Creative Destruction in a Nutshell

From Alex Tabarrok of Marginal Revolution. 

"A good figure from the Nobel Prize Foundation’s Scientific Background to the Mokyr, Aghion and Howitt Nobel. The figure shows that firm exit rates and job destruction rates are positively correlated with growth in labor productivity; creative destruction in a nutshell."

 

Creative Destruction

See Creative Destruction by Richard Alm and W. Michael Cox. Excerpt:

"Joseph Schumpeter
(1883–1950) coined the seemingly paradoxical term “creative destruction,” and generations of economists have adopted it as a shorthand description of the free market’s messy way of delivering progress. In Capitalism, Socialism, and Democracy (1942), the Austrian economist wrote:

The opening up of new markets, foreign or domestic, and the organizational development from the craft shop to such concerns as U.S. Steel illustrate the same process of industrial mutation—if I may use that biological term—that incessantly revolutionizes the economic structure from within, incessantly destroying the old one, incessantly creating a new one. This process of Creative Destruction is the essential fact about capitalism. (p. 83)

Although Schumpeter devoted a mere six-page chapter to “The Process of Creative Destruction,” in which he described capitalism as “the perennial gale of creative destruction,” it has become the centerpiece for modern thinking on how economies evolve."

But also see this link which suggests that the idea goes back even before Schumpeter to other scholars: Creative Destruction in Economics: Nietzsche, Sombart, Schumpeter by Hugo Reinert and Erik S. Reinert.

"Abstract

This paper argues that the idea of ‘creative destruction’ enters the social sciences by way of Friedrich Nietzsche. The term itself is first used by German economist Werner Sombart, who openly acknowledges the influence of Nietzsche on his own economic theory. The roots of creative destruction are traced back to Indian philosophy, from where the idea entered the German literary and philosophical tradition. Understanding the origins and evolution of this key concept in evolutionary economics helps clarifying the contrasts between today’s standard mainstream economics and the Schumpeterian and evolutionary alternative."

Related posts:

The Power of Creative Destruction (That is the title of a book co-authored by Philippe Aghion, one of this this year's winners of the Nobel Prize in economics) (2025)

Marginal Revolution has great posts on this year's winners of the Nobel Prize in economics (Philippe Aghion, Peter Howitt and Joel Mokyr): This is a prize for economic growth & creative destruction (2025) 

The Pyschology & Economics Of Decision Making Under Uncertainty (With Snoopy's Version From 1966)

See You’re So Self-Controlling by MARIA KONNIKOVA. From the 11-16 NY Times. She has a Ph. D. in psychology from Columbia University and is the author of the book Mastermind: How to Think Like Sherlock Holmes.

Also see A Talk With Lars Peter Hansen, Nobel Laureate. Also from the 11-16 NY Times. He won the economics prize for "contributing to the study of asset prices." It is related to the debate on theory of efficient markets. The idea is that stock prices make sense based on publicly available information. They won't be priced too high or too low.

Here is what Hansen says about "Decision Making Under Uncertainty."

"Yes, people struggle with how to cope with uncertainty; it’s not so easy for them to build probability models about the future in very complicated environments. That’s not realistic. We’re very much interested in rational agents who are coping with uncertainty.

What do you want to call behavior under those conditions? Well, you can call that irrational. I’m not sure that I want to do that; maybe it’s a useful term, maybe it’s not, I’m not quite sure.

How to cope with the uncertainties under complexity is a very important question that we’ve just scratched the surface of."

"Yes, the key thing there, too, is we were driven by empirical evidence, about how people behave. We were driven partly by that and partly by other insights coming out of decision theory — broadly conceived in terms of how people might cope with uncertainty. One thing I loved about rational expectations was that it said, to what extent is public policy grounded on being able to fool people systematically?"

The first article, discusses some recent research from psychology on "Decision Making Under Uncertainty." It looks into how people make decisions in the short-run based on expectations of the long-run. We might eat a slice of chocolate cake because that is great in the short-run but if we have a long-run goal to lose weight, it might seem like it is irrational or a case of low willpower if we eat the cake.

But what if it is uncertain as to how long it will take for a person to reach their weight loss goal? Once you are not sure when the payoff will come, you might think it will never come. So it is better, and perhaps rational, to at least have the cake now and get some pleasure because the weight loss may never come. Excerpt:

"A failure of self-control, suggest the University of Pennsylvania neuroscientists Joseph W. Kable and Joseph T. McGuire, may not be a failure so much as a reasoned response to the uncertainty of time: If we’re not quite sure when the train will get there, why invest precious time in continuing to wait?

Mr. Kable, who has been working on the psychology and neuroscience of decision making for more than a decade, argues that the truth is that in real life, as opposed to the lab, we aren’t nearly as sure we’ll get our promised reward, or if we do, of when it will come. 

“The timing of real-world events is not always so predictable,” he and Mr. McGuire write. “Decision makers routinely wait for buses, job offers, weight loss and other outcomes characterized by significant temporal uncertainty.” Sometimes everything comes just when we expect it to, but sometimes even a usually punctual bus breaks down or an all-but-certain job offer falls through. 

When we set a self-control goal for ourselves, we often have specific time frames in mind: I’ll lose a pound a week; a month from now, I’ll no longer get cravings for that cigarette; the bus or train will come in 10 minutes (and I’ve committed to taking public transportation as part of lessening my carbon footprint, thank you very much). 

But what happens if our initial estimate is off? The more time passes without the expected reward — it’s been 20 minutes and still nothing; I’ve been dieting for a week and a half now and still weigh the same — the more uncertain the end becomes. Will I ever get my reward? Ever lose weight? Ever get on that stupid train?

In this situation, giving up can be a natural — indeed, a rational — response to a time frame that wasn’t properly framed to begin with, according to a series of new studies conducted by Mr. Kable’s decision neuroscience lab at the University of Pennsylvania and published in Cognition and Psychological Review. 

“There are lots of situations, probably the majority of situations, in the real world,” Mr. Kable told me, “where waiting longer is actually a valid cue that the reward is getting further and further away.""

They have also done some experiments that back this up. Now here is the Peanuts comic which was originally from 1966, although it appeared again on 11-23. I think what Snoopy does and says is what the article was all about.

