WSJ: “As everything from toasters to trucks gets connected online—an ecosystem known as the Internet of Things—banks, information technology companies and manufacturers are looking to equip those devices with the ability to buy and sell goods and services on behalf of human users, in most cases without the need for their intervention. Some of this is already happening. Smart toothbrushes made by Philips NV can already automatically order new brush heads when the bristles wear out. Air filters designed by 3M Co. can detect when a replacement is needed and order one online. The scale could expand, however, as more devices come online and technology that allows for rapid and autonomous purchases goes mainstream, saving users time and money.”
John Dos Passos in 1958: “Somewhere along the way we lost our conviction that the best government was self-government. In our enthusiasm for turning over every social problem to the administrative bureaucracy for solution, we forgot that democracy is based on the maxim that the solution of the problem of social life is the business of the people themselves. Neither [Thomas Babington] Macaulay nor Jefferson, when they scanned the horizon for dangers threatening American democracy, foresaw this prodigious growth of a bureaucracy armed with police powers, a bureaucracy which bids fair to become a vested interest in its own right.” [via CafeHayek]
Amartya Lahiri: “Agriculture today employs 45 per cent of India’s workers while only producing around 10 per cent of its output. Clearly, Indian agriculture is woefully unproductive. That is the fundamental reason why the Indian farmer is poor. The problem is that there are just too many workers still trying to eke out a living from the farm. The land, despite many improvements in irrigation, seeds, fertilisers and mechanisation, just doesn’t have enough in it to sustain the sheer number of people dependent on it … Failure of manufacturing to absorb surplus agricultural labour has meant that farmers remain tied to land even when it doesn’t yield much.”
