Accordingly, liberalism was correct in counseling people to follow their hearts rather than the dictates of some priest or party apparatchik. However, soon computer algorithms might be able to give you better counsel than human feelings. As the Spanish Inquisition and the KGB give way to Google and Baidu, “free will” likely will be exposed as a myt

Starting in the 1960s, the social and legal institutions of America were remade to try to eliminate unfair choices by people in positions of responsibility. The new legal structures reflected a deep distrust of human authority in even its more benign forms—a teacher’s authority in the classroom, or a manager’s judgments about who’s doing the job, o

an overcentralized state eroding local institutions; globalized markets diminishing the resilience of the national economy; hollowed-out civic institutions combined with weak relationships of trust and obligation.