Richer and nicer in the future?
David Brooks on why America’s future is
bright:
In sum, the U.S. is on the verge of a
demographic, economic and social revival, built on its historic
strengths. The U.S. has always been good at disruptive change. It’s
always excelled at decentralized community-building. It’s always
had that moral materialism that creates meaning-rich products.
Surely a country with this much going for it is not going to wait
around passively and let a rotten political culture drag it
down.
Moral materialism is not a bad phrase for what Joe Henrich and his colleagues are
discovering, namely that the more people depend on others for
goods and services through markets, the nicer they are.