Related posts: 

Frank Knight And John Stuart Mill On The Purpose Of Life And Liberty  (2022)

Physicist suggests that our seemingly 'irrational' decisions may be more accurate than previously thought by current economic and behavioral economic theory (2020) 

What is split-brain decision making?  (2023) 

Two economists offer different advice for making life's tough decisions (2023)

‘Uncertainty and Enterprise’ Review: Known Unknowns: Risk can be quantified, uncertainty cannot. But paying attention to one’s doubts in business can inspire imaginative thinking (2025) 

How to Sail Uncharted Waters: Language foils our ability to think about the future. Phrases like ‘fair chance’ or ‘likely’ can be interpreted in many different ways (2025) 

Poverty in the U.S. has been the lowest ever from 2019-24

The average poverty rate for the years 2019-2024 is 11.13%. This includes the 2 lowest years ever reported by the U.S. Census Bureau: 2019 (10.5%) & 2024 (10.6%).

The average from 1959-2018 was 14.02%. The average from 2009-2018 was 13.9%.

The highest in any one year from 2019-2024 was 11.6% (2021). So that is much lower than historical averages.

The 11.13% for the six years from 2019-2024 is the lowest six year average ever. The previous low was 11.57% from 1968-1973. 49 of the 60 six year periods averaged at least 12.0%.

Each of the last 6 years is among the 10 lowest years in poverty since 1959. 

See Historical Poverty Tables: People and Families - 1959 to 2024. Then click on Table 2. Poverty Status of People by Family Relationship, Race, and Hispanic Origin. It is an Excel file. 

Related post:

A comparison of the inflation rates, unemployment rates and poverty rates from 1975-83 with the current rates (2024) 

AI startups are literally paying people to fold their laundry (or perform similar chores)

From Tyler Cowen.

It might seem strange that robots or any new technology can increase employment. But it does happen. Right after this post from Tyler Cowen I repost a blog entry from 2016 called Automation Can Actually Create More Jobs. Then after that are links to other posts on jobs, robots & automation.  

"Yes — as of late 2025, several robotics and AI startups are literally paying people to fold their laundry (or perform similar chores) while recording themselves, in order to train robots in dexterous, human-like task performance.

Companies such as Encord, Micro1, and Scale AI have launched paid “data collection” programs aimed at generating real-world video datasets for robotic learning. Participants are compensated to film themselves carrying out everyday household activities — folding laundry, loading dishwashers, making coffee, or tidying up. The footage is then annotated to help AI systems learn how to manipulate deformable objects, coordinate finger movements, and complete multi-step domestic tasks.

That is from Perplexity, original cite from Samir Varma."

Automation Can Actually Create More Jobs

Evidence shows increased productivity leads to more wealth, cheaper goods, greater spending power and ultimately, more jobs

By Christopher Mims of the WSJ.

There are four types of unemployment: seasonal, structural, frictional and cyclical.

Structural unemployment is unemployment caused by a mismatch between the skills of job seekers and the requirements of available jobs.

One example of this is when you are replaced by a machine, like bank tellers who were replaced by ATMs. Another example is when there is a fall in demand for your product, so you get laid off, like with typewriters since people now use computers. A third example is geographical, when the jobs are not in your region of the country.

But automation may not be a problem, even in the case of ATMs. Excerpts from the article:

"Since the 1970s, when automated teller machines arrived, the number of bank tellers in America has more than doubled. James Bessen, an economist who teaches at Boston University School of Law, points to that seeming paradox amid new concerns that automation is “stealing” human jobs. To the contrary, he says, jobs and automation often grow hand in hand."

"Sometimes, of course, machines really do replace humans, as in agriculture and manufacturing"

"a long trail of empirical evidence shows that the increased productivity brought about by automation and invention ultimately leads to more wealth, cheaper goods, increased consumer spending power and ultimately, more jobs.

In the case of bank tellers, the spread of ATMs meant bank branches could be smaller, and therefore, cheaper. Banks opened more branches, and in total employed more tellers, Mr. Bessen says.

Some individuals are uprooted and suffer. In 1900, 40% of U.S. workers toiled in agriculture; today, that figure is less than 2%. Manufacturing employment in industrialized countries has declined in recent decades, as fewer people make more goods. But society, on the whole, has come out ahead.

It’s true that technology alters the quality, as well as the quantity, of jobs"

[a study] "found big increases in both low-paying and high-paying jobs. There are more barbers and barkeepers. But there also are more accountants and nurses, reflecting the rising complexity of the modern economy.

Paradoxically, says Mr. Stewart, many of the fields most transformed by technology have produced the biggest increases in employment, from medicine to management consulting. “What we saw was that machines and people were highly complementary,” he says.

Such bifurcated labor markets have ill effects. Disappearing factory jobs have largely been replaced by jobs in the service sector, where highly skilled workers, like doctors and computer programmers, are paid more, while many others see to the comfort and health of the affluent. In the middle, wages have stagnated, helping spawn our current age of populism.

“The era of mass manufacturing employment in the 1960s and 1970s was a good thing,” says Dr. Autor. “It created a lot of good jobs, it needed a lot of hands and eyes, and required some skills but not an enormous skill set. The work was relatively high value added.” But, he adds, that era is for the most part behind us."

"For all the recent advances in artificial intelligence, such techniques are largely applied to narrow areas, such as recognizing images and processing speech. Humans can do all these things and more, which allows us to transition to new kinds of work."

"the problem is not “mass unemployment, it’s transitioning people from one job to another.”"

"Near the end of the 19th century, America’s agricultural states faced the prospect of mass unemployment as farms automated.

In response, they created the “high school movement,” which required everyone to stay in school until age 16. It was hugely expensive, both because of the new schools and teachers, but also because these young people could no longer work on the farm. But it better prepared workers for 20th century factory jobs" 

Related posts:

America’s Newest Auto Plant Is Full of Robots. It Still Needs the Human Touch: Hyundai’s sprawling complex in Georgia illustrates advanced manufacturing’s balance between people and machines (2025) 

No, AI Robots Won’t Take All Our Jobs: Instead, they will boost productivity, lower prices and spur the evolution of the labor market (2025) (it also has links to 14 other related posts from before 2024)

IBM CEO Says AI Has Replaced Hundreds of Workers but Created New Programming, Sales Jobs: The tech company promises higher total employment as it reinvests resources toward roles like software development (2025)

Technological Disruption in the Labor Market (2025)

Why AI Might Not Take All Our Jobs—if We Act Quickly (2025)

Some good news on productivity (2025) (AI is mentioned)

Some economics of A.I. (2025) 

The AI-Generated Population Is Here, and They’re Ready to Work (2024)

Two recent articles on robots and human workers (2024)

Self-service kiosks at McDonald’s are not reducing employment (2024) 

Robots writing science fiction (2024)

Amazon’s New Robotic Warehouse Will Rely Heavily on Human Workers (2024) 

Why Marriage Is Increasingly for the Affluent

The economic contract of marriage has shifted, and now young people are looking for financial stability before the wedding

By Rachel Wolfe of The WSJ. Excerpts:

"Financial security is no longer a goal reached after marriage, younger Americans say, but rather a prerequisite for it." 

