Amit's Blog

From Medieval Forts to Digital Panopticons, How Power Hoards Space Across Centuries and Continents   Delhi is not merely a city of layered histories but a living ledger of spatial conquest. Successive rulers—from medieval sultans to British planners to modern administrators—have treated its landscape as a blank canvas for asserting absolute authority through massive land sequestration. Sovereignty, in this enduring philosophy, is measured by the luxury of wasted space: vast walled citadels, garden tombs, low-density bungalow zones, and today’s fortified administrative corridors. This pattern of elite isolation did not dissolve with Independence. Instead, the post-1947 state inherited colonial and pre-colonial enclaves, expanding them into new frontiers like Noida while consolidating power in redeveloped Central Vista. The result is a fragmented metropolis where prime land remains locked for the few, forcing the many into dense margins. This spatial DNA is hardly unique to...

Six hundred years of data from Florence prove that meritocracy is a lie. The glass floor is real, and your great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-grandfather’s tax return still predicts your paycheck. The Number That Should Haunt You Let us begin with a number so small that most economists would dismiss it as noise: 0.04 . That is the long-run earnings elasticity between the richest families of Florence in 1427 and their descendants alive today in 2011. It sounds like nothing. A rounding error. A statistical ghost that disappears the moment you adjust for measurement. But here is the thing. Standard economic models predict that number should be zero . Not 0.04. Zero. The reason is pure math. Over twenty generations—roughly six hundred years—every financial advantage should have been diluted into oblivion. Marriages scatter wealth. Children split inheritances. Wars, plagues, expropriations, an...

Socializing Risk, Privatizing Reward in the Age of Oligopoly   Beneath the rhetoric of free markets and entrepreneurial capitalism lies a structural reality that few dare to name: the world's most advanced economies have perfected a system where public funds underwrite private profit. From Boeing's military-funded commercial jets to Tesla's government-backed rise, from semiconductor subsidies to electric vehicle tariffs, the state acts as venture capitalist, insurer, and sales agent for a privileged class of corporate oligopolies. This article synthesizes extensive discussions on defense contracting, intellectual property law, trade diplomacy, and industrial policy to expose the machinery of "privatized corporatism." It explores how the US socializes losses through cost-plus contracts and bailouts while privatizing gains through the Bayh-Dole Act's patent provisions. It compares this model to India's PSU system, examines regulatory capture via FAA an...