Something that is not widely appreciated amongst other Western conservatives is just how much of a special case the UK is in terms of the progressive/conservative 'culture war'. It is a special case (an especially dismal one) for various reasons but one of the biggest is the decades-long unusually monolithic nature of its BBC-dominated television news media. Other countries' media has had a far less uniformly progressive stranglehold; particularly the US. Last election in the US about 40% (was it?) voted for a non-liberal-establishment candidate. In Britain, thanks to decades of BBC -type taming, they would get maybe 5% max. In the last 30 years the UK has made itself virtually conservatism-free.
(In other parts of Europe, rightist polities do still exist..... and are growing.)
The great exception in UK recent history - and the template, however unlikely for a future Somewheres revolt - was Margaret Thatcher's leadership. "What made her electable - despite a personality and set of values anathema to the grain of her time (and ours) - was her unlikely visceral appeal to lower middle class and skilled working class voters (the C1s & C2s) many of whom were not even quite sure why they were switching their vote to her. They could sense that - unlike the normal type of ‘higher-ups’ of both Left and Right - she was (although she would never dream of using the term herself) not full of s***." https://grahamcunningham.substack.com/p/mrs-thatcher-and-the-good-life
"Last election in the US about 40% (was it?) voted for a non-liberal-establishment candidate. "
Some believe it well might have been 51% or 55%, but no one has the incontrovertible evidence that the Anywhere's cannot ignore, as to the various election frauds or mistakes that were allowed to occur with Covid. Can you have so much smoke that it hides the fire?
It’s an oversimplification to attribute the “driving up rents and house prices by using zoning to restrict housing supply” in the US to the Anywheres. Somewheres consistently support restrictive housing policies because they are trying to protect their communities--and their control over their communities’ political and civil institutions--from the onslaught of in-migration, both by lower income immigrants with alien cultural backgrounds, and by higher income Anywheres. If the Anywheres are responsible for those policies, it’s because they have created, and continue to support, an economy that pushes innovation through destruction of existing communities and economies.
I think this NIMBY phenomenon is universal - applying equally to somewheres and anywheres in different ways.
The issue here is that the anywheres determine the house price and living amenity of the somewheres by their policy decisions in relation to immigration levels, block size, investment in schools, public transport, distance from work etc.
The net result is somewheres are increasingly being forced into the outer suburbs in tiny houses, with poor access to health, education, and work; and facing 60 min commutes to pay for it.
The anywheres - by dint of controlling the political and policy processes - are the ones who make it like this. That's what is causing the pushback as somewheres are increasingly annoyed by this.
1. We need to stop conflating “educated” and “degreed.” If one sees the purpose of education to be a free, prosperous and fertile society under law, then no such thing as a “highly-educated” Progressive exists.
2. A footnote quoting Hirsi Ali on the reduction of women’s rights seems at-odds with the expressed thought on the current devolution of society via its feminization, no? The fact of the matter is that all current social pathologies are downstream from suffrage and feminism: “oh that poor...” illegal alien, incarcerated thug, socially-promoted student, fatherless child, etc., are driving empathy votes destroying safety, borders, laws, education, families.
3. Is everyone noticing the increasing prevalence of this argument? It wasn’t heard a decade ago but is difficult to miss today.
It’s increasing accuracy is testified to by the increasing commentary.
Whence does it go from here?
FTA: Feminisation of the academy, professions, and institutions, which undermines free speech norms and increases moralised aggression (often mean-girl mobbing). This is coupled with demands to trade in other folk’s freedoms and careers to protect highly educated women’s feelings.
‘Degreed’ is the right term. The feminisation is elite feminisation. That women are not the solidarity sex is very much on display in elite women’s disinterest, even hostility, to discussion of repressive treatment of (very much not elite) women in Muslim enclaves.
It’s not just disinterest by elite women. Do a quick search in IMDB on “mean girls.” The result is pages of current media, film and TV, on the pathology.
This likely is evolutionary as women needed to cull competitors in the drive to pass-on their genes. As such, women today still are mean as hell to one another for no current, good reason. It also means it can’t be changed just because some think it can; it’s human - female - nature.
It can be culturally ameliorated. Roman and Spartan culture seems to have stepped on poor female behaviour quite strongly as part of being relatively gender egalitarian.
I’d offer that becoming egalitarian would create a far more equal society. Were we to choose equal rights for all people - as I argue we have but refuse to acknowledge - we would culturally and societally oppose those interest groups demanding equality but which in fact are demanding superiority. No current cohort demanding equality, whether on race, sex or orientation, is interested in equality; each is demanding superiority and the means to achieve it.
Pointless attempt to promote the sub-system "democracy" as if having scoundrels and fraudster from the "working class" in the DEMOcracy cirCUS means anything beneficial to the herds of modern moron slaves!