"The idea of both parties waiting to build a career or wealth before tying the knot is called a capstone model of marriage. Economists and demographers say that thinking has replaced the old “cornerstone” approach, where people would wed in their early 20s and then work together to buy a home, build a nest egg and progress in their careers."

"The estimated median age for a first marriage as of last year was 30 for men and 29 for women, according to the most recent census data, up from 28 for men and 26 for women in 2008."

"The marriage rate, that is the rate of new marriages to the overall population, has been on a long downward trajectory, census data shows. Between 2008 and 2023, the first-marriage rate among 22- to 45-year-olds declined 9%, to 60 marriages per 1,000 never-married Americans"

"marriage rates have declined much less for 22- to 45-year-olds with a bachelor’s degree than they have for those with less than a college education"

"The share of married adults in the top third of earners also fell slightly, while dropping much more for the bottom two thirds of the income spectrum."

"Economists say the diverging economic trajectories of men and women are making the capstone model of marriage harder to pull off. 

While women’s relative economic position has improved, many men are floundering. “In the past, men didn’t have to clear such a high bar because they had the ultimate ticket of ‘Well, I’m the breadwinner,’ ” said Richard Reeves, president of the American Institute for Boys and Men, a nonpartisan think tank.

People tend to marry along socioeconomic lines in a practice known as “assortative mating.” Although women make up roughly 60% of college grads, outpacing men with degrees, that educational mismatch hasn’t stopped educated women from marrying."

"those who aren’t marrying other college grads are marrying the highest-earning, non-college-educated men. That leaves less-educated women with fewer options."

"While 59% of American 37-year-olds with parents in the top income quartile were married as of 2019, according to Goldman’s research, only 30% of those from the bottom quartile could say the same."   

Related posts:

Jane Austen was wrong: women don’t marry up for money and status: A new study debunks the myth of the gold-digging wife, finding that women are no more likely to marry above their social class than men (2025)

When It Comes to Marriage and Money, Opposites Attract (2023)

As more people choose to marry someone with a similar income, inequality increases (2020) 

The preference for partners of the same education has significantly increased for white individuals (2017)

"Among students in the bottom socioeconomic quartile, 15 percent had earned a bachelor’s degree within eight years of their expected high school graduation, compared with 22 percent in the second quartile, 37 percent in the third quartile, and 60 percent in the top quartile."  

Rising brideprice—money or gifts provided to a woman’s family by the groom and his family as part of marriage arrangements—is a common if overlooked catalyst of violent conflict (2017)

What Do Men In China Need To Get A Bride? (2011)

There really is a marriage market in many countries (2011)

Do Women Really Value Income over Looks in a Mate? by Marina Adshade (2010) 

Do Opposites Attract? Not Usually, Except Maybe When It Comes To Money (2009)

When Women Earn More Than Men, Is Dating Affected? (2007) 

The Power of Creative Destruction

That is the title of a book co-authored by Philippe Aghion, one of this this year's winners of the Nobel Prize in economics. See The Power of Creative Destruction: Economic Upheaval and the Wealth of Nations.

Here is the Amazon summary:

"Inequality is on the rise, growth stagnant, the environment in crisis. Covid seems to have exposed every crack in the system. We hear calls for radical change, but the answer is not to junk our economic system but to create a better form of capitalism.

An ambitious reappraisal of the foundations of economic success that shows a fair and prosperous future is ours to make, The Power of Creative Destruction draws on cutting-edge theory and hard evidence to examine today’s most fundamental economic questions: what powers growth, competition, globalization, and middle-income traps; the roots of inequality and climate change; the impact of technology; and how to recover from economic shocks. We owe our modern standard of living to innovations enabled by free-market capitalism, it argues, but we also need state intervention―with checks and balances―to foster economic creativity, manage social disruption, and ensure that yesterday’s superstar innovators don’t pull the ladder up after them." 

Related posts: 

Who wrote your potential love's online dating profile? (maybe they outsourced it to a professional who specializes in that) (2016)

New Profession Of "Wedding Hashtag Helper" Might Be An Example Of Creative Destruction At Work (2022)

Are dating coaches who help you with texting modern Cyrano de Bergeracs? (2023)

Do You Need a Fixer for Your Disney Vacation? Third-party companies tout advanced knowledge for private tours of complex amusement parks that can cost $1,000 and up (2023)

Parents Hire $4,000 Sorority Consultants to Help Daughters Dress and Impress During Rush (creative destruction and how the economy just keeps creating new types of occupations & professions) (2023)

Prompt engineers chat with generative-AI chatbots (creative destruction and how the economy just keeps creating new types of occupations & professions) (2023)

"Wedding content creators" curate the perfect social-media-ready images of the nuptials and celebration (creative destruction and how the economy just keeps creating new types of occupations & professions) (2023)

 

"Independent education consultants" help high school students and their parents navigate the competitive college-admissions process (creative destruction and how the economy just keeps creating new types of occupations & professions) (2024)

"Robot Wranglers" help lost and confused automatons (creative destruction and how the economy just keeps creating new types of occupations & professions) (2024)

Professional Bridesmaids (creative destruction and how the economy just keeps creating new types of occupations & professions) (2024)

 

Handbag authenticators (creative destruction and how the economy just keeps creating new types of occupations & professions) (2024)

 

App reviewers (creative destruction and how the economy just keeps creating new types of occupations & professions) (2025)

 

Video Clippers (creative destruction and how the economy just keeps creating new types of occupations & professions) (2025)  

 

Creative Destruction

See Creative Destruction by Richard Alm and W. Michael Cox. Excerpt:

"Joseph Schumpeter
(1883–1950) coined the seemingly paradoxical term “creative destruction,” and generations of economists have adopted it as a shorthand description of the free market’s messy way of delivering progress. In Capitalism, Socialism, and Democracy (1942), the Austrian economist wrote:

The opening up of new markets, foreign or domestic, and the organizational development from the craft shop to such concerns as U.S. Steel illustrate the same process of industrial mutation—if I may use that biological term—that incessantly revolutionizes the economic structure from within, incessantly destroying the old one, incessantly creating a new one. This process of Creative Destruction is the essential fact about capitalism. (p. 83)

Although Schumpeter devoted a mere six-page chapter to “The Process of Creative Destruction,” in which he described capitalism as “the perennial gale of creative destruction,” it has become the centerpiece for modern thinking on how economies evolve."

