One year of my work, printed

The Elysian Volume II is here.

Every year, I print one year of my writing (and other writers I admire) into a collector’s edition print volume for my subscribers at the Collector tier. I’m so excited to debut Volume II!

This year’s volume features the following essays:

• Introduction by

  Elle Griffin

• Foreword by

  Austin Tindle

Philosophy

• Who’s qualified to save the world?

• Humanism as the future of religion

• Neverland and the utopia of childhood

• Humans are good (except for that one guy)

Government

• There are already utopian countries

• Could a US state become a “utopian country?”

• US states could have universal healthcare

• Should US states self-govern?

• What if we split the US into city-states?

• Cities should manage immigration (not nations)

• Decouple federal government from nation-states

  • Why have we settled for in-optimal governance? By

    Austin Tindle

  • Imagining our Martian Government by

    J.K. Lund

  • How We Saved the World from Underground by

    Peter Clayborne

• We should vote for plans, not politicians

• What if government worked like Wikipedia?

• I’d like to open a Singapore franchise please?

Capitalism

• Mondragon as the new City State

• The Cooperatist Manifesto that inspired Mondragon

• Every company should be owned by their employees

• Founders will get much richer by exiting to their employees

• Do we still want the future designed by the past?

• The rich are not the problem (we are)

• The rich are not causing the poor

  • A world of billionaires by

    J.K. Lund

• Why I’m not a free-market capitalist (yet)

• Yes, I am a techno-optimist

• I’m not going to have kids to save the economy

Work & Leisure

• Blue-collar jobs might be the best jobs

• It’s time to rethink retirement

• Digital nomads are opening borders

• You’d still work if you didn’t have to

• “Friends” as the ideal community

• Maybe you need to have more fun

• Maybe women should design our sci-fi future

• I watched the Super Bowl because of Taylor Swift

• One alternative to prison

Art & Culture

• Could AI make us wise?

• Bring back the “Renaissance Man”

• Where do we find paradise?

  • Some notes on the aesthetic of progress by

    Alex Telford

• We should remove electives from higher education

• The unbearable necessity of being online

• How do we stop fighting on the internet?

• No one buys books

• Publishers aren’t in trouble, writers are

• I’d rather have an investor than a publishing contract

• Substack could create the future of books

• In pursuit of a masterpiece

Letters

• Letters to a skeptic, part one by

  Elle Griffin

• Letters to a skeptic, part two by

  R. G. Miga

• Letters to a skeptic, part three by

  Elle Griffin

• Letters to a skeptic, part four by

  R. G. Miga

• Letters to a skeptic, part five by

  Elle Griffin

• Letters to a skeptic, part six by

  R. G. Miga

I love seeing my work in print and realizing just how much I’ve written in a year! Printing it into a beautiful book and adding it to my bookshelf is such a joy, and I’d love to send one to you too if you want one.

Some specifics: These 5”x7” softcover books are printed on matte, heavy-weight paper with “Elysian” written on the spine, and a different gold foil cover design each year. The 2024 cover is inspired by the utopian city planner Ebenezer Howard who wanted to create independent but interconnected communities, a deep theme of mine this year.

The book was designed, as always, by my friend and designer Shadna Aum who also designed my new quarterly print pamphlets—also for collector subscribers! I’ll be sending these smaller saddle-stitched leaflets out every time I complete a series. Our next one will be called The Cooperatist Manifesto, and it will feature my series on worker-owned businesses and cooperatives.

For those interested in supporting my work, I’d love to invite you to become a Collector. I have reduced the price this year to account for a reduction in printing and shipping costs, and the fact that all of the rest of the benefits that used to come with this tier have moved into my traditional paid subscription.

As always, thanks for reading,

And thanks for collecting!

Elle Griffin

P.S. There is only one more email being sent to you during my annual subscriber drive and we will back to regular essays next week! Thank you for bearing with me!