Every revolution inspires its counter-revolution. The great revolution of our age is the Double Revolution in physics and in economy. The counter-revolution is the great movement of the left.
I first developed my notion of the Double Revolution in my "Communism Week: The Real Revolution of the Modern Age." My idea is that through two revolutions of ideas we moderns have radically changed our fundamental understandings of reality, and both revolutions have unmoored us from old certainties more than any previous revolutions because their descriptions of reality cannot be made in terms of everyday experience, of the things that we see and hear and touch with our five senses.
This fact is most obvious in the case of the physics revolution. During the 19th century there was a continuing battle over two conflicting theories of the nature of light: the corpuscular theory and the wave theory. Was light a stream of particles, or an emanation of waves? Particles and waves are both everyday experiences for humans. We understand that light bounces off a mirror like a billiard ball off a cushion and we understand the waves in the ocean, by direct experience. But which was it?
The answer developed during the relativity and quantum mechanics revolution was: neither. Or both. The fact is that, whatever is going on at the level of the atom, it is nothing like what we experience in our everyday experience of everyday life. We have mathematical theories to predict behavior and we have a sub-atomic "zoo" of metaphors and stories to talk about what is going on. An example of the mystery of the sub atomic world is the two slit experiment. If you shine white light through a slit it shines as a white slit when it hits a screen. If you shine a light through two close slits you get a wave pattern. But if you shine single quanta of light, one by one through one of two slits you still get a wave pattern. What does it mean? It means that we cannot experience the basic elements of reality as direct correspondences of human-scale phenomena.
But the same thing is true with the economics revolution, the conversion of economic life from face-to-face relations to the abstract coordination of the price system. This fact is illustrated by the story of market value. The classical economists first differentiated between use value, the value of a useful object like food, and exchange value, the value of e.g., "useless" but precious metals like gold. But in fact a price is a price, it reflects the accumulation of individual acts of buying and selling of perhaps millions of consumers and producers. An individual human can grasp the notion of use value: obviously useful things have value; and we can understand the notion of exchange value: grain prices go up and down with the weather. But the truth is that a price is a price; the only thing that is concrete is actual market transactions and their prices.
It is not surprising that this radical and overwhelming Double Revolution has spawned counter-revolutions. The most obvious one is the Communist-socialist counter-revolution. While advertising itself as the acme of progress it is in fact a nostalgic attempt to return to the good old days.
In its communist version the counter-revolution idealizes the supposed unity and equality of the village community. In its welfare-state version it re-enacts the lord-and-serf relation of feudalism. Both reactions advertise that Communism or welfare-state subjection is safer than the uncertainty of life under the market. But both of these assertions are a lie. In the village community, you better get with the program of the male village elders or the community of women or you are out of luck. In the feudal subjection you are only safe while you are useful to your lord, either producing revenue for him with your farming, or fighting and dying for him in his quarrels with the neighboring lords. If you live in a communist state, then your welfare depends on the decisions of men whose talent is for politics rather than production, and the record is that politicians are lousy at creating prosperity. If you live as a subordinate worker or beneficiary in the welfare state then your prosperity hangs on the continued power of your patron. If you work for the government you depend on your program continuing; if you work for a corporation you depend on the corporation continuing to expand and prosper.
Really, the only thing to do is to expose yourself to the market and obey its signals. As a worker you will be forced to update and improve your skills as the labor market changes. As a business you will be forced to respond to the changes in the market for your product. That way you won't wake up one day and find out that your secure job or secure government benefit isn't secure after all, because you never had a chance to go to sleep on the job.
The truth is that politicians do not care about you; they only care about your vote. Corporate CEOs don't care about you; they only care about the bottom line. The only person that cares about you is you.
Another reactionary counter-revolution is the environmental movement, which yearns really for a world before the Newtonian mechanical age and a return to a rural idyll before the invention of heat engines and power-assisted everything. Of course, life was always great for well-born scions, then as now. Well, it is great until the tumbrels start to roll.
