Lake-Town represents advanced capitalism under the merchant-class Master, who manipulates democratic sentiment for political gain. When Thorin arrives claiming kingship, popular discontent with economic decline forces the Master to support their hopeless dragon mission—a cheap foreign adventure to distract from domestic problems. His media manipulation through commissioned songs shows how bourgeois democracies co-opt popular resistance movements

The Elven King rules an underground hierarchical society with dungeons, class distinctions and property rights enforced through state coercion. Bilbo’s invisible reconnaissance reveals power structures, developing his political consciousness through dialectical experience as he learns to resist bourgeois illusions about authority.

Mirkwood’s malevolent darkness absorbs light itself,inherent evil rather than mere absence of illumination. It contains Tolkien’s favourite villains, giant spiders.Bilbo’s spider-slaying marks his heroic transformation to someone able to help his fellow travellers.

Beorn controls his own means of production through honey-making and foraging. His Arts and Crafts style hall echoes William Morris’s medieval socialist ideals. He needs to work on how he treats his staff though.

It is a truth universally acknowledged that an employer with a job to fill is in search of a candidate with a diploma in exactly the skills he is looking for. But is this in fact the case?
Why are coders out of work and what should they do about it?

Can I memorise the 2000 most used French verbs? I watched a YouTube video yesterday by a Spanish professor who made assertion the that you both can and should learn languages quickly. He dismissed ideas like immersion and recognisable input. His suggestion was that the most important thing was to learn vocabulary, and learn it