A letter to David Brooks

Dear Mr. Brooks—


In your columns (like today's— 6 April) you often express unbridled optimism about the future of the United States. All too often, in thinking about what you've written as compared to the universe of data available on the subject, I find myself wondering why you dismiss the view that we have serious problems that we are ignoring because we can't imagine the answers.


I can't help but think that this blog post ("The Collapse of Complex Business Models") and more importantly the work that it references (Joseph Tainter's "The Collapse of Complex Societies") hint at the challenge the present state of Western society faces. We've built an edifice that works very well for the top 10-40% of Americans and Western Europeans. It even works OK for another 20-30%-- their lives are vastly better than their ancestors just three or four generations removed (with all but a few exceptions born of squandered gains).


As any investor knows, though, past performance is no guarantee of future gains. We are at a point where we must change so much about our society-- not least how we use and create the energy we need to support our (historically) lavish lifestyles-- but the systems we've put in place to support our societies have ossified. De-constructing them (and re-constructing their more flexible replacements) will require real sacrifice from the elites. Yet still the elites pretend otherwise.


I can't help but see works such as the one you wrote today as being a shining beacon of foolishness in a world filled with dark and murky truths-- it looks good and gives everyone a warm fuzzy, but it's a false lead and presages doom.