The System Isn’t Broken — It’s Working
A Letter to Ezra Klein
Dear Ezra,
You’ve spent years trying to understand why good policy fails, why institutions decay, and why problems that seem solvable persist decade after decade. Your conclusion, as near as I can tell: it’s not that we don’t know what to do. It’s that our systems are optimized for something other than doing it.
I built something based on that same diagnosis. But instead of trying to fix existing systems, I built a parallel one.
The Diagnosis
American healthcare doesn’t fail to provide affordable medication because we lack the knowledge or resources. It succeeds at extracting profit. That’s what it’s optimized for.
Gig platforms don’t fail to protect workers. They succeed at regulatory arbitrage.
Social media doesn’t fail to inform. It succeeds at engagement.
The system isn’t broken. The system is working. It’s just working for someone else.
The Hypothesis
What if you built infrastructure that was structurally optimized for different outcomes? Not through regulation (which gets captured) or charity (which depletes) or good intentions (which erode) — but through architecture?
- Ownership distributed to users — so the platform can’t be optimized against them
- Margins fixed by design — so there’s no incentive to extract more over time
- Commercial activity funding charitable work — so sustainability is built-in, not bolted-on
This isn’t new economics. It’s old economics (cooperatives, mutuals, credit unions) with new infrastructure (blockchain verification, global coordination, transparent pricing).
What We Built
Liana Banyan runs six initiatives through this structure: food access, prescription medications, group purchasing, legal defense, medical savings, community coordination.
The platform takes Cost + 20% on everything. That margin sustains operations and funds the charitable side. Contributors earn ownership. No one can buy us, take us over, or optimize us for extraction.
Is this the solution to systemic dysfunction? No. But it’s a test of whether alternative structures can work at scale.
What I’m Asking
I’m not asking you to cover this. I’m asking you to think about it.
You’ve explored why reform fails from within. This is an attempt to build from without. If it works, it’s evidence that parallel systems are viable. If it fails, I’d want to understand why — and I think you would too.
The economics are published at Cephas.LianaBanyan.org. I’d welcome your questions, your skepticism, or your silence.
Jonathan Jones Founding Manager, Liana Banyan Corporation November 2025
P.S. — You once asked why we can’t build things anymore. This is me trying to build something. I don’t know if it works yet.
406-578-1232 Support@LianaBanyan.org