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[...] unequal societies have a short-term competitive edge over more egalitarian ones because those who take the decisions do not have to suffer their consequences. Rogers writes: 'unequal societies are better able to survive resource shortages by sequestering mortality in the lower classes'. In th…

[...] Demand for large, luxury cars fell abruptly; labor historian Rob Rooke records that demand fell steadily from 150,000 sold in 1929 to only 10,000 a year by 1937. Perhaps this was because it no longer felt right to drive in luxury when people were starving, and perhaps, following rumored or ac…

A key part of any Utopian project should be to discuss widely and think deeply about the human natures we want to have and the ones we do not want to have, and to devise the kinds of social arrangements that will support and reward those characteristics.

The frequent claim that inequality promotes accumulation and growth does not get much support from history. On the contrary, great economic inequality has always been correlated with extreme concentration of political power, and that power has always been used to widen the income gaps through rent-…

[...] 'Technology' often implicitly refers to something you are expected to turn over to 'the guys who understand it'.