There's a Simpsons scene that you may like as it relates to a lot of what you're saying here. In the episode, Lisa manages Bart's little league team, implementing all the sabermetrics spreadsheet wisdom, which improves the team but which Bart deeply resents. At the end, Bart decides to steal home to win the big game while Lisa stammers about how statistically impossible this play is until she's finally overtaken by the moment, saying "it's the most exciting play in baseball" before breaking out in cheers for her brother. It's really a beautiful scene. Like you said, life (like baseball) is not a spreadsheet.
There is an ecosystem of artists, an unknown underground, and the successful ones that we see copied the unknowns and yes, are able to make it when the culture is ready. Elvis with bluesmen who often toiled in obscurity for decades....THEN its time has come to the culture when it's sanded down and offered to the greater culture at large. Even Elvis' hips were too much at first... until they weren't.
We used to have genius gatekeepers who knew when culture was ready, or thought they knew.
But now, yes, everything is for a paycheck which changes the dynamic, and the secret weirdos can't live cheaply and there's no more underground as we've been priced out everywhere and everywhere is for sale.
So your theory is only taking in the age of internet, which has made us all whores.
However I believe people get tired of crap culture at some point, and that's when the thinkers and artists already on the fringe become the pretty people again because we get desperate for a new idea story or way out or around. Then they'll be copied by someone more relatable palatable and famous, and it will seem that they came out of pop culture, when they were carrying other underground ideas forward that had already been discussed much earlier and tested in the underground few know about.
I'm not at the beginning level myself; I just know to look for them. The weirdos no one knows and people think are mad.
I know one or two in real life, and John Michael Greer is an online example. He's considered hella pretty now.
Yeah. old enough to have tangibly remember the "Ad-ification" of everything, the branding and naming and pushing of every.fucking.thing. Like a tidal wave.
Not sure, when exactly, but we did fleetingly notice that life turned into 'keeping up with the Joneses' and then into 'Huh! conspicuous consumption' and now just hectic, swollen, self-impressed ennui and ads on everything and influencer slop everywhere.
Depending on the day (maybe I am not alone in this) we're either gonna be OK, and pull out, or we're all well and truly fucked beyond any navigable solution and we're going to have to crash uncontrollably against something before we can reset.
I think Pirsig was hopeful (not *quite* in this context, but close enough) for a 'ratchet' -- not total collapse, but a reset. LIke what happened to VZ when the Socialists started winning, e.g.. Maybe they'll make it back, maybe not.
OTOH, the sun never used to set on the British Empire, but nowadays, under the optimized guidance of the EU, they are kneeling and lifting asses to their new replacements. What, you don't like kebab?
Nice article. You alluded to it, but it would have been interesting if you highlighted some of the downstream effects of economic incentives on politics, art, culture, morality etc. Much of this can be arguably be attributed to the high-time-preference fiat monetary system which encourages debt, borrowing and consumption over productivity, savings and long-termism in general.
Your idea that environment preceeds culture which preceeds art reminds me of the Talebian (and Matt Ridley amongst others) notion of practice (tinkering and trial and error) preceeding theory with respect to innovation and discovery. Art is like a cultural observation / feeling, which is in turn a reaction to environmental conditions. In the same way, a fancy formula describing the stability of a building may be a theorisation of processes developed organically by master-apprentice relationships over generations.
thank you very much for reading and sharing these thoughts.
high-time preference rules everything around us, unfortunately. to fix this, we must return to valuing that which is not immediately measurable. rationalism overwhelms societal decision making, and it does not understand the unquantifiable. a terminal flaw.
>The average Chinese worker is about 20% as productive as the American one
I don't buy this at all. The hardworking agile workers, building infrastructure and industrial capacity in record time, working 12-14 hour shifts, in top of the line advanced factories nonetheless, are "less productive" than the average American worker? Have you seen the average american worker? Or is the idea that the Chinese worker of the 21st century is some kind of lazy or inefficient oriental type straight out of Kipling?
Only two ways those numbers are arrived at, both problematic:
- If this productivity is measured in economic output (e.g. how many $$$ they sold, as opposed to goods produced vs costs) then it's using a measure to measure itself, and it's not a good metric. Even worse if it counts all kinds of non-productive crap and busywork that goes into US GDP metrics.
Let's assume a Chinese person making a X product sold to US for $1 and being paid $0.2 for the hour it took. Then the same American takes it, *repackages* it (as most US productivity is, e.g. Apple and Google hardware, fashion industry), and sells it for $10, while being paid $0.4.
The American nominally is 10x as productive. That's how an economist would see productivity.
