Ha-Joon Chang - Economics
Thursday, November 12, 2015
Summing up Neoliberalism
Markets run according to the 'one-dollar-one-vote’ rule, while democratic politics run on the principle of ‘one-person-one-vote’. Thus, the proposal for greater depoliticisation of the economy in a democracy is in the end an anti-democratic project that wants to give more power in the running of the society to those with money.
Monday, September 14, 2015
"Listen," said Granger, taking his arm, and walking with him, holding aside the bushes to let him
pass. "When I was a boy my grandfather died, and he was a sculptor. He was also a very kind
man who had a lot of love to give the world, and he helped clean up the slum in our town; and he
made toys for us and he did a million things in his lifetime; he was always busy with his hands.
And when he died, I suddenly realized I wasn't crying for him at all, but for the things he did. I
cried because he would never do them again, he would never carve another piece of wood or
help us raise doves and pigeons in the back yard or play the violin the way he did, or tell us jokes
the way he did. He was part of us and when he died, all the actions stopped dead and there was
no one to do them just the way he did. He was individual. He was an important man. I've never
gotten over his death. Often I think, what wonderful carvings never came to birth because he
died. How many jokes are missing from the world, and how many homing pigeons untouched by
his hands. He shaped the world. He did things to the world. The world was bankrupted of ten
million fine actions the night he passed on."...
..."Everyone must leave something behind when he dies,my grandfather said. A child or a book or a painting or a house or a wall built or a pair of shoes made. Or a garden planted. Something your hand touched some way so your soul has somewhere to go when you die, and when people look at that tree or that flower you planted, you're there. It doesn't matter what you do, he said, so long as you change something from the way it was before you touched it into something that's like you after you take your hands away. The difference between the man who just cuts lawns and a real gardener is in the touching, he said. The lawncutter might just as well not have been there at all; the gardener will be there a lifetime."...
"My grandfather...hoped that some day our cities would open up and let the green and the land and the wilderness in more, to remind people that we're allotted a little space on earth and that we survive in that wilderness that can take back what it has given, as easily as blowing its breath on us or sending the sea to tell us we are not so big. When we forget how close the wilderness is in the night, my grandpa said, some day it will come in and get us, for we will have forgotten how terrible and real it can be. You see?" Granger turned to Montag. "Grandfather's been dead for all these years, but if you lifted my skull, by God, in the convolutions of my brain you'd find the big ridges of his thumbprint. He touched me. As I said earlier, he was a sculptor. 'I hate a Roman named Status Quo!' he said to me. 'Stuff your eyes with wonder,' he said, 'live as if you'd drop dead in ten seconds. See the world. It's more fantastic than any dream made or paid for in factories. Ask no guarantees, ask for no security, there never was such an animal. And if there were, it would be related to the great sloth which hangs upside down in a tree all day every day, sleeping its life away. To hell with that,' he said,
'shake the tree and knock the great sloth down on his ass.'"
from Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury
pass. "When I was a boy my grandfather died, and he was a sculptor. He was also a very kind
man who had a lot of love to give the world, and he helped clean up the slum in our town; and he
made toys for us and he did a million things in his lifetime; he was always busy with his hands.
And when he died, I suddenly realized I wasn't crying for him at all, but for the things he did. I
cried because he would never do them again, he would never carve another piece of wood or
help us raise doves and pigeons in the back yard or play the violin the way he did, or tell us jokes
the way he did. He was part of us and when he died, all the actions stopped dead and there was
no one to do them just the way he did. He was individual. He was an important man. I've never
gotten over his death. Often I think, what wonderful carvings never came to birth because he
died. How many jokes are missing from the world, and how many homing pigeons untouched by
his hands. He shaped the world. He did things to the world. The world was bankrupted of ten
million fine actions the night he passed on."...
..."Everyone must leave something behind when he dies,my grandfather said. A child or a book or a painting or a house or a wall built or a pair of shoes made. Or a garden planted. Something your hand touched some way so your soul has somewhere to go when you die, and when people look at that tree or that flower you planted, you're there. It doesn't matter what you do, he said, so long as you change something from the way it was before you touched it into something that's like you after you take your hands away. The difference between the man who just cuts lawns and a real gardener is in the touching, he said. The lawncutter might just as well not have been there at all; the gardener will be there a lifetime."...
"My grandfather...hoped that some day our cities would open up and let the green and the land and the wilderness in more, to remind people that we're allotted a little space on earth and that we survive in that wilderness that can take back what it has given, as easily as blowing its breath on us or sending the sea to tell us we are not so big. When we forget how close the wilderness is in the night, my grandpa said, some day it will come in and get us, for we will have forgotten how terrible and real it can be. You see?" Granger turned to Montag. "Grandfather's been dead for all these years, but if you lifted my skull, by God, in the convolutions of my brain you'd find the big ridges of his thumbprint. He touched me. As I said earlier, he was a sculptor. 'I hate a Roman named Status Quo!' he said to me. 'Stuff your eyes with wonder,' he said, 'live as if you'd drop dead in ten seconds. See the world. It's more fantastic than any dream made or paid for in factories. Ask no guarantees, ask for no security, there never was such an animal. And if there were, it would be related to the great sloth which hangs upside down in a tree all day every day, sleeping its life away. To hell with that,' he said,
'shake the tree and knock the great sloth down on his ass.'"
from Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury
Wednesday, July 22, 2015
Wednesday, October 8, 2014
Wednesday, May 7, 2014
Letter to a man who has lost faith in humanity.
