Work has been a constant throughout humanity’s existence, but the Covid-19 pandemic has shaken and demoralized much of the 21st century workforce. Where might it lead? Joel Kotkin argues in Quilette that the cushy promises of the post-work world are cover for an incipient neo-feudalism that will turn formerly working people into “quiescent drones.”
The Frigid Isle
Íris Erlingsdóttir shines a light on the world’s first wholly feminized state. Women, she writes in The European Conservative, run everything in Iceland: “the presidency, the prime minister’s office…[the] national state church…schools, municipalities, police…newsrooms and [the] ever-expanding public bureaucracy.” As for the men, Erlingsdóttir observes, they describe themselves ruefully as (bad-taste alert) “pussy-whipped.”
