• That the solution to the so-called labor shortage isn’t to call workers lazy; it’s to pay them more.
    • If your business can’t afford to compensate employees adequately, then perhaps you need to accept that your business isn’t viable.
    • And if some people want to bow out of traditional labor in order to enjoy the air around them, the grass beneath their feet, their family, or their creativity, that should be celebrated, not criticized. There are many ways to contribute to one’s community — to be a “productive member of society” — that aren’t formal employment. To me, the quantity of people who live satisfying lives within their means, however modest, is one good measure of the world’s health. (“But there are jobs that need to get done!” you say. Then: do them; pay people well enough to do them; or find another system altogether.)
  • Colson Whitehead’s The Underground Railroad, equally stunning in its sadness and its well-writtenness. (Still making my way through it.)