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Slouching Towards Utopia: An Economic History of the Twentieth Century
In past centuries, every upper-class and most middle-class households would have employed a gardener, but today only 5 per cent of us still do so.
Roderick Floud • An Economic History of the English Garden
the mental inertia that John Stuart Mill called the ‘deep slumber of a decided opinion’.
Geoff Mulgan • Another World Is Possible: How to Reignite Social and Political Imagination
One person who was willing to risk political suicide was the visionary systems thinker Donella Meadows – one of the lead authors of the 1972 Limits to Growth report – and she didn’t mince her words. ‘Growth is one of the stupidest purposes ever invented by any culture,’ she declared in the late 1990s; ‘we’ve got to have an enough.’ In response to t
... See moreKate Raworth • Doughnut Economics: The must-read book that redefines economics for a world in crisis
hard work” is increasingly disconnected from economic outcomes
Paul Millerd • The Individualism Myth | #241
a stunted social imagination undermines our ability to adapt.
Geoff Mulgan • Another World Is Possible: How to Reignite Social and Political Imagination
George Stigler, a thirty-five-year-old economist at the University of Minnesota. Inflation had diluted the 40-cent minimum wage, and people were calling for an increase to 60 or even 75 cents an hour, which translates to $9.51 and $11.88 in June 2022 dollars. “Economists have not been very outspoken on this type of legislation,” Stigler wrote. “It
... See moreMatthew Desmond • Poverty, by America
As Upton Sinclair wrote, ‘It is difficult to get a man to understand something when his salary depends on his not understanding it.’5