Keynesian cogs - 2
21 September 2025
Non-Keynesian Cogs
I ended the previous essay by a declaration that gig workers are not Keynesian cogs, because their work is driven by an aspiration to rather become a Keynesian cog. They want money to afford healthcare and education for their children who may have to work less. Unlike Keynesian cogs, their purpose to work is to be able to work lesser in the future, or for their children and grandchildren to work less in the future.
Quick recap, Keynesian cogs are the knowledge worker class supported by the gig workers. Those who work because they need to afford better vacations, and other such materialisms that make them feel that they are higher class of person than their peers.
And then there are the rich few, who have wealth that comes with political influence, local and global. Their distinction against Keynesian cogs is blurry. Is it just a difference of more money? Or old money, which comes with the gift of not dreaming of working. I am not sure, but if I neglect that gap, loosely the classification is the aristocracy, the bourgeoisie and the proletariat. Wooops!
The Next Social Revolution
Once, I described the Keynesian cogs as living a life of slavery, because their desires are controlled by the pangs of consumerism. But that’s an overuse of the term. Truly, the gig workers have the worst of it. They do not own property, their entire existence revolves around serving others for a wage that affords them poor living conditions. The global situation is ripe for another social revolution. All you need is enough people to be convinced that the travelator they think they’re standing on is really a treadmill. If so, nihilism can be channeled externally. Life is not worth living, but it might be worth dying for our children. Revolutions really do feel like an emergent phenomenon.
Does capitalism fuel innovation?
The innovators have an incentive to make the world a better place. That has always been the same, but innovators need capital. Scientist build big machine see small atom make energy. Why would anyone take risks with their capital if they’re not promised a potential reward from the research?
European monarchs were attracted by access to far reaches of the world and their natural resources for funding scientific expeditions. Colonialism was no different a form of exploitation than late stage capitalism, except the roles were easier to define based on latitudes. Well, and VOC/EIC broke the social channel. Commoners had access to capital! The sword changes hands but slashes just the same.
Monarchs, or the state when it sponsors research institutions are at least in theory, enacting the will of people. They may be bad actors, but it is not guaranteed that a group of people will take better decisions. Either solution is a solution and is historically prone to disaster. What’s been happening in recent times? American research institutions are responsible for fundamental advances in natural sciences in recent decades and they draw a large part of their funding from the United States military. State sponsorships funded the development, and then the distribution of Covid-19 vaccines. In contrast, the greatest private innovation has been internet based services.
We, as society, need to take risks, or deploy capital on risky projects to fuel innovation, but it is not clear to me if the system that leads to the distribution of capital deployment is relevant beyond a survivorship bias of the United States versus the USSR. The Chinese have made the cracks appear in the last decade.