Is planned obsolescence of products, services and talent part of a creative destruction process under the New Normal?
“They don’t make them like they used to anymore” is an ancient lament that has resonated through the ages in various forms. It applies both to humans and their material outputs. The Greek philosopher Socrates had this to say of the youths of his day, circa 470 BC: “Children; they have bad manners, contempt for authority; they show disrespect for elders and love chatter in place of...
South Korea’s domestic politics reveals a drama show
South Korea’s home affairs have been nothing short of a riveting drama series unfolding in real time. While the previous season starring Moon Jae-in was about a dragon slayer turned a dragon but with more heads, the current season follows the story of an ex-Prosecutor General who, having made it to the top political office, is trying to whip things into order while displaying next to no political skills and despite the need to toe the line of...
The sad fact is that the majority of contemporary liberal democracies remain deeply divided
Having spent less than seven weeks in 10 Downing Street, Liz Truss turned out to be the shortest-serving British prime minister in the history of the country. Her claim to become a new Margaret Thatcher for the modern Britain ended abruptly with an embarrassing resignation. It would be tempting to attribute this failure to Truss' bad luck, or to an unfortunate combination of specific personnel decisions...
... quit the Union just before the election to form his own party) and the support he received as a presidential candidate were predictable.
But the Iraq Kurds could not agree on a single candidate for president, which, again, exposed a division among the elites. The Kurdistan Democratic Party (Barzani clan, Erbil) nominated Fuad Hussein, the former President of Kurdistan Region. Evidently, Erbil and Sulaymaniyah reached a last-minute agreement on the distribution of power at the federal and regional levels....
The Russian Oligarchs are more comparable to the Robber Barons in late 19th Century America. Despite the similarities, however, there are important differences. The most important similarity is that both resulted from institutional and legal vacuums of which energetic, enterprising, unscrupulous men took advantage.
In late 19th Century America, a national economy was beginning to emerge, most notably in the railroads and oil industry. The U.S. economy was mainly local and regional. The Federal Government...
... to say. Democratic reality is pretty thin on the ground." (1979: 1-2).
Karl Popper, author of The Open Society and Its Enemies, writes that nowhere do “The People” actually rule themselves. Everywhere, he writes, they are ruled by elites and bureaucrats, "our civil servants or uncivil masters ... whom it is difficult, if not impossible, to make accountable for their actions" (1988, 20).
Robert Dahl, one of the most distinguished theorists of democracy in the United ...
... power, and prestige almost never arise. And when they do arise, it is only at the margins of political debate. In those rare instances when an existing political order is challenged, such things as populist movements and "color revolutions," elites almost always find ways to diffuse them. There may be excellent reasons why the state of conquest is almost never challenged. Yet the fact is that it very rarely is challenged.
Government everywhere, even in democracies, is not really about consent ...
Interview with William Harvey, University of Sydney Business School
Interview
Interviewing elite members can provide a rich source of information for understanding how and why certain decisions are made. However, securing and conducting interviews with elites can often be challenging and disheartening. William Harvey, lecturer at the University of Sydney Business School, specializing on interviewing elites, shares his insights on the challenges one might face when arranging and conducting interviews ...
