Rentier

With Max Weber, finally, the intellectual’s self-negation in the morally neutral description of an ever more disheartening reality reached truly painful proportions

The greater the extent of differential information, the less likely it is that costs and charges represent value

wir waren tüchtige Arbeiter, aber wir waren flache Menschen

radical conservative reform

We cannot point to one historical example in which a temporary labour shortage has been remedied with a temporary labour migration programme

UK, for so long a place of unchallenged ideological supremacy and material security for the rentier

In a way this middle-class guilt is sweet. But it’s also absurd

meritocracy is a beautifully self-serving doctrine … There is no solidarity in a meritocracy

the numbers of MBAs in senior positions coupled with the cult of heroic leadership has made many of our large corporations more hierarchical, more centralized, and more formalized than they should be

In the mid-nineties, the FT had a promotion where you collected tokens and then redeemed for a discounted made-to-measure suit. I thought it very suitable to follow in the old boy’s footsteps