Debt’s ubiquity is a burden, but also an opportunity. Millions of debtors, isolated, are owned by the banks. But if you’re part of a collective that owes $14.15 trillion, you all own the banks. The point of debtors’ unions is not merely debt cancellation or even robust public goods handed to us by state power. It is […]
1,000 True Fans? Try 100
An emerging category of digital platforms is helping people to translate their skills and talents into businesses. But as the creator landscape evolves, the playbook needs updating. More than a decade ago, Wired editor Kevin Kelly wrote an essay called “1,000 True Fans,” predicting that the internet would allow large swaths of people to make a living […]
The happy emotions are not necessarily what they appear
Happiness and wellbeing markers for the state of a national economy have little to do with how a given individual feels. They are part of a complex history of happiness. How to pursue, experience or eschew it should give us pause, for what happiness means is far from self-evident. ‘Be happy!’ Mary Wollstonecraft exhorted her […]
Modern Monetary Theory, explained
A very detailed walkthrough of the big new left economic idea. Modern Monetary Theory is having a moment. The theory, in brief, argues that countries that issue their own currencies can never “run out of money” the way people or businesses can. But what was once an obscure “heterodox” branch of economics has now become a major topic […]
The Second Wave of Algorithmic Accountability
Which systems really deserve to be built? Which problems most need to be tackled? Who is best placed to build them? And who decides? We need genuine accountability mechanisms, external to companies and accessible to populations Over the past decade, algorithmic accountability has become an important concern for social scientists, computer scientists, journalists, and lawyers. Exposés have […]