The purpose of the stock market is not to raise funds for companies. The purpose of the stock market is to provide services to rentiers. Everyone in the developed world aspires to be a rentier one day — or at least have the option of becoming one — when they…

An attempt to describe a distinction between two attitudes to political discourse that I’ve noticed, but haven’t seen anyone else articulate. This is very much an attempt, and I worry I might have Parklifed! myself. If you want to read a better version of this argument, I suggest you read…

Just a quick note summarising my (half-remembered, and probably wrong) recollection of Marx’s theory of Surplus Value. I’m going to write this out then go back and read the Wikipedia page to work out how much I got right. I’ll then append my thoughts to this piece. First, some definitions…

Notes for something bigger. As of mid 2018 there are 7.6 billion human beings living on this planet. The vast majority live in conditions inferior to yours; they eat poorer quality food, and in lesser quantity, their access to healthcare is less, their hours of work are longer, their life…

Summary: reasoning, in the sense of the explicit statements that lead to particular conclusions, is not a tool by which we attain truths, but is usually constructed after the fact by our minds. This means that argument, in the philosophical sense, and as is generally understood, is not a path…