But also see this link which suggests that the idea goes back even before Schumpeter to other scholars: Creative Destruction in Economics: Nietzsche, Sombart, Schumpeter by Hugo Reinert and Erik S. Reinert.

"Abstract

This paper argues that the idea of ‘creative destruction’ enters the social sciences by way of Friedrich Nietzsche. The term itself is first used by German economist Werner Sombart, who openly acknowledges the influence of Nietzsche on his own economic theory. The roots of creative destruction are traced back to Indian philosophy, from where the idea entered the German literary and philosophical tradition. Understanding the origins and evolution of this key concept in evolutionary economics helps clarifying the contrasts between today’s standard mainstream economics and the Schumpeterian and evolutionary alternative."

Marginal Revolution has great posts on this year's winners of the Nobel Prize in economics (Philippe Aghion, Peter Howitt and Joel Mokyr): This is a prize for economic growth & creative destruction

Here are the links:

Nobel Prize in economics goes to Philippe Aghion and Peter Howitt and Joel Mokyr.

The Economics Nobel goes to Mokyr, Aghion and Howitt. 

The case for a Nobel to Joel Mokyr. 

The case for a Nobel to Philippe Aghion. 

The case for a Nobel to Peter Howitt.

Creative Destruction

See Creative Destruction by Richard Alm and W. Michael Cox. Excerpt:

"Joseph Schumpeter
(1883–1950) coined the seemingly paradoxical term “creative destruction,” and generations of economists have adopted it as a shorthand description of the free market’s messy way of delivering progress. In Capitalism, Socialism, and Democracy (1942), the Austrian economist wrote:

The opening up of new markets, foreign or domestic, and the organizational development from the craft shop to such concerns as U.S. Steel illustrate the same process of industrial mutation—if I may use that biological term—that incessantly revolutionizes the economic structure from within, incessantly destroying the old one, incessantly creating a new one. This process of Creative Destruction is the essential fact about capitalism. (p. 83)

Although Schumpeter devoted a mere six-page chapter to “The Process of Creative Destruction,” in which he described capitalism as “the perennial gale of creative destruction,” it has become the centerpiece for modern thinking on how economies evolve."

But also see this link which suggests that the idea goes back even before Schumpeter to other scholars: Creative Destruction in Economics: Nietzsche, Sombart, Schumpeter by Hugo Reinert and Erik S. Reinert.

"Abstract

This paper argues that the idea of ‘creative destruction’ enters the social sciences by way of Friedrich Nietzsche. The term itself is first used by German economist Werner Sombart, who openly acknowledges the influence of Nietzsche on his own economic theory. The roots of creative destruction are traced back to Indian philosophy, from where the idea entered the German literary and philosophical tradition. Understanding the origins and evolution of this key concept in evolutionary economics helps clarifying the contrasts between today’s standard mainstream economics and the Schumpeterian and evolutionary alternative."

Related posts:

What do Nobel Prize Winners Muhammad Yunus and Edmund Phelps Have in Common?  (2006)

What The 2010 Nobel Prize Winners Studied (2010) ( Peter Diamond, Dale Mortensen, and Christopher Pissarides)

Some Information On This Year's Winners Of The Nobel Prize In Economics (2011) (Thomas Sargent and Christopher Sims)

Angus Deaton Wins The 2015 Nobel Prize In Economics  (2015)

Some Information About This Year's Winners Of The Nobel Prize In Economics (2016) (They are Oliver Hart and Bengt Holmström.)

Nobel for Economics Awarded to Authors of ‘Why Nations Fail’ and an Ex-IMF Figure: Daron Acemoglu, Simon Johnson and James Robinson are honored for their work on how institutions form and affect differences in prosperity (2024) 

Was 1800 (approximately) A Pivotal Year In Human History? Robert Fogel, Francis Fukuyama, And Deirdre McCloskey All Seem To Think So

Robert Fogel is a Nobel Prize Winning Economist. Here is something he said recently:

"Technology rescued humankind from centuries of physical maladies and malnutrition, Mr. Fogel argues. Before the 19th century (1800), most people were caught in an endless cycle of subsistence farming."

See Technology Advances; Humans Supersize.

Francis Fukuyama, author of the famous book The End of History and the Last Man, has a new book out. Here is an excerpt from a review of that book:

"But it is true that Mr. Fukuyama tracks a quest for "order" that often falls short of its goal until a decisive threshold is reached around 1800.

By then the Industrial Revolution—even at its earliest stages—had unleashed the forces of production in ways hitherto unimaginable, allowing for abundance rather than scarcity, not least in the production of food. But the threshold proved to be more than a matter of escaping "the Malthusian trap" of hunger and overpopulation. In the years surrounding the French Revolution, Mr. Fukuyama believes, politics began to shape itself—at last—into an orderly and sustainable form.

Obviously, political order had been achieved before then, but in a fitful and incomplete way. In Mr. Fukuyama's view, a durable political order can arise, and societies can fully thrive, only when a state is formed, when the state itself operates according to a rule of law, and when the state becomes accountable—that is, when it must answer to its citizens. Until the threshold point around 1800, he says, all three properties rarely existed together."

See From Dynasty to Democracy: Nations did not find stability, or sustained prosperity, until they became accountable to their citizens.

Deirdre McCloskey is a highly respected economic historian whose latest book is Bourgeois Dignity: Why Economics Can't Explain the Modern World. Here are some quotes from her:

"Modern economic growth—that stunning increase from $3 a day in 1800 worldwide to now upwards of $130 a day in the richest countries, and anyway $30 as a worldwide average—can’t be accounted for in the usual and materialist ways. It wasn’t trade, investment, exploitation, imperialism, education, legal changes, genes, science. It was innovation, such as cheap steel and the modern university, supported by an entirely new attitude towards the middle class, emerging from Holland around 1600. (It has parallels in classical music and mathematics and politics, in all of which the Europeans burst out, 1600-1800.)

