There is a strange irony at the heart of modern economics. The two great rival camps, socialists and capitalists, have spent over a century screaming at each other about profit. One side says profit is theft. The other says profit is the rightful reward for owning capital. And according to one quietly brilliant economist named […]
Why Socialists and Capitalists Both Misunderstand the Nature of Profit Read More »
You did not choose your country. You did not read the fine print. You did not click “I agree.” And yet, here you are, a fully enrolled citizen with obligations, tax duties, and a passport that tells the world which government gets to claim you. If this sounds like a subscription service you never signed
Is Your Citizenship Just a “Subscription” You Never Asked For? Read More »
Samuel Huntington published The Clash of Civilizations in 1993. The Berlin Wall had just fallen. Liberal democracy was supposed to sweep the planet like a benign virus. Francis Fukuyama had already declared the end of history, and most of the Western intellectual establishment was ready to pop champagne. Huntington refused to drink. Instead, he argued
Why an Islamic GPT and a Chinese GPT Will Never Agree Read More »
There is a particular kind of anxiety that grips people when currencies wobble. You see it in the headlines. You hear it at dinner parties where someone who just discovered gold ETFs suddenly speaks with the authority of a central banker. The dollar is dying, they say. Protect yourself. Buy gold. Buy crypto. Buy Swiss
Don’t Hedge Against the Dollar. Hedge With Your Own Productivity Read More »
There is something almost poetic about a man who conquered most of Europe but could not conquer a simple economic truth. Napoleon Bonaparte reshaped borders, toppled monarchies, and rewrote the legal codes of entire civilizations. Yet when he turned his strategic mind to economics, he produced one of the most spectacular policy failures in modern
Napoleon’s Mistake: How the Continental System Proved Say Was Right About Free Trade Read More »
There is a peculiar ritual in democratic politics. Every few years, someone stands behind a podium and declares that the rich are not paying their fair share. The crowd roars. The policy passes. And then, quietly, the cost of everything you buy goes up, the jobs in your town get a little scarcer, and nobody
Here is a thought that might ruin your afternoon in the best possible way: what if a significant portion of your anxiety is not a chemical event, not a psychological deficiency, not a trauma response, but a confusion about language? That sounds absurd. Maybe even offensive. You feel the tightness in your chest, the spiraling
Is Your Anxiety a Linguistic Trap? Re-framing Mental Distress with Philosophy Read More »
We have been trained to fear the strongman. The dictator in military dress, the demagogue at the podium, the authoritarian who suspends elections and locks up journalists. Every generation gets its cautionary tale. Hitler. Stalin. Mussolini. The lesson seems obvious: democracy dies when a tyrant seizes power. But what if the real danger is quieter
Why the Greatest Threat to Democracy Is Not Dictators, But Bureaucrats Read More »
Carl von Clausewitz never pitched a VC. He never had to explain his burn rate on a board call or pretend to enjoy a team offsite. He spent his career studying Napoleon, fighting in wars he sometimes lost, and writing a book he never finished. He died in 1831 of cholera, which is about as
5 Lessons from a 19th Century General That Will Save Your Startup (Clausewitz) Read More »
There is a surgeon in an operating room. She nicks an artery. The patient bleeds out on the table. There will be lawsuits. There will be investigations. Her career might end. Her name will appear in newspapers. Strangers on the internet will call her a murderer. Now imagine a robotic surgical system does the same
Why We Forgive Robots for Mistakes We Would Kill a Human For Read More »