Image Source Two weeks or so ago Liam Bright posted the following tweet: Liberal technocrats give us literally no reason at all to think their interests are aligned with the great majority of people, yet when they are attacked as a governing class they stress their credentials and competency. But it’d be worse if they’re […]
image Source How many people ruin themselves by laying out money on trinkets of frivolous utility? What pleases these lovers of toys is not so much the utility, as the aptness of the machines which are fitted to promote it. All their pockets are stuffed with little conveniencies. They contrive new pockets, unknown in the […]
Felix Fenon, At La Revue Blanche (1940)Image source. It is a common observation that internet life and real life don’t really match. Spend a few hours on twitter and you will think America is a 21st century Weimar Republic. But spend time talking with neighbors and friends in the flesh and you find that this […]
“We must maintain a holistic view of national security. We take the people’s security as our ultimate goal, political security as our fundamental task, and economic security as our foundation.” —Secretary General Xi Jinping, April 2014. Are we ready for what comes next? The news this week is that the United States of America has […]
Image Source It is not luxury and pomp that make a king a king. It is when his orders are never disobeyed that he has entered a title such as yours. —Mudrarakshasa 3.99 [c. 300 AD] The always excellent Stella Zhang directed me to a newish paper by political scientists Lee Jones and Zeng Jinhan […]
Image Source. On the recommendation of Tyler Cowen I picked up Taggart Murphy’s book Japan and the Shackles of the Past. This book has impressed me; there are enough interesting ideas in it to make up several different posts. But today I’ll limit myself to one thought provoking excerpt: By the fall of 1989, all this […]
I have not had much time to devote to blogging this week, but I would like to forward a report I suspect most readers will find as fascinating as I have: the Asian Productivity Organization‘s APO Productivity Databook 2015. I have been slowly leafing through it over the last month; on every page there is a […]
Over the last year Financial Times has produced an interesting series titled “The End of China’s Migrant Miracle.” Those interested in the topic can read the full list of dispatches here, but today I’ll call your attention to a video they have put together echoing some of the series’ themes: What makes this video worth […]
I have argued before that any potential American foreign policy or ‘grand strategy’ that requires statesmen with a nuanced understanding of a foreign region’s cultures, politics, and languages to implement it is doomed to fail. Regional acumen is a rare trait, and one I greatly admire. But it is rare for a reason. Regional acumen […]
Many of the Stage’s readers will be familiar with the work of “Pseudoerasmus,” currently the internet’s best blogger working on both economic development and macro-history. His most recent post is titled “Where do Pro-Social Institutions Comes From?“ I strongly urge you read it. In essence, Pseudoerasmus’s post tries to answer two questions: Why do humans cooperate? […]
