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Does a commission help a city get its work done, or say what that work will be? Under the argument sits a larger question, whether government is in control of citizens, or citizens are in control of government.
In 1771 Oliver Goldsmith sent a friend a short report on a sitting member of Parliament: “Burke is a farmer – en attendant a better place, but visiting about too.” The report was accurate. That autumn the member wrote to […]
Six rallies in a row, the ball goes crosscourt to the backhand corner. Nothing about it is dramatic. It lands deep, a few feet inside the sideline, with enough height to push the opponent back and not enough pace to […]
At the north end of the Bassin de la Villette in Paris stands a round stone building with a ring of columns, built in the 1780s by the architect Claude-Nicolas Ledoux. It looks like a small temple. It was a […]
When competence stops being scarce, who gets to hold the capability?
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Land is a little bit everyone's, and it still doesn't have to belong to the state.
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Self-government at the scale where people actually live: the town, the neighborhood, the watershed.
16 essays · created
Social Liberty