On Nassim Taleb’s recent book, I write,
Taleb believes that individuals require a great deal of autonomy in order to be truly free. In this view, working in large corporations or other hierarchical environments is antithetical to freedom.
That is apropos some recent discussion on this blog.
I have the freedom to go where I want because I have a car that was built by a large hierarchical organization, roads built by the DOT, and gasoline produced by huge refineries built by oil companies. It takes even more coordination to build the devices that allow us to have this conversation. On the other hand, a subsistence farmer may have little contact with such organizations, but can’t leave his farm for long or his cows die horribly (they need to be milked every day) and he starves.
Large organizations provide huge economic efficiencies, produce things that no small organization could possibly make, and allow us to cover each others’ deficiencies in a coordinated manner. All that significantly enhances our freedom on a practical level.
Thanks. I needed that.
The greatest amount of possible freedom is not autonomy. As Jay has laid out above, we gain substantial freedom from the burdens of our circumstances by working together in complex ways, and that always means hierarchies. But all hierarchies have a goldilocks zone of limited, targeted control where they do much more good than bad. Wander out of that zone and things get ugly. So the challenge isn’t avoiding hierarchies, it’s making them work, and keeping them from the tendency to spread past their mandate.
working in large corporations or other hierarchical environments is antithetical to freedom.
1) I still think economic libertarians are way underestimating the value of cooperation in our modern socio-economic system. It is reasonable to argue a lot of education attainment are signals but signals are valuable to individual economics actors. And education is good way both signal and control behavior. I lived near Compton in the 1980s and it was hell on earth while today it is much better seeing the young people in school. Or say in 1950 a young man could signal that joining the military for 2 years, being married and going to church was the right signals for employers.
2) The benefits of economies of scale are huge and large corporations are getting better at managing them. (FYI I graduated Econ in 1993 when it was assumed all average cost curves would increase at some output level. Especially with tech, that is no longer true or the average cost curve is so much longer.) I really do wonder with low profit expectations how big Amazon could grow especially now that they are creating their delivery network so their average cost is growing longer.
3) I think the hardest issue with Economic Creative Destruction is the family thrives best in stability and employment might be best for families in the middle.
“I still think economic libertarians are way underestimating the value of cooperation in our modern socio-economic system”
Why do you think that? Libertarians are whole-heartedly supportive of voluntary cooperation. Indeed, markets are nothing but cooperation, and one of the most common points libertarians make is that they are far better for managing very large-scale cooperation than hierachies are.
Why do you think that? Libertarians are whole-heartedly supportive of voluntary cooperation.
Don’t libertarians and large corporations want cooperation beyond just economic exchanges? There is a lot of benefit there.
How often do you here libertarians lament the fall of marriage and religion in society? I hear it a lot despite the divorce rates dropping for 35 years. (In reality, people believe in marriage but most believe at age 30ish.) So economic incentives explain a lot of behavior but not all.
And look at modern birth rates in all developing nations outside of Israel. Mostly falling and/or below replacement level. (Norway might be at replacement level.) And in terms of the modern labor supply what is the main variable to increase AS labor, the birth rate of 20 years so we might have generations of declining labor supply. I still think the best prediction from my early 1990s Econ professors… “Japan economy would become stagnant without access to cheap labor.”)
And what is the least economic choice but good for society for a person today….Being a Parent.
Arguably, an even better – or at least equally good choice is to support open immigration of people with a modern level of education – we don’t incur the social cost of raising and educating them, or having their parents leave the workforce for years.
Of course, we actually bar virtually all educated people from migrating here, so apparently “we” also think that adding more workers is actually a bad thing…
But, as a libertarian, I think that if you want to raise kids, that’s great. If you don’t, that’s great too. By raising kids, you create workers for the future. By not raising kids, but doing something else, you create other resources – capital goods, ideas – for the future.
What would not be great, is having armed men prevent you from having, or force you to have kids.
“Don’t libertarians want cooperation beyond just economic exchanges?”
Yes.
“Don’t large corporations want cooperation beyond just economic exchanges?”
I don’t know. Corporations have broad agreement on a narrow range of objectives. Beyond those, I suspect that asking “what do corporations want?” is about as meaningless as asking “what do the American people want?”
“How often do you here libertarians lament the fall of marriage and religion in society?”
Rarely. There is a good sized subgroup of libertarians who would like the government to get out of marriage and, especially, to stop overriding and voiding agreements between marriage partners, and changing the rules during the marriage, both of which are likely to reduce people’s (mostly men’s) willingness to marry.
Religion – other than supporting freedom of religion, I can’t say I’ve heard libertarians express any opinion on it.
“So economic incentives explain a lot of behavior but not all.”
Libertarianism isn’t just about economic incentives. Libertarians favor civil liberties broadly. Libertarians are generally unhappy with the tendency of the right toward suppression of civil liberties around matters touching on sexuality and religion, and toward displays of force generally, both in domestic policing and international relations. Libertarians are generally unhappy with the tendency of the left toward suppression of civil liberties around matters of speech, some matters touching on sexuality and religion, and toward both over-taxation and over-regulation of, yes, economic matters.
So, economic matters explain a lot of libertarianism, but by no means all.
Reading your review, I have the impression that Taleb thinks he is saying something new, though most of what he says (in your quotations) was said by Hayek (among others).
