Downside Fears of Progress

James Branch Cabell once wrote that “The optimist proclaims that we live in the best of all possible worlds; and the pessimist fears this is true.”

Hard to think otherwise than that Bill Gross of Janus Capital is trying to get us to look under his skirt of downward-falling truths where fear cannot even be saved by the Knights of Viagra. Or so Paul Vigna might be implying in his Wall Street Journal MONEYBEAT commentary today (May 4, 2016) on “What to Do After the Robots Take Our Jobs.” 

The tone of their mutually self-gratifying assessments is that we ought to get used to the fact that technology is going to force us to dramatically change everything of the business around us. From work to market engagement to the assumption that the only way to rescue humanity from the ugly unfolding of economic calamities tied to the robots of progress is to seed the finances of the future with “helicopter money” -- a truly inverted proposition, if you ask me.

Helicopter money describes the notion that central banks, in unfathomable situations, gleefully print currency as they see fit to dump loads of comfort and stability into otherwise doomed marketplaces. This, Vigna says, is hardly an optimal (READ: optimistic) perspective. In fact, it is little more than unadorned, deeply pessimistic fear draped to disguise the naked empowerment that happens when capitalism is stripped of … what? … all it’s good attire?

Someone has lost a sense of which way is up. 

Digital and technological progress are far from detrimental, except to those costumed in the self-adorning outfits of the past. They are, in actuality, the diametric opposite: engaging options perfectly fit to mask the anger behind the disappointment of the masses who are truly ready to drive the stakes they hold into the bellies of greed and self-interest. That the banks and financiers want to drag us under the attire of their motherly protections to keep us from showing our styles, I have little doubt. But in reality, these are just efforts on the part of some to cover the fears the emanate from the future being downloaded around them.

The economics of the future -- like most of my beloved social sciences -- still treat the rapid fire realities of progress as something less science and more fiction, with little appreciation for the wisdom of the playful masses. Which is why the counter to the pessimism is a force of cyber enthusiasts who are willing to take hold of the handsets of digital opportunity and use that control to override the otherwise cynical expectations of the copters on our horizon.

Smart and interactive advocacy needs to look at what is happening in more entertaining, adventurous, even provocatively sexy ways. We need to write programs and scripts that play out the change as the kind of wonder it foretells. Doing so is the only way to respond to those who otherwise want to cash in on dressing us down with unnecessary fear and shaming.