Economics of the usual sort, whether Samuelsonian or Marxist, can’t get at why Europeans and then the rest of us started around 1800 to become insanely innovative. A new dignity for innovation and its market applications can: that’s a sociological change, supporting sensible economic policies.

What you can learn from the history is that stasis reigned until we discovered dignity and liberty for ordinary people, and in particular for the disturbing, irritating class of entrepreneurs."

See Don’t be snobbish towards merchants & entrepreneurs, and you’ll develop

Great advice from Adam Smith

From Goodreads. It is from his book The Theory of Moral Sentiments.

“The prudent man always studies seriously and earnestly to understand whatever he professes to understand, and not merely to persuade other people that he understands it; and though his talents may not always be very brilliant, they are always perfectly genuine. He neither endeavours to impose upon you by the cunning devices of an artful impostor, nor by the arrogant airs of an assuming pedant, nor by the confident assertions of a superficial and imprudent pretender. He is not ostentatious even of the abilities which he really possesses. His conversation is simple and modest, and he is averse to all the quackish arts by which other people so frequently thrust themselves into public notice and reputation.”

Related posts:

Science Proves That Adam Smith Was Right Over 200 Years Ago (sort of) (2009) 

Adam Smith Meets Joseph Campbell (2017) 

Adam Smith And Joseph Campbell On The Dangers Of "The Man Of System" (2017) 

Adam Smith Meets Jonathan Haidt (on political polarization and the animosity of hostile factions) (2021)

Fraud in immigration applications and Type I & II Errors

See Agency That Issues Visas and Green Cards Is Hiring Armed Agents: U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services agents will now be allowed to arrest people for immigration violations by Michelle Hackman of The WSJ. Excerpts:

I used the book The Economics of Public Issues in my micro classes. Chapter 1 is called "Death by Bureaucrat." It discusses how the Food and Drug Administration can make either a Type I error or a Type II error.

Type I error: The FDA approves a drug before enough testing is done and when people take it, there are harmful side effects.

Type II error: The FDA tests a drug longer than necessary to stay on the safe side. But people might suffer because the drug is not yet available. 80,000 people died waiting for Septra to be approved.

The FDA would usually rather make a Type II error because the public can blame the FDA if a Type I error occurs. 

Something similar is happening with immigration applications. USCIS wants to block fraudulent immigration applications. But how will they know which are fraudulent and which are valid? They might designate too few as fraudulent (Type I error) and let in some applicants that don't deserve it or might even be criminals. They might designate too many as fraudulent (Type II error) and keep out some applicants that are legitimate, law abiding candidates.

How will they block only the bad applicants? The article is vague on that. The only thing it says is they will look for "patterns of fraud, like groups of immigrants from the same country who submit nearly identical immigration applications or citizenship applicants who fake disabilities." But how do they know who is faking it? How will they know how "nearly identical" something has to be? What if it is just similar? No line is explained.

Excerpts from the article: 

"U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) said it plans to train several hundred federal law-enforcement agents to look for fraud in immigration applications" 

"Joe Edlow, the agency’s newly installed director, said in an interview that he envisions the new law-enforcement body investigating patterns of fraud, like groups of immigrants from the same country who submit nearly identical immigration applications or citizenship applicants who fake disabilities to avoid taking the English proficiency exam. They will also make denaturalization of new citizens who lied on their applications a priority, he said.

The changes, he argued, shouldn’t affect most immigrants who make bona fide requests of the government.

“I’m not expecting this to have a chilling effect on applications,” Edlow said. “I’m expecting this to have a chilling effect on fraudulent applications, and that’s what I want.”

USCIS already has officers charged with tracking fraud or national security threats"

Related posts:

 

Employee Disability Pay and Mental-Health Leave and Type I & II Errors (2024) 

 

Thalidomide, The FDA and Type I & II Errors (2024)

 

Immigration & Asylum meet Type I & II Errors (2023) 

Accommodations for disabled people and Type I & II Errors (2023)

Solar Panels, Tradeoffs and Type I & II Errors (2022)

Zombies might return and fighting them is art as well as science (2021)

Fraction of Covid-19 Rental Assistance Reaches Tenants and Landlords (follow up to a post on June 11) (2021)

Remdesivir and Type I & Type II errors (2020) 

The Paycheck Protection Program and and Type I & Type II Errors (2020)

The FDA, Masks and Type I & Type II Errors (2020)

Do FAA drone regulations illustrate the tradeoff between Type I & Type II errors (2018)

Maker Of Thalidomide Apologizes (2012)

Why Lawmakers Don’t Want to Ban Their Own Stock Trading

GOP Rep. Rob Bresnahan campaigned on ending the practice, but has become a top trader after entering office

By Katy Stech Ferek of The WSJ. Excerpts:

"Many lawmakers decry stock trading on principle, only to back off later when faced with the practical impacts—ranging from transaction costs and taxes to annoyance over being told how to conduct their finances. While some are plowing ahead on ideas for new bans, passage remains uncertain after a history of failed efforts.

Proponents of a crackdown see trading as an obvious opportunity for corruption. Opponents note that insider trading is already illegal and say that new rules would discourage successful business people from running for Congress.

Sen. Rick Scott (R., Fla.), one of Congress’s wealthiest members, with investments in private equity and hedge funds, in a recent hearing raised questions about how lawmakers would sell illiquid assets under a stock-trading ban. Scott, who hasn’t reported any stock trading this year, said supporters of a ban were insinuating that a lawmaker’s wealth is bad."

"Only a third of House lawmakers and slightly less than half of senators traded individual stocks or held them as assets while in office last year"

"It is more common for lawmakers to hold investments in mutual funds, which wouldn’t be affected by most of the current trading-ban proposals."

"New bipartisan legislation . . . was rolled out Wednesday. The proposal would give lawmakers 180 days to sell off stocks or face fines." 

"Lawmakers passed the Stock Act in 2012, mandating more disclosures and explicitly outlawing trading on nonpublic information, but further efforts sputtered. In 2021, then-House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D., Calif.)—whose husband’s trades have become a target of conservative critics and good-government groups—defended lawmakers’ ability to trade. “We are a free-market economy,” she said. “They should be able to participate in that.”"

