Society & Culture
Social Capital Coordination Problem
When individual rational choices (staying home, online socializing) conflict with collective wellbeing (community trust, democratic resilience), activities may persist in isolated form (bowling alone) but lose the social cohesion that comes from shared participation. This is an institutional-level market failure: no one profits from rebuilding civic infrastructure, yet everyone pays the price for its decline.
Read the daily articles behind this idea on the Chinese edition.