alt Hacker NewsNone of modern society and economics was put together accidentally, IMO. It was purposeful, a mix of success & failures, serendipitous, and filled with mixed motives... but that's not quite the same as an accident.
A mix of political scientists, politicians, investors, entrepreneurs, lawyers, judges, scientists, technologists, and economists have tried to mold society to their own theoretical vision for at least 150+ years. Society then reacts to that in both good and bad ways. This distorts the vision, as society changes it to its concerns. And the cycle repeats.
I think of Karl Polyani's The Great Transformation has a great way of looking at the attempts to force "market society" on England in the 1700 and 1800s, and the reaction that all societies exhibit in the face of unconstrained technological or economic change. Both the imposition of change and reaction to it can be violent, it's hard to predict. We've had such a relatively steady state since WW2 in the developed nations that we're not used to this cycle.
Accidentally is the wrong word, but considering it was never done before and had some very unusual constraints (large coal supply and coal industry, sufficient centralised state that could provide peace within its borders but had been neutered into compromise with parliamentary middle class, finance centres, maritime trade etc etc) that it was done at all does feel … unplanned?
The image that sticks in my mind the most is the Meiji Emperor in a 1870s photo dressed in a saville row suit and bowler hat. For Japan the most incredible social card to play that says “we are going to be like these foreigners and their secrets to wealth”
Nothing accidental there, but that still leaves visible joins on the Japanese soul.