Tag: politics

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Who Knows What: The Paradoxes of human behaviour

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Harvard psychologist, one of the world’s greatest thinkers, and cognitive scientist, Steven Pinker, in When Everyone Knows that Everyone Knows, explores common knowledge- a concept deriving from game theory that describes the state in which not only does everyone knows something, but everyone knows that everyone knows that everyone knows. This idea according to Pinker “illuminates many enigmas of our public affairs and personal lives” and constitutes “a keystone in understanding the social world”. Pinker shows us how we think about each other’s thoughts, ad infinitum, it sounds impossible, but we do it all the same. This awareness which we … Continue reading Who Knows What: The Paradoxes of human behaviour

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Westerners

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“We cannot rebuild western civilisation” vice-president JD Vance warned in March shortly after entering the office. The west people are so worried about has a familiar story behind it: It originates in the ancient world in the conjoining of classical Greek philosophy and the Hebrew Bible and then weaves its way through medieval Christendom or coined by nineteenth-century imperialists? Neither writes Georgios Varouxakis in The West, his ambitious and fascinating genealogy of the idea. “The West” was not used by Plato, Cicero, Locke, Mill or other canonized figures of what we today call the Western tradition. It was not first … Continue reading Westerners

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World of Organised Crime

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A bandit becomes a monarch, a gang becomes a government and organised crime at the heart of every modern state. Homo Criminalis shows the emergence of modern society through the evolution of the underworld and its crimes. From Chinese banditry and eighteenth-century English tea smuggling to today’s cocaine submarines and the high-tech crimes of tomorrow, showing how the world’s dark underbelly shapes us, no matter how we try to outpace it. Mark Galeotti, a prolific author specialising in Russia and organised crime, shows “our dynamic interconnected globalised networked cross-cultural world is so permeated by organised crime. It is very hard … Continue reading World of Organised Crime

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World of Organised Crime

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A bandit becomes a monarch, a gang becomes a government and organised crime at the heart of every modern state. Homo Criminalis shows the emergence of modern society through the evolution of the underworld and its crimes. From Chinese banditry and eighteenth-century English tea smuggling to today’s cocaine submarines and the high-tech crimes of tomorrow, showing how the world’s dark underbelly shapes us, no matter how we try to outpace it. Mark Galeotti, a prolific author specialising in Russia and organised crime, shows “our dynamic interconnected globalised networked cross-cultural world is so permeated by organised crime. It is very hard … Continue reading World of Organised Crime

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Engineering towards mega projects

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Chinese-Canadian, Technology analyst, Dan Wang, from Stanford University, has been living through China’s astonishing messy progress. China’s towering bridges, gleaming railways, and sprawling factories have improved economic outcomes in record time. Rapid changes also meant pain throughout the Chinese society, controlled by political repression ending in astonishing growth, a feature of China’s engineering mindset. In Breakneck, Wang, reveals a provocative new framework for understanding China – one that helps us see America more clearly. While China is an engineering state, relentlessly pursuing megaprojects, the United States has stalled. America has transformed into a lawyerly society, reflexively blocking everything good and … Continue reading Engineering towards mega projects

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Capitalism’s permanent revolution

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We are faced with fundamental questions about the sustainability and morality of the economic system, Capitalism and its Critics provides a kaleidoscopic history of global capitalism, from colonialism and the Industrial Revolution to the ecological and artificial intelligence. British-American staff writer and economic journalist at the New Yorker, John Cassidy author of Dot.con, which examined the dotcom bubble of the late 1990s, and How Markets Fail, which illuminates the origins of the great financial crisis of 2007-08. Cassidy starts with the colonial monopoly capitalism of the East India Company, as seen through the critical eyes of William Bolts, a disgruntled … Continue reading Capitalism’s permanent revolution

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Britain’s flagging corporate economy

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The CEOs of Britain’s largest companies wield immense power, but we know very little about them. How did they get to the top? Why do they have so much power? Are they really worth that exorbitant salary?  Two academics from Queen’s Business school, Belfast, Michael Aldous and John Turner lift the veil on Britain’s corporate elite and provide the answers by telling the story of the British CEO over the past century. From gentleman amateurs to professional managers, entrepreneurs, frauds, and fat cats, they reveal the characters who have made it to the top of the corporate ladder, how they got … Continue reading Britain’s flagging corporate economy

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Sanctions do they work?

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The story of Russia’s historic opening to the West (1992-2022), where it succeeded and why it has failed, the impact of war and sanctions, and the prospects for Russia’s future. Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in 2022 brought a tragic close to a thirty-year period of history that began with the collapse of the Soviet Union and the reopening of Russia to the West after six decades of Soviet isolation. The opening lasted for three tumultuous decades and ended with a new closing, driven by the Ukrainian war, the imposition of Western sanctions, and the Russian responses to them. Thane Gustafson, … Continue reading Sanctions do they work?

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Imperfect lending decisions

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Ray Dalio, who founded Bridgewater Associates  five decades ago and one of the greatest investors of our times who anticipated the 2008 global financial crisis and the 2010-12 European debt crisis, shares for the first time his detailed explanation of what he calls the “Big Debt Cycle”.  Understanding this cycle is critical for helping policymakers, investors, and the general public grasp where we are and where we are headed with the debt issue. Dalio’s model points towards surprisingly straightforward solutions for dealing with the debt problems, that the US, Europe, Japan, and China face today. Global macro investors make bets on countries, … Continue reading Imperfect lending decisions

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Constant struggle to find daily necessities

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In 1966, China is on the cusp of a decade of upheaval, and the furnaces of Old Kiln have never been this cold. The village’s once-famed ceramics production has almost ground to a halt. Only ancient grudges smoulder beneath its poverty-stricken streets, never forgotten by the two families that preside over the village making them “backward, simple, petty, absurd and cruel” Jia writes. Between them stands the adopted Inkcap, whose mysterious origins leave him unloved and barely tolerated. Historically they have always been told what to do, and they have had the inertia of people trained in passivity. “Everyone is … Continue reading Constant struggle to find daily necessities