Great Regulars: Networks of individuals provide pathways

for states of happiness, fatness, health and even life expectancy to spread. Who you know--or don't--is who you are and how you live.

This is an utterly different way of looking at the human world from either the 18thcentury idea of the market as the "invisible hand" guiding human affairs, or from the 19th-century idea of great social and historical forces that dictate individual behaviour.

It is also different from 20th-century identity politics in which groups were defined by one simple attribute--rich or poor, black or white, gay or straight.

from Bryan Appleyard: The Sunday Times: Networks are the key to life--pass it on

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