In the mid-1990s, Virginia Postrel--a Forbes, Wall Street Journal and Inc. journalist, New York Times editorialist and editor of the libertarian-oriented "Reason" magazine--watched CNN's "Crossfire" and was amused at what she saw. As Postrel, describes it, there was arch conservative Pat Buchanan and liberal environmental-alarmist author Jeremy Rifkin together, "literally across left and right on sides of the table and agreeing with each other that the American economy was too dynamic and that the government needed to step in and do something, never specifying exactly what, to curb that dynamism because it was rather disruptive and dangerous."
Incidents like these convinced Postrel that the future would have nothing to do with traditional definitions of conservatives and liberals, Republicans and Democrats. Her 1999 book, "The Future and Its Enemies," divides the future between two groups she calls the dynamists and the stasists.
Meet the Dynamists and the Stasists
In a phone interview, Postrel describes the dynamists as a group of individuals who want to allow for more individual exploration and experimentation, a group "looking for improvements in their own lives, in their businesses, in technologies they work with. And doing this in a very decentralized way."
On the other side of the equation, Postrel says, "There are a lot of people who are very uncomfortable with that choice or with that process"; uncomfortable with individuals having too much control. "And this group wants stability or control at the level of the whole society. They want some form of stasis. Some form of holding the future still." And says Postrel, they typically want the government to do this on a national level.
In contrast, the dynamist, who seeks to be unfettered by government control, tends by definition not to be as politically active as stasists. The software writer so interested in the evolution of his programs that he is willing to explore uncharted territory, Postrel says, is a dynamist. "But you don't necessarily take your expertise to the political world," she says.
Naturally, like most labels, these are a broad simplification of how the world operates. Most people are comfortable with dynamic growth and exploration in some areas, but want a certain amount of stasis (usually in the form of government regulation), in others. But they allow Postrel to make her points and explore the directions she feels the nation may pursue in the 21st century. Not surprisingly, given her libertarian leanings, her money's on the dynamists.
Article comments
1 - Artie Turner
I never paid much attention to Postrel until I came across her piece in WIRED. The gratuitous slap at Pat Buchanan set off my neocon radar, but I read the rest of the article, amazed at the flimsy logic from someone who had "credentials" as contributor to Reason, Wall St. Journal, etc.
Postrel has observed that the liberal/conservative dichotomy has outgrown its usefullness, and I can accept that, but in its place she posits her own dichotomy, the "dynamist/stasist" that seems equally unfit at describing anything observable. Her entire thesis is based on one casual observation of Pat Buchanan and Rifkin of Crossfire.
Her observations seem to amount to little more than the complete triumph of style over substance. Emoting and freely expressing style is good, working at a traditional job like welder is bad.
She seems like the Ann Coulter of economics to me.