It's all about the incentives.

The history of socialism is the history of failure—and so is the history of capitalism, but in a different sense. For the history of socialism is one of fundamental failure, a failure to provide incentives and an inability to coordinate information about supply and effective demand. The history of capitalism, by contrast, is the history of dialectical failure: it is a history of the creation of new institutions and practices that may be successful, even transformative for a while, but which eventually prove dysfunctional, either because their intrinsic weaknesses become more evident over time or because of a change in external circumstances. Historically, these institutional failures have led to two reactions. They lead to governmental attempts to reform corporate and financial institutions, through changes in law and regulation (such as limited liability laws, creation of the FDIC, the SEC, etc.). They also lead market institutions to reform themselves, as investors and managers learn what forms of organization and which practices are dysfunctional. The history of capitalism, then, is the history of success through dialectical failure.

Our Epistemological Depression

Jim Kunstler:

Along the low horizon, mall followed strip mall followed "lifestyle center," book-ending the "one house" failed subdivisions of otherwise empty unsold lots in a cavalcade of floundering enterprise. It seemed at times as if the terrain was a kind of sea-like expanse, and all the retail boxes ghost ships drifting to oblivion.

All parties join in a game of "pretend," that nothing has really happened to the fundamental equations of business life, as the whole system, the whole way of life, enters upon a circle-jerk of mutual denial in a last desperate effort to forestall the mandates of reality.

How long will these games go on?

They can't recognize it for what it truly is: a living arrangement with no future – and an economic, ecological, and spiritual disaster. It is, of course, the primary reason why we find ourselves in the deadly predicament of importing over two-thirds of the oil we use every day.

But then, more than half the population lives the suburban way of life, with its deadly mortgage traps, its mandatory motoring, and its civic disengagements. Nobody in power dares tell the truth: that we can't live this way anymore.

Road Trip

Michael Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff:

We need a comprehensive strategy, not just the military side. What has to be different is how we approach the future.

I worry a great deal about how much time we have. If you're just staying flat, the situation is getting worse.

See: SNAFU.

The Situation Is Much Worse Than Realized

It is nonsense to think that we can assess risks and thus protect against a crash.

A panel discussion between Daniel Kahneman and Nassim Taleb, moderated by John Brockman.

Reflections on a Crisis

Rebecca Solnit:

Iceland is the only part of Europe that never begat monarchs or a hereditary aristocracy, and I hoped to find here a kind of perfection of the democratic ideal, or at least a hopeful indication of what could be.

Listening to Icelanders, I felt like I was hearing a fairy tale told backward, a tale in which they had been dispossessed of their great gifts and birthrights.

Icelanders are aware of the problem and yet seem unable to fix it.

I ran into Andri Snær Magnason, who had helped organize the event, the next morning and asked him why at a concert for the environment no one had said anything about the environment, or politics, or democracy, or dams, or actions people could take to make a difference. “They didn’t want to preach,” he said firmly, as though it were the most reasonable thing in the world.

Iceland's polite dystopia

Sam Tanenhaus:

What our politics has consistently demanded of its leaders, if they are to ascend to the status of disinterested statesmen, is not the assertion but rather the renunciation of ideology. And the only ideology one can meaningfully renounce is one's own.

Conservatism Is Dead

Carmen Reinhart and Ken Rogoff:

Can the US avoid continuing down the deep rut of past financial crises and recessions? This is not the time for the US to avoid painful but necessary restructuring by telling ourselves we are different from everyone else.

Expect a Prolonged Slump

Alec Dubro:

We’d desperately like to believe that there is a way to preserve our car-centered civilization, while simultaneously placating the gods of atmospheric warming. Even the president-elect believes it, and Obama made fuel-efficient cars a central part of his energy policy.

Even on its face, this seems like a tepid response to climate change. In fact, efficiency has always led to more production and consumption.

Cars don’t move people, cars move cars.

Without divine intervention – which seems to be the basis for most energy reduction schemes – there is simply no way to maintain both the atmosphere and personal transportation.

The one step we ought to take right now is to withdraw our support – financial, political and emotional – from the pursuit of an energy-efficient car. We'd have better luck creating a perpetual motion machine.

From the archive:

The greenest thing you can do in your kitchen is not tear it up and put in a new one.

The Myth of the Efficient Car

Jack Cheng:

Lo-fi time, I call it. And it’s about blocking off time for sitting still and letting your mind wander.

Maybe we should consider lo-fi zones as a blessing rather than a curse; as places to be enjoyed, rather than endured. ‘Cause before you know it, the cloud will be everywhere, and not even a cruise on a freighter ship will provide escape.

In Praise of Lo-Fi

Oliver Burkeman:

The faintly depressing human tendency to seek out and spend time with those most similar to us is known in social science as "homophily", and it shapes our views, and our lives, in ways we're barely aware of.

Even priding yourself on being open-minded is no defence if your natural, homophilic inclination is to hang out with other people like you, celebrating your love of diversity.

The unspoken assumption here is that you know what you like.

But if happiness research has taught us anything, it's that we're terrible at predicting what will bring us pleasure. Might we end up happier by exposing ourselves more often to serendipity, or even, specifically, to the people and things we don't think we'd like?

Should we hang out with people we don't like?