Activity

Given the extreme discomfort and danger of coalmining work, it can seem extraordinary that people would fight so hard and suffer so much to preserve it--but perhaps it is no more extraordinary than the lengths dancers, musicians, writers and climbers will go to, to do what they have set their heart…

In 2013, the New Yorker's George Packer found that companies like Google and Facebook are full of people who fervently believe they are changing the world more effectively than any government can, and that it is entirely appropriate to become extremely rich by doing so. Packer found the phrase 'c…

The attempt to shut down the economy in October 1972 not only failed; it also shone a floodlight on the sheer scale of the redundancy (in terms of unnecessary equipment and so on) a supposedly 'efficient', competition-based economy needs, just to that its players can compete with each other.

Under 'business as usual', however, managements are less concerned with discharging an organization's avowed purpose (providing nutritious food, easy transport between A and B, warmth, comfort, and so on) than with discharging their responsibilities to shareholders (to provide healthy dividends and…

Centrally planned economies now dominate the world economy, but instead of having 'Socialist Republic' after their names, they have 'Inc' and 'plc': they are massively centralized, commercial hierarchies, and this has happened without much discussion of their feasibility or otherwise.