Day 1,904: starve, edifice, panopticon

But that required brutal repression, starved the economy of price signals and created an edifice of lies.

Techno-utopian party loyalists reckoned that big data and artificial intelligence could improve this system, creating a high-tech panopticon for the supreme leader that would allow the kind of enlightened central planning the Soviets failed at.

The real problem with China’s economy

Artwork of the day 
On the enemy land - Russian prisoners starves from hunger
Theophile_Steinlen
Original Title: Sur La Terre Ennemie Les Prisonniers Russes Meurent De Faim
Date: 1917
Style: Realism
Genre: illustration

Word of the day 
starve: if a company, etc. is starved of something necessary or good, it does not receive enough of it:
edifice: a large building, especially an impressive one: a system that has been established for a longtime:
panopticon: a prison with cells (= rooms) arranged in a circle, so that the people in them can be seen at all times from the centre

Quote of the day
“District 12: Where you can starve to death in safety.”

― Suzanne Collins, The Hunger Games