Sublime

Here, Rousseau asks exactly the same question that puzzled so many indigenous Americans. How is it that Europeans are able to turn wealth into power; turn a mere unequal distribution of material goods – which exists, at least to some degree, in any society – into the ability to tell others what to do, to employ them as servants, workmen or grenadie

La prima lezione è che occorre diffidare, in una materia del genere, di ogni determinismo economico: la storia della distribuzione delle ricchezze è sempre una storia profondamente politica, che non si esaurisce nell’individuazione dei meccanismi puramente economici. In particolare, la riduzione delle disuguaglianze osservata nei paesi sviluppati t

When returns to violence are high and rising, magnitude means more than efficiency. Larger entities tend to prevail over smaller ones.

qui l’a emporté… Le travail des historiens est aujourd’hui essentiel pour comprendre ce que le génial économiste Nicholas Georgescu-Roegen avait lucidement pressenti dans les années 1970 : « Tout se passe comme si l’espèce humaine avait choisi de mener une vie brève mais excitante, laissant aux espèces moins ambitieuses une existence longue mais mo

During the first half of the next century there will be a massive transfer of wealth from the Old West to the New East. Political failures—and China is still a politically backward country—may delay this transfer of wealth and strategic power, but are most unlikely to prevent it. They cannot reverse it. This process of the shift in wealth would in

We conclude that the concentration of wealth is natural and inevitable, and is periodically alleviated by violent or peaceable partial redistribution. In this view all economic history is the slow heartbeat of the social organism, a vast systole and diastole of concentrating wealth and compulsive recirculation.

“Economic Consequences of Organized Violence,”

People who assure you that you can only gain security at the price of liberty usually want to deny you both.