I just read The Economic Bandwidth Problem by Frank Miroslav. It’s another just-so story about how trying to beat the Invisible Hand at efficient allocation makes no more sense than trying to initiate perpetual motion. That it would be an uphill battle, anyway, with the assumption that somehow an uphill battle necessarily brings “force” into…

This started as a comment on Silicon Valley Only Has to Win Once by Aaron Renn. It quickly grew to a size that would be grossly inappropriate as a blog comment, so I took it here. Do read the article and prior comments. There’s some capital stuff in there. Matt: Tech can’t be “displaced,” I…

Michael O. Church: Silicon Valley is a resource-extraction culture, similar to the Gulf States, but instead of the finite resource being petroleum, it’s the good faith of the American middle class, and the memory of a reasonably meritocratic mid-century, that’s being tapped. floydmaster: I like how when taxes are cut for the rich and we…

IED stands for “Idea/Expression Dichotomy.” The idea/expression dichotomy is one of those core concepts of common law that for some reason eludes the anti-copyright organizations behind so-called “Fair Use Week.” So I take it these raw elements of punk are firmly in the ideas rather than expression category. What do they consist of? Rhythmic motifs?…

Not just gig economy but even piecework pay is making a (big) comeback, after a good century of dormancy. There’s no natural law that says progress is permanent. Eternal vigilance, folks! One can never be too aggressive when it comes to beating back Social Expectations Rot.

Myself, I’d like to see cooperation supplant competition as the main organizing principle. I do recognize that that’s a tall order. Some scenarios that fall short of #FullCommunism that nevertheless would be seen (by me) as an improvement over the status quo, might include: Building the new allocation mechanism within the shell of the old…

Summerspeaker: If I thought I could personally win the popularity game and didn’t care about those who couldn’t, then maybe I’d be a market anarchist. Ana Kata: Homeowners in the US (as compared to other countries) have absurd amounts of power and influence over aspects of the community and planning they should have nearly zero…

The expression “a liberal education” originally meant one worthy of freemen. Such is education simply in a true and broad sense. But education ordinarily so-called– the learning of trades and professions which is designed to enable men to earn their living, or to fit them for a particular station in life—is servile. Henry Thoreau, 1859…

I asked a minor variant of that question (Is full unemployment…statelessly doable?) back in 2011. Lexi Linnell asks, Does universal basic income require a state? This is C4SS, so of course “without a state” means voluntarism-friendly. The whole way Linnell approaches the basic income question differs from mine at almost every turn. Her first question…