John Iduh Blog

Economics is the study of the choices we must make as we confront scarcity—the fundamental mismatch between limitless human wants and limited means. At its core, economics begins from the recognition that while human desires are expansive and continually evolving, the resources available to satisfy them are finite. This imbalance is not a temporary condition to be solved but a permanent feature of human existence, shaping individual behavior, social organization, and public policy across time and place. Because resources are limited, every choice carries a cost. To allocate time, money, labor, or natural resources to one purpose is to deny them to another. Economists refer to this reality as opportunity cost, and it lies at the heart of rational decision-making. Whether households decide how to spend income, firms choose what to produce, or governments determine budget priorities, all economic actors are constrained by scarcity and compelled to make trade-offs. Scarcity also explains w...

One of the most enduring insights of economics is deceptively simple: we live in a world of limitless human desires but limited resources. This observation lies at the heart of economic thinking and explains why economics exists as a discipline in the first place. Human wants expand continuously—shaped by culture, technology, status, and imagination—while the resources available to satisfy those wants, such as land, labor, capital, time, and ecological capacity, remain finite. The tension between these two realities defines the economic condition. Human desires are not static. As societies grow wealthier, wants do not diminish; rather, they multiply and become more sophisticated. What once counted as a luxury soon becomes a necessity, and new aspirations quickly replace old ones. Economic growth, advertising, and social comparison intensify this process, ensuring that desire continually outruns satisfaction. From an economic perspective, this means that scarcity is not merely a natural...

There are moments in political life when the authority of institutions collapses under the weight of their own contradictions. Parliaments may legislate, police may enforce, and courts may adjudicate, yet when these institutions manipulate truth and perpetrate injustice, their formal power loses moral legitimacy. In such circumstances, a good name—adorned with trust and integrity—becomes more valuable than the combined authority of Parliament, the police, and the legal system. A good name is not merely a matter of reputation; it is the social embodiment of moral consistency. Trust is earned through repeated alignment between word and action, between promise and practice. Unlike institutions, which derive authority from law, coercion, or tradition, a trusted name derives authority from character. Where institutions command obedience, trust invites consent. This distinction is crucial, for obedience can be forced, but legitimacy cannot. History offers countless examples of institutions t...

Trumpism is often described as a contemporary variant of conservatism, yet a closer examination reveals that it represents a significant departure from the core principles that have historically defined conservative thought. Traditional conservatism, particularly in the Anglo-American tradition, is grounded in respect for constitutional order, institutional continuity, limited government, and gradual change. Trumpism, by contrast, is less a coherent ideology than a political style and movement centered on personal leadership, populist rhetoric, and sustained confrontation with established norms. At its foundation, conservatism has long emphasized the importance of institutions as stabilizing forces in society. Courts, legislatures, bureaucracies, and electoral processes are viewed as imperfect but essential mechanisms for maintaining order and legitimacy. Trumpism exhibits deep skepticism toward these institutions, frequently portraying them as corrupt, captured by elites, or actively ...

Neoliberalism does not exist merely as an abstract economic doctrine or ideological worldview; it manifests itself most visibly as a concrete and coherent set of public policies. These policies are often summarized through what may be called the D–L–P Formula : deregulation , liberalization , and privatization . Together, these three pillars constitute the operational core of neoliberal governance and provide the practical means through which market principles are extended into ever more areas of social life. First, deregulation refers to the systematic removal or weakening of state controls over economic activity. Regulatory frameworks governing labor markets, finance, environmental protection, and industry are relaxed or dismantled in the belief that free markets are inherently more efficient than state oversight. Deregulation is justified by the claim that excessive rules stifle innovation, discourage investment, and reduce competitiveness, even though its social costs—such as fina...

In the early 1980s, neoliberal ideas found a powerful institutional expression in a new model of public administration known as New Public Management (NPM). Emerging first in Anglo-American contexts and rapidly diffusing across the globe, NPM operationalized neoliberal modes of governance within the everyday practices of state bureaucracies. Its central ambition was to remake the public sector in the image of the private market by importing managerial techniques, entrepreneurial values, and competitive logics into government institutions. At the heart of New Public Management lies a fundamental redefinition of the relationship between the state and its citizens. Rather than conceiving citizens as members of a political community entitled to public goods, NPM recasts them as “customers” or “clients” whose needs are to be met through efficient service delivery. Public servants, in turn, are encouraged to abandon traditional bureaucratic norms of neutrality, rule-following, and public du...

Neoliberalism is a broad and often contested concept, commonly used to describe an economic paradigm that rose to global prominence in the late twentieth century, particularly from the 1980s onward. Rooted in the classical liberal ideal of the self-regulating market, neoliberalism is not a single, uniform doctrine but a complex configuration of ideas, practices, and institutions. A useful way to understand its reach and durability is to conceptualize neoliberalism as operating simultaneously across three interrelated dimensions: as an ideology, as a mode of governance, and as a policy package. First, neoliberalism functions as an ideology. Ideologies are systems of widely shared ideas and patterned beliefs that provide societies with interpretive frameworks for understanding political and economic life. They simplify complex realities into accessible narratives about how the world works and how it ought to work. In doing so, ideologies encourage particular forms of action while discour...