Bi-caramel legislatures are supposed to provide a protective layer of deliberation against the populist passions. The US Senate is currently hardly functioning in that capacity, having fecklessly passed their legislative role to the executive branch administrative state. Not sure about the anglophone parliamentary systems, except I keep hearing the Lords are being side lined??
You all have just earned a paid sub for this post (as well as the consistent quality and the Zoom idea - that is an excellent value add).
Loved the article - one thing I would add though, that you hinted at with the comments around EU failure but didn’t quite go full blast.
The fact is that a lot of ethnonationalist appeal (particularly in Europe but some in the US) is because the State Apparatus and the ‘new’ populations are directly and openly hostile the local population.
Additionally, as the Anywhere Elites become more and more diverse, the cognitive dissonance of a local Somewhere being ruled by a “How Did They Get Here?” so to speak is unnerving for many.
A great example of this is the family tree of say, a Rishi Sunak - a lineage who has not stayed in a single country for more than a generation in over 100 years I believe, and a man who is married to a person who seemingly prefers to live somewhere else, in addition to his own heavy US residency ties.
And this man is the most powerful Anywhere Elite in the UK, metaphorically speaking.
But great article and looking forward to your Zoom calls!
Will do - I hope that a full (Amazon-able) book is eventually in the work with the series; would love to send it as a 'gift' to some non-Substacked friends. Would be willing to donate handsomely to a project like that - maybe some other fans would too.
Perhaps you are also eliding to Ms. Haley or Mr. Ramaswamy, in the US?
We might note that the Indians invented the concept of "0", later promulgated by the Arabs.
But most Indians we see in public roles are not total zeros, and maybe some fresh blood is what is called for?
We may have had similar attitudes about the Irish, Italians, Swedes, et al. in the US.
Maybe the Saxons has a similar question about the Normans?
And the Oz Aboriginals may be wondering how their European neighbors managed to take over, too. [Are there any Australian equivalents to the Trail of Tears or the Little Big Horn in the US?]
'We' were right to have those attitudes - each of those groups you listed profoundly and unalterably changed the host country. Sometimes for better sometimes for worse. Often both at the same time.
And yes, Aboriginals would have been right to assume that European rule would turn Australia into a European-style region, ha.
Thus, I personally don't subscribe to the implicit assumption that upon arrival to a new country, all ethnic groups think, behave, or produce the outcomes -
So inasmuch as you're saying that having Indian immigrants 'running' a country would be different than having Italians running it or Swedes running it or Irish running it -
Yes, it would. It the outcomes will be totally different.
And yes, the Normans 'take over' England changed the country immensely and to this day Norman descendants are often at the still at the top of the totem pole (see - The Grosvenor Family).
Two quick examples of all of this - the Amish in the US are ethnically Swiss (more specifically a combination of Celts and a bit of 'plains' Germanic peoples - they speak a form of German).
If you go through Alsace right now and get to know the people there, there will be some eerily similar overlaps in everything from behavior and 'temperament' and to architecture and agricultural styles.
Similarly, many of the Italian immigrants to the U.S. at the turn of the 20th century were from Sicily - it shouldn't be surprising to any student of history that a mafia that specifically required someone to have Sicilian blood cropped up in NYC.
In short, yes people change the place they're from, this is quite obvious.
Your remarks about Swiss-Amish and Sicilian-Mafia suggest we have to watch for the balancing act between new and old cultures and "tribes". We desire new immigrants to be assimilated into our culture, and are objecting to the inability to absorb such a large influx as we are seeing now (of legal or illegals). The impact of the European tribes was mollified via Church law and marriage rules, including enhancing bequeaths to the Church rather than kin, clan, and tribe. I understand this has contributed to our orientation in Western civilization towards individual rights, etc., over group rights. People substituted religion as an alternative "tribe", and eventually the "state" got into the act and came along for a parallel ride as part of an intermingled church-state "tribe".
We appear to have an inherent (evolved) preference to join some "tribe", so we need to be careful that we aren't creating tribes with undesirable features (like wokeness) and continue to support and advance those groups fostering liberty and prosperity. The history of the last 100 years or more suggests we have not been as careful about this balance as we should have been.
Substack and contributors like Helen and Lorenzo appear to be one path towards this corrective. Can we be sure Substack cannot or will not become compromised by the "censor industrial complex" that Shellenberger has formulated?
I collected my thoughts and comments as I read through this essay, but rather than dump them all into one large comment, I will present them as mostly individual ones. This may make replying easier?
And some are questions for Lorenzo.
A couple of minor editorial items?
"Parliamentary/representative politics have a long history, dating back to the late C12th. The industrial revolution’s factory and office employment not only separated production from households." This phrasing represents quite a jump in thinking and in history. Perhaps some transitional language is merited in the book version?
"It created tough, committed (through generally small) armies." [ through, or though?]
"The identification of nationalism as the central problem of European history is false. The real problem of European history is unaccountable power. Yes, nationalism can be—and has been—mobilised by power without accountability." Great observation!!!
