In January of 2026, just like every January since 1986, a basketball Brigadoon will rise on Duke’s campus. This village, locally known as “Krzyzewskiville,” exists for just a few short weeks every year, and then disappears. But while it lives, it is a beehive of activity, with surprisingly specific and aggressively enforced rules. K-Ville is not just a place, but a student-organized system of governance with its own rules, enforcement, and dispute resolution mechanisms. Elinor Ostrom herself couldn’t have come up with a better example of an emergent institution to create and enforce property rights to a common pool resource.

K-Ville was created as an orderly way to ration access to “free” student basketball tickets to “The UNC Game.” This Manichean struggle of “good” (Duke) versus the “living embodiment of evil on earth” (UNC) is the hottest ticket on campus most years. (The game is always scheduled for late February or early March, and so the January tradition works backward from the game date.) The StubHub price of the non-student tickets is a good measure of the value of what is being given away: buying tickets costs at least $2,000, and can cost $5,000 each or more, depending on the teams’ records and the quality of the seats.

Of course, the student seats are directly courtside, so what economists call the “shadow price” — the cost of the ticket if it could be sold — is at least several thousand dollars. Yet Duke gives these tickets to students on a first-come, first-served basis, for free. Why?

Duke (though nominally a “non-profit”) makes every effort to maximize revenue. Students are required to buy the meal plan, and to pay for a dorm room, at least for the first three years. So why would Duke turn generous and pass up well over two million dollars in revenue — 1,200 student seats in the prime “Student Section” (Section 17), at $2,000 each, conservatively — just to give the seats away?

The answer is interesting. But to get to the answer, we’ll need to review some history.

Origins

Duke basketball tickets are free to enrolled students with current, valid IDs who line up. But the number of seats is limited, so the line can get long. In 1986, a Duke senior and fourteen friends extended the usual “line up overnight” ritual by showing up two nights in advance.

According to The Duke Chronicle:

‘It was common for people to line up hours before a game,’ said Kimberly Reed, Trinity ’86, who was one of the first tenters. ‘We were playing quarters one night at Mirecourt and joking about how early we were going to line up for the ’86 [University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill] game. Finally, someone said, ‘Why don’t we just pitch a tent?’ After a few rounds of quarters, it began to sound like a good idea.’

Reed and about 15 of her friends, many of whom were members of the Air Force ROTC, rented a tent from U-Haul and set up camp in front of Cameron in March 1986.

‘We were going to ask permission…, but then we just decided to ask forgiveness later,’ she said. The adventurous fans set up four tents in front of Cameron on Thursday for the Saturday game against UNC, and word began to spread around campus. By Friday, other tents began to pop up.

‘Someone took a cardboard box and wrote Krzyzewskiville on it,’ Reed said. And so the tent city was named.

The timing was no accident: Between 1986 and 1994, Duke made seven Final Fours in nine years. More students wanted tickets than there were tickets available, by quite a bit, at least at a zero price. Of course, Duke could have charged for tickets, or used a lottery, but queuing was already the custom, and it stuck. But after 1986 the swelling demand to see the UNC game meant that kids had to line up for days, and (before long) weeks.

January in North Carolina’s Piedmont is not polar, but daytime highs average in the 40°s F, nighttime lows can dip well below freezing, and it rains a lot. Still, Cameron Indoor Stadium — roughly 9,300 seats, with about 2,500 reserved for students overall (with most of those in the more uncool, sedate Sections 18, and 19 not the most desirable Section 17) — was small enough to create a predictable, iterated problem that had to be solved every year: far more students wanted seats in Section 17 than were available. Early attempts at informal queuing were chaotic. Students camped without rules, disputes broke out about order, and many felt that the system rewarded only those who were willing to engage in opportunism or outright disruption.

