Why I’m Starting ‘Ground Up’

From chronicling the system to building the alternative.

After nearly two decades, I left Bloomberg (after previously writing for Reuters and Dow Jones). From Berlin, New York and lots of places in between, my job was to explain the system.

I wrote story after story on markets, money and power. From fast-paced breaking news to long-form narratives, I contributed to the voice of institutions that were themselves part of the system.

I was explaining the world from the top down. I don’t want that role anymore.

Something’s Broken

Working on both sides of the Atlantic, I’ve seen how the system works from the inside and I’ve been part of telling its narrative. But seeing the trajectory of decline gather pace, it has become clear that the liberal order — the one that promised to protect individual liberty and promote broad prosperity — isn’t just struggling, it’s collapsing.

The living evidence of these conditions is everywhere: wages that don’t stretch the way they used to; people pitted against one another for jobs and housing; culture wars that divide and distract, and politics that offers the bleak prospects of more of the same or burning it all down.

All of that became clear while researching and writing my book Broken Republik about Germany’s decline. The country was the pet project of the U.S.-led postwar system. After the fall of the Berlin Wall, the West subsumed the communist East and declared victory. Built around commercial success, Germany was the epitome of a liberal nation state, or at least it tried to be.

But now economic malaise is triggering political upheaval and a crisis of identity that threatens to tip Germany back into ethnic nationalism (trends that are evident across much of the West). While the ruling political class tries to patch the facade with outdated tools, the pillars of the country are crumbling.

The title of this Substack is intended to evoke two associations: how the system has worn people down and rebuilding from the foundation. So this platform is about problems, but also (and primarily) about solutions.

While Ground Up is progressive in that it looks forward with the majority in mind, it’s not ideological in a classic left-right sense. The goal here is to speak to people who feel the system isn’t working and build a consensus around the harder questions of what comes next.

My answer starts with devolution — a genuine transfer of power back to the people. We need political systems that answer to communities, economic systems that empower workers, and institutions that treat people as participants rather than spectators.

The reset needs to include different ways of measuring success — focusing on whether people can actually participate in economic and civic life, instead of a quantitative obsession with making big numbers go up.

To provide a solid foundation, we also need a clear view on fundamental issues like what society is, how individuals orient themselves in the world and what role government plays. So it will get philosophical at times (which I studied in graduate school, when many thought history was ending).

The project is a challenge to the mainstream proposing piecemeal changes to preserve the status quo as well as to the backward-looking populist agenda that’s filling the vacuum left by the establishment’s fading credibility. It’s an argument that doesn’t have a comfortable home in polarized debates.

I will also take my own steps to be part of the change. That first step was leaving a comfortable and respected position in corporate media.

While this will be a work in progress, here’s what you can expect: one substantial essay a week, building this argument piece by piece. Some weeks will feature reporting on where the collapse is showing up most clearly, others laying out what a devolved alternative looks like in practice.

I’ll also be writing shorter, more frequent notes in between, challenging the prevailing narratives as well as celebrating the good work that’s already underway.

If that resonates, please subscribe — and bring people with you.

I built this platform from decades of journalism, a background in political philosophy and life-long transatlantic experience. For more than two decades, I was trusted with speaking on behalf of the system, and I’m asking you to trust me with the harder argument now.

Welcome to Ground Up.