All these are my interpretations of the theory, just me mulling over what it might mean. They are not nearly as rigorously checked as the core theory. The rigorous predictions are in Fable’s rigorous document. I’ll add more of my own here as they pop into my thoughts, and if I realize some are false, I’ll strike them (but not delete them). I know it’s like, a looooot, and makes me sound like a theory-of-everything crank, but history has shown economics is a pretty damn strong driver of humans. Better to write it down than not at all eh?
Things that it predicts from the past (and present)
- Subsistence existence prior to the industrial revolution.
- The empowerment of labor during the industrial revolution
- That even during times of great prosperity and progress, there are individuals who seem almost paradoxically1 poor.
- That the economy would begin to falter as the capability of technology becomes more uniform – A reasonable take is that computers, starting to do some degree of cognitive work, would cause a stagnation in developed economies. Perhaps even, a “great” one, starting around the 70s
- The need for patent laws
- That the left vs right debate seems intractable, unsolvable.
Things that a reasonable extension of it predicts from the past (and present)
- Why Henry George was ignored during his time, despite very few strong critiques of his work. (His book was very popular and well regarded, but it didn’t lead to any real change)
- The prevalence of feudalism prior to the industrial revolution
- Slavery, and subsequent abolition.
- Democratisation during the industrial revolution and shortly after
- The backsliding of democracy since the 70s and polarisation of the political spectrum.
- Diversification is a good idea
- Buying index funds is a better idea. Don’t pick stocks. (unless you have insider information)
- Buying the global index fund is a really good idea.
- Buying companies that own things but not ideas is the best idea. (given infinite time)
- Given the above, the need for base research (untargeted curiosity, paid for without expectation of valuable return). Probably we should use some of the LVT flat rate and VAT to fund it.
- The existence of economic bubbles
- Falling fertility rates.
- Simultaneous unemployment for some and long working hours for others.
- The weakening of anti trust over time. (when rent seeking is the main way a person can claim value, and real value creation is becoming hard to find, of course we would have little political will for anti trust)
- The reason why the USA has more growth but long hours, the EU has nicer protections but low growth, and why China just seems to be doing amazing all around.
Things that it might predict for the future (should we do nothing)
- Not just a return to subsistence, but unlivable standards.
- Slavery again
- War, strife. Just, awful human decline.
Things that it might predict for the future, with a land loop but without a good pigouvian implementation.
- Runaway consumption.
- Even with our current explosion of solar power, probably nasty runaway climate change.
- Exhausting of natural resources, and a speed bump in growth as we are forced to extract from less efficient sources like landfills.
- A population explosion.
Things that it might predict for the future, with a good pigouvian implementation.
- To be honest I don’t want to think about it too much, it’s just… too nice. And it makes me sad for where we are. And sad for all those that perhaps suffered needlessly
Footnotes
- Turns out, it’s a veridical paradox ↩︎