In response, students themselves worked out, through trial and error each year, a more orderly process. They still lined up, but they formalized their place in line and rules of minimum occupancy, all overseen by “Line Monitors.”  A tent by itself doesn’t hold your place in line;  “tent checks” are performed randomly by Line Monitors. You get one “miss,” but if a student misses a Tent Check twice, they are out. Alternatively, if a tent as a whole has too few occupants present then that tent is removed and its fans disqualified. Students can also be disqualified for “excessive” drinking or obvious drunkenness (passing out, vomiting), but this rule has been enforced selectively.

By the 1990s, the system included tiers of participation — black tenting, blue tenting, and white tenting — each corresponding to different levels of commitment and different rewards in line order.  It’s worth looking at the details.

Inside the Queuing System Itself

At its heart, K-Ville is a queuing system built around time and commitment rather than money. Groups of students (twelve per tent, at the start) register to camp out in K-Ville, with place in line determined by performance on a written test, as described below. Once tent order is determined, each tent unit must maintain a certain number of occupants, twenty-four hours a day. Line monitors, drawn from the student body in a “hyper-competitive” process designed by students themselves, enforce compliance by conducting random checks, sometimes in the middle of the night. DSG has legislated an explicit constitution for K-Ville, a set of rules that make the process (mostly) clear.  

• Black tenting, the most rigorous, begins in early January and requires nearly continuous presence until the day before the game.
• Blue tenting begins later, with somewhat less stringent occupancy requirements.
• White tenting, beginning still later, requires the least commitment but comes with correspondingly lower priority in line.

On game day, students are admitted in the order and then color of their tents, until the available seats are exhausted. While all the seats in the student section are “good seats,” only the Black Tent denizens will be able to get in the front rows at the center of the court, which are the most desirable seats. This creates a clear correspondence between cost and reward: the more time students are willing to spend in line, the better their seats, fostering a meritocracy of endurance. Again, tickets could be auctioned, but the goal is not to select based on wealth, but on a fierce zealotry for the team. By using time as the currency rather than money, Duke students reinforce the principle that participation in fandom requires actual fanaticism.

The Problem of Fairness

Fairness is central to the design of K-Ville, and the rules are published. Line Monitors ensure compliance, though of course there are some complaints of excessive zeal in enforcement (few Duke students use “fascist” as a political description, but it is a common description of Line Monitors). The tier system allows for self-selection: those who are most dedicated (or most willing to endure discomfort) can camp longest, while others can choose a lighter commitment and still secure some chance of entry. The result is a system perceived as legitimate because it balances effort, transparency, and equal opportunity.

What makes K-Ville interesting is its emergent, student-governed nature: a community facing a scarcity problem managed to develop rules, enforcement mechanisms, and sanctions, all without any plan or formal intention. But there is one formal, designed or “laid on” rule: Place in line among Black Tent residents is determined by an examination. This innovation is quite interesting for two reasons.

First, queuing is economically inefficient. Students “pay” for seats with time and discomfort, which could otherwise be devoted to study, work, or leisure. An auction would be efficient, but such a system privileges the ability to pay over devotion. K-Ville’s governors wanted to limit the inefficiency of an open-ended “rent-seeking” contest, while preserving queuing’s signal about depth of fan loyalty.

Second, many organizations have independently stumbled across the value of initiation and elite membership rights. Creating difficulty of acquisition, even if that difficulty is artificial, can enhance the value of the thing acquired, especially if possession of that thing is highly public.

In light of these two influences, DSG has formally limited the amount of time that someone can wait in line, reducing the inefficiency implied by the first principle. And it has created an initiation right that sorts applicants by informed fanaticism, and by depth of knowledge. They use a lengthy and challenging examination: the Duke Basketball “Black Tenting Entry Test”.

The test differs each year, but it generically tests for whether the student/applicants can write down (from memory!) the names, position, and hometown of the Duke players. They also have to name the opponents played in all the Duke games so far that season, the scores of those games, and Duke’s overall won-lost record. Then the test moves to aggressively specific and truly “trivial” questions. Just one example, from the actual 2023 test:

Which team did Duke play against in a “secret scrimmage” before the season began? In what city did they play? What was the final score? (2 pts each; 6 pts total).

The answers (I had to look it up) were University of Houston, in Houston, and Duke lost 61-50.

