Banks: 1, Society: 0

When squinting hard enough, society can be seen as the result of a trade-off in which a part of individual freedom is given up so that people could enjoy medicine, culture, transportation, entertainment, safety and all the other wonders society provides. Society, as all complex living systems, adapts to changing circumstances and available knowledge and could be said to evolve. Fundamentally, though, there is a positive feedback loop within society which causes it to veer violently off course, degrading overall quality of life in general and individual freedom in particular. This happens because in most modern societies (and I use the term “modern” in a rather pejorative manner), he who has more, gets more. In other words, all other things being equal, a rich individual can thrive and decide the fate of millions and a poor individual can die from poor quality drinking water.

This problem is all the more serious because there is no obvious point at which this process stops.