Supply and demand are two of the most important concepts in economics, but the way neoclassical economists often talk about them is downright delusional. In this post, I’ll explain what prices actually mean in relation to supply and demand, and how these phenomena are entangled with the broader social order. Introduction: The Marshallian Scissors It’s certainly true that supply and demand provide important constraints on economic activity and the dynamics of the nominal domain. If 95 percent...

In my book, The Physics of Capitalism , I analyzed the internal technological dynamics of modern capitalism and explained how they were related to its external relations with the natural world. This post is an attempt to unveil what an entirely new cosmology of technological development would look like under valerism, the name I gave to a new framework for thinking about the relationship between nature and civilization. If capitalism is all about growth, valerism is all about stability, for...

The pharmaceutical industry in the United States often argues that high drug prices are justified as a reward for world-class innovation....