About This Project

I'm a firm believer in free markets and individual liberties. Not because of ideology, but because of a simple observation: the easiest way for us collectively to make everything better for everyone is to ensure there's growth.

Growth makes it possible for one to have more without having to take it from someone else. There's tremendous power in that. The alternative—fighting over a fixed pie—isn't great.

But somewhere along the way, we've forgotten what opportunity and hope feel like. We've accepted stagnation as natural, scarcity as permanent, and progress as something that happened to previous generations. I wanted to create a book that would help readers grasp what transformation actually feels like—not through abstract statistics, but through the lens of people living through it.

The idea crystallized while reading about (and living through!) our current moment—AI revolution, technological stagnation debates, zero-sum political thinking. I kept wondering: have we been here before? What can history teach us about rapid economic transformation?

The parallels between the 1930s-40s and today struck me forcefully. Two societies achieved stunning growth rates. Both transformed overnight. But one created lasting prosperity while the other built castles on sand. The numbers were similar, but the methods, the values, the systems were different.

I realized this was a roadmap for navigating the choices we face with AI and the transformations ahead. But to make it real, readers needed to feel what 7% growth means when you've been unemployed for three years. They needed to understand the intoxication of momentum, the seduction of prosperity, the human cost of different paths.

Here's how it worked: I spent months researching, reading the scholarly literature, identifying the key moments and metrics that mattered. I crafted detailed outlines for each chapter—not just topics, but specific scenes, emotional beats, the exact progression from despair to hope to revelation. I'd bounce off ideas with various AIs, ask for critical feedback, and refine the ideas until I was happy with the result.

Each section required multiple iterations: "Make this more visceral." "Add specific prices in Reichsmarks." "Show the factory through a worker's eyes, not management's." "Less exposition, more scene." The AI provided most of the prose; I provided the vision, structure, fact-checking, and quality control - all of these also AI assisted, of course.

It's a new kind of creative process. Neither traditional authorship nor pure AI generation. Think of it like a film director working with a team, or an architect designing a building that others construct. The vision, research, and decisions are human. The execution is augmented. As might be the case with a movie director with a friendly movie deal, I had final cut.

It's easy to dismiss anything partly AI-written as useless slop, an offense toward authors who pour their hearts and souls into their works and might labor on a book for years. I understand that reaction. We need new naming conventions for this kind of collaborative creation, and we'll likely have them soon.

But here's what I know: this book exists because of AI, not in spite of it. Without Claude, I would never have attempted to write a 300-page historical narrative. The research would have stayed in my notes. The insights would have remained unshared. The stories of those who lived through these transformations would have gone untold by me.

I stand by what we've created. It passes my (relatively high) bar for being enjoyable to read. More importantly, it accomplishes what I set out to do: make readers feel what economic transformation means at the human level, understand the choices we face, and recognize that growth—real, inclusive growth—remains both possible and essential.

Instead of debating AI involvement, let's focus on whether the book provides value, insight, and truth. Whether it helps readers understand our moment better. Whether it makes them think differently about growth, prosperity, and human potential. I believe it does.

We're living through the early stages of the AI revolution. Like the transformations of the 1930s and 1940s, this could go multiple ways. We could see unprecedented abundance that lifts everyone, or we could see concentration of power that makes current inequality look quaint.

The difference will come down to choices—about markets, competition, innovation, and inclusion. About whether we embrace growth or fight over redistribution. About whether we trust individuals with freedom or demand control in the name of safety.

History shows us that societies can transform with breathtaking speed when they combine economic freedom with shared purpose. The challenge is ensuring that purpose serves human flourishing, not human subjugation.

That's why I produced this book. Not to glorify the past, but to understand it. Not to provide easy answers, but to ask better questions. And most importantly, to remind us all that stagnation is a choice, not a law of nature.

Growth is possible. Hope is justified. The future can be better than the present. We just need to remember how.