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Whenever I’m feeling blue about domestic politics — there is plenty about which to despair — something great happens that reminds me of the long-term case for optimism, which is all about the astonishing expansion of the division of labor globally and in ways that weren’t even possible just a few years ago. The world has changed to permit ever

In the classic and futuristic television series from 1962 to 1963 — I admit that I adore this show and could watch every episode 100 times — people work only a few hours a day, travel at 500 miles per hour in flying cars that go as fast as 2,500 miles per hour, and the main job is “pushing buttons.” The galaxy is their home. Healthcare is a

For years I’ve puzzled over the question of why religious people have such trouble coming to terms with economics. This problem applies only to modern religious people, for it was Catholics in 15th- and 16th-century Spain who systematized the discipline of economics to begin with. That was long ago. Today, most of what is written about economics

Most people say that a job is good for making money. So, if you don’t need money, what’s the point? The fabled English aristocratic class of the late 19th and early 20th century apparently thought that way, if the caricatures painted by Jeeves and Wooster , Brideshead , and the like have any truth to them. Their main job was getting dressed and

The astonishing popularity of Rebecca Black’s “Friday” video — which became the YouTube meme of all memes in the course of a wild six weeks — has mystified many critics. Was it shared and watched so wildly because it was so bad? Certainly the overwhelming judgment on the part of viewers is that it is atrocious — and yet it is hard to know what

[An MP3 audio file of this article, narrated by Nathaniel Foote, is available for download .] By pure luck, I happened to sit down next to a man last week who has been my benefactor for my entire life and the large part of his, and yet we had never met. In fact, though he has been serving me faithfully for three decades, looking after my

Thank goodness we’ve got a global marketplace where banned and nearly banned products can be purchased with a click. This is how I obtained a box of Savogran Trisodium Phosphate, which sounds like an explosive but is really just a cleanser that was in every dish-washing soap until last year. It is made of phosphorous, an element from bone ash or

I’m old enough to have a vague memory of clothes so white that they were called bright. This happened despite the absence of additives — the ridiculous varieties of sprays and bottles and packets that festoon our cabinets today and that we throw into the wash to try to boost the cleaning power of our pathetic machines and increasingly useless

“With the focus on food and cooking, we can see what it is that drives daily life among the Haitian multitudes.” A Travel Channel episode of No Reservations , a cooking-focused show narrated by Anthony Bourdain, took viewers to Port-au-Prince, Haiti. I had heard that the show offered unique insight into the country and its troubles. I couldn’t

My musical interests are rooted in history from a half-millennium ago, and so I probably carry around some cynicism concerning contemporary pop music. I had thereby assumed that Justin Bieber was just another industry-created, auto-tuned pop icon manufactured for popular consumption just like soap or the latest footwear fashion. Surely every