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Summary: Two more "kinds of people in the world"
Review: Some say there are two kinds of people in the world - those who believe there are two kinds of people, and those who don't. Certainly, for most of this century, the Soviet and Chinese revolutions, and their cold war aftermath, placed most of us into one or other of two camps.Now that the cold war is over the lines are reforming - but on parallel lines. Many continue to believe that we still need a large dose of centralised power to prevent order descending into chaos - but they want it to be "kinder" in some third, but mysterious, way. Many environmentalists prove to be watermelons - green on the outside but red on the inside. Thomas Sowell divides the world into the "anointed elite" and the rest of us, who are subject to their visionary wisdom. In "The Future and its Enemies" Virginia Postrel divides us into stasists and dynamists. She makes a persuasive case. Just as physicists simplified a bewildering array of particles into a few quarks, Ms Postrel argues that we tend to adopt one of her two positions at a deep level and that these then determine our response to most of the major issues which face us everyday. Hence stasists oppose "urban sprawl". Dynamists accept that cities change to reflect the way people chose and can afford to live. GE fascinates dynamists with its prospects for a new biological age. Stasists are scared to death. When Postrel first suggests that stasists would have supported the Soviet revolution I stopped in my reading tracks. Surely the revolutionaries were dynamists in that they advocated change. But this apparent dilemma finally reveals what I found to one of the most profound revelations of the analysis. Ms Postrel explains the unholy alliance between the stasists - who fear change - and the technocrats, who claim to know how to manage change and make it safe for the common herd. They join Thomas Sowell's "annointed". Technocrats comfort the reactionary mind by saying "Yes the future will be different - but rather than let it happen we shall plan it in advance, and then we shall build a solid and sustainable bridge to get us there". But there is no single pre-determined future. And hence there is no single bridge we can build to get us there. Sadly, our stasist tendencies encourage us all to believe these claims. Hence we have armies of bureaucrats and other busy bodies telling us how to design our cities, how we should live, how and what we should or should not eat, what we should be allowed to think, and even how we should or should not be, allowed to play. Those who fear the new migration of aging families into the countryside mount an attack on the false target of urban sprawl. "Smart growth" is their answer. Remarkably "smart growth" forces us to live around railway stations and bus stops and commute to and from the centre of the city every day - just like they did in the nineteenth century. Which is surely as "dumb" as you can get. Dynamists migrate to the countryside, grow their vegetables, enjoy the sea or the forest, and use the wired world to enjoy a community of widespread friends. They also build traditional relationships with the people who live down the road. Stasists are gloomy folk because they always fear the worst. They find good news about the economy or the environment deeply depressing. Ms Postrel takes this simple truth to promote the value of play. Play makes us human, and drives the innovation which is source of all our wealth. She sweeps up the Puritan ethic and locks it in the closet, with mercantilism and other broken toys. While I am normally cynical about the unique perspectives claimed by departments of "women's studies", I am delighted to have Ms Postrel prove me wrong. Her essay, "The Nail File -the economic meaning of manicures" convinced me that her female perspective underpins her many novel and potent insights. Finally, here in New Zealand, Ms Postrel's theories make just as much sense, and have just as much "aha" power, as I am sure they do in America. Which suggests they make sense everywhere. Read this book.
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Summary: Dynamists and libertarians: is there a difference?
Review: One of the more interesting issues raised by this book, and not conclusively answered, is whether the "dynamist" category is co-extensive with libertarianism or classical liberalism. At some point she suggests that some "Third Way" welfare-state type liberals or even social democrats may be natural allies of libertarians in the future. However, her magazine Reason doesn't make this distinction, and is generally far more critical of the Clinton administration, for example, than of the House Republicans. I agree that the left has traditionally had a static view of the way society should be, although it has been institutionally entrepeneurial, always seeking new sources of anti-capitalist sentiment. But I think an argument can be made that, given the inherent risk aversion in human nature, a dynamic society requires social insurance just as much as it requires security of property and contract. One can be more experimental if certain expectations are reliably protected by the state. This may explain why Nordic social democracies are so open to technological, sexual and social innovation. Scandinavia has combined a commitment to redistribution and social insurance with private ownership, undistorted price signals and free trade. The dream of maintaining society exactly as it is, or was, or in accordance with a nostalgic or utopian dream is unworthy of a free people. But Postrel never really takes on the case for social insurance, or answers whether she has any dynamist allies among those on the left who would grant the state a bigger role than she does.
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Summary: High on enthusiasm, low on substance
Review: Virginia Postrel's interesting work divides the allegedly complex world neatly into "stasists" and "dynamists," a simplified scheme that seems destined to promote a whole bunch of inaccurate name-calling. One wonders how she would classify, say, the paleolibertarians at the Mises Institute who think individual liberty would lead, socially and culturally, to an essentially conservative society - and just what she would think was wrong with that. Unfortunately it's just such analysis that is missing from this bubbles-and-froth work. Postrel assumes the mantle of F.A. Hayek, but never quite gets around to doing the hard analysis that marked the best of the Nobel laureate's work. The resulting volume is undoubtedly infectious. But its greatest virtue is probably that it will lead readers new to libertarianism and classical liberalism to check out other, more solid works in the field. That is no small thing and I do not mean it as an insult. But let's face it: Postrel hasn't really broken any new ground here. At heart she has just tried (with mixed success) to associate more-or-less-Hayekian classical-liberalism with an ill-defined sort of "progressivism" - by, in effect, excluding morally, religiously, socially, and culturally conservative libertarians from her classification scheme. Her too-simple scheme not only defines cultural conservatives right out of her movement but, in its eagerness to claim classical liberalism as the true "progressivism," ignores the fact that private-property-based classical liberalism is *also* the true conservatism.
