The long thread
The thinking
All articles 68 articles
One recent article from each theme, rather than the latest series published in full.
Quinze ans qui ne voyagent pas
Douglass North : l’échange personnel se passe de contrat parce que les deux parties se reverront. Passé un certain rayon, plus personne ne se revoit — et quinze ans de confiance valent zéro chez l’inconnu.
Le chiffre exact qui ne décide rien
Thomas Sowell : « Comparé à quoi ? À quel coût ? Quelles preuves ? » Une donnée juste ne contient pas la comparaison qui permettrait de s’en servir — et l’alternative à laquelle on la compare est souvent imaginaire.
Why the Orchard Never Gets Planted
Oliver Williamson: asset specificity, the fundamental transformation, the hold-up. The real cost of opacity is not in the disputes — it is in the orchards that are missing.
What the Price Doesn’t Say
Hayek (1945): price circulates knowledge that no one holds. But it says nothing about quality or path: nothing is missing from the price — what is missing is a price.
Why Labels No Longer Convince Anyone
Michael Spence (Nobel 2001), costly signaling, and what separates proof from a promise: why a label anyone can slap on no longer signals anything — and how proof changes the game.
Who Sorts, When No One Proves Anything?
Joseph Stiglitz (Nobel 2001), screening, and why food sovereignty begins with verification: when the seller doesn’t signal, it’s the buyer who organizes the sorting.
Why Opacity Pays
Ronald Coase (Nobel 1991), transaction costs, and what happens to food supply chains when verification stops costing anything: the opacity rent, and its foretold end.
Who Owns the Proof?
Elinor Ostrom (Nobel 2009), the governance of the commons, and the question that killed the agricultural-data platforms: proof whose value lies in its mass can only belong to those who create it.