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Create Your Own Economy: The Path To Prosperity In A Disordered World (2009)

by Tyler Cowen(Favorite Author)

3.11 of 5 Votes: 3

ISBN

0525951237 (ISBN13: 9780525951230)

languge

English

genre

Nonfiction

publisher

Dutton Adult

review 1: This is an extremely difficult book to summarize. If I had to sum it up: the Internet is making us more autistic, and that’s a good thing. Autistics are relatively good at ordering information. Information technology is helping us all do this – our Google Readers order the blogosphere for us, our Facebook news feeds order our social lives for us, etc. In a sense, IT is like a capital good, and we’re using it “create our own economy”—our internal mental production. The IT era is also good for autistics. Cowen borrows from Adam Smith’s argument that division of labor was limited by the development of the market. Marx argued that increasing specialization at pin factories, etc led to alienation. Cowen argues that, alternatively, “neurodiverse” people like au... moretistics, given their distinct cognitive strengths, are better off if they can specialize on what they do best rather than having to be jacks-of-all-trades. Moreover, the Internet has made autistics more socially connected (e.g. Internet groups based on very specific interests).The chapters are each self-contained essay and they are fairly loosely related. I’d say the following themes run throughout: (1) a revisionist take on autism (2) a culturally optimistic take on the Internet (3) a response to behavioral economists like Thaler / Sunstein (4) an exploration of the liberating potential of “interiority” (Cowen’s word for our internal mental states). Cowen argues that autism should be conceptualized differently. Instead of thinking about autistics as people with a “disorder” that needs to be “cured,” we should see them instead as just “neurodiverse.” A long list of very successful people have been autistic (Tesla, Spielberg, Nobel laureate economists, possibly Bill Gates, etc.). And their success is partially a product of cognitive strengths associated with autism. Moreover, many negative stereotypes about autistics are wrong. For example, people generally think autistics just don’t care about others, given their problems socially connecting to others. Cowen argues that they just lack cognition about other people’s emotions, but that they often still have compassion. Cowen links the theme of neurodiversity back to various disciplines with separate chapters on aesthetics, politics, literature, education, and religion. In his chapter in literature, he provides several examples of seemingly autistic characters revered by readers. Sherlock Holmes gets the most focus here, given his obsessive focus on small details, lack of romantic partners, etc. In his chapter on aesthetics, Cowen argues that, though a lot of differences in tastes of art are status-related / social (e.g., I have to listen to country music because my peer group does; I have to hang up expensive pictures to look wealthy), many of these differences are neurological. Autistics, Cowen argues, often have very eccentric tastes in art (e.g. in atonal music that most listeners think is painful to hear) because of having mental processes that order sensory inputs differently. We might look at people who like music that sounds like cacophony to us as people with a “disorder.” Cowen, once again, presents a revisionist view: perhaps it’s our failure to appreciate the beauty in the same sounds that’s the real disorder. In the politics chapter, Cowen argues that we have a lot to learn from autistics. People often won’t change their views even when presented with empirical evidence refuting them, people tend to see politics in us v. them tribal terms and fall for simple narratives (e.g. oil prices are high because Republicans love oil companies! The terrorists are winning because the Democrats hate America!). Cowen argues that autistics process political information more dispassionately, are less easily seduced by stories, and are more cosmopolitan (perhaps because they were never particularly integrated with their own cities and countries). Moreover, he notes that an autistic cognitive style is especially suited for understanding universally applicable rules that are part of an abstract Hayekian order. Cowen notes that the most prosperous nations – the US, UK, New Zealand, etc – are committed to the rule of law. In cultures where tribalism and kinship are more important (e.g. personal ties are especially valued in Russia), the rule of law is absent and politics is consequently dysfunctional. In other words, Russian politics is insufficiently autistic.Cowen’s chapter on education is a case that education is an attempt to make us more autistic. In light of the fact that most education doesn’t make us more productive (did those high school Latin translations help you on the job?), some economists argue that employers pay a premium for the educated because an education signals intelligence, etc. In other words, it just proves to people the attributes we already have. In Cowen’s view, this is partially correct. However, he argues that a lot of education is “acculturation.” If someone becomes a Mormon, their self-image will change and they will consequently be less likely to drink, etc. Likewise, education is an acculturation process where schools try to make us better at focusing, mentally ordering, etc. (in other words, making us more autistic).The biggest challenge Cowen presents to the benefits of an autistic cognitive style is Buddhist teaching. Buddhism