There is something deeply satisfying about owning less. Ask anyone who has cleared out a closet and felt that rush of liberation, that sense of moral superiority over the clutter. The minimalist movement has turned this feeling into a philosophy, a lifestyle brand, and ironically, a very profitable publishing niche. Declutter your home. Simplify your […]
Keynes vs. The Minimalists: Why Consumption is a Moral Duty Read More »
You probably believe that when you speak, you are transmitting your thoughts to another person. That words are little vehicles carrying meaning from your mind to theirs. That language is, at its core, a window into what you are thinking. Willard Van Orman Quine spent most of the twentieth century explaining why that belief is
There is a philosopher most people have never heard of who might explain the modern economy better than any economist alive. His name is Willard Van Orman Quine, and he never wrote a single word about oil prices, inflation, or supply chains. He wrote about language, logic, and the strange architecture of human belief. Yet
The Web of Value: How Changing the Price of Oil Changes the Meaning of Everything Else Read More »
There is a strange new sin spreading through universities, corporate boardrooms, and social media feeds. It is not violence. It is not hatred. It is not even rudeness. The sin is thinking clearly. Somewhere in the last two decades, logic became offensive. Not just unpopular or unfashionable, but genuinely threatening. To ask someone for evidence
Why Logic Is Now Considered a “Micro-Aggression” Read More »
There is a certain kind of idea that makes people uncomfortable not because it is wrong, but because it might be right. Samuel Huntington’s claim that human rights discourse often functions as a vehicle for Western geopolitical interests is one of those ideas. It sits in the intellectual living room like an uninvited guest who
Why Human Rights Is Often Just Code for “Western Interests” Read More »
Most people think of economic progress as a straight line going up. More jobs, more wealth, more comfort. A rising tide that lifts all boats. It is a pleasant image. It is also completely wrong. Joseph Schumpeter knew this. The Austrian economist, writing in the middle of the twentieth century, looked at capitalism and saw
In 1996, Samuel Huntington published The Clash of Civilizations and the Remaking of World Order and managed to irritate almost everyone. Liberals called him a fearmonger. Conservatives loved him until they realized he was not exactly cheerful about the West either. Academics dismissed the book as reductive. Then September 11 happened, and suddenly everyone was
There is a particular kind of discomfort that arrives when someone says profit is good. Not useful. Not necessary. Good. The word lands like a brick through a stained glass window. We have been trained, culturally and emotionally, to treat profit with suspicion. It is the thing corporations chase at the expense of rivers and
Why Profit Is the Only Honest Metric of Human Value Read More »
Thorstein Veblen died in 1929, broke and largely forgotten, in a cabin outside Palo Alto. He would have appreciated the irony. The man who spent his career dissecting how the wealthy perform their wealth could not have imagined that nearly a century later, teenagers on a Chinese social media app would prove his theories with
The Cult of the “Old Money” Aesthetic: A Veblenian Analysis of TikTok Trends Read More »
There is a peculiar cruelty in the way we treat people who succeed without our permission. Not without our help. Without our permission. Because somewhere deep in the architecture of human psychology, we have appointed ourselves the gatekeepers of who deserves what. And the fastest way to fail that invisible audit is to show up
Why We Are Programmed to Hate Success We Did Not Witness Read More »