Tag: money

The Enchantments of Mammon–and the Hope of Alternative Enchantments

McCarraher argues that capitalism works very much like a religion in the contemporary world.

Washington’s Cheapest Fundraising Reception

Next week, citizens around the country will have the opportunity to vote in the most expensive midterm elections in US history. This depressing waste...

A Different Approach to Money in the Household

“So if one doesn’t know how to make use of it, Critobulus, then money must be kept at such a distance that it isn’t...

What Will $100 Million Buy You?

When $100 million is being spent on the governor and senate campaigns in their state, Michiganders might want to sit up and take notice.

Friends and Strangers: A Meditation on Money

I start my meditation with a true story that will serve as a parable. On his 21st birthday, the nature writer Francis Thompson was...

Perils of the Stationary State

When economic growth finally levels off, what kind of world comes after? Shall we be unchained from the mad rush for money of the last century? Or will other but equally chafing chains weigh us down instead?

Wasting Time

A friend of mine with a penchant for self-effacement said “There’s just not enough time to get the work done and procrastinate.” It is not that he only works well under pressure, he only works under pressure. He reads voraciously in history and poetry when neglecting his dissertation, and (to be honest) drinks too many gins and tonic over good conversation. In our modern age his habits fall under the general category of wasting time, along with, well, just about everything not productive or immediately relating to a “useful” end.

Is America Ungovernable?

Otto von Bismark, the 19th century Iron Chancellor and architect of modern Germany, once remarked that “If you like law and sausages, you shouldn't...

The Wise Old Œconomist

Mt. Airy, Philadelphia. Before it became a science of supply and demand and the circulation of commodities, economics was originally understood as the...