Join 📚 Favorites And Reflection Questions

A batch of the best highlights from what Todd's read, .

In fact, there’s absolutely no reason a modern state should fund itself primarily by appropriating a proportion of each citizen’s earnings. There are plenty of other ways to go about it. Many—such as land, wealth, commercial, or consumer taxes (any of which can be made more or less progressive)—are considerably more efficient, since creating a bureaucratic apparatus capable of monitoring citizens’ personal affairs to the degree required by an income tax system is itself enormously expensive. But this misses the real point: income tax is supposed to be intrusive and exasperating. It is meant to feel at least a little bit unfair. Like so much of classical liberalism (and contemporary neoliberalism), it is an ingenious political sleight of hand—an expansion of the bureaucratic state that also allows its leaders to pretend to advocate for small government.

Against Economics

David Graeber

A high-quality piece of communication meets the following criteria: * Is it interesting and attention-grabbing? (Does it make people want to read it?) * Is it precise and clear? (Can people easily understand what it’s trying to say?) * Is it empathetic? (Is it written to be understood from the reader’s point of view?) * Does it help people solve a problem? (Is it clearly useful and effective?) * Does it inspire people to take action? (Does it make it easy for others to apply it?)

The PARA Method

Tiago Forte

Le Guin: We are learning to separate the stereotypes from the genuine archetype.

Ursula K. Le Guin: The Last Interview and Other Conversations

David Streitfeld

...catch up on these, and many more highlights