In the three decades following the Second World War, egalitarian liberalism underpinned an era of remarkable economic performance across much of the industrialized world. High growth rates, rising wages, low unemployment, modest inflation, and expanding systems of social security characterized what has often been described as the “golden age” of controlled capitalism. By the early 1970s, however, this postwar settlement began to unravel under the weight of a series of profound economic disruptions. The economic crises of the 1970s exposed vulnerabilities that Keynesian policy frameworks struggled to address. External shocks—most notably the oil crises of 1973 and 1979—dramatically increased energy prices, triggering inflationary pressures across advanced economies. At the same time, these economies experienced the unprecedented combination of rising unemployment and high inflation, a phenomenon that came to be known as “stagflation.” Declining productivity growth and falling corporate ...

The upheavals of the twentieth century cast serious doubt on the core assumptions of classical liberalism. Economic crises, mass unemployment, and social dislocation exposed the limitations of the belief that self-regulating markets, left to their own devices, would naturally produce stability and prosperity. Although elements of classical liberal thought would re-emerge in revised form with the rise of neoliberalism in the late twentieth century, the intervening decades witnessed the ascendance of a different liberal tradition—commonly described as egalitarian liberalism. The decisive turning point was the Great Depression of the 1930s. Its depth, duration, and global reach shattered confidence in the classical liberal vision of the state as a mere “night watchman.” Leading thinkers such as John Maynard Keynes and Karl Polanyi concluded that markets were neither self-correcting nor socially neutral. Yet these theorists diverged sharply from Marxist interpretations that viewed recurrin...

Classical liberalism emerged in the late seventeenth and eighteenth centuries as a powerful intellectual and political response to the mercantilist order that dominated early modern Europe. Mercantilism rested on the assumption that economic wealth—measured primarily in gold and silver—was finite and that the state, typically under monarchical authority, must exercise extensive control over trade and production to secure national power, often for military ends. Against this backdrop, classical liberal thinkers articulated a radically different vision of economic life, one grounded in individual freedom, market exchange, and limited government. Central to classical liberalism were economists such as Adam Smith and David Ricardo, whose writings challenged the mercantilist fusion of political power and economic control. Smith, writing in The Wealth of Nations (1776), argued that economic prosperity did not arise from state accumulation of bullion, but from the productive labor of individ...

“Neoliberalism” is among the most contested political and economic concepts of the modern era, emblematic of a broader proliferation of ideological “isms” that have emerged alongside globalization. The term itself did not originate as a polemical weapon, but rather as a modest intellectual project. It was first coined in post–World War I Germany by economists and legal scholars associated with the Freiburg School, who sought to revive classical liberalism in a moderated form—one that acknowledged the need for a regulatory framework to preserve market competition. The concept re-emerged in a very different context during the 1970s, when Latin American economists employed neoliberalismo to describe a set of pro-market reforms emphasizing privatization, deregulation, and fiscal discipline. By the early 1990s, however, the term had undergone a decisive semantic shift. Critics of market-oriented reform, particularly in the global South, infused “neoliberalism” with sharply pejorative conno...

Sandro Botticelli (c. 1445–1510) occupies a distinctive place in the cultural and political history of the Italian Renaissance. To understand Botticelli is not merely to study an individual artist, but to examine the social forces, religious tensions, and power structures of late fifteenth-century Florence. His work reflects a society poised between humanist optimism and profound spiritual anxiety, a tension that defined the age. Born Alessandro di Mariano Filipepi, Botticelli was trained in the workshop of Fra Filippo Lippi, from whom he inherited a refined linear style and an emphasis on graceful, expressive figures. Unlike later High Renaissance artists such as Leonardo or Michelangelo, Botticelli showed limited interest in anatomical realism or mathematical perspective. Instead, his paintings privilege line, rhythm, and symbolic meaning—qualities that align closely with the intellectual climate of Medici Florence. Botticelli’s rise was closely tied to the patronage of the Medici fa...

In the early decades of the twenty-first century, the international system has come to be defined by an unprecedented level of interdependence. Processes of globalization have not merely widened the scope of social interaction but have intensified and accelerated connections across both time and space. Advances in digital technology have acted as a powerful catalyst, generating dense networks of information and communication that bind individuals, states, and economic actors into a single, highly integrated global arena. This interconnectedness has also produced new and complex security challenges. Transnational terrorist networks, operating beyond the constraints of territorial borders, have demonstrated the capacity to strike across regions and continents. Their actions, particularly against symbols of secular and state authority, have led Western governments to frame security policy within the discourse of a “global war on terror,” thereby reshaping domestic and international politi...

