Cowen-struck <3

“Your eyes just lit up at the mention of Tyler Cowen,” Constantine says as he approaches me at a Stripe Press event. I smile. Well yes! Cowen’s a badass. And I rarely find a whisper of his name outside of the places I lurk online. But more people ought to know him.

He’s not just an economist at George Mason University, he's also director of the Mercatus Center, co-author of the popular Marginal Revolutions economics blog, co-founder of Marginal Revolutions University, runs Emergent Ventures which provides fast grants to talented individuals, author of several books ...and the host of the absolutely fantastic podcast Conversations with Tyler. 

Yes, of course, my eyes lit up.

Curating a prolific infovore like Cowen is to undertake a Sisyphean task. So, this will read more like a gal gushing about a man who’s doing all the great things she’d like to do.

Along with Patrick Collison, he gave birth to ‘progress studies’, a field they carved out to shine a light at human’s trajectory. And it’s my latest interest. They recognized how sorely unexamined the path to progress was—there was no intellectual movement investing in this. And *sighs* we don’t see progress unless we work for it.

“By “progress,” we mean the combination of economic, technological, scientific, cultural, and organizational advancement that has transformed our lives and raised standards of living over the past couple of centuries.”—Tyler Cowen

In a world where we once saw giant leaps from horse to cars, we’re now seeing iterative brush strokes. And of course the internet is a great leap, but its economic impact isn’t as great as electricity. But he recognizes that there will be periods of massive growth and periods of stagnation. 

So, if we want to see more economic growth, more progress, we ought to ask ourselves the following questions:

1. How did we get here?  

2. Why did it take so long? 

3. What are the next steps?

Progress studies isn't just a study— it's an actionable pursuit. It's what I love most about this field. There's a natural romantic allure in musing over humanity's past feats and future potential. But just as in romance, where longing alone never won hearts, in progress studies, admiration of human potential achieves nothing without the pursuit. And this involves many things, including fostering environments ripe for innovation, refining scientific research, and honing management practices and policies.

Cowen's motivation for pioneering progress studies seems rooted in the philosophy presented in his book “Stubborn Attachments.” Here, he advocates for economic growth as a moral imperative, arguing for a future deeply invested in long-term prosperity. And I think one key point in this is that wealth generated by growth isn’t zero-sum. He weaves together economic theory with moral tenets into three pivotal points:

1. Sustained economic growth is not only achievable—it’s a philosophical must.

2. Our morality ought to be anchored in a framework of rules and rights, safeguarding human dignity against the allure of mere economic gain.

3. We should have within us some humility in our conviction towards particular policies, acknowledging that we might be wrong.

I’m no economist. And I can hardly call myself a philosopher. But this seems like good stuff to me. His three tenets marry economic ambition with moral clarity, which is how I hope we think of progress. It emphasizes human rights and sustainability, as foundational parameters, with a gentle utilitarian bend. 

And with this, he pushes for a change in our current institutions, which are simply not dressed appropriately for the growth he wishes to see. Plus, more experimentation needs to happen to find the next big leap in innovation. A lot has to change, but like Tyler, I am optimistic.

In tandem with all this is his obsession with talent—finding it, fostering it, and putting it to good use. I think this is one of the biggest problems we face. And he’s on it (lucky for us). But the question of finding talent, according to his book on Talent, encourages people to build their own mental models of talent and to discard all preconceptions. To forego proxies and to look for actual competency. It feels counterintuitive! I encourage you to take a read to find out why. But none of it is prescriptive—besides his subtle suggestion to think of this as more a lifestyle, in which building your discernment for talent has great payoffs for both yourself and the talent. Raising someone’s aspirations and changing the trajectory of their life is nothing short of a meaningful endeavor.

I hesitate to mention Emergent Ventures twice, as it benefits from a low profile (luckily, I have an even lower profile), but this approach to grantmaking is something I strongly hope to see replicated a thousand times over. I share his sentiment that teens are the least supported by current institutions, even though they have shown the most promise in recent decades. These are also very transformative years, and EV has done a great job of supporting many promising young individuals at the right time—having known some of them as my friends, I can attest that they are indeed promising. Why aren’t there more initiatives like EV??

It's not so much that I think more people ought to know him just for the hell of it. I think more people should strive to be like him. To write daily, as he has for 20 years on the Marginal Revolution blog. To be an insatiable infovore. To abandon books the moment they lose your attention. To ask sharp questions as he does on his podcast. To marry different disciplines in a practical way. To possess epistemic humility. To nurture talent. To maintain optimism for a better future. And most importantly, to act on it.

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This is the 5th and last post (sad) for the Write of Passage cohort 11. Prompt: Curate the work of an online writer you think others should know about.