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Unhand that economy, villein!
Megan McArdle — Ta-Nehisi wonders: I've been thinking about this for awhile. How much of this current crisis is just a manifestation of the American--indeed human--will? We're always talking about politicians deluding us and Wall-Street manipulating us, and predatory lenders conning us, into doing things that aren't in our own interest. But maybe we don't want what's in our interest.  Maybe we like our gas-guzzling, credit-card charging, second house buying when you can't afford it, commercial culture. The thing I always liked about Bill Withers's "Use Me" was ...

Great Power, Great Responsibility
Ross Douthat — Last week, both Ta-Nehisi and Megan had posts on the dubiousness of the search for specific villains in our current economic mess, when the fault may lie less with specific nefarious actors - whether on Wall Street or in Washington - than with ourselves as a people, and with the desires and impulses and stupidities of a mass capitalist society. Henry Blodget makes a related argument in the just-out December issue of our magazine, arguing that "the interaction of human psychology with a market economy practically ensures that [bubbles] will form," and that the mass ...

If It’s Not Your Fault, Then How Come You’re So Rich?
Matthew Yglesias — One notion gaining in popularity among writers for publications likely to be read by members of the financial elite is that maybe this whole “finding out who’s responsible for this giant catastrophe” business is a mistake. Ross Douthat rounds up a few examples of this kind of thing from his colleagues Ta-Nehisi Coates and Megan McArdle and, indeed, Ross Douthat before plugging an article in the December Atlantic and then raising some doubts: Henry Blodget makes a related argument in the ...