I am a bit aghast that the author does not mention the American robber barons who are intentionally trying to tear down government so they can pay fewer taxes and get to pass their wealth down to their children tax-free. It’s not “the West” that can’t do anything, it’s that we have whole organizations devoted to stopping any progress.<p>I hate when people complain about government inefficiency or incompetence when the government is being opposed and sabotaged. My county’s DMV has been nothing but a pleasure to work with. When a government system in the west is failing it’s because it’s probably underfunded or weaponized (such as punishing unemployment insurance rules).
>Think about libraries as a concept – the government builds a huge building, buys loads of books from many different authors and allows
everyone to just go there and read the books for free or some small fee.<p>False premise: Most librairies in the United States were funded and built by private philanthropy. See: Carnegie Library<p>>"Sometimes you can even take the books to your home!"– Now imagine libraries didn’t exist and some politician came around proposing we create libraries exactly as they are. What would you expect to happen? I can tell you what I would expect to happen: Nothing at all: What about the authors and publishers? What about the bookstores! People will just steal and/or destroy the books! People don’t even read anymore! I am quite confident they would never get built in any major western democracy today.<p>If it's difficult to build libraries today, political will is not a limiting factor. Rather, technology has slowly but surely rendered the storage of dead trees as obsolete in all but a few circumstances (i.e. archival analysis) Just as we stopped using street cars when buses and cars proved to be more maneuverable and efficient, one shouldn't advocate a reinvention of the 19th century library simply because it delivered a unique benefit once upon a time.
It is also that the public is rather happy with the status quo. Working against public opinion is not something that happens easily in democracy. It takes generations to change opinions.
The author says:<p>>"The status quo provides marginal individual benefit to the person making the decision while also causing marginal harm to society as a whole. Doing the right thing doesn’t really provide much tangible short term benefit."<p>This explains exactly why the majority of people living in a dictatorship don't try very hard to do all the things that they need to do if they want to change their own government.<p>They need to do things like finding out what is the truth about their government, and telling other people what that truth is. But doing that requires individual self-sacrifice, and most people, most of the time, don't what to do that.
A commentary about the shortcomings of western civilization from someone that doesn't understand what makes our civilization a success.<p>All the other civilizations have large powerful governments that intervene in their society. The West's strength comes from the fact that governments are generally restrained, slow, and more power and freedom is given to individuals. Governments are supposed to not be able to get anything done.
To some extent, this is by design. The inaction of liberal western democracies is because it is ambiguous as it what should be done. Yes, this leads to stagnation, but also minimizes massive mistakes. When it becomes clear what needs to be done western democracies can spring into action, such as with, as the author pointed out, the pandemic.<p>Look at Russia - The government, but more specifically Putin, just set the country back 20-30 years with one bad decision. China is on a hot streak, but the same could happen to them. What happens when Xi looses his mind? Or dies? Or when the economy takes a prolonged downturn?<p>Democracies win over the long term because they bet small and lose small.<p>Libraries aren’t being built because, A. We already have a lot of them in the west, and B. Typically they begin as part of a major philanthropic gift but right now our philanthropist class is focused on eradicating diseases and going to space.
Gotta admit I read this one expecting to find some extremely libertarian critique of libraries per se, something about how "intellectual property" is being violated, etc etc etc.<p>Instead, I found all the talking points to refute such extremist critiques, and a thoughtful expansion to problems afflicting western liberal democracies. Good read, very thoughtful.
In this day and age (at least in my country, a Western Democracy) libraries are not being built, rather closed, or converted to some other uses. And the majority of the vast inventories of books that was once the property of said libraries to keep for posterity's sake has literally been burned, as regulations forbade any kind of recirculation, donation, or sale.
Hands off the libraries, pal. If you need a straw-they for your 'thought exercise', go ahead and use 'sports stadiums', I don't care then. Of <i>course</i> 'the west' IS still building <i>lots</i> of stadiums. [<a href="https://buffalonews.com/sports/bills/the-10-newest-stadiums-in-the-nfl-and-what-buffalo-can-learn-from-them/article_e6032ffb-f5fb-5df6-9541-76d648596d83.html" rel="nofollow">https://buffalonews.com/sports/bills/the-10-newest-stadiums-...</a> ] Panem et circenses. (Dick was right.)