First, most producers are employees of firms, not owners. Viewed from the vantage point of classical theory, they have no reason to maximize the profits of firms, except to the extent that they can be controlled by owners. Moreover, profit-making firms, nonprofit organizations, and bureaucratic organizations all have exactly the same problem of inducing their…

Democracy1, a sluggish and painful example of attempted cooperation, is often a heap of flaming garbage. Obviously, the “democracy” of the Zapatistas or Rojava are far different than that of the US, but self-styled democracies also elected Bolsonaro, Trump, and Hitler. Aside from things like democracy’s potential for corruption and inherent efficiency throttles, it forces…

When evaluations of reality become seen entirely in terms of their utility as rhetorical weapons it ruins a group’s capacity to get an accurate lay of the land and efficiently strategize. Everything becomes about winning debates, not about ultimately winning ground. One of the main things the social media age has done is collapse divides…