The question is, how long are these counter-revolutions going to continue, and what will be the net effect of them a century from now?
I first developed my notion of the Double Revolution in my "Communism Week: The Real Revolution of the Modern Age." My idea is that through two revolutions of ideas we moderns have radically changed our fundamental understandings of reality, and both revolutions have unmoored us from old certainties more than any previous revolutions because their descriptions of reality cannot be made in terms of everyday experience, of the things that we see and hear and touch with our five senses.
This fact is most obvious in the case of the physics revolution. During the 19th century there was a continuing battle over two conflicting theories of the nature of light: the corpuscular theory and the wave theory. Was light a stream of particles, or an emanation of waves? Particles and waves are both everyday experiences for humans. We understand that light bounces off a mirror like a billiard ball off a cushion and we understand the waves in the ocean, by direct experience. But which was it?
The answer developed during the relativity and quantum mechanics revolution was: neither. Or both. The fact is that, whatever is going on at the level of the atom, it is nothing like what we experience in our everyday experience of everyday life. We have mathematical theories to predict behavior and we have a sub-atomic "zoo" of metaphors and stories to talk about what is going on. An example of the mystery of the sub atomic world is the two slit experiment. If you shine white light through a slit it shines as a white slit when it hits a screen. If you shine a light through two close slits you get a wave pattern. But if you shine single quanta of light, one by one through one of two slits you still get a wave pattern. What does it mean? It means that we cannot experience the basic elements of reality as direct correspondences of human-scale phenomena.
But the same thing is true with the economics revolution, the conversion of economic life from face-to-face relations to the abstract coordination of the price system. This fact is illustrated by the story of market value. The classical economists first differentiated between use value, the value of a useful object like food, and exchange value, the value of e.g., "useless" but precious metals like gold. But in fact a price is a price, it reflects the accumulation of individual acts of buying and selling of perhaps millions of consumers and producers. An individual human can grasp the notion of use value: obviously useful things have value; and we can understand the notion of exchange value: grain prices go up and down with the weather. But the truth is that a price is a price; the only thing that is concrete is actual market transactions and their prices.
It is not surprising that this radical and overwhelming Double Revolution has spawned counter-revolutions. The most obvious one is the Communist-socialist counter-revolution. While advertising itself as the acme of progress it is in fact a nostalgic attempt to return to the good old days.
In its communist version the counter-revolution idealizes the supposed unity and equality of the village community. In its welfare-state version it re-enacts the lord-and-serf relation of feudalism. Both reactions advertise that Communism or welfare-state subjection is safer than the uncertainty of life under the market. But both of these assertions are a lie. In the village community, you better get with the program of the male village elders or the community of women or you are out of luck. In the feudal subjection you are only safe while you are useful to your lord, either producing revenue for him with your farming, or fighting and dying for him in his quarrels with the neighboring lords. If you live in a communist state, then your welfare depends on the decisions of men whose talent is for politics rather than production, and the record is that politicians are lousy at creating prosperity. If you live as a subordinate worker or beneficiary in the welfare state then your prosperity hangs on the continued power of your patron. If you work for the government you depend on your program continuing; if you work for a corporation you depend on the corporation continuing to expand and prosper.
Really, the only thing to do is to expose yourself to the market and obey its signals. As a worker you will be forced to update and improve your skills as the labor market changes. As a business you will be forced to respond to the changes in the market for your product. That way you won't wake up one day and find out that your secure job or secure government benefit isn't secure after all, because you never had a chance to go to sleep on the job.
The truth is that politicians do not care about you; they only care about your vote. Corporate CEOs don't care about you; they only care about the bottom line. The only person that cares about you is you.
Another reactionary counter-revolution is the environmental movement, which yearns really for a world before the Newtonian mechanical age and a return to a rural idyll before the invention of heat engines and power-assisted everything. Of course, life was always great for well-born scions, then as now. Well, it is great until the tumbrels start to roll.
The question is, how long are these counter-revolutions going to continue, and what will be the net effect of them a century from now?
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