Bizarre Paradox of the 20th Century

[AiA in Atlanta]

Any thoughts on this? Explains so so much ...

I am happy to cheer, with Deirdre McCloskey: ‘Hurrah for late twentieth-century enrichment and democratisation. Hurrah for birth control and the civil rights movement. Arise ye wretched of the earth’. Interdependence through the market made these things possible. Politically, as Brink Lindsey has diagnosed, the coincidence of wealth with toleration has led to the bizarre paradox of a conservative movement that embraces economic change but hates its social consequences and a liberal movement that loves the social consequences but hates the economic source from which they come. ‘One side denounced capitalism but gobbled up its fruits; the other cursed the fruits while defending the system that bore them.’

Ridley, Matt (2010-06-10). The Rational Optimist (P.S.) (pp. 109-110). Harper Collins, Inc.. Kindle Edition.

[Rorschach]

personally I think it's a crap statemet.

Is tolerance somehow mutually exclusive from other stuff?
What tolerance or should I say tolerance of what is "brink" (he/she?) referring to?

The confusion of right, left, conservative and "liberal" progressive, makes understanding quite complicated. Extremism doesn't bode well in almost all situations.
I doubt many people are actually all painted one way or the other.

I certainly doubt the veracity of the statement. At least with the sane.

[freediver]

It's phrased in an interesting way, but there is something not quite right about it. I think it's the idea that social freedom/progress is the result of economic freedom/progress. Plus the generalisations are very broad.

[AiA in Atlanta]

Where has freedom existed where commerce did not exist? Religious tolerance and women's rights began with free enterprise.

[freediver]

Commerce requires a certain amount of freedom too. You are confusing correlation with causation.

[Rorschach]

Where has freedom existed where commerce did not exist? Religious tolerance and women's rights began with free enterprise.

Depends on what sort of freedom you are restricting your thinking to and I have no idea what you think.
Of course freedom existed before commerce. Lots of primitive societies existed with out it and existing ones still do.

[boxy]

Depends on what sort of freedom you are restricting your thinking to...

Indeed. Freedom comes in all sorts of flavours. We have lost quite a bit of freedom, due to our increased population density (to live in close contact with so many others, we need to make more and more rules to keep the peace).

Egalitarianism, rather than freedom, has increased with the consumerist age. Corporate profits increase with the size of the middle classes.

[freediver]

The economic freedoms that helped to bring about the progress we have seen over the last few centuries are similar to the social and political freedoms. One did not really cause the other. They are part of the same movement.

[AiA in Atlanta]

No, trade/commerce freed people from the grind of survival and gave them the chance to develop beyond the basics.

[AiA in Atlanta]

We have lost quite a bit of freedom, due to our increased population density (to live in close contact with so many others, we need to make more and more rules to keep the peace).

Subsistence farming is a poverty trap which is why so many prefer urban slums over the family plot of land.