But that's a mirage. And it's those economists, and this "goo" idea of productivity that lead to the modern mess.
Still they couldn't build a paperbag, and they're dependent on cheaper foreign labor to even have a lifestyle.
it's a labor productivity stat. there's nothing to disagree with. you're telling a bunch of stories here when it's a simple numerical figure based off GDP and worker wages, provided to illustrate how the Chinese worker is systematically underpaid relative to what he produces. obviously the Chinese work very hard, and that's not the point. the point is they're underpaid relative to what they produce. quantitatively so.
GDP per worker: Take total GDP and divide by total employment. For rough 2024 numbers, US GDP per employed person is around $140,000-150,000, while China's is roughly $25,000-30,000 (PPP-adjusted). That puts Chinese workers at approximately 17-20% of US productivity levels.
they're about 20% as productive yet make only around 15% of the wage; that's a major delta and a large competitive advantage for Chinese manufacturing.
this mechanical breakdown is further illustrated in part 3, which gets much more technical.
idk what your Kipling comment is even referring to; don't make silly accusations like that. ask if you want clarification. it's basic math and accounting.
Alright, but you didn't just say "underpaid relative to what they produce" (with which I'd agree) but less productive than American workers ("20% as productive"). That's what I have issue with.
My comment alluded to the fact that one might be seeing Chinese workers as unproductive, because they cling to the antiquated Kipling-era colonial prejudice about them as lazy "coolies".
I read your Note as if you had actual productivity in mind (actual hours put in, effort, manufacturing output, etc), and thus accusing the Chinese of not being hard working.
The metric you had in mind instead (GDP/employment numbers), while a hard fact I can't but accept, it's easy to argue against as a bogus metric when it comes with counting real-world productivity that matters.
It includes all kind of bullshit bureucratic busy work, repacking and selling goods that another country makes for 10-100x, stock driven speculation, Fed facilitated bogus demand, and so on.
Which is what the US economy has lowered itself to into the last 30-40 years. It's a profitable racket, and the GDP can get sky high, but it hardly produces (the term where the "produc-" in productivity comes from) anything.
There's a Simpsons scene that you may like as it relates to a lot of what you're saying here. In the episode, Lisa manages Bart's little league team, implementing all the sabermetrics spreadsheet wisdom, which improves the team but which Bart deeply resents. At the end, Bart decides to steal home to win the big game while Lisa stammers about how statistically impossible this play is until she's finally overtaken by the moment, saying "it's the most exciting play in baseball" before breaking out in cheers for her brother. It's really a beautiful scene. Like you said, life (like baseball) is not a spreadsheet.
yeah, perfect illustration. I grew up a Simpson's watcher (back when it was good) but don't recall this scene.
Dear Dmitry,
There is an ecosystem of artists, an unknown underground, and the successful ones that we see copied the unknowns and yes, are able to make it when the culture is ready. Elvis with bluesmen who often toiled in obscurity for decades....THEN its time has come to the culture when it's sanded down and offered to the greater culture at large. Even Elvis' hips were too much at first... until they weren't.
We used to have genius gatekeepers who knew when culture was ready, or thought they knew.
But now, yes, everything is for a paycheck which changes the dynamic, and the secret weirdos can't live cheaply and there's no more underground as we've been priced out everywhere and everywhere is for sale.
So your theory is only taking in the age of internet, which has made us all whores.
However I believe people get tired of crap culture at some point, and that's when the thinkers and artists already on the fringe become the pretty people again because we get desperate for a new idea story or way out or around. Then they'll be copied by someone more relatable palatable and famous, and it will seem that they came out of pop culture, when they were carrying other underground ideas forward that had already been discussed much earlier and tested in the underground few know about.
I'm not at the beginning level myself; I just know to look for them. The weirdos no one knows and people think are mad.
I know one or two in real life, and John Michael Greer is an online example. He's considered hella pretty now.
Always a good day when I see JMG get a shout-out on Substack.
Yeah. old enough to have tangibly remember the "Ad-ification" of everything, the branding and naming and pushing of every.fucking.thing. Like a tidal wave.
Not sure, when exactly, but we did fleetingly notice that life turned into 'keeping up with the Joneses' and then into 'Huh! conspicuous consumption' and now just hectic, swollen, self-impressed ennui and ads on everything and influencer slop everywhere.
Depending on the day (maybe I am not alone in this) we're either gonna be OK, and pull out, or we're all well and truly fucked beyond any navigable solution and we're going to have to crash uncontrollably against something before we can reset.
