Hello and welcome to David Bonson's Capital Record, brought to you by National Review, where we are constantly in search of those things that will help us promote and defend the free and virtuous society, where we are obsessed with the very idea of human flourishing and trying to help create, protect, defend, foster the conditions for a good life and what those material and immaterial components are that help us enjoy such. And one of the things that is almost indisputable throughout human history is that loneliness is the enemy of happiness and that mankind was made to not be alone, to not be in solitude, and that there is a certain part of life, a certain satisfaction we obtain, fulfillment that comes from communion with others. And that has its marks in both our family relationships as well as other social interactions. And this is not something I talk about a lot in Capitol Record. I did an episode at the beginning of the year about this in a different way that was one of my favorite episodes in interacting with an article Derek Thompson had in The Atlantic about this subject. It's something I think about a great deal, but because I am really here to promote and defend the concept of free enterprise, There are people who say from time to time, the issues of our human interactions are either outside the scope of markets or there's something that markets undermine. that as markets succeed more and more at driving efficiencies in our life and creating greater frictionlessness in the way that we interact with one another, those things could be perceived as healthy market mechanisms, but they end up kind of undermining some of our human contact and fostering some of the very loneliness or isolation that you say, David, you're against. And I want to address this subject a moment today because I want to remind everyone what the function of markets is, that markets are essentially the interaction of free humans in a commercial sphere and that it is very important that we not provide a jurisdiction to any sphere that it doesn't belong with. You know, I don't agree when people say, well so has a bad marriage What in the world is the federal government doing They need to help this family have a bad marriage And I generally now of course if the federal government passing a bunch of laws that are keeping a husband and wife apart or damaging their relationship or something, you know, you could come up with some extreme analogy. But I think we're all pretty comfortable saying that the primary culprit in either a successful or unsuccessful marriage is not the federal government. And if someone were to say, this business is failing, we wouldn't necessarily go, well, what's the church doing? I mean, why would the church not be helping this business succeed? Are they giving better business advice or helping raise capital? We don't see that in the domain of the sphere of church. And I could go on and on with this all day. I am a Kuyperian, and Abraham Kuyper famously talked about the notion of sphere sovereignty, but I don't consider any of this to be remotely controversial, that we all accept there's different silos in life that have their own jurisdictions and their own legitimacy. And the notion that we would look to markets as a primary responsible agent or domain or sphere for people's friendships and social interactions, I think is really misguided. However, I think it's a legitimate question as to whether or not markets have some role, if there are cautions. The notion that markets intrinsically undermine our emotional well-being strikes me as silly. But I'm perfectly happy to start with where there is market impact to these things. But I would say to my market skeptical friends out there that if you're going to do that, you are going to also have to address where markets may have accommodated some of these areas. So to the extent that we'll just use a high-level example, people say the market efficiency and evolution and transformation of things like food delivery has caused people to go out to restaurants less, and that's antisocial, and it's a byproduct of a market advancement. Well, that's fine. It's very much worth conversing about. I did a podcast about it earlier, the year. However, I guess you're going to have to also say, did markets, which brought us the automobile, enable us to go visit one another more? That brought us air travel to enable us to go see loved ones on the other side of the planet that we would never be able to see again? For all of the negatives we want to say about social media, and I'm at the top of that list in so many ways, But did at least an original intention markets create a vehicle by which our aunts and uncles and grandparents and old high school friends could stay in touch with one another far easier than ever before Did markets create coffee shops and bars and social clubs that provided so much interaction healthy interaction amongst mankind for so long? We take these things for granted, but when you look at most of the very healthy examples of humans being able to interact in modern times, these are conventions, advancements that markets made possible. So if we're going to look at where we think market mechanisms did damage to human communion, we have to look at where markets also facilitated it too. You can't have it one way. But again, the fact that markets have, and there's an article in the show notes from the Wall Street Journal that helped inspire a lot of thought on this topic. The fact that markets have been remarkably productive at eliminating friction in so many elements of our life and creating greater convenience, I agree wholeheartedly that that has organically facilitated less opportunity for organic human contact and interaction. In other words, because I can get any parcel delivered to me in two seconds. I remember when I first started a business after my dad died, when I was a very young man, I was going to a post office and waiting in line, I think every day. But I certainly was doing it three or four days a week. And I haven't been to a post office in so many years, I couldn't count. And I don't think I'll ever be in one again. and the various elements from package delivery to ride share to to you know you can just go through the conveniences that we've enjoyed some of which have moved very quickly but i fully accept that they've also come with there being opportunity there's greater convenience and and less friction on certain things we have to do and at the same time there's going to be less interaction or idle time. And that can be a good thing, be more productive, be more efficient, but it can be a negative. It takes away some of this humanity. And I think it's a very good point. You know, there's people that will tell me how excited they are that their pastor is such a good preacher, and that now the church has the technology to live stream the message. I went to a church yesterday here in East Hampton, and I really enjoyed the service and being with everyone. but the first thing they did was announce about the live stream that they were doing. And I know the people out here in the Hamptons, and I know there's a lot of people that maybe are taking advantage of it remotely. And to the extent that helps folks who are sick or unable to attend or have transportation problems or elderly, I get that there's an advantage, but I also understand that live stream church doesn't give you conversation and fellowship with other people in the church, which is one of the great benefits of a church community of course So I think about this from the vantage point of being absolutely unwavering unapologetic defender of markets but one who would also like to say that while I think us beating back on the inconveniences of life and embracing ways that markets make things more efficient, that there is nothing inconsistent with that and also saying that we ought to be very intentional and be very aware of innocuous, organic chances for conversation and friendship and connection that might be sacrificed sometimes because of frictionlessness in our exchanges, in our conversations, in our day-to-day commercial activities. There are some times where you have to pick the side of efficiency. And there are other times where you have to just embrace that you're going to be in line with someone at the grocery store and those types of things that come about in our day-to-day affairs. I recommend people choose their battles wisely. I don't recommend that the state have anything to do with any of this. I have no interest in their opinion as to which market conventions are healthy and which human conversations should be facilitated, how, when, why. But I do believe, to the extent I want to promote a both free and virtuous society, that I want to promote a non-lonely, pro-social climate for us to live in and flourish in, that I think we all have the responsibility ourselves to not allow the conveniences and market mechanisms to interfere with human interaction. But I don't believe that it's a fair depiction of markets to say they're doing that. Markets are very capable of creating an automobile that allow us to drive to our friend's house two hours away that we wouldn't have been able to see apart from that. And markets are also capable of making it that we isolate in our room and go four days at a time without seeing another human being. Markets are not responsible for your social, familial, human choices that lead to an emotional well-being or the lack thereof that is such an important part of your life. Thank you for listening to David Bonson's Capital Record. Yeah.
