…[A]sk not what your country can do for you—ask what you can do for your country. John F. Kennedy, Inaugural address, 20 January 1961 So, now it can be told: having finally escaped the Kafka-esque embrace of the Department of Work and Pensions – they owe me nothing and I owe them nothing – weContinue reading “On leaving the sinking ship”
Tag Archives: economics
On the science of economics
David Roth memorably described the job of neoliberal economists as finding “new ways to say ‘actually, your boss is right.’” Cory Doctorow If science has value, it lies in its independence from considerations of political power. Objective truth, insofar as we can determine it, requires no further validation. The biological theories of Trofim Lysenko areContinue reading “On the science of economics”
On the self-limiting nature of stupidity
Texas farm blaze kills 18,000 cows in deadliest barn fire on record in the US Headline in THe Guardian, 14/04/2023 It is not, of course, news that people do stupid things. People have been doing stupid things for as long as there have been people. I don’t have statistics for this, because no such statisticsContinue reading “On the self-limiting nature of stupidity”
On renunciation
Grant me the treasure of sublime poverty: permit the distinctive sign of our order to be that it does not possess anything of its own beneath the sun, for the glory of your name, and that it have no other patrimony than begging. St Francis of Assisi I’m writing these words on the first dayContinue reading “On renunciation”
On the return of the peasant
The most dramatic and far-reaching social change of the second half of [the twentieth] century, and one that cuts us off forever from the world of the past, is the death of the peasantry. Eric Hobsbawm I fear I must disagree with the late Professor Hobsbawm. The death of the peasantry has been much exaggerated,Continue reading “On the return of the peasant”
On the vision for a New England
Ask not what your country can do for you; ask what you can do for your country. President John F. Kennedy (attr.) I am, as I believe I have mentioned before, a citizen of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, or at least that’s what it says on my passport. That countryContinue reading “On the vision for a New England”
On renewable energy
There ain’t no such thing as a free lunch. Robert A. Heinlein, The Moon is a Harsh Mistress I originally wrote this essay a few weeks ago, but it’s now something of a companion piece to last week’s post on false hope, particularly as that relates to nuclear fusion. Because a lot of the falseContinue reading “On renewable energy”
On the suppression of agriculture
The ultimate goal of farming is not the growing of crops, but the cultivation and perfection of human beings. Masanobu Fukuoka, The One-Straw Revolution, Warning: Contains book recommendations. Proceed at your peril. Only a complete idiot, of course, would want to suppress agriculture. But apparently we now have complete idiots in charge of our foodContinue reading “On the suppression of agriculture”
On the approach of winter
For the night is dark and full of terrors. George R.R. Martin, A Clash of Kings I often use this blog to point out the turning-points of the cycle of the year. Here in the northern hemisphere, we are approaching the autumn equinox, the point when the nights start to be longer than the daysContinue reading “On the approach of winter”
On population
Malthus has been buried many times, and Malthusian scarcity with him. But as Garrett Hardin remarked, anyone who has to be reburied so often cannot be entirely dead. Herman E. Daly, Steady-State Economics: The Economics of Biophysical Equilibrium and Moral Growth (1991) There are several canned responses that always seem to come up whenever theContinue reading “On population”
The sound of falling leaves 