Song of a Reformed Headhunter

I'm feeling very grateful for Thow Xin Wei's incisive review of CONNOR & SEAL. He does not like everything about the book, but he expresses his reservations and insights with such understanding and empathy for the project of the book that I feel very much read. This is what true reading looks like. It takes time and thought, and to be given such time and thought is a great privilege. "This stylistic cleavage is, perhaps, a consequence of the two-part structure Koh has borrowed from Thomas and Beulah, which emphasises the separation between the two sides. Taken pessimistically, one could point out how the form reflects a "disconnection" and isolation that is inherent in the human condition at every level: between individuals, genders, ethnicities, states and citizens, and nations. But one should also see how the formal division allows for a sustained and dedicated exploration of each side, allowing us to gain a sense of the richness within. Sale...

TLS January 27, 2017. From the article "The New Pragmatism: How to save capitalism from itself, by cutting across traditional political divides and making the state active in the right areas" by Paul Collier, Professor of Economics and Public Policy at the Blavatnik School of Government, University of Oxford: Social democracy can justly be accused of social paternalism: the state is assumed to know best, but unfortunately it didn't. For want of a better term, I think of the pragmatic policies I have suggested as social maternalism . In this model the state would be active in both the economic and social spheres, but it would not overtly empower itself. Its tax policies would restrain the powerful from appropriating rents, rather than stripping income from the rich to help the poor. Its regulations would empower those who suffer from creative destruction to claim compensation, rather than attempting to frustrate the very process that gives capitalism its astonishing d...