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Going to America: A Ponzi scheme that works | The Economist: "The greatest strength of America is that people want to live there"

The idea of progress: Onwards and upwards | The Economist: "In the rich world the idea of progress has become impoverished. Through complacency and bitter experience, the scope of progress has narrowed. The popular view is that, although technology and GDP advance, morals and society are treading water or, depending on your choice of newspaper, sinking back into decadence and barbarism. On the left of politics these days, “progress” comes with a pair of ironic quotation marks attached; on the right, “progressive” is a term of abuse. It was not always like that. There has long been a tension between seeking perfection in life or in the afterlife. 

Optimists in the Enlightenment and the 19th century came to believe that the mass of humanity could one day lead happy and worthy lives here on Earth. Like Madach’s Adam, they were bursting with ideas for how the world might become a better place. Some thought God would bring about the New Jerusalem, others looked to history or evolution. Some thought people would improve if left to themselves, others thought they should be forced to be free; some believed in the nation, others in the end of nations; some wanted a perfect language, others universal education; some put their hope in science, others in commerce; some had faith in wise legislation, others in anarchy. Intellectual life was teeming with grand ideas. For most people, the question was not whether progress would happen, but how. 

The idea of progress forms the backdrop to a society. In the extreme, without the possibility of progress of any sort, your gain is someone else’s loss. If human behaviour is unreformable, social policy can only ever be about trying to cage the ape within. Society must in principle be able to move towards its ideals, such as equality and freedom, or they are no more than cant and self-delusion. So it matters if people lose their faith in progress. And it is worth thinking about how to restore it."

A happy Christmas – alone | Balaji Ravichandran | Comment is free | guardian.co.uk: "The meaning of Christmas, and its supposed power to bring friends and family together, is again in evidence this year. Jonathan Freedland admirably called for an end to loneliness, and urged social policy to address it – a sentiment echoed by a Guardian leader. I do not wish to detract from the importance of addressing chronic loneliness, particularly in the elderly. Many people end up alone, not just over the festive season, but for significantly longer periods, for want of company, and not of their own volition. It is easy to pity them (which is just offensive) and say that we must do more as a society to help them. What is significantly harder is to understand the nature of, and the causes behind, loneliness in various sections of society, and ask whether and where society should act. [...]
Thomas de Quincey, the famed intellectual who influenced Baudelaire and Borges, wrote: Solitude, though it may be silent as light, is like light – the mightiest of agencies; for solitude is essential. All come into this world alone; all leave it alone For those who willingly choose to spend their Christmas alone, this is my Christmas message."