I would like to consider a paradox. On the one hand, prices are driven by demand for the product, and thus for the expenditure of savings from the income of labour. On the other hand, prices are shaped by the accumulation of savings which are diverted from ordinary spending to extraordinary spending on financial commodities. … Continue reading A modern Achilles: The savings glut and the paradox of capitalist development
Tag: Polity
The revolution will be unified: Why humans and AI should fuse to form a universal mind
What scientific advance, big or small, would you like to see above all else in your lifetime, and why does it matter to you? (Nature essay competition, 2019) Word count: 1,000 (excluding header, footer, title, sub-titles, word count, and references) In 1651, after a long and brutal civil war, English philosopher Thomas Hobbes called for … Continue reading The revolution will be unified: Why humans and AI should fuse to form a universal mind
How I predicted Liz Truss’ downfall, then changed my mind (and predicted what comes next)
I have written a lot about the rise and fall of Liz Truss in recent months. I believe my articles up to this point have essentially predicted the ongoing unfurling of events. My task now is to show how this prediction is coming to fruition. Let me begin here, in a post entitled, ‘Why Liz … Continue reading How I predicted Liz Truss’ downfall, then changed my mind (and predicted what comes next)
After utopia: Do Plato’s political recommendations satisfy the requirements of human psychology as identified in Republic?
From an essay written under time constraints in June 2020 (highest mark in cohort). Plato’s recommendations satisfy the requirements of human psychology as identified in the Republic so long as human psychology is constituted as Plato takes it to be, and so long as the extra-psychological (social and ecological) conditions for the political satisfaction of these … Continue reading After utopia: Do Plato’s political recommendations satisfy the requirements of human psychology as identified in Republic?
Time of Terra: The medieval foundations of modern politics
In my previous writings about modernity, theory, philosophy, art, and evolution, I have somewhat obscured the key to the world in which we live: its origins in medieval Europe. This idea occurred to me, paradoxically, in reflecting on science fiction, such as the tabletop game Warhammer 40,000, which follows influences both from high fantasy (notably, … Continue reading Time of Terra: The medieval foundations of modern politics
The upside-down narrative of HAMILTON
After Stephen Sondheim’s jazz-influenced era of musical theatre and Jonathan Larson’s rock-infused follow-up, Lin-Manuel Miranda took the world by storm with a third age of musicals, drawing on hip hop in the ‘90s and early ‘00s to make the hits In the Heights and Hamilton in the late ‘00s to mid ‘10s. The latter combined … Continue reading The upside-down narrative of HAMILTON
The banality of sociality
Hannah Arendt’s seminal Eichmann in Jerusalem famously describes Nazism, personified in the Holocaust administrator Adolf Eichmann on trial in Jerusalem, as ‘the banality of evil’. In The Origins of Totalitarianism, Arendt considers the alliance between ‘elite’ and ‘mob’ underpinning totalitarian politics. If the totalitarian elite is characterised by a sinister banality, a strange coupling of … Continue reading The banality of sociality
Edmund Wilson 