October 22, 2019 - 10:42am
More than a third of households in some countries now consist of someone living alone, as shown in this chart from Branko Milanovic’s new book Capitalism Alone:
One of the points of "C,A" (Ch 5) is that greater commodification of many activities that were done w/in family tends to result in more people living alone. In Nordic countries, ~40% of HHs are single-person. (@lisdata; @nishant_yonzan) pic.twitter.com/qXLLHudDzp
— Branko Milanovic (@BrankoMilan) October 21, 2019
This has lots of implications but one of the least talked about is our political system. How we live has a huge impact on our politics; for example, how long a country has been Roman Catholic affects its ability to have a functioning democracy. Why? Partly because the Church’s ancient ban on cousin marriage led to the decline of clans and the rise of nuclear families. As Nottingham University’s Jonathan F Schulz explained a couple of years back:
The fall of the clans meant that, once a child grew to adolescence and found a partner, he or she was not just a member of the extended family but a separate individual.
And as both Larry Siedentop and more recently Tom Holland have emphasised, the Christian sexual revolution, by creating the radical concept of consent in marriage, also led to individualism and, therefore, liberalism.
Individualism is quite unnatural; throughout human history people have thought of themselves in relation to their extended family, and countries in which the nuclear family is not the norm still find it difficult to create functioning democracies.
Both the western liberal and conservative traditions are tied up with the nuclear family and its inevitable compromise and friction between the individual and the wider community, although liberals have tended to lean towards the former and conservatives the latter. For example, in the US the marriage gap between overwhelmingly liberal single women and conservative married women is substantial, and there is evidence that having children makes women more conservative.
So what happens when western societies move beyond the nuclear family and towards singlehood as the new norm? Do we become ultra-individualists? Or does our need to be part of a wider community mean we instead increasingly turn to – often intolerant – pop-up political tribes?
Join the discussion
Join like minded readers that support our journalism by becoming a paid subscriber
To join the discussion in the comments, become a paid subscriber.
Join like minded readers that support our journalism, read unlimited articles and enjoy other subscriber-only benefits.
SubscribeStealth in space is impossible without a spacecraft coated in vantablack and emitting helium coolant for temperature control and propulsion. That needs to be considered before anything else regarding space is proposed.
It’s an interesting thought exercise, certainly.
We have to remember though that the 1967 agreement only came about once human and automated spaceflight was becoming routine and competitive between nations, and risked wider conflict. That is simply not the case for the moon right now – it would be as likely as countries having agreed how to approach colonialism in the 15th century (however desirable that would have been considering the harm done to indigenous populations). Until such risks come about, facts on the ground will dictate how lunar policy plays out, not planning up-front (not to mention that ignoring treaties seems rather in vogue right now). Besides which, it would seem simple for any colony on the moon to “declare independence” and so be freed from earthly treaties, yet still receive direct support from an earth-based state… it’s not clear how this might be policed!
Right now, the best we can hope is if any nation can get back there and create a viable habitat for our species. Only if and when we succeed in that great endeavour can we puny humans reasonably worry about the minutiae of the bureaucracy!
You may want to look into this. Near earth industry and lunar industry are actually having their infrastructure put in place now.
Thanks… space history and technology is one of my areas of particular interest, so I’m comfortable with what I’m saying here. Having infrastructure being put in place is completely different from proving that infrastructure can operate in any economically and socially viable way, or whether it has any military value to states on Earth that we all agree are in our best interests to be constrained. There is no evidence at this stage that any permanent lunar colonisation will succeed (although I personally very much hope it will!).
A look at historical agreements will show that they almost all come after the viability and value of something is proven, and also after the potential for harm is also recognised. Any good treaty must offer benefits for all participants, and why would the first nation to the moon wish its actions to be constrained? Better strategically to wait until their position is strengthened by boots on the ground if you will, and then negotiate a treaty that acknowledges the fait accompli and at the same time impedes the competition. On the other hand, if you think you’re going to lose the race…
The title of this piece implies that the recent Iraq War was about plundering its resources. It wasn’t.
Iraq had idiotically become a clear threat to Israel, and had to be chastised, at whatever cost.
This accomplished, it has nearly been returned to the Stone Age, and will remain docile, for at least another ten years. Syria has suffered a similar, if not quite so humiliating fate.