Related posts:

Lawmakers Traded Stocks Heavily as Trump Rolled Out ‘Liberation Day’ Tariffs: Buying and selling of stocks spur new push to further restrict lawmakers’ market activities (2025) 

Looks Like Some Pretty Good Capitalists Run The Congress (2024)

Did U.S. government officials make money buying and selling stocks based on their inside information about Covid policy? (2022) 

60 Minutes: Insider trading is legal for members of Congress-but it is nothing new, it started in 1790  (2011) 

Is it bad if new entertainment technology allows us to spend more time at home?

See ‘Listen In’ Review: Around the Family Wireless by Steven Poole. He reviewed the book Listen In: How Radio Changed the Home by Beaty Rubens. Excerpt:  

"We learn that radio grew in popularity especially during hard economic times—when “the appeal of not having to wash or get dressed to listen in became stronger”—which may remind us of the surge in online pastimes during the Covid-19 pandemic."

We often say in economics that people want to maximize utility. And wanting to go out and socialize at live music venues might just be one item or argument in a person's utility function. How does a person maximize utility (if they spend all of their income)? They buy a quantity of good A and a quantity of good B to make this equation true:

MU_A/P_A = MU_B/P_B

MU is marginal utility or how much satisfaction you got from the last unit consumed of a good.

Suppose a person wants to go out (good A) and listen to music (good B). If the price of B falls (with radio the price of listening to music has fallen), and nothing else changes, then  

MU_A/P_A < MU_B/P_B

which means that the person is getting more satisfaction (or utils, a unit of satisfaction) from the last dollar spent on good B than good A. So they will want to consume more of B. But then they have to spend less on good A (maybe it terms of time or resources devoted to it). And you get a person who goes out less than they used to.

This could also be a case of listening to music at home being a substitute for going out to hear music. If the price of listening at home falls then the demand for going out also falls. 

I first thought of this when reading about how alot of young men are staying at home playing video games instead of going to school, getting a job, getting married, etc. Some are saying that this is a social problem. But if it is a case of one item falling in price (entertainment through video games) then it just like the price of B falling in the above example. So they do more of it (it might have been pretty expensive once to play high quality video games-you probably had to go out to an arcade and pay for each play). Now with very high quality video games at home, the price (not just the monetary price but the time cost) is lower, so you do more of it. This seems similar to what happened with radio in the 1930s.

Related post:

Adam Smith said that people want not only to be loved, but to be lovely (but how much does it cost to achieve that?) (2025)

San Antonio ranks third in U.S. for poverty rate among metro areas

By Ethan Trejo of News 4 San Antonio.

A few days ago I posted about the recent U. S. Census Bureau report on poverty and incomes in 2024 for the whole country. See The official poverty rate fell 0.4 percentage points to 10.6% in 2024. 

Now an excerpt from the article about San Antonio:

"San Antonio has the third-highest poverty rate among metropolitan areas in the United States, according to data from the U.S. Census Bureau for 2023 and 2024.

The city's current poverty rate stands at approximately 13%, ranking only below Houston and Detroit, and surpassing both the state and national averages.

David Vequis, a professor of management at Incarnate Word's business school, said, "Well, there's, there's several reasons for it." 

He attributed the high poverty rate to factors such as average age and wages, but emphasized a lack of skilled workers as a primary reason."  

There Is A Black Market On Capitol Hill

Yes, a black market in snacks. Pretty shocking. See Inside Capitol Hill's black market: Snacks by HELENA BOTTEMILLER EVICH of POLITICO. You can also check out POLITICO's guide for finding popular congressional office snacks. Excerpts: 

"Big deals over immigration reform or government spending may not be getting made on Capitol Hill, but political maneuvering can yield a free pack of Skittles for a staffer with a sugar craving.

It just might cost a bag of Fritos.

Home-state snacks are a mainstay in congressional office lobbies, alongside district maps, hometown magazines and displays of local tchotchkes. Walk into Sen. Rand Paul’s office and you’ll find Kellogg’s Pop-Tarts and Nutri-Grain bars in a basket next to the Kentucky almanac. Down the hall, Georgia Sen. Johnny Isakson serves peanuts and Coca-Cola. Head upstairs to New York Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand’s office for Chobani yogurt.

But the treats not only give visiting constituents a taste of home, they also fuel black-market snack trading among House and Senate staffers.

Beyond the official displays of food politicking — like when John Boehner sent Nancy Pelosi Cincinnati’s famous Graeter’s Gelato for her birthday — the little-known snack trade cuts across state, district and party lines.

Dozens of junior staff who spoke with POLITICO described an elaborate barter system based on local products. Pepsi is swapped for M&M’s, and Coca-Cola for Craisins. Unpaid interns are rewarded with treats for fetching lawmaker signatures. Sharing a cellphone charger with another office might net a bag of chips or candy. The most dedicated snackers have compiled comprehensive lists of who has what — a Capitol Hill snack bible of sorts.

Food and beverage companies, or farm cooperatives, donate most of the snacks on the Hill, but some offices do purchase their own reserves. The donations are kosher under ethics rules as long as the products are from the lawmaker’s state and are primarily for “promotional purposes,” as well as available to office visitors and of minimal value to the recipient. Staffers aren’t supposed to directly ask suppliers for their snacks to be replenished, but they tend to not run out for long.

The covert snack economy is not just a way for hungry staffers to seek out chocolate-covered macadamia nuts from Hawaii or Lay’s chips from Texas. It’s a system for aides, especially low on the totem pole, to make friends, forge informal alliances and, ultimately, help keep Capitol Hill functioning.

Between arranging constituent tours and taking calls, staff assistants use a massive email Listserv to arrange snack swaps.

“They’re the ones that work the trades,” explained Adam Russell, a spokesman for Rep. Sam Farr (D-Calif.). Constituents visiting his office are offered walnuts, prunes and pistachios.

Dozens of offices serve treats from large conglomerates like PepsiCo, which has factories or distribution facilities in various lawmakers’ districts. Rep. Mike Pompeo (R-Kan.) serves PepsiCo products because there’s a bottling plant in Wichita, Kan. He’s personally a big fan of Snickers and Diet Pepsi, according to his staff.

Frito-Lay chips and Mars candy are the most common — and perhaps the most commonly traded — snacks on the Hill. Both manufacturers have operations in several states.

Home-state snacks transcend party affiliation. Republican Sen. Marco Rubio and Democrat Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz may not find much common ground, but they agree Tropicana orange juice is a delicious treat for guests.