"Early medieval Latin Christendom’s sanctification of the Roman synthesis: law-is-human (i.e., not based on revelation)..." So the adage that the Holy Roman Empire was not holy, Roman, or an empire is wrong: they at least were "Romanized"? :-)
"The selection processes of history—operating among intensely competitive states—had far more variety to work with than in any other civilisation." A plug for social and political evolutionary adaptiveness, and another good argument against a one world government. Selecting good memes will be most successful when there are a variety of options among which to choose.
Multiculturalism is flawed mush. Extract the best from each culture as you learn about it/them.
"The upward spiral of bargaining politics is why various forms of national identity developed unusually strong resonance in Europe." So, coupled with the decline in kin/tribal oriented social structures and the move away from shame-honor culture (to shame-guilt culture? via Christianity?) prevalent in so many other (non "western") nations/ societies, this is part of why they have failed to master the liberty- prosperity calculus we tend to enjoy?
We in the US have a history of distancing ourselves from the European "experts" and views, so perhaps we also have overlooked the cultural contributions from Europe that have enhanced our lives as well. One area: the "self evident truth" of our DOI is really only self-evident from within a Judeo-Christian civilization. No one else would ever have generated such a phrasing.
The liberty-prosperity calculus was always something of a balancing act. With the level of evolutionary novelty we are now experiencing, it is perhaps not surprising that things are becoming unbalanced.
I have been struggling to understand the chicken-egg situation around the development of prosperity vs. the presence of political liberty, or the demand for political liberty as economic well being improves. I suspect you have addressed this topic in some detail in one or more of your previous essays/blog posts, if perchance you can find an applicable link(s) without too much trouble. :-)
Does part of that evolutionary novelty involve the great economic lifting of many boats, so that "at some point you have made enough money!"? Mental illness and drug addiction aside, it would seem that in most westernized nations true (sleeping in the doorway) poverty has been largely ameliorated. We don't mind the super wealthy having yachts and 10 houses, as long as they don't use their wealth to muck around beyond one man-one vote politically.
I haven’t really addressed it except in passing. The closest is in this post-of-paper-presented, the penultimate section on mercantile interests and public goods.
"So, we have a Europhile elite that tends to undermine accountability, ...[etc.] This is not a solution to the problems of nationalism. It is an invitation—and provides a set of incentives—to reinvigorate the politics of nationalism." A great statement, and appears to be true of the US as well. Are you sure you never visited or stayed in the US for any extended period? Besides accessing our media? :-) You seem to know us so well!!
And I just thought to ask: what do you think of NATO as a somewhat parallel, multi-nation institution? My perception is that the member nations still retain their localized influences and agendas, somewhat outside of the EU "political union" approach.
NATO is a very different beast than the EU, since there is no pooling of sovereignty. It is far more about guaranteeing everyone’s sovereignty. Indeed, it is my view that the EU could not exist without NATO (or equivalent).
"The salience of non-profits in the US political system...." Do you see these NGO's as being more publicly visible within the last few years compared to a more restrained agenda in the not so distant past? In other words, "why am I only learning about (or appreciating) their corruptive role now?" NGO's were supposed to be (mostly) "non-profit good guys", not Marist apparats in disguise.
You should be able to go back and edit your comment. I am sure I've turned on the ability for commenters to fix typos. If that facility isn't available, I've made a tech snafu somewhere.
Oh, now I see it. You mean those three nearly invisible* dot dot dot on the right.
There are some really poorly done web site interface designs out there.
Given there is plenty of room next to the Like/Reply/Share for more buttons/ commands, perhaps at least the two captured via ... should be included.
Or the ... should have been labeled "More" or some such.
*Displays may vary, but mine shows the text as dark gray against a light beige background. Not really invisible, but easily ignorable. Anyone know how to convert the displayed text to a real black?
The non-profits have got bigger in scale and operation. The advocacy economy has tended to swell, as use of trusts to deposit wealth has swelled. Also, there is rather more hiring of non-profits to provide services. They have also become more colonised/coordinated by bad ideas.
Not that this is entirely a new problem. Both Hadrian and Saladin engaged in a purge of the non-profits of their day.
I’ve seen it argued that the trans rights movement was invented by NGOs like GLAAD and the Human Rights Campaign, who saw their revenues shrinking as the gay rights movement saw their goals being achieved. Once gay rights were ensconced in law, those same NGOs needed a new market to tap, and thus they selected a new group of victims.
The Prisoner is sentenced to be passed from Navy Ship to Navy Ship without seeing land or hearing or seeing the words “The United States” ever again, this is his punishment for uttering at his treason trial “God Damn The United States! I wish to never hear of the United States again.”
His wish is granted.
Perhaps we could update this for globalists who can’t accept it’s over ... they can be transferred from plane to plane at foreign airports, never leaving the airplane or perhaps even windowless airports, never seeing the Sun shine on their native