The Rational Light of Cooperation
There are truths that lie so close to the heart of human experience that we pass them by daily without recognition. We step over them as one…
Finance and Economy
-
-
The Company Store Never Closed
It’s easy to forget that America once ran on company stores and scrip. Coal miners in Appalachia were paid in vouchers redeemable only at their employer’s shop,…
-
The Mythology of the Economy and the Enslavement of the Soul
There is a strange piety that governs the modern world, a religion that no one names but that commands greater obedience than any god ever known to…
-
Mammon in the Modern Age: Who (or What) Do We Really Serve?
In today’s world, Mammon – once the symbol of wealth and material obsession – has taken on new and less obvious forms. It’s no longer just about…
-
The End of Passive Economics: Building a Stakeholder Society
In today’s economy, most people are locked into one role: consumer. We buy what’s offered, work in jobs where decisions are made elsewhere, and live in a…
-
The Addiction to Consumption: What Are We Really Trying to Buy?
Walk into any shopping mall, fast-food restaurant, or social media platform, and you’ll see the same expression on people’s faces—a vacant, almost trance-like engagement with whatever they’re…
-
“The Well-Connected Community” by Alison Gilchrist: Why Networks Matter More Than Plans
If you’ve ever been involved in community work, whether organizing a neighborhood event, running a local nonprofit, or just trying to get people to care about something…
-
“Manufacturing Consent: by Noam Chomsky and Edward S. Herman: A Propaganda Model for the Modern Age
In the nearly four decades since its publication, Manufacturing Consent: The Political Economy of the Mass Media has solidified itself as one of the most incisive critiques…
-
The Democratic Market: Balancing Freedom, Fairness, and Power
A truly democratic free-market society would not be a contradiction in terms but a balance of forces—economic power held in check by democratic accountability, individual liberty safeguarded…
-
“The World Until Yesterday” by Jared Diamond – a review
There once was a world where disputes are settled with bows and arrows, not courtrooms. Where a child roamed freely, unburdened by the paranoia of “stranger danger.”…