Paying a negative interest rate on currency, or on electronic reserves at the central bank, may seem barbaric to some... But it is arguably no more barbaric than inflation, which similarly reduces the real purchasing power of currency.

In a world where we have 168 million full-time child labourers, we have just over 200 million adults who are jobless. Studies have shown empirically that there is a parallel between child labour and adult unemployment.

The systems we now use exist at a scale that's actually hard to comprehend as human beings. On Facebook, you are one of several billion people and at that scale, it's easy to become a number, or simply a wallet.

There's this sense that our institutions have failed us. The very rich generally pay lower effective tax rates than middle-class and lower-income individuals. There's a sense that the system is broken, the rules of the game are rigged.

Putting a price on the good things in life can corrupt them. That's because markets don't only allocate goods; they also express and promote certain attitudes toward the goods being exchanged.