The Problem And The Opportunity

 This is a remarkable piece by Paul Campos. A few things strike me.

First, he's right that we moved into a fundamentally different reality about 300 years ago, when technology allowed humans to increase productivity by leaps and bounds. There is enough "stuff" to feed, shelter and clothe everyone in the world. Poverty - especially in the United States - is a political problem, not an economic problem. And as automation increases, that will become more and more true.

So why is this a political problem? Campos uses a mind blowing thought experiment.

If you were standing in front of an ATM that spit out one dollar bill every second, how long would it take your to become a millionaire?

What's your guess?

Was it eleven and a half days?

How long would it take to become a billionaire?

What's your guess?

Did you come up with 32 years? Probably not. That gap between a million dollars is simply unfathomable. We think it's ten times a millionaire, but it's a thousand times more. And if you want to be Jeff Bezos, you need to stand in front of that ATM for 5,833 years. 

Our inability to conceive of numbers that big is why we lump millionaires in with billionaires and why we aren't rioting in the streets. Campos' final point is that this creates what he calls the Neal Katyal problem. (Katyal basically ended his future in progressive politics by taking on a case for Nestle basically arguing in favor of child slavery.) There is no material reason for someone like Katyal to degrade himself that way, but because he's aware of and consorts with people who have hundreds of millions of dollars - as opposed to his mere tens of millions - he doesn't feel "rich" and therefore needs to keep grinding.

We are living in a broken society that produces a Trump because our economy is broken and we aren't fully aware why.