Make money doing the work you believe in
Why do so many intelligent people believe the economy can be designed?
Not managed — designed.
It’s an attractive idea. If something looks inefficient or unfair, surely a smarter system could be built. One that corrects the flaws, removes the waste, and delivers better outcomes.
But this belief rests on a hidden assumption: that someone, somewhere, can actually know enough to do this.
This week, I revisited a book that challenges that assumption at its core.
It argues that the problem is not incentives or execution — but knowledge itself. The kind of knowledge that exists only in fragments, in millions of minds, is constantly changing.
And once you take that seriously, the idea of central design starts to look very different.
I wrote a short review of it here:
