daniel explains that technically there is enough data and enough computing power to do better physical planning, but most of that data is in private hands and is available to planners only at prohibitive prices (another example of the deadweight loss of the commercialization of data). Even when planners can get hold of such data they are usually not permitted to cannot share it in the public domain, which means there is an inevitable degree of secrecy in urban planning. Commercial incentives and the public interest do not align.
Her Q&A segment takes us into the political economy of urban spatial planning – everything from building permits for garden sheds through to location of subways and freeways. It’s a much messier process than governments may have us believe. (Perhaps in 200 years’ time tourists will be flocking to Canberra to enjoy its higgledy-piggledy organic realization.)
Luxury
A basic Casio watch is advertised on Amazon at $24.20, but there is no upper limit on what one can spend on a timepiece, even though they all keep the same time. There is a range of new cars available for less than $20 000, but a Ferrari Spider convertible will set you back a million dollars, although all cars are subject to the same speed limits.
Peter McNeil of the University of Technology, Sydney (a university that stands out for its design functionality rather than any showiness) has a short Conversation article The rich history of our love affair with luxury.
He mentions historical instances of sumptuary laws, designed to limit the amount spent on conspicuous consumption. There are also social norms against vulgar displays of luxury, observed by members of the Melbourne Club but not by parvenu property developers and mortgage brokers. In fact, eschewing visible signs of luxury is deliberate behavior by some of the rich and powerful.
McNeil points out that what constitutes “luxury” changes over time. That’s one of the reasons our old sales tax regime, which imposed sumptuary taxes on cars and television sets, had become so dysfunctional by the time they were replaced by the GST. Now all we have is the Luxury Car Tax, cutting in at $72 000, and state governments have made a few dollars on personalized number plates. Perhaps we could bring back a few other sumptuary taxes.