And orange juice, it turns out, is a hot commodity on the Hill, trading at times for as many as five bags of Lay’s chips.

In an Arkansas-shaped basket, Republican Sen. John Boozman’s office serves a variety of Frito-Lay snacks, Little Debbie snack cakes and crisp rice treats made by Riceland, a farmers co-op. In Arkansas Democratic Sen. Mark Pryor’s office, you’ll find the same snacks, plus some Mountain Valley Water from Hot Springs, Ark.

Pop-Tarts may be “very popular” with Paul’s Kentucky visitors and staff popping by for a treat, but the Republican senator, known for being a bit of a health nut, does not eat them, according to his staff.

Not all products on the political circuit are well-known brands. Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.) has Ola! all natural granola, Rep. Sam Graves (R-Mo.) has Cherry Mash, a chocolate cherry treat, and Rep. Dave Reichert (R-Wash.) has Aplets & Cotlets, a square fruit puree and nut snack that isn’t all that tradable, according to multiple sources familiar with the delegation.

Some offices on Capitol Hill are not looped in on the snack trade and don’t have their own currency, and there are few staffers in either chamber who don’t know where the goods are and how to get them.

Those in the know target New York Sens. Chuck Schumer’s and Gillibrand’s offices, which actually have Greek yogurt-filled fridges. So do Idaho Sens. Mike Crapo and Jim Risch.

Ask around about who has the best snacks, and you’ll run into some local food folklore. Someone on the Hill has San Pellegrino, aides say, but they’re not sure who, or they won’t divulge their source. POLITICO couldn’t find the sparkling beverage. Another office had heard Rep. Jared Polis (D-Colo.) serves Kombucha, a fermented “foodie” drink, on tap. He doesn’t, according to his office. At least two staffers had heard tales of free Shiner Bock flowing from the Texas delegation, but the search for the beer from the Lone Star State came up dry."

Related posts: 

A High School Banned Students From Selling Snacks. Predictably, a Black Market for Snacks Emerged. (2022)

Cartels: They're not just for drug dealers and oil producers anymore-maple syrup producers have one, too (2016-There was a black market for syrup) 

There Is A Black Market On Capitol Hill (2014-Another black market for snacks)

Should People Be Allowed To Sell Their Kidneys And Other Organs? (2010)

Does automation reduce stigma?

From Tyler Cowen. 

"By removing human cashiers, self-checkout registers may alter feelings of embarrassment experienced by customers. Using high-frequency scanner data from supermarkets in the Washington, D.C. area with staggered adoption of self-checkout, we conduct event study analyses on consumer purchasing behavior. On the extensive margin, we find positive but noisy effects of self-checkout adoption on sales of some stigmatized items. On the intensive margin, we show that stigmatized items are much more likely to be purchased at self-checkout than at cashier registers, especially condoms and pregnancy tests. We estimate that customers are willing to pay 8.5 cents in additional time cost for the privacy of purchasing stigmatized items at self-checkout.

Here is the full paper by Rebecca Cardinali., et.al.  Via the excellent Kevin Lewis.

I even draw distinctions across automated models.  For instance, if I have “a stupid question,” I am more likely to ask Grok, since I would rather GPT maintain a higher opinion of what I do and do not know."

The official poverty rate fell 0.4 percentage points to 10.6% in 2024

See Income, Poverty and Health Insurance Coverage in the United States: 2024 from the U.S. Census Bureau. This was a press release from 9-9-25. Excerpts:

"The U.S. Census Bureau today announced that real median household income was $83,730 in 2024, not statistically different from the 2023 estimate of $82,690. The official poverty rate fell 0.4 percentage points to 10.6% in 2024."

• Median household income was $83,730 in 2024, not statistically different from the 2023 estimate of $82,690.
• Between 2023 and 2024, median income increased by 5.1% for Asian households and 5.5% for Hispanic households, while it declined by 3.3% for Black households. Median income did not change significantly for White or White non-Hispanic households. (The difference between the 2023-2024 percentage change in median household income for Asian householders and Hispanic householders was not statistically significant.)
• Income inequality as measured by the Gini index was not significantly different between 2023 and 2024.
• Household income at the 90th percentile increased 4.2%, but did not significantly change at the 10th and 50th percentiles between 2023 and 2024. 

• In 2024, the official poverty rate fell 0.4 percentage points to 10.6%. There were 35.9 million people in poverty in 2024.
• Between 2023 and 2024, the official poverty rate decreased for White, Asian and Hispanic individuals, but did not change significantly for other race groups discussed in the report. 

The 10.6% poverty rate is the 2nd lowest official poverty rate since 1959 when the Census Bureau first started reporting it. The lowest ever was the  10.5% in 2019. See Historical Poverty Tables: People and Families - 1959 to 2024. Then click on Table 2. Poverty Status of People by Family Relationship, Race, and Hispanic Origin. It is an Excel file.

See Historical Income Tables: Families from the Census Bureau. They also have a link for Gini coefficients for family income going back to 1947. See also Historical Income Tables: Households. See also Historical Poverty Tables: People and Families - 1959 to 2024. These Census Bureau links will take you to tables on poverty, incomes and inequality (the Gini coefficient measures inequality). Also see  Income & Poverty Data Tables.

Below are two timeline charts from the Census Bureau. One has income and the other has the poverty rate 

 

 

Related posts:

U.S. Incomes Climbed Last Year, Census Bureau Says (poverty fell and inequality was little changed): Household incomes rose 4% from 2022 to 2023, the first rise since the start of the Covid-19 pandemic (2024) 

Income, Poverty and Health Insurance Coverage in the United States: 2022 (2023)

U.S. Incomes Fail to Grow for Second Year in a Row, Census Figures Show (2022)

The Level and Trend of Poverty in the United States, 1939-1979 (2018)

More On Poverty (2012)

What has happened to the distribution of wealth in recent years? (2011)

Some Possibly Surprising Facts About Poverty (2012)

The U. S. Poverty Rate Was 10.5% in 2019, An All-Time Low (2020)

Mean Family Income By Quintiles (2017) 

Is it dangerous to say that entrepreneurs are heroes? (Part 2)

This is an addition to yesterday's post Is it dangerous to say that entrepreneurs are heroes?

See Does Congruence with an Entrepreneur Social Identity Encourage Positive Emotion Under Environmental Dynamism? by Charles Murnieks, Jeffery S. McMullen & Melissa S. Cardon. From 2017.

