Sublime

The cosmopolitan outlook of Smart America overlaps in some areas with the libertarian views of Free America. Each embraces capitalism and the principle of meritocracy: the belief that your talent and effort should determine your reward. In the narrative of Smart America, meritocracy stands alongside democracy as the twin pillars of the American sys

Nassim Taleb says he’s a libertarian at the federal level, a Republican at the state level, a Democrat at the local level, and a socialist at the family level.

I think that Europe provides valuable insight. One example is our attachment to economic security for the many. In the US, the workers’ safety net has been methodically dismantled over the last decades. As for China, its singular political system provides little room to implement the kind of social compromise that once reconciled classical liberals

changes in our intimate worlds would help us forge stronger and more harmonious societies.

If he had a unifying principle, politically and economically, it is what we have said: that concentrated power in any form is dangerous, that institutions should be built to human scale, and society should pursue human ends. Every institution, public and private, runs the risks of taking on a life of its own, putting its own interests above those o

The first big step is to repair the safety net so that workers and families are no longer at perpetual risk of falling through and drowning, as millions have in the pandemic. This means essentially extending the New Deal to more Americans in more areas of their lives: universal health care, child care, paid family and sick leave, stronger workplace