Stagnation moved by insecurity seems a little more like the predicament we are in than stagnation moved by complacency (which Cowen defines as “a growing sense of satisfaction with the status quo”). The former, more negative, kind of stagnation is what both books are really about, it seems to me. Poulos focuses on the underlying sense of insecurity, which runs much deeper than our economistic ways of thinking about politics usually suggest. Cowen focuses on the resulting paralysis, which is a huge problem for a society that is barely capable of understanding itself in any terms other than the terms of change. And both argue that the way forward is to recognize that insecurity is our natural condition and that this is by no means all bad. In this sense, the two books help to clarify each other.
I will look into the Poulos book, but I do not assign a high probability to my finishing it.
Notice how many of the smart reviewers are saying ” ‘complacency’? That doesn’t seem quite right, and based on the standard definition, it doesn’t even seen to be what Cowen is really getting at.”
Clearly he’s inviting a closer reading.
Not only do we not have flying cars, but the university system hasn’t been disrupted and politics just gets worse and worse. Who would have believed that in 1950 or 1999?
It seems like eras of high change make it hard to invest on the next sustainable growth pattern.
Americans, of all backgrounds and at all points on the political spectrum, are complacent about themselves, their ideas and the groups they identify with, not about the status quo. The negative features of the status quo are always somebody else’s fault.