Here’s a quote from Nassim Nicholas Taleb, a new addition to my “favorite authors”:

What makes us fragile is that institutions cannot have the same virtues (honor, truthfulness, courage, loyalty, tenacity, generosity ) as individuals.

I have long sensed that institutions are fundamentally corrupting, but Taleb identifies why – institutions are incapable of human virtue.

If you haven’t read his Fooled By Randomness or The Black Swan, you are missing two intellectual treats.