Common Plots of Economic History

The only thing harder than gaining a competitive edge is not losing an advantage when you have one.

Sears was the largest retailer in the world and so dominant at retailing efficiency that it could spread its efficiency to unrelated industries. But then the growing income inequality pushed consumers to either bargain or luxury goods, and Sears was left in the shrinking middle, becoming a shell of its former self.

The story of Sears losing its competitive advantage is not unique. Almost 40% of all public companies lost all their value from 1980 to 2014.

Future progress is underrated because past progress is misunderstood.

• There are times when optimism is so great and so broad that we become blind to future risks
• People tend to be optimistic about their own future but pessimistic about others. Most people you know are reasonably happy but suspicious over the direction of the country and its future. When people are cynical about others, a natural path is to discount what other people are capable of in the future.
• Underestimating future growth, in general, is also a typical plot.

1. Past progress as a one-time event misses how much of progress is incremental. A breakthrough never occurs in isolation but is the product of many little discoveries, often meaningless by themselves, that someone links together.
2. Assuming that big current problems will prevent future progress. This misses that most progress feeds off big current issues.
3. In real-time, it nearly always looks like progress over the previous decade has stalled, seeming to confirm that we've reached the limit of our innovation. This is because it often takes a decade or more for breakthroughs to be noticed.

Surprises are constant, and not necessarily because we’re bad at predicting, but because everything important in the economy is driven by power laws where a tiny portion of things are responsible for the majority of outcomes. No single forecaster can track every moving part.

The ability to believe things that aren't true or haven't happened yet is the foundation of all economic growth and decline.

Every society tells fictional stories and is willing to believe them to some extend. It isn't a bad thing: It's the root of most growth. Most economic growth comes from optimism, and optimism requires a degree of believing in something you can't or haven't verified.