Here are excerpts. The part where they mention heroes is mentioned it is in bold red. Where they mention my name is in bold blue within the red.

"Introduction 

Comparative mythologist Joseph Campbell (1949) suggests that most cultures have some version of a “mono-myth,” which describes a journey that heroic individuals undertake in pursuit of a valuable goal amidst highly uncertain or perilous conditions. At the beginning of this journey, the protagonist rarely perceives himself as heroic, and is reluctant to depart on his quest because the dangers involved seem overwhelming. However, as the journey unfolds, the protagonist undergoes a transformation. By experiencing trials and tribulation, and successfully overcoming challenges, the protagonist becomes a hero. He experiences elation at achieving his goal despite tremendous adversity, and begins to view himself differently in the process. The mono-myth narrative is informative because it highlights the tension between the hero and a hostile environment. Even though the hero is afraid and reluctant to embark on the journey, the environment is fundamental in helping him to develop. By achieving his goal despite adversity, he feels heroic. Ironically, the intense hostility of the environment is actually what makes the story compelling, because it creates a background against which the protagonist’s actions are viewed as difficult and ultimately valiant, instead of mundane and ordinary.

Entrepreneurship scholars highlight similarities between Campbell’s mythological hero and the entrepreneur of entrepreneurship theory (Catford and Ray 1991; McMullen and Dimov 2013; Morong 1994). Morong (1994), in particular, illustrates how Schumpeter’s existentialistic portrayal of the entrepreneur offers an economic equivalent of Campbell’s archetype. Schumpeter’s (1934) entrepreneur undertakes a journey into an environment filled with uncertainty and peril where others fear to tread. Theoretical portrayals of the entrepreneur, such as Schumpeter’s (1934) or Knight’s (1921), are not isolated musings; they are part of the progressive revelation of the entrepreneur’s economic role in a market-based society. 

Although we employ the mono-myth narrative to emphasize the importance of the environment in the self-construal of the entrepreneur, we are mindful of scholars who caution against taking this metaphor too far and characterizing entrepreneurs as iconic superheroes imbued with extraordinary qualities (Ogbor 2000; Williams and Nadin 2013). They warn that entrepreneurs are not atomistic agents of change isolated from social influence (Dodd and Anderson 2007). They also remind us of the body of trait research that has failed to define the psychological profile of the fabled entrepreneurial “hero” (Gartner 1989). Perhaps most relevant to our investigation, these scholars caution against undersocialized methodologies that favor mythical depictions while ignoring consideration of the surrounding environment and how it impacts the entrepreneur’s journey. We wholly concur that entrepreneurship is more than an individualistic act and entrepreneurs themselves must be studied as social animals connected to context (Bruyat and Julien 2001; Dodd and Anderson 2007). Our reference to the mono-myth is meant to reinforce the idea that entrepreneurs do not develop their self-portrayals absent external input. Rather, the opposite is true; their selfperception is tied to their surroundings. Despite the emergence of studies that are beginning to explore how socio-environmental factors influence entrepreneurs (e.g., Fauchart and Gruber 2011; Powell and Baker 2014), significant gaps still exist concerning the black box of different facets that are influenced and the manner in which these interactions occur. An empirical void still surrounds the specific constructs involved and the nature of their relationships. We address these gaps, by focusing explicitly on entrepreneur social identities and the positive emotions they generate. This approach is valuable because it integrates social influences (in the form of social identities) and environmental factors to determine how they impact one very specific, and important, aspect of the entrepreneurial journey: the feelings the individual experiences as s/ he works to found a new enterprise. 

Social identities are cognitive schemas that incorporate meaning and expectations into social structure, thus translating general prescriptions for perception and feeling into specific imperatives at the individual level (Mead 1934; Stryker and Burke 2000). The entrepreneur social identity encompasses a host of characteristics that demarcate it from others in society. For this study, we concentrate on entrepreneur social identities defined by a connection to creating and founding1 new organizations (Bruyat and Julien 2001; Gartner 1989, 1990). We contend that as individuals grow closer to the prototype of the entrepreneur social identity, positive emotion (PE) is generated. Moreover, we posit that the environment plays a key role in how the individual interprets the journey toward achieving congruence with the entrepreneur social identity. Thus, this paper addresses two primary research questions: (1) what is the effect of social identity congruence on entrepreneurs’ positive emotions, and (2) how does environmental dynamism moderate this relationship? 

In a manner analogous to the mono-myth narrative, we argue that dynamic environments which appear turbulent may facilitate an individual’s entrepreneurial journey. Whereas environmental dynamism is a deterrent to the average everyman, it may increase the PE generated among entrepreneurs. Our logic draws from other social identities that call on actors to exhibit prototypical characteristics within perilous environments. For example, soldiers and firemen both seek to conform to their social identities despite threats to their own lives inherent in doing so. Their assumption of the characteristics prototypical of these identities is made heroic to some extent by the environment in which they operate. Typically, carrying a child out of a house on a normal day may not be viewed as valiant or result in high levels of PE. However, undertaking this action in a war zone, or when a house is burning and engulfed in flames, changes the meaning of the action as well as the generation of emotion. In this sense, achieving congruence with the social identity of a soldier or a fireman, amidst a challenging environment, yields higher positive emotion. In fact, it is possible that this PE satisfies “the need to feel alive” which Campbell claims underlies life’s vicissitudes and results from overcoming one’s fears to act courageously in the face of daunting surroundings." 

"Conclusion 

Our purpose in this study was to undertake an empirical investigation of the interaction between how entrepreneurs view themselves and how the external environment acts to influence those perceptions. Our findings lend credence to the fact that positive emotion among individual entrepreneurs is influenced by the congruence an individual experiences between their self-concept and the social identity of entrepreneur, an effect that is heightened by environmental dynamism. We take up the line of research initiated by Farmer, Yao, and KungMcintyre (2011) into entrepreneur identities, and hope to open the door to further empirical investigations into the burgeoning theories and questions that are developing in this stream. Some scholars suggest that civilization is a story about our endless attempt to reduce uncertainty and control our environment (North 2005). This highlights the importance the environment plays in our own existential struggle to achieve effectance. Indeed, Campbell (1949) argues that our primal drive is not the will to pleasure or power, but rather the simple desire to feel alive and that this comes from overcoming uncertainty."