The election win of Claudia Scheinbaum in Mexico dooms that country to at least six more years of violent Marxist wokery. Yet in a few countries elsewhere in Latin America, the universal gloom of socialism is lifting – Xavier Milei’s government in Argentina and Nayib Bukele’s in El Salvador both offer hope for the future of a kind the region has rarely seen. We must all hope that the light begins to spread and overwhelm the darkness. Continue reading →

At the end of the 19th Century, it appeared that slavery had almost been eliminated worldwide. With slaveowners in British colonies bought out by Britain, an appalling Civil War in the United States, confiscation in Brazil and a major effort by the Royal Navy to extirpate the trade, its prevalence had been reduced to a few straggling societies in the Middle East and Africa. Then 20th Century wars brought “National Service,” a concept now extended by the leftist bureaucrat state, while modern cheap-labor-lobby immigration policies have brought the return of indentured servitude. Free labor is an existential condition of a free society; it is fast being eroded. Continue reading →

All of us who are old enough can remember where we were when it happened – the fantastic sight of demonstrators breaking down the Berlin Wall that had divided Germany and mankind for several decades, apparently marking the death-knell of the evil Communist tyranny. But a generation later, the question has to be asked: did the West actually win? Did the free market actually triumph over the miseries of central planning? Or was Communism simply transmogrified into a form that, promulgated through the universities and the media, is now dominant and repressive throughout the West? Continue reading →

The Industrial Revolution is currently 256 years old, if you agree with my chronology in “Forging Modernity” dating its inception to 1768, plus or minus a year or two. Even given that it soared beyond mere human limitations, you would expect it to be showing signs of age by now. Yet in recent years, it has shown signs not merely of maturity but of senescence; it is losing capabilities that it once possessed. If the Industrial Revolution has turned Struldbrugg — Jonathan Swift’s mythical creatures who live forever, growing ever older, ever uglier and ever feebler — our economic future is a grim one. Continue reading →

Observers have been puzzled by the continued strength of the U.S. stock market, asset prices generally and the U.S. economy in the face of sharp rises in interest rates since early 2022. Artificial stimulus from record U.S. budget deficits seems to be part of the cause, but an even more significant indicator is the velocity of M2 money supply, still one third below its pre-2008 historical level. With too much money in the system, asset bubbles and inflation are inevitable. Correction of this will produce a major slump, probably after the inauguration of the next President in January 2025. If that President is Donald Trump, the slump will not be his fault. Continue reading →

The democratic system of government has many advantages, but it is bedeviled by the electorate’s tendency to fall for snake-oil salesmen peddling economically devastating nostrums. In recent years, the climate change “net zero” nonsense is the most obvious of these follies, but they stretch back through democratic history to the repeal of the Corn Laws and beyond. Finding a way to quell these outrageous scams is essential if the human race is not to revert to barbarism and poverty. Continue reading →

The United Auto Workers’ success in unionizing a Volkswagen plant in Tennessee suggests that the reported death of private sector unions is not imminent. Fifty years ago, even in cyclical industries unionized workers were close to Japan-style lifetime employment, with any layoffs in business downturns allocated by inverse seniority, so that after a few years a worker’s position was guaranteed. In white-collar activities, long careers were predominant and layoffs were scarce. Yet in today’s knowledge industries and elsewhere, the social contract between large corporations and their employees has become one-sided, with layoffs commonplace and lifetime employment a distant dream. This places excessive costs on employees. As the recent history of GE, Boeing and other faltering behemoths shows, it also eliminates the workforce’s knowledge and skills and destroys shareholder value. Continue reading →

The European Court of Human Rights’ decision sanctioning Switzerland for having not done enough to combat global warming is typical of all international bodies. It flouted the original restrictions imposed on the court’s activity, the decision did direct economic harm to ordinary Swiss citizens, and the Court exhibited utter contempt for Swiss democracy. International bodies have become a mechanism for leftist ideologues to impose their will on the rest of us, entirely free of control by democracy or by the tenets of rationality. These bodies need to be eliminated. Given that they were set up to be eternal and impervious to elimination, this will be difficult. Continue reading →

Britain and the United States are together the progenitors of modern democracy and it has since spread worldwide, albeit suffering a retreat in the last decade. Nevertheless, the current governments under which we are groaning suggest that the U.S., Britain and Western Europe are not very good at operating a democratic system. Can it be that some of democracy’s later adopters in South and East Asia can show us old hands a thing or two? Continue reading →