Category Archives: History

The world of bullshit we’ve built: Reflections on a scene from Utopia

I recently took my son to the stage play of Yes, Prime Minister.  … The decades have made a huge difference in the sensibility of the new production … . The series ran through most of the 1980s, a period that … Continue reading

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Democracy: doing it for ourselves

Above is the video of a presentation I made at NESTA in London on 15th November with discussants Claire Mellior and Martin Wolf. I reproduce (AI generated) timestamps in the shownotes of the video below. 00:00 – Introduction and Overview … Continue reading

Posted in Democracy, History, Innovation, Politics - international, Politics - national, Sortition and citizens’ juries | Leave a comment

Elite Capture: how Christianity wrote the playbook

This is one of the best podcast interviews we’ve done. We discuss Peter Heather’s marvellous book “Christendom: the triumph of a Religion”. It covers the thousand years from the time Christianity becomes embedded in the Roman Empire, via Emperor Constantine’s … Continue reading

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Why ESG is a puppet show and what to do about it

The more I’ve thought about sortition or as I call it “representation by sampling” the more profound I find the ways it differs from representation by election. The latter is inherently competitive and performative and both these things tend to … Continue reading

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Understanding the present by listening to the past: Walter Lippmann’s “The Public Philosophy”

One way to get beneath the surface of what’s going on is to read people who were writing about issues, as they emerged rather than in more modern times when they’d become the norm and become infused in our commonsense.  … Continue reading

Posted in Democracy, History, Political theory, Politics - international, Sortition and citizens’ juries, War and military | 1 Comment

Elections are all about competition right? (They weren’t way back when)

As part of my recent fascination with competitive and ‘de-competitive’ merit selection, I’ve been looking at the origins of both parliamentary and presidential elections. Intriguingly though we now associate elections with competition between candidates, in both the British parliamentary system … Continue reading

Posted in Democracy, History, Sortition and citizens’ juries | 5 Comments

Economic Ideas and Policy Outcomes: Ross Garnaut’s Gruen Lecture

Below is Ross Garnaut’s lecture in honour of my Dad. Economic Ideas and Policy Outcomes: Applications to Climate and Energy Fred Gruen signed up as Professor of Economics in the ANU’s Research School of Social Sciences in 1972, at the … Continue reading

Posted in Economics and public policy, History, Libertarian Musings, Philosophy, Political theory, Social Policy | 3 Comments