These questions are not circulated in advance; they are not multiple choice, and there is no partial credit. The cutoff in recent years has been a score of 75 out of 100 possible points, meaning that at least two thirds of the applicants fail, and are not allowed a Black Tent.  There are only 70 Black Tents allowed, and each tent has 12 occupants, though some of those may be disqualified even if the tent itself makes it through to the end. K-Ville starts with 100 tents total, and 12 students in each tent. 

That’s 1,200 people who start the “tenting” experience each year, though by the end 300 or more of those folks may have been disqualified or moved to “Flex” or “Waitlist” tents with no guarantee of being seated.

K-Ville as an Emergent Order

F.A. Hayek would have called K-Ville an “emergent order.” Rules are not imposed from the outside; they evolve as individuals interact over time. Participants in a process learn from past successes and failures, and generate working rules that are known, followed, and enforced by participants themselves.

As Elinor Ostrom pointed out, “Working rules are the set of rules to which participants would make reference if asked to explain and justify their actions.” That’s interesting, because it means that the rules evolve from practice and trial and error, but then are written down after newcomers ask for an explanation.

The problem facing Duke students had three aspects: First, more people wanted tickets (after 1986, at least) than could get seats. Queuing for multiple days was chaotic, and there were incidents that led to frustration.

Second, the tribal experience of showing commitment by face-painting, elaborate coordinated chants and signs, and other rituals was collectively more enjoyable if all the participants are “real fans.” This “public good” aspect was intuitively understood by the students, even those who could never have defined a public good in technical economic terms. Using price or auctions would not have resulted in the same fan sorting.

Third, the first two considerations tended to lead to very inefficient “rent-seeking” contests, where it would be necessary to wait in line for more and more time, making the chances of unpleasantness, line-jumping, and perhaps even violence even greater. So some lottery or contest was necessary to limit the dead-weight losses of queueing (since auctions were off the table).

The solution the students have devised involves explicit and publicly recognized, an enforceable property right to “place in line,” based on tent number. But the extent of rent-seeking to obtain initial tent number is limited by having an “entry test,” an objective measure that is at least correlated with knowledge of the history and folkways of Duke basketball. 

There are other benefits, as well. “Tenting” is a rite of passage for Duke students; many do it at least once, just for the experience. There is folk wisdom (though I could find no definitive source) that students who “tent” at least once are more likely later to attend reunions for alumni, and to make large donations to the Duke Endowment or other campus causes. As a whole, then, it is clear why Duke “gives students tickets for free” rather than by auction, even though an auction would generate immediate revenue.  The shared identity of “Cameron Crazies”, both while enrolled and later, is an important part of a Duke student’s identity, and their commitment as alumni.

Kville has risen again. Black tenting started January 18; blue tenting starts January 28. The tents are full, and anticipation is growing. 

The annual gathering of global elites in Davos, Switzerland, is well underway. Past meetings have not been without their share of controversy and dissension. But this year’s forum may devolve into chaos. Last week, at a dinner of many current and former heads of state as well as top CEOs, Secretary of Commerce Howard Lutnick delivered scathing criticism of European economic and social policy. His remarks were so impolitic that high-profile figures, such as European Central Bank president Christine Laguarde, walked out in protest and the host of the dinner, none other than Larry Fink of Blackrock, ended the dinner before dessert.

Then Trump spoke on Wednesday. And while he assured the Europeans that he would not take Greenland by force, he continued to insist that the US would acquire it. The rest of his speech focused on tariffs and his various “economic achievements.” On tariffs, at least, Trump has been remarkably consistent. He loves them. They are the perfect policy: negotiating tool, revenue generator, a bone to toss to workers and domestic firms, a lever of power, and a leveler of economic fairness.

Lutnick and Trump are not your ordinary Davos attendees. They refuse to play nice or kowtow to globalist sentiment. They are not on the net-zero green energy bandwagon. They believe in national power. They emphasize building and growing rather than regulating. In short, they are anathema to the Davos orthodoxy. So why are they there?

