Sublime

Since the mid-1980s, Lazonick observes, “the resource-allocation regime at many, if not most, major U.S. business corporations has transitioned from ‘retain-and-reinvest’ to ‘downsize-and-distribute.’

The point is that underlying technologies change, but, after a point, technology market shares don’t change and so they’re highly predictable.

Tribal allegiances are blinding people to the long-term effects of corporate hegemony.

In our view, the key to understanding how societies evolve is to understand factors that determine the costs and rewards of employing violence. Every human society, from the hunting band to the empire, has been informed by the interactions of megapolitical factors that set the prevailing version of the “laws of nature.”

Elevating the objectives of trade above the transparency and accountability that democracy requires will ultimately destroy at least one of these institutions, if not both.

Across industries, the drivers of value are the same: return on sales, profit growth, asset intensity, and strategic control.

This is a situation with striking parallels in the past. Whenever technological change has divorced the old forms from the new moving forces of the economy, moral standards shift, and people begin to treat those in command of the old institutions with growing disdain. This widespread revulsion often comes into evidence well before people develop a

As technology revolutionizes the tools we use, it also antiquates our laws, reshapes our morals, and alters our perceptions.