But there is a still deeper level, the one at which human beings confront their most profound and elemental questions and challenges: the realm of religious and spiritual life. In essays thus far, I’ve drilled down to examine transformational changes in economic life, social structure, culture, and politics unleashed by the advent of material plenty, and I’ve traced their interconnections. So that’s why I’m here: to try to get a better handle on the underlying causes of our present-day challenges, in the hope that improved understanding will shed light on how best to move forward. In all this work, I repeatedly got the sense that I was addressing the acute symptoms of deeper maladies and problems – and that responding effectively to our contemporary predicament would ultimately require engagement at that deeper level. At the Niskanen Center, I’ve worked on policies to address the problems of slow growth, high inequality, and declining state capacity, and I’ve been involved in various initiatives to shore up our legal and political system in the face of Trump’s assaults. I started this series because I wanted to get to the bottom of things.
You can access the full collection here, or subscribe to to get them straight to your inbox. “The Permanent Problem” is an ongoing series of essay about the challenges of capitalist mass affluence as well as the solutions to them.
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