Perhaps they hope to extend US influence. Afterall, why destroy Davos when you can take it over? When you think about it, Lutnick and Trump are part of the global elite – wealthy businessmen looking to cut a deal and line their pockets. This is their crowd and their kind of machine. If they can turn the event to their own purposes, they will certainly try.

A more likely story, though, is that they came to Davos intending to cut the Europeans down to size. They certainly don’t respect the Europeans. And not entirely without reason. What should they respect? Their woke ideology? Their oppressive regulatory regime? Their underwhelming economic growth? Their military prowess? In the President and the Secretary’s eyes, the Europeans warrant little praise and much blame. 

Then again, the European elite have brought this upon themselves. They began the Environmental, Social, Governance (ESG) crusade several decades ago. They have aspired, often successfully, to be the puppet masters of the global economy. They have foisted costly, sometimes disastrous, net-zero and clean energy goals. They have also pushed identity politics on the rest of the world through Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) initiatives and requirements. 

People in western democracies have become restless under the administrative boot of these Davos elites. They are unhappy about uncontrolled immigration and the swift demographic changes in their cities. They don’t want to be censored by politically correct regulators. They don’t want to pay higher prices for food, energy, and transportation. They live in a maze of red tape; and every year is worse than the one before. 

As a result, right-wing political parties across Europe have been surging. In Italy, Giorgia Meloni has been the right-of-center Prime Minister for over three years. In France, the right-of-center National Rally party won the largest share of the popular vote in 2024. In Germany, the far-right AfD party won just over 20 percent of the national vote.

And across the Atlantic, this reactionary populism re-elected Trump and his team. The Davos chickens have returned home to roost. Despite their shortcomings, Trump and Lutnick are delivering the discontents’ message loud and clear to the global elite: “We don’t like you. We don’t want you. We don’t need you. As a matter of fact, just leave us alone. And we are not asking.”

Based on the reaction of the past few days, we can assume that the message has been received. But now what? Will the Davos elite simply sail (or fly on their private jets) into the sunset? It’s safe to say that they won’t give up that easily. There is too much at stake – billions and billions of dollars.

Walking away means admitting that their multi-decade project to reshape the global economy has failed. This would mean that hundreds of billions of dollars were wasted on solar panels and wind turbines. It would mean that hundreds of millions of people have been made to pay higher electricity and gas prices, and to accept lower rates of economic growth in pursuit of an elitist pipe dream. As the commander in A Few Good Men might say to them, “You can’t handle the truth!”

But besides the pain of acknowledging failure, there is a far more prosaic reason why the Davos elites will not abandon their global puppet strings. They benefit too much from the current global elite agenda. They have built multi-billion-dollar companies around carbon credits and the net-zero agenda. They lead an extensive NGO network whose existence depends on climate alarmism and social engineering. And they have built careers and political coalitions around the ideas and priorities Trump and Lutnick recently blasted.

It’s especially fitting that Larry Fink – the interim co-chair of WEF and one of the chief architects of the global elitist agenda – should see things spiral into chaos at the private dinner he hosted. As perhaps the most prominent “Davos Man,” this message was for him. Although BlackRock has improved in recent years (under extreme pressure from anti-ESG organizations), it was one of the key architects of spreading ESG and DEI throughout corporate America by voting the proxies of the shares it holds for investors.

Davos may not quite be finished, but it’s hard to imagine it ever regaining the reputation or status it once had. Nor can it go back to business as usual after such a public and vocal rebuke. The net-zero ESG agenda has been weighed and found wanting. Decentralized competitive capitalism remains the best avenue to improving human flourishing. 

But were the global elites to accept that, Davos would truly be finished.

The senators elected in fall 2026 won’t be able to avoid dealing with Social Security. The program is projected to hit a financial cliff before the end of 2032, forcing Congress to consider benefit reductions, higher taxes, or more borrowing.

The looming deadline exposes a deeper problem than arithmetic: Congress has spent decades selling Social Security as something it isn’t. Public misunderstanding of the program’s true nature is one of the biggest obstacles to reform. 