His double negative version of the golden rule reminds me of something that I stumbled upon online a while back. The claim was that the golden rule articulated by Hillel the Elder was, “What is hateful to you, do not do to your fellow.”
While it can be argued that it means the same thing as the modern Golden Rule, it seems to me that the subtle difference would make the Hillel version less susceptible to abuse.
And yet a better version might be, “what is hateful to your fellow, do not do unto them”.
I take it you’ve never heard of ‘micro-agressions’, then.
Good point.
Excellent book review. Yes, one barters ones freedom away when taking employment in alarge organization. Perhaps that is why such employers have to pay so much more and offer so much richer benefits than smaller firms where employees enjoy a measure more of autonomy.
Well, yes. We surrender some freedom in exchange for other opportunities. The key, and one many do not see, is to not become dependent upon any employer, large or otherwise. Sure, early on, when you are broke, you are dependent, but secure savings increases your freedom every paycheck. Soon, if you save, you have “go to hell” money, i.e., you can walk away from your employer at your choice. This assumes you haven’t run out to the end of your leash each month and “enslaved” yourself to mortgages, loans, expectations that make walking away not an option.
You don’t have to quite your employer to be free, if you have the option at your choice. And this employer might be your customers if you own your own business. But then it is easier to walk away from “a” customer when you have many than “an” employer when you have one.
Employers reduce our freedom as we take on the obligation in exchange for payment. However, if you fight for it, you can free yourself increment by increment.
Government, on the other hand, is not something you can free yourself from. You can gain yourself more autonomy by becoming wealthy enough to buy indulgences through support of politicians, but as the oligarchs of Russia discovered, fall out of favor and your wealth is no protection from government with its unfettered violence, cloaked in law.
Young workers starting out today have usually had to take out extravagant loans to even be in the running for less-than-extravagant jobs. Also, the expected time between leaving one job and finding another is much larger than it used to be. Generally the level of financial independence you’re talking about is just not available to most people these days. Nice if you can get it, though.
File under Problems, First World, subcategory White Collar.
One of the main complaints we hear about is that those high school to pension, zero autonomy jobs that generations had come to expect no longer exist. What does Taleb believe about those who expected but now can’t find those jobs?
I think they are supposed to start businesses.
Working for any boss, including directly for customers, is a loss of freedom — see the complaint of so many “starving artists”. Yes, there’s a trade-off in work between the risks of self-employment, and the work and uncertainty, versus the much higher mean (not average) pay of the college educated wage-slave (drone?) in a big corp. He is an obedient, housebroken dog.
Everybody’s choices depend on the packages available to choose from.
If I were an animal, I’d prefer to be a happy dog in a good family than a cat or any other pet — and certainly would NOT want to be a wild wolf or other wild, hungry animal. Dogs in good families seem pretty happy.
I’m a pretty happily married (23 years) father of 4 kids, living outside of the US (which I still love). Money and most money-status doesn’t bring as much joy / meaning as many other accomplishments do. That’s consistent with Taleb’s wild freedom, but neither is freedom, for most people, the greatest or most desirable good. Meaning seldom comes from wild freedom. (This is also part of the JD Peterson message.)
Because I accepted being a wage-slave to the big int’l corps, my wife, kids, and I have a comfy middle class life and I can read blogs when not working, or play games. I actually have the Freedom From Financial Worry, or at least a lot of it, which I don’t see most others who have started their own businesses seem to have. The media plays up the successes, which are a much higher proportion (20%?) than lottery winners (0.001%?), but I also don’t play the lottery. Taleb, as an author, is one of winners. (I’m pretty sure Kling’s Specialization and Trade is a better and more significant book, but as author, Arnold isn’t yet a big winner.)
Recently I’ve been thinking about how women often value relationships and family even more than men, yet the Dem PC-fem bullies want women to avoid the loss of freedom in families, and rather join the cubicle rat race treadmill up the corp ladder.
I’m ok with the rat race; glad my Professor wife has a better balance.
On Golden Rule — Do unto others as you’d have them do to you — this is a great way to live your personal & family life.
Not for gov’t laws, tho. For gov’t, the Silver Rule is much much better:
Do NOT do to others what you do NOT want done to you.
Yes, gov’t should mind its own business and do less “good”, which often is not seen as good by the victims — witness Venezuela today.
For government, I suggest “When in doubt, let people choose what they want”. It won’t solve all problems (few people would choose to pay taxes but roads don’t build themselves), but it’s a good rule of thumb.
I’d argue that libertarianism is a philosophy of government, in which governments would use their coercive powers only as a last resort, and only with near-universal support.
Both are certainly vague. It’s a philosophy, not a rule.
IMHO libertarianism goes too far. As I mentioned above, there are immense advantages associated with organization, and organization inevitably requires a level of coercion. Neither Stalinist totalitarianism nor Somali anarchy are desirable; it’s important to balance freedom with other values.
I’m imaging hunter-gatherers looking at us through a window in time and seeing all the freedom we traded away to large corporations and thinking, ‘those idiots.’
Yes, look at those idiots with their year-round stable food supply and their antibiotics that stop plagues and their children who almost all live to adulthood and their comfortably heated and cooled homes and their possessions that aren’t made of buffalo parts. Losers.