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Did Quakers practice "Total Capitalism"?,
Verified Purchase(What's this?)
This review is from: Quakernomics: An Ethical Capitalism (Anthem Other Canon Economics) (Kindle Edition)
Very cool that the author focuses on The Iron
Bridge as an entry point, a science fiction novel about a time traveler
sent back from a future that's decided humans had industrialized too
early, before their thinking had matured enough to handle it (witness
the World Wars the followed). In this future, the planetary ecosystem
is messed up beyond repair. Industrialization must be delayed. So she
(the time traveler) is to sabotage the Iron Bridge, built by industrious
Quakers who treated their workers fairly well. Hence the book's claim
that Quakers not only practiced "total capitalism" (from foundry to
factory to wholesale to retail) but did it in such away as to give
"total socialism" a run for its money, i.e. they treated their workers
relatively well. Quakers reach an apogee in power and influence around
1781 when the bridge opens. Given their socially unpopular positions in
the US, anti Indian Wars and anti slavery, their Quaker utopia
(Pennsylvania) is already on the wane, but that's another story. This
book is more about the UK and the difference Quakers made there.
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A Well Rounded Primer,
This review is from: Divided Spheres: Geodesics and the Orderly Subdivision of the Sphere (Kindle Edition)
This handsome, beautifully illustrated primer is
authored by a career geodesic dome engineer with a sense of the big
picture, including the history. I found plenty of mathematical trail
heads leading off in various directions, all worth exploring, with a
core of spherical trigonometry.
Yes, my own writing is in the bibliography, which may color my opinion, but to me this just means Edward Popko (whom I have not met) was extremely thorough and really did his homework for this tome, including exploring a lot of obscure topics. Amy Edmondson's A Fuller Explanation: The Synergetic Geometry of R Buckminster Fuller is likewise cited, helping weave together a story that is still unfolding today. | ||||||||||||
