High Speed 2: Vanity, Ignorance and the Chilterns
There are some non-ideological economic fundamentals that are the same for almost any ideological and social model. The only exceptions are completely nihilistic regimes that are actually trying to erase humanity's presence from the Earth. And yet, economists and their political sponsors have a weakness for economic theories so detached from the fundamentals that the result resembles a " Breatharian " cult, whereby meditation, self-discipline and enlightenment are supposed to allow the devout to live for months or years without food. All economic activity consists of doing something to a resource to make it worth more. Even in Aboriginal hunter-gatherer societies, gathered food will be processed to make it more nutritious when eaten, or to preserve it so that it can be carried to sustain people on a journey. These goods are not necessarily exchanged for money (the society might not recognize money as a concept) and they may not even be traded at all. But if something is ...