I think Pirsig was hopeful (not *quite* in this context, but close enough) for a 'ratchet' -- not total collapse, but a reset. LIke what happened to VZ when the Socialists started winning, e.g.. Maybe they'll make it back, maybe not.
OTOH, the sun never used to set on the British Empire, but nowadays, under the optimized guidance of the EU, they are kneeling and lifting asses to their new replacements. What, you don't like kebab?
Nice article. You alluded to it, but it would have been interesting if you highlighted some of the downstream effects of economic incentives on politics, art, culture, morality etc. Much of this can be arguably be attributed to the high-time-preference fiat monetary system which encourages debt, borrowing and consumption over productivity, savings and long-termism in general.
Your idea that environment preceeds culture which preceeds art reminds me of the Talebian (and Matt Ridley amongst others) notion of practice (tinkering and trial and error) preceeding theory with respect to innovation and discovery. Art is like a cultural observation / feeling, which is in turn a reaction to environmental conditions. In the same way, a fancy formula describing the stability of a building may be a theorisation of processes developed organically by master-apprentice relationships over generations.
thank you very much for reading and sharing these thoughts.
high-time preference rules everything around us, unfortunately. to fix this, we must return to valuing that which is not immediately measurable. rationalism overwhelms societal decision making, and it does not understand the unquantifiable. a terminal flaw.
Is Mr Beast the artist of 2010s / 2020s?
I wasn't explicitly thinking of him but yeah, he does sadly kinda fit the bill
>The average Chinese worker is about 20% as productive as the American one
I don't buy this at all. The hardworking agile workers, building infrastructure and industrial capacity in record time, working 12-14 hour shifts, in top of the line advanced factories nonetheless, are "less productive" than the average American worker? Have you seen the average american worker? Or is the idea that the Chinese worker of the 21st century is some kind of lazy or inefficient oriental type straight out of Kipling?
Only two ways those numbers are arrived at, both problematic:
- If this productivity is measured in economic output (e.g. how many $$$ they sold, as opposed to goods produced vs costs) then it's using a measure to measure itself, and it's not a good metric. Even worse if it counts all kinds of non-productive crap and busywork that goes into US GDP metrics.
Let's assume a Chinese person making a X product sold to US for $1 and being paid $0.2 for the hour it took. Then the same American takes it, *repackages* it (as most US productivity is, e.g. Apple and Google hardware, fashion industry), and sells it for $10, while being paid $0.4.
The American nominally is 10x as productive. That's how an economist would see productivity.
But that's a mirage. And it's those economists, and this "goo" idea of productivity that lead to the modern mess.
Still they couldn't build a paperbag, and they're dependent on cheaper foreign labor to even have a lifestyle.
it's a labor productivity stat. there's nothing to disagree with. you're telling a bunch of stories here when it's a simple numerical figure based off GDP and worker wages, provided to illustrate how the Chinese worker is systematically underpaid relative to what he produces. obviously the Chinese work very hard, and that's not the point. the point is they're underpaid relative to what they produce. quantitatively so.
GDP per worker: Take total GDP and divide by total employment. For rough 2024 numbers, US GDP per employed person is around $140,000-150,000, while China's is roughly $25,000-30,000 (PPP-adjusted). That puts Chinese workers at approximately 17-20% of US productivity levels.
they're about 20% as productive yet make only around 15% of the wage; that's a major delta and a large competitive advantage for Chinese manufacturing.
this mechanical breakdown is further illustrated in part 3, which gets much more technical.
idk what your Kipling comment is even referring to; don't make silly accusations like that. ask if you want clarification. it's basic math and accounting.
further broken down here:
https://thedosagemakesitso.substack.com/p/the-bug-strategy-tariffs-labor-and
Alright, but you didn't just say "underpaid relative to what they produce" (with which I'd agree) but less productive than American workers ("20% as productive"). That's what I have issue with.
My comment alluded to the fact that one might be seeing Chinese workers as unproductive, because they cling to the antiquated Kipling-era colonial prejudice about them as lazy "coolies".
I read your Note as if you had actual productivity in mind (actual hours put in, effort, manufacturing output, etc), and thus accusing the Chinese of not being hard working.
The metric you had in mind instead (GDP/employment numbers), while a hard fact I can't but accept, it's easy to argue against as a bogus metric when it comes with counting real-world productivity that matters.
It includes all kind of bullshit bureucratic busy work, repacking and selling goods that another country makes for 10-100x, stock driven speculation, Fed facilitated bogus demand, and so on.
Which is what the US economy has lowered itself to into the last 30-40 years. It's a profitable racket, and the GDP can get sky high, but it hardly produces (the term where the "produc-" in productivity comes from) anything.