The Hidden Globe: How Wealth Hacks the World

by Atossa Araxia Abrahamian

In the early days, ADL was hired to solve a variety of chemical problems, from the mystery of a Massachusetts baker’s “tainted cake” (solution: don’t bake lemon meringue pie near a gas station) to surveying the market for insecticides for a chemicals company. ADL went on to design Tokyo’s and London’s stock exchanges, to lead the privatization of the British railway system, and to help deregulate European telecommunications—in each case finding more and more sophisticated ways to squeeze private profits out of public goods.

Slemrod coined the wonderful euphemism “juridical entrepreneurship” for this kind of practice. (A less even-handed observer might call it bottom-feeding.)

The prospect of ascribing the laws of man to a realm so vast, so unknowable, and so timeless is a futile and egocentric exercise that only humans could attempt. Heaven knows, we’ve tried.