There Is Nothing for You Here

Sensing that the price of failure is permanent marginalization, partisans on each side are girding for a crisis in which they are ready to break any guardrails to prevail. Everything is now on the table: gerrymandering, tilting election rules, subpoenas, impeachments, nuking the filibuster, packing the Supreme Court, and—in extremis—mobilizing mobs

But just as we see with the most successful entrepreneurs, the state could regain its effectiveness by sealing an alliance with the most potent party of the day, the multitude. Building this alliance starts by providing the multitude with what they want: fairness and quality at scale. And the problem is that instead of improving, the quality of pub

we distrust to the point that it becomes dangerous to be a judge, a Capitol Police officer, a doctor, a librarian, a poll worker, or someone installing 5G equipment—our civil society cannot function. The winners then will be those who try to rule by force rather than consent.

This grip of voice and exit, explained in Albert O. Hirschman’s famous framework[70], proved particularly powerful. Workers’ bargaining power led to higher wages which, in turn, led to more tax revenue to bankroll social insurance regimes and a more widespread access to capital on financial markets—all of which improved the workers’ bargaining powe