Dear Mr. Nadeau:
As long as there is one upright man, as long as there is one compassionate woman, the contagion may spread and the scene is not desolate. Hope is the thing that is left to us, in a bad time. I shall get up Sunday morning and wind the clock, as a contribution to order and steadfastness.
Sailors have an expression about the weather: they say, the weather is a great bluffer. I guess the same is true of our human society — things can look dark, then a break shows in the clouds, and all is changed, sometimes rather suddenly. It is quite obvious that the human race has made a queer mess of life on this planet. But as a people we probably harbor seeds of goodness that have lain for a long time waiting to sprout when the conditions are right. Man’s curiosity, his relentlessness, his inventiveness, his ingenuity have led him into deep trouble. We can only hope that these same traits will enable him to claw his way out.
Hang on to your hat. Hang on to your hope. And wind the clock, for tomorrow is another day.
Sincerely,
E. B. White
Friday, April 11, 2014
Good people are not those who lack flaws, the brave are not those who feel no fear, and the generous are not those who never feel selfish. Extraordinary people are not extraordinary because they are invulnerable to unconscious biases. They are extraordinary because they choose to do something about it.
Shankar Vedantam
Sunday, January 19, 2014
Friday, January 17, 2014
From this distant vantage point, the Earth might not seem of any particular interest. But for us, it's different. Consider again that dot. That's here. That's home. That's us. On it everyone you love, everyone you know, everyone you ever heard of, every human being who ever was, lived out their lives. The aggregate of our joy and suffering, thousands of confident religions, ideologies, and economic doctrines, every hunter and forager, every hero and coward, every creator and destroyer of civilization, every king and peasant, every young couple in love, every mother and father, hopeful child, inventor and explorer, every teacher of morals, every corrupt politician, every "superstar," every "supreme leader," every saint and sinner in the history of our species lived there – on a mote of dust suspended in a sunbeam.
The Earth is a very small stage in a vast cosmic arena. Think of the rivers of blood spilled by all those generals and emperors so that in glory and triumph they could become the momentary masters of a fraction of a dot. Think of the endless cruelties visited by the inhabitants of one corner of this pixel on the scarcely distinguishable inhabitants of some other corner. How frequent their misunderstandings, how eager they are to kill one another, how fervent their hatreds. Our posturings, our imagined self-importance, the delusion that we have some privileged position in the universe, are challenged by this point of pale light. Our planet is a lonely speck in the great enveloping cosmic dark. In our obscurity – in all this vastness – there is no hint that help will come from elsewhere to save us from ourselves.
The Earth is the only world known, so far, to harbor life. There is nowhere else, at least in the near future, to which our species could migrate. Visit, yes. Settle, not yet. Like it or not, for the moment, the Earth is where we make our stand. It has been said that astronomy is a humbling and character-building experience. There is perhaps no better demonstration of the folly of human conceits than this distant image of our tiny world. To me, it underscores our responsibility to deal more kindly with one another and to preserve and cherish the pale blue dot, the only home we've ever known.
- Carl Sagan
"Buy my soda!" said the Moose Diarrhea Salesman. And we did. We all did. But when we got it home and opened up the package, it was not what they said it was. And rather than chucking it all and searching for something better, we're content with looking for another Moose Diarrhea Salesman."
― Jello Biafra
― Jello Biafra
Our imagination is stretched to the utmost, not, as in fiction, to imagine things which are not really there, but just to comprehend those things which are there.
Richard Feynman
Richard Feynman
“The truth is, everyone is going to hurt you. You just got to find the ones worth suffering for.”
― Bob Marley
― Bob Marley
“TO BE HOPEFUL in bad times is not just foolishly romantic. It is based on the fact that human history is a history not only of cruelty, but also of compassion, sacrifice, courage, kindness.
What we choose to emphasize in this complex history will determine our lives. If we see only the worst, it destroys our capacity to do something. If we remember those times and places—and there are so many—where people have behaved magnificently, this gives us the energy to act, and at least the possibility of sending this spinning top of a world in a different direction.
And if we do act, in however small a way, we don’t have to wait for some grand utopian future. The future is an infinite succession of presents, and to live now as we think human beings should live, in defiance of all that is bad around us, is itself a marvelous victory.”
― Howard Zinn
What we choose to emphasize in this complex history will determine our lives. If we see only the worst, it destroys our capacity to do something. If we remember those times and places—and there are so many—where people have behaved magnificently, this gives us the energy to act, and at least the possibility of sending this spinning top of a world in a different direction.
And if we do act, in however small a way, we don’t have to wait for some grand utopian future. The future is an infinite succession of presents, and to live now as we think human beings should live, in defiance of all that is bad around us, is itself a marvelous victory.”
― Howard Zinn
“Trout, incidentally, had written a book about a money tree. It had twenty-dollar bills for leaves. Its flowers were government bonds. Its fruit was diamonds. It attracted human beings who killed each other around the roots and made very good fertilizer.”
― Kurt Vonnegut, Slaughterhouse-Five
― Kurt Vonnegut, Slaughterhouse-Five
“She was a dull person, but a sensational invitation to make babies.”
― Kurt Vonnegut, Slaughterhouse-Five
― Kurt Vonnegut, Slaughterhouse-Five