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Summary: An answer to those who would return us to the past
Review: This is an important book for Americans who may be confused by the political rhetoric that sweeps across our land. It is always dangerous to make sweeping generalizations about people and politics, but basically the nation can be divided into two groups: those who fear the future and those who eagerly embrace it. This schism can be applied to any number of issues, including globalization, welfare reform, TV censorship, school prayer, and more. Ms. Postrel's book provides an excellent defense of those instruments that create progress and enable Americans to enjoy both a high standard of living and inner freedom: capitalism, creativity, individuality, freedom of thought and organization. There is a large segment of the population who, unforunately, have a stake in seeing the engine of human progress stop in its tracks. They don't like where the trends are heading and they want to begin the long march back to the past. Ms. Postrel, using such topics as business, natural evolution and social norms, explains why we must never go back. And hopefully, with others listening to her message, we won't.
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Summary: (un)planning the future
Review: This book is a testament to the power of distributed knowledge and its positive effects on non-coercive social systems. With a combination of hard research and powerful, quirky anecdotes she describes the power of nested rule systems that allow feedback to greatly enhance innovation and efficiency We cannot make micro-detailed decisions for the common man without destroying the feedback mechanisms that make society fuction. The law fails when these micro-management techniques are applied to it, since they prevent variations due to technological or social advances, allow narrow groups to dictate the shape of the law, and create extreme uncertainty.
I could go on about the unique insights in this book, but it comes down to this- the world is changing at a rapidly increasing clip, but far too many of the rules applied to our lives are remnants of a static vision. Although she recognizes the inherent good that free markets and free minds have produced, she tries- and often succeeds in making her points from a non-ideological way, i.e. not bashing democrats/socialists. Instead, she correctly sees the massive "left/right" shift that is occuring in the world. Since all forms of statism have been discredited, a true liberal/conservative split is inevitable, and (my thought) the death of one of the parties is on its way since both current parties are statist oriented.
In my opinion, Mrs. Postrel has synthesized thousands of years of political and social thinking into an easily understood blueprint for the new century. Rules must exist in a manner consistent with human nature, must be clearly understood, and be open to feedback. This book would be a terrific gift to any "progressive", since it is the ultimate progressive book!
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Summary: Psuedo-intellectual
Review: a waste of hard earned money. Her conclusions are trite and dull. Her philosophy would better belong in a cheap pulp fiction writen in the 30s. I was duped by what appeared an interesting title. Don't you make the same mistake
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Summary: Wonderful Insight
Review: Virginia's book cuts through the rigid definitions of "left" and "right" and brings to light the truth about those who seek to control an uncontrollable destiny created by human interaction. Great job, Virginia !
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Summary: Pollyanna to the rescue!
Review: I am neither and resent the categorical assumptions. This is asinine. There are in fact consequences intended and otherwise to every technology. Information technology is a double edged sword that cuts both ways. If you have not yet read "Transfer-the end of the beginnng" by Jerry Furland, get busy and do so. Or not. It's only your future.
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Summary: A Heroine for the 21st Century
Review: I was familiar with Virginia Postrel's work in Reason magazine before I bought this book, so I was already looking forward to it with great expectations. However, Ms. Postrel actually managed to exceed them! So often even the best journalists cannot make the transition to writing full-length texts, but Ms. Postrel has done so with ease. Some reviewers have complained that the book lacks depth and it is true that Ms. Postrel could have added more case studies or psychological and philosophical analysis. But I have never thought that every book must achieve the scope of _Human Action_ to be useful. Indeed, something can definitely be said for making a book accessible to the public-at-large rather than catering to the converted. I found Ms. Postrel's arguments very compelling, especially when taken with the writings of previous authors. F.A. Hayek, Ayn Rand, and Frederic Bastiat of course did not use the terms dynamist and stasist in their works, but the same thread is clearly evident. Hayek, Rand, and Bastiat (along with many others) long ago identified the alliances between the far-left and far-right for the purpose of destroying progress. Yet Postrel's book brings that analysis to its logical conclusion by finally obliterating the falsity of the left-right dichotomy which many 19th and 20th Century writers still implicitly accepted even when they identified the parallels between stasist groups. That said, Postrel's book, although certainly capable of being read on its own, would be best read as part of a body of literature. I would recommend also reading Hayek's _The Road to Serfdom_, Rand's _Capitalism: The Unknown Ideal_, and Bastiat's _Economic Sophisms_ for readers previously unfamiliar with the subject. Those texts are readily available and are as accessible as Postrel's for the novice reader. Finally, I must say that with this book, Ms. Postrel joins Wendy McElroy as a heroine for the 21st Century, carrying on the work of such great liberal (in the proper sense of that word) women such as Ayn Rand, Rose Wilder Lane, and Isabel Paterson.
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Summary: Technocrats and Bureaucrats: Get out of the way!
Review: The Future and its Enemies is a fantastic and clear exposition of the dynamic vision. Postrel maintains that the old political categories of "left" and "right" no longer apply; today political camps are either "dynamic" or "static" in their vision. Those that seek to control and mandate a prescribed outcome would fall under the "static" heading. On the other side, the dynamists seek only to implement simple rules that allow for unpredictable and unplannable results. Postrel's thesis is backed up by credible data and some fascinating anecdotal stories. Postrel relates many of the ideas that were first articulated by F.A. Hayek when he described the "spontaneous order" that occured in a free market. Central economic planning by bureaucrats thus fails because is it ignores the integral process of unplanned, undesigned events, inventions, technologies that result in a free atmosphere where competition is allowed to flourish. Though we may think that good results occur from large bureaucracies planning like public school, health care, social security, and the like,this discounts the possibility that unplanned private initives would be much more effective. This is a book that should be read by all who support central economic planning or those that fear the results of allowing individuals to make voluntary decisions in the free market.
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