Across the world, Covid-19 has triggered community action on a vast scale. It’s a powerful riposte to both government and private money There is no guarantee that this resurgence of collective action will survive the pandemic. We could revert to the isolation and passivity that both capitalism and statism have encouraged. But I don’t think […]
The Moral Case for Busting Bureaucracy
Gary Hamel & Michele Zanini If we continue to assume that some people are intelligent or creative, while most are not, and continue to see intelligence and creativity as fixed, personal possessions, the options for the needed large-scale systemic changes will be few. Belief systems are contagious. If, over an extended period of time, people […]
How to Destroy Neoliberalism: Kill ‘Homo Economicus’
Debunking the failed paradigm of traditional economics. This piece is adapted from a speech delivered September 30th at MIT, where Nick Hanauer won the 2018 Harvard and MIT Humanist of the Year award. I’m thrilled to receive this award from such distinguished hosts—but I won’t lie: When I was told I would be honored as […]
TThe Tragedy of the Commons: How Elinor Ostrom Solved One of Life’s Greatest Dilemmas
The design principles for solving the tragedy of the commons can be applied to all groups As an evolutionary biologist who received my PhD in 1975, I grew up with Garrett Hardin’s essay “The Tragedy of the Commons,” published in Science magazine in 1968. His parable of villagers adding too many cows to their common pasture captured […]
Would Twitter Ruin Bee Democracy?
Simple-majority democracy is used by many animals. But they don’t have social media. Did the ancient Athenians invent democracy? Or did bugs have it way earlier than the Greeks? Cornell entomologist Tom Seeley knows which option he’s voting for. Honeybees regularly split from their mother colony. Seeley wondered, with tens of thousands of bees in […]