Fear has always been a powerful instrument in shaping human behavior, and when fused with religion, it can become especially destructive. From a philosophical perspective, religious fear—fear of divine punishment, eternal damnation, curses, or supernatural surveillance—often undermines human flourishing rather than promoting moral excellence. Instead of guiding individuals toward wisdom and virtue, it can imprison the mind and diminish human dignity. At its core, religious fear replaces understanding with submission. Rather than encouraging people to ask why something is right or wrong, fear-based religion demands obedience without reasoning. This is profoundly damaging to intellectual development. As Immanuel Kant argued, enlightenment begins when human beings dare to use their own reason. A religion rooted in fear discourages this courage, training adherents to distrust their own moral judgment and surrender autonomy to authority figures who claim divine backing. Psychologically, re...

A Philosophical Reflection on Self-Sufficiency From the standpoint of philosophy, the question of whether the universe requires gods to function is not a provocation against belief, but an inquiry into explanation. Philosophy asks: What kind of account best explains the order, motion, and persistence of reality? Across much of intellectual history, many philosophers have argued that the universe can be understood as operating through its own internal principles—without appealing to divine intervention. The earliest natural philosophers, long before modern science, already gestured in this direction. Thinkers such as Democritus and Epicurus proposed that the universe consists of atoms and void, governed by necessity and chance rather than by the will of gods. For them, the gods—if they existed at all—were spectators, not managers. Nature, they argued, follows its own logic. This idea matured dramatically with the rise of modern science. The laws of motion described by Galileo and Newto...

A politician’s relationship with the press is often a reliable indicator of their democratic temperament. Early in my career, wrote the Deputy editor at Economist, Robert Guest, I interviewed Sweden’s current prime minister, Ulf Kristersson, when he was still leader of the opposition. He arrived alone at a café, without aides or security, responded thoughtfully to every question in impeccable English, and, after an hour, excused himself courteously for his next engagement. That experience stands in stark contrast to another interview I conducted with a Sudanese minister, who berated me, jabbed a finger inches from my face, denied me access to Darfur, and demanded that I report his government was guilty of no human-rights violations. I declined—choosing accuracy over obedience. Such contrasts illustrate a central lesson of journalism: power that fears scrutiny seeks to silence it. As we argue this week in our European and Asian cover package, the suppression of the media creates fertile...

Golden Penny Spaghetti is a familiar and reliable food product in many Nigerian households. Known for its quality and affordability, it has become a go-to option for quick meals, family lunches, and everyday cooking, making it a strong presence in local kitchens. The appeal of Golden Penny Spaghetti lies in its versatility and ease of preparation. It can be cooked simply and paired with stew, vegetables, or sauces, or adapted into more elaborate dishes. This flexibility makes it suitable for both home cooks and food vendors. Over the years, Golden Penny Spaghetti has earned consumer trust through consistent quality and local relevance. Its strong distribution network ensures availability across markets and stores, reinforcing its position as a dependable staple that meets the daily food needs of Nigerian families.    

Maggi Seasoning Cube is one of the most recognizable food products in Nigeria, found in almost every kitchen. Known for its ability to enhance flavor quickly and consistently, Maggi has become a trusted companion in everyday cooking, from simple home meals to large family gatherings.   Maggi’s strength lies in its versatility. It is used across a wide range of dishes, including soups, stews, rice, beans, vegetables, and sauces. With just a small cube, cooks can achieve a rich, savory taste, making meal preparation easier without compromising flavor. Beyond its functional role, Maggi holds cultural significance in Nigerian households. It is often associated with home cooking, shared meals, and the comforting taste of familiar dishes. Over time, the brand has become deeply woven into local culinary practices and preferences. Through consistent quality and strong brand presence, Maggi has built lasting trust among consumers. Its widespread availability and reliability have helped it m...

Peak Milk is one of Nigeria’s most trusted dairy brands, widely recognized for its rich taste and nutritional value. For decades, it has been a constant presence in Nigerian homes, symbolizing nourishment, quality, and reliability. A Household Essential From tea and coffee to pap, custard, and baking, Peak Milk fits seamlessly into everyday meals. Its creamy texture and balanced taste make it a preferred choice for both home cooking and small-scale food businesses.     Nutrition and Wellness Peak Milk is fortified with essential vitamins and minerals that support strong bones and overall health. Its positioning around strength and vitality has resonated strongly with families, especially parents seeking nutritious options for their children.   Cultural Relevance Over the years, Peak Milk has embedded itself into Nigerian food culture. Whether served at breakfast or used in festive cooking, it remains associated with care, growth, and family bonding. Trusted Brand Legacy T...

Indomie Instant Noodles have become one of the most widely consumed food products in Nigeria. What began as a convenient meal option has evolved into a household staple, enjoyed by children, students, and adults across social and economic groups.     Convenience Meets Taste Indomie’s appeal lies in its simplicity and speed. Ready in minutes and easy to prepare, it fits perfectly into busy urban lifestyles. Its seasoning blends are tailored to local tastes, making it both familiar and satisfying.       Cultural Integration Over time, Indomie moved beyond being just instant food to becoming part of Nigerian food culture. From “Indomie and egg” combinations to creative additions like vegetables and sausages, Nigerians have made the product their own, especially among young people.     Strong Brand Loyalty Through consistent quality, wide availability, and memorable marketing, Indomie has built strong brand loyalty. For many consumers, the name “Indo...