Diminishing returns

There has been a tectonic fragility to the early weeks of 2026, the uneasy sense of an old world shifting. New horror in Syria, Venezuela, Greenland, Iran; ongoing terror in Ukraine, Gaza, Sudan. In t

“The old world is dying, and the new world struggles to be born: now is the time of monsters.” Antonio Gramsci’s words, written in prison near Bari almost 100 years ago, ring out to us now. The politi

In 2019, attendees at a conference held by the non-profit Waterwise heard a stark warning from a man named Sir James Bevan, who at the time was the chief executive of the Environment Agency. Bevan had

acton.org The “greatest prophets” of free-market capitalism “saw the trade-off from the beginning”, says Thomas Dias. Adam Smith’s famous pin factory showed the division of labour enables the producti

A Russia of trees and liberty and peace: ...

It sounds like the stuff of conspiracy theories or a disaster movie: a series of volcanic eruptions kicks off a deadly pandemic. But new research suggests that such an event may indeed have happened.