You have never read the most important book in your life. Nobody has. It was never printed. It has no author, no table of contents, no index. Yet you consult it every single day. You use it when you shake hands instead of bowing. You use it when you laugh at a joke that would […]
Why Culture Is Just a Massive, Unspoken Glossary Read More »
There is something deeply uncomfortable about the idea of putting a price tag on belonging. Citizenship feels sacred, like love or loyalty. It is not supposed to be for sale. And yet, the Nobel laureate economist Gary Becker looked at the global refugee crisis and asked a question that makes most people squirm: what if
Why We Should Sell Citizenship: Using Markets to Solve the Refugee Crisis Read More »
Most people assume the opposite of revolution is doing nothing. Sitting on the couch. Scrolling through your phone while the world burns. Apathy. Complacency. The classic image of the citizen who just does not care enough to act. But Michel Foucault, the French philosopher who spent his career studying how power actually works, would have
Why the Opposite of Revolution Is Not Complacency, It Is Normalization Read More »
There was a time when the self made individual was the protagonist of Western civilization. The person who started with nothing, built something, and refused to apologize for it. That person was celebrated in novels, held up in political speeches, and Christ-like in the American imagination. Somewhere along the way, the script flipped. The self
From Heroes to Villains: The Cultural War Against the “Self Made” Read More »
There is a particular kind of confidence that comes from winning. And after the Cold War ended, the West had it in abundance. Liberal democracy had outlasted its rival. Markets were open. Borders were softening. History, according to Francis Fukuyama, had reached its final destination. The only task remaining was to ship the winning formula
Why Liberalism Failed to Export Happiness to the East Read More »
You spent four years in lecture halls. You wrote essays at 2am fueled by caffeine and quiet desperation. You walked across a stage, shook a hand, and received a piece of paper. And here is the uncomfortable question that George Stigler, the Nobel laureate economist who spent his career studying how information moves through markets,
Why Your Degree Is an Information Product, Not an Education: The Signaling Game Read More »
There is a particular kind of optimism that sounds beautiful in speeches and falls apart on contact with reality. It goes something like this: if we just remove the barriers between peoples, if we dissolve the lines on maps and let cultures flow freely into one another, peace will follow naturally. Humanity will recognize its
Why Peace Requires Harder Borders, Not Softer Ones Read More »
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 »