is suspicious of complex forms of mental ordering (hence, the value of “om”) and emphasizes neuroplasticity (the manipulation of the human mind). Cowen concedes that mental ordering can be taken too far (e.g. financial economist Fischer Black catalogued and alphabetized records of every convo he had). However, he ultimately concludes that Buddhism is insufficiently appreciative of neurodiversity: mental ordering is fun for some people; there are many paths to liberation; the brain isn’t infinitely plastic.Beyond all the material on neurodiversity, the book also presents an optimistic take on the Internet. Many cultural pessimists say that small bits (blogs, Wikipedia, short articles) are shifting our focus away from books, etc and killing our attention span. Moreover, they argue that social media is a poor substitute for real friendships, degrading convo into LOLs and smiley faces. Cowen makes some obvious points in response. Blogs, news articles, etc are often part of a long-running story we are following. So in this sense our attention span hasn’t suffered. Likewise, with social networking media, we can better keep in touch with old friends. The “Google is making us stupid” line is especially misguided in light of the Flynn Effect – IQs are rising over time. Cowen uses some econ to shed light on the modern world. The Alchian-Allen theorem states that as fixed costs increase, we will replace consumption of a low-quality good with consumption of a high-quality substitute. The reverse is true when fixed costs go down. So, think of this way: if going to the theater was very costly (say, traveling by horse and buggy for days), you’d only go to the best / longest shows (not a 5 minute event). Now, since accessing a YouTube clip is virtually costless, we’re consuming a higher share of very small bits. That being said, as Cowen puts it, “modern culture is like marriage in all its glory.” If we’re in a long-distance relationship, it’s not worth traveling cross country to get a peck on the cheek and watch TV. When we make the cross country trip, we’ll have passionate sex, go on a romantic adventure somewhere, etc. Marriage, however, is marked by a lower relative share of those grand events. To the outside world, the pecks on the cheek, washing dishes, etc that come with marriage are not particularly meaningful. However, we take these “small bits” to create a personal blend that has meaning for us. Likewise, to the external observer, Gchat convos, YouTube clips, Wikipedia articles and blog posts we read, etc don’t seem particular meaningful. However, we use these small bits to create meaning and our “own economy.” Put differently, the value we place on things depends on the “frames” we put on them. This borrows from the behavioral economics literature. However, Cowen’s takeaway is different. Many behavioral economists look at our framing effects in the lab (e.g., we’ll say a wine tastes better if an “expert” tells us how great it is before we drink it, we perceive equivalent losses/ gains differently depending on whether they’re framed as losses or gains, etc) and argue we should “nudge” people away from them. Cowen notes that, unlike in the lab, we choose our frames in the real world. And, without these frames, our lives wouldn’t have meaning. Cowen does point to a danger of being too easily seduced by stories – framing things in terms of simple narratives often means we strip out vital details (the ones autistics retain) and can be self-destructive (a story that housing prices will never go down will doom my mortgage-backed assets). And politicians / advertisers send us many misleading narratives. However, once again, Cowen notes that IT is mitigating the potentially destructive impact of framing effects: “if you’re trying to addict me to drinking expensive bottles of red wine, such a habit now has some especially cheap competition, again as can be found on the web.” The book pushes the “create your own economy” theme of interiority to its limits. Cowen takes Nozick’s experience machine example and argues that, at some margin, we’d want to plug in (contra Nozick). Nozick was a handsome, rich, powerful intellectual in Cambridge, so he didn’t want to plug in. If you were suffering from malnutrition in a war zone, you might want to plug in. Cowen puts it this way: we are all typically deluded by loads of stories that frame our internal economy. Instead of Nozick’s binary choice of “plug into blissful fantasy or stay in reality,” Cowen’s formulation is more like “how delusional do you want to be?” Given that many non-autistics do not want autistics' disconnection from stories, a lot of us really highly value delusion apparently. The book closes with Fermi’s Paradox and Drake’s Equation: even under very conservative estimates, extraterrestrial life is likely. (ME: really???) Why don’t we communicate with them? Perhaps they’ve taken interiority so far that they see no need to be exhibitionists with big buildings and communication; perhaps they’re whole existence is internal. My Take:I don’t know anything about autism, so I can’t assess his claims about it. But I wonder about his reconstruction of the term. I have a friend with a remarkable and obsessive memory with basketball statistics. In other words, he has an autistic cognitive style. Yet, he’s highly socially functional. If we define him as “autistic” given his strengths, it means that autistics with real medical problems are no longer singled out for treatment. I understand Cowen’s tolerance-related reasons for doing this. But, I think there are medical reasons for making these distinctions – just as we’d call someone with one arm or someone blind “disabled.” [I’m NOT saying this definition means we owe them any less respect.] Moreover, his attempt to link every topic back to autism seems forced at times. Also, I’m not convinced by his economics of education analysis. The acculturation thesis seems right at early ages. However, isn’t our self-image pretty set by age 20? It’s hard to see an acculturation rationale for most college and grad school. Bryan Caplan’s signaling model is more convincing here.As for his chapters on the Internet, it’s refreshing to hear a culturally optimistic take on the Internet (in many ways, this book is like an IT oriented sequel to his “In Praise of Commercial Culture”). I can sympathize with a lot of his praise for the Internet. I’ve learned more macroeconomics from blogs than in college. And social media has strengthened my friendship with old friends in other cities. That being said, Facebook / Gchat / Wikipedia / the blogosphere have also destroyed my productivity on various days. As Cowen notes, stories can be addictive, and hence destructive. Likewise, blogs and Facebook can be addictive and a threat to our sovereignty. I think Cowen’s view is partially shaped by his superhuman ability to read everything on the Internet while remaining ultra-productive. Beneath the diverse analysis here, Cowen’s Austrian roots come out. This book is marked by its radical subjectivism (it was an old Misesian axiom that all value is subjective). To the outside observer, our GChat convos, Facebook news feed, RSS blog roll, pecks on the cheek with our spouses, etc look inconsequential. But, in our head, we’ve created an “economy” where that all has a lot of value. Likewise, to the outside world, the autistic man’s love of atonal music is bizarre. But, in his head, there’s massive beauty there that we can’t see. The book’s methodological approach to economics is also very subtly Austrian. Cowen takes mainstream economics to task for focusing only on human behavior and paying insufficient attention to what people believe and how their minds work. This is an old theme from Mises – to understand economics, Martians can’t just watch people coming and going from Grand Central at 8 and 5 and deduce accordingly. We have to understand their psychological motivations to make human action intelligible. Cowen cites Adam Smith (see the Theory of Moral Sentiments), Hayek, and his Harvard mentor Thomas Schelling as the original behavioral economists. Cowen celebrates contemporary behavioral economists’ attempt to break down the artificial wall between psychology and economics. In summary: Cowen doesn’t always fill in all the gaps for his readers. And the topics are only loosely connected, so this is a very difficult work to read. That being said, I found it fruitful and conceptualize inner mental existence completely differently after working through this. Also, for MarginalRev fans, this book has very little overlap with his blog. Moreover, I’d argue this book is, even more than his others, a testament to his unparalleled intellectual range. The book shifts from Kant’s metaphysics to Hume on aesthetics to an analysis of Herman Hesse to some old school game theory to psychology / neurology, etc. This is something that could've only been produced through a lifetime of obsessive learning (with an autistic cognitive style) and daily conversations / debates with other geniuses like Robin Hanson.
review 2: A very interesting book! Cowen explains human diversity in terms of our neurology, explaining that there are a lot of positive aspects of the autistic spectrum, that autistics receive a bad rap in contemporary culture. Education, he points out, is organized to teach us to focus and remember information, which are two autistic traits. Cowen goes way beyond education to show how autistic traits would be helpful for all us to understand better. By paying attention to our neuro-diversity, we will be better citizens, better people in general, and less likely to accept the stereotypes and common cultural biases of the supposedly neuro-common.Cowen challenges our assumptions and presents a persuasive argument for viewing our world differently, and accepting the artistic and cognitive differences among humans. One point he makes that I found fascinating and insightful was that so many people consider the westernization of common culture in China, for example, to be a loss for human diversity because it appears to promote popular western culture over local cultural norms. Cowen counters that in today's globally-connected world with the internet and easy access to world-wide information and opinion, that geographic and national boundaries represent an antiquated view of human diversity. The fact that there are people interested in online games or any other hobby or intellectual pursuit who can connect on the web makes these old boundaries less important.In regard to the book's title, the author points out that in centuries (and even decades) past, in order to appreciate some of the leading examples of culture (e.g, the Sistine Chapel), people had to make the pilgramage to the site. Although that is still true, there is so much more of a proliferation of artistic innovation these days. Creating your own economy can be as simple as participating in online pursuits that further your own artistic interests. For an autistic person this might be tracking patterns in baseball statistics over a season. For anyone, in fact, it might be finding that pattern of stimuli that engages your attention. less

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