The 20th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin wall was celebrated recently, giving rise to many reflections on how important this event was for the world. It was the moment that signaled the end of the cold war and the de facto fall of the Soviet Union, or at least of its influence as a superpower. The reflections are timely: twenty years seems to be the perfect time frame for a lot of things to change in the world, without people completely forgetting about what it was like before (and most of them alive to talk about it).
The prevailing opinion (i.e. held everywhere except in Russia and some of the countries that were directly dependent on the Soviet Union) is that the fall of the Berlin wall was a good thing. It liberated millions of people from the oppression of their regimes and ushered in an era of economic development. It is difficult to argue otherwise: the days of waiting in line for basic food elements provided by the government are long gone, as is looking over your shoulder in fear of secret police. Surely having a choice between ten different kinds of laundry detergent is better than just using occasionally the one developed by central planning (actually, it seems that this last bit may be over-rated: many East-Germans are going back to the DDR brands).
I am not going to claim that the fall of the Berlin wall was a bad thing. In any case, something like that is mostly meaningless from the practical point of view: you cannot change what happened. I would, however, like to offer a few thoughts about the post-cold war world that we are living in, in particular about its inherent dangers and imperfections. And we live in a world in which the winning system of government is free-market capitalism. This may seem strange since capitalism is an economic system, and not a government one, but the point is that the leading world powers all have in common a free market economy. The fall of the Berlin wall may have meant "freedom from oppression" for millions, but you can have a non-democratic system in a country and still do quite fine. What happened 20 years ago, in other words, was not a victory of democracy, but a victory of capitalism. This is even true for China, which -- despite its one-party system which is often bashed for lack of human rights -- learned its lesson from the failures of the Soviet system, and is now getting itself out of incredible poverty it was facing just several decades ago (and in the process dramatically improving the lives of many of its citizens). The concern about what is happening in China is seen through western goggles and is often more critical than it should be. Most people in China feel that the system is working better than ever, and anyway the high moral ground that the West feels to be on is an illusion. For all the talk about human rights, the world's most powerful economy does not have a problem supporting Israel (guilty of numerous human rights violations), since this is in its direct military and economic interest (as well as pushed for powerful lobbies at home). In other words, personal interests still trumps human rights even in the west, so why should it be different elsewhere? In particular the criticism of China is mostly an expression of insecurity about the longitude permanence of the world power pecking order. But I digress.
Back to the main subject. What can be wrong with capitalism? After all, thanks to it, billions of people are living much better today than their ancestors. People may refute this claim, but the fact is that in previous centuries only a small number of people lived well, and they did this on the backs of many people who worked day and night with few things to say about their own life, including what they were going to do in their life and who they are going to spend it with (I am talking about the feudal systems and those before it). Some things changed with the start of the industrial revolutions, but little on the scale that it is reaching today. People live ever longer, and they have a superior quality of life across all social classes today than ever before. The main feature of capitalism is that the actions of many individuals guided by their own interests will end up doing the best thing for the society as a whole. The classic economic theory models an individual as a utility maximizer, which people tend to be, for the most part (the human history offers very few counter-arguments against) so it seems that we have found a system which is perfectly suited for human nature.
But here is the twist. For the first time in history, the goal of most people is guided by pure utility maximization. It is not driven by someone else's interest, by ideology (religious or national) or social norms (although this aspect still remains). This seems like a good thing: after all some of the worst things in humanity happened because of the things I just mentioned. But the common to all of these is that they are "higher" goals. They transcend our own being, which means that people's motivation is of different quality. Some exceptions include scores of highly talented people (the likes of which you can find watching TED, who have found a motivation that transcends their own being). But most people cannot cope with this newfound freedom of motivation. They were not been properly trained for guiding their own life.
In the absence of a higher goal (a "life of purpose" as one TEDster calls is), most people's search of utility maximization defaults to increasing their individual hedonistic experience. This is bad news for the new generations, who are actually brought up by parents having these values, while at the same time being exposed to the "instant satisfaction" culture brought by video games and internet. This breads gratification culture on steroids. People are used to having results fast. They have trouble forming relationships (and staying in them) because as soon as things get tough they think "this other person is not for me", and leave. They may not be happy having one car because someone else has a bigger and better. But any car is already great! It already does everything you may need. However our twisted motivation does not see this, because it is still trying to maximize the wrong utility function. I realize that my trail of thought has led me seemingly astray from the main subject. But in fact the utility maximizing mindset means that people are no longer happy with just anything: they want "the best". And finding "the best" is impossible as every decision involves tradeoffs and certain imperfections. And there always seems to be a "better" choice, while in reality the other choice may have many flaws that we are not aware of because we are only comparing with the aspect of the current choice we are not perfectly happy with. This holds as much for our partners, as well as for products we buy.
This text is getting too long, so here is my main thesis: people may be less happy now than before, and they may get even more miserable in the future, despite their objective increase in the quality of life. I hope I am mistaking. I hope that the educational system and the parenting styles will adapt to the new realities and take them into account when bringing up new generations of consumers... I mean people. But currently there is little evidence of too many people understanding the problem. My own thoughts are confused on the subject and this is only my first attempt at gathering them in a coherent manner. But they are coming from a malaise that I am feeling every time I remind myself that we are now living under a system which is "the worst system, except for all the other ones out there". These are not the only thoughts I have on the subject; I feel that there are also some fundamental human values and habits we are losing on our never-ending quest to maximize, but I will try to develop them carefully some other time (and try not to get sidetracked as much as I did today).
