Review: The Decadent Society: How We Became the Victims of Our Own Success

The Decadent Society: How We Became the Victims of Our Own Success by Ross Douthat
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

This book reminded me a great deal of Tyler Cowen's "The Great Stagnation" (which the author then mentioned several times). This book, however, then takes it further and is more updated. Unfortunately, it isn't updated enough since it was written before COVID (although he does mention that if a pandemic occurs under Trump it would be a disaster) and before Russia's invasion of Ukraine. 

Some interesting points:

He quotes the same scenario quoted by Cowen in "The Great Stagnation", which still holds now as it did 10 years ago, and which I'll paste in full here below:

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Picture a man or woman of the late 19th century, perhaps your own great-grandfather or great-great-grandmother, sitting in an ordinary American home of 1890. And now pitch him forward in an H G Wells machine, not to our time but about halfway – to that same ordinary American home, circa 1950.

Why, the poor gentleman of 1890 would be astonished. His old home is full of mechanical contraptions. There is a huge machine in the corner of the kitchen, full of food and keeping the milk fresh and cold! There is another shiny device whirring away and seemingly washing milady's bloomers with no human assistance whatsoever! Even more amazingly, there is a full orchestra playing somewhere within his very house. No, wait, it's coming from a tiny box on the countertop!

The music is briefly disturbed by a low rumble from the front yard, and our time-traveler glances through the window: A metal conveyance is coming up the street at an incredible speed – with not a horse in sight. It's enclosed with doors and windows, like a house on wheels, and it turns into the yard, and the doors open all at once, and two grown-ups and four children all get out - just like that, as if it's the most natural thing in the world! He notices there is snow on the ground, and yet the house is toasty warm, even though no fire is lit and there appears to be no stove. A bell jingles from a small black instrument on the hall table. Good heavens! Is this a "telephone"? He'd heard about such things, and that the important people in the big cities had them. But to think one would be here in his very own home! He picks up the speaking tube. A voice at the other end says there is a call from across the country - and immediately there she is, a lady from California talking as if she were standing next to him, without having to shout, or even raise her voice! And she says she'll see him tomorrow!

Oh, very funny. They've got horseless carriages in the sky now, have they?

What marvels! In a mere 60 years!

But then he espies his Victorian time machine sitting invitingly in the corner of the parlor. Suppose he were to climb on and ride even further into the future. After all, if this is what an ordinary American home looks like in 1950, imagine the wonders he will see if he pushes on another six decades!

So on he gets, and sets the dial for our own time.

And when he dismounts he wonders if he's made a mistake. Because, aside from a few design adjustments, everything looks pretty much as it did in 1950: The layout of the kitchen, the washer, the telephone... Oh, wait. It's got buttons instead of a dial. And the station wagon in the front yard has dropped the woody look and seems boxier than it did. And the folks getting out seem ...larger, and dressed like overgrown children.

And the refrigerator has a magnet on it holding up an endless list from a municipal agency detailing what trash you have to put in which colored boxes on what collection days.

But other than that, and a few cosmetic changes, he might as well have stayed in 1950.

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Another section I will quote (paraphrase) in full:

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A glance at the historical record suggests that something more than just inequality and austerity and outsourcing is contributing to deceleration and stagnation. If an unequal society and an entrenched ruling class were sufficient to choke off growth, the industrial revolution would have never gotten off the ground. If soaring incomes fortunes came at the expense of middle class incomes, the 1990's would've been the worst decade for the middle class rather than the best. If correcting neoliberalism with socialism were the ticket, then Venezuela would be the tiger of Latin America, rather than the basketcase. If Austerity has weakened western economies, it is the austerity that would've been considered profligate 50 years ago, with far more welfare spending and higher deficits in the 1950s and 1960s. 

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Anyway, this book doesn't have all the solutions, but it does at least raise almost all the questions and outline various possible scenarios and outcomes. Not all of them are very palatable. 

I would still like an update, or at least to know how recent events have altered the author's views. 

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