add two articlesHEADmaster

* review of “Harry Potter and the Machiavellian Candidate”
* reaction on EconTalk show
* updates of the EBook format discussion

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+Universe wants us to be poor
+############################
+
+:date: 2024-08-06T07:30:00
+:category: research
+:tags: politics, institution, economics, poverty
+
+While listening to `the new episode of EconTalk`_ on the normalcy
+of poverty and how MAGA is just a pure opium of the masses
+[#]_ I was enjoying a reminder of the Common Sense reality
+and gave me some strength to oppose prevalent fantasies of
+the current media. One thing you haven’t mentioned, which
+I see as very relevant for the establishing of industrial
+modernity, is the institutional framework required for it. The
+agricultural lifestyle was horrible in many aspects, but one
+thing which it brought to the table (and why it survived and
+survives so well) was to some extent independence on others (to
+some extent, I know). When you make your own food, clothes,
+etc., you can sustain your existence without relying much on
+others. However, the moment, you suggest, that some citizen
+of the city should give up all their existence and just clean
+the shit from streets for living, you have to offer them some
+reliability of income. Will be there this job around in the next
+year, next ten years? Am I not giving up my only source of income
+for fantasy, which will go away with the next administration
+coming to power? Will this job survive the next plague or a
+wave of famine? Unless there is some institutional certainty,
+it is very difficult to start on some division of labour to the
+extent you can get some industrial modernity. Yes, I know this
+is to a large extent what New Institutional Economists, Douglas
+North (and Hernando de Soto) were saying, but it needs to be
+emphasized.
+
+Yes, there were technological reasons (you cannot make a steam
+engine until you can make airtight machines, which requires
+exact machining unavailable until the eighteenth century, etc.),
+but I think there were mostly problems of lack of institutional
+framework, which could guarantee a peace required for the
+division of labour.
+
+.. [#] And here apparently I agree with J. D. Vance, who
+    apparently_ called Trump “cultural heroin” and “an opioid of the
+    masses.”
+
+.. _`the new episode of EconTalk`:
+    https://www.econtalk.org/the-ever-present-challenge-of-escaping-poverty-with-noah-smith/
+.. _apparently:
+    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Opium_of_the_people#Modern_comparisons