Many Americans think Social Security works like a retirement account. In Cato polling conducted in August, about one in four said they believed they had a personal account within the system. That misconception didn’t arise by accident. Politicians routinely describe payroll taxes as “contributions,” speak of a “trust fund” as if it held real savings, and defend benefits as “earned.”

Social Security is not a savings program. It is a pay-as-you-go transfer system. Today’s workers’ payroll taxes fund today’s retirees’ benefits. There is no individual account accumulating a balance over time. Payroll taxes are taxes, neither deposits nor savings.

Its early history makes that clear. The first Social Security check went to Ida Fuller of Vermont, who would go on to collect nearly half a million in today’s dollars. That is about 1,000 times what she had paid in taxes. Fuller did nothing wrong; the system was built that way. From the start, Social Security transferred resources across generations and among workers with different earnings.

This distinction matters because it changes how Americans evaluate the program—and the choices ahead. When Social Security is framed as a retirement account, any benefit reduction sounds like unfair confiscation. 

And when payroll taxes are described as “contributions,” it invites a contradiction: Americans are told that Social Security delivers earned benefits, yet are also encouraged to view the payroll tax cap as an inequity and calls to raise it as a matter of high earners paying “their fair share.” 

When it’s understood as what it is—government-provided income insurance for old age—the trade-offs become clearer. Lifting the payroll tax cap becomes a decision to raise taxes on higher earners to fund redistribution. Higher payroll taxes across the board mean lower take-home pay for workers and weaker economic growth for all of us. Slower benefit growth results in less government spending that subsidizes lifestyle choices among retirees who are, on average, wealthier than the workers financing the system.

Americans, meanwhile, are clearer-eyed about the trade-offs than Congress gives them credit for—especially when presented with real numbers. In an October Cato survey, most respondents initially supported raising payroll taxes “as much as necessary” to shore up Social Security. But support collapsed once the question was framed in dollars. Most Americans are unwilling to pay what would be required to fix Social Security through higher payroll taxes alone.

The same survey shows widespread frustration with how Congress has handled Social Security. Sixty-two percent of respondents believe lawmakers have mostly broken their promises to workers, and 71 percent support creating a commission of independent, nonpartisan experts with authority to address the program’s funding shortfalls.

Americans don’t trust Congress with Social Security, and for good reason: they’ve been sold a comforting fiction for decades.

Honesty would also clarify what reform should look like. If Social Security is fundamentally a redistribution program meant to prevent poverty in old age, then Congress should stop pretending it is a contribution-based retirement account and design it accordingly. The most straightforward approach is a flat benefit: a uniform, anti-poverty payment for eligible seniors, phased in gradually for younger cohorts. It would protect those who need help while reducing subsidies to those who don’t.

This idea is gaining traction. Nearly half (48 percent) of Americans in the Cato survey support replacing Social Security with a flat-benefit system that raises benefits for lower earners and reduces them for higher earners. Support is strongest among younger workers who would be the ones to bear the brunt of the benefit change and who also stand to gain the most from limiting the program’s rising payroll tax burden.

Analysts across the policy spectrum have begun moving in the same direction. 

Proposals by scholars of the American Enterprise Institute, the Manhattan Institute, and the Progressive Policy Institute differ in their approach but converge on a common insight: once you abandon the fiction that Social Security is a personal savings plan, a flatter, more transparent benefit structure makes sense.

A flat benefit would not eliminate difficult choices. Lawmakers would still have to decide how generous the benefit should be, how to finance it, and how to manage the transition fairly. But it would make it possible to protect vulnerable seniors from indiscriminate cuts by reducing spending on more affluent retirees instead. It would also make Social Security’s purpose and costs explicit: payroll taxes are taxes, and benefits are welfare spending. Congress will not be able to dodge Social Security’s fiscal reality much longer. It also shouldn’t dodge the truth.

If Congress wants to restore trust and stabilize the program, the first step is simple: stop pretending Social Security is something it never was.