Allow your octopus to take a detour to economics. Oekonimia is the Greek word for home – economics is the study of how we look after ourselves, our households and the planet on which they stand (see Mark Anielski for a stellar survey of this topic).
Ego-nomics, however, is the closeting of people and material goods into a series of short-sighted principles. Chief of these is gain, and this marshal is backed up by an army of mathematical formulae that tend to infinity when they should stop well short. This form of nomics was very handy in the days of empire, when scarcity could be obliterated by some hot foot diplomacy in Brussels (how history repeats…), a red-coated campaign in the Sudan or axe-wielding helmets in Nicaragua (mind your boots on that monkey, Ivo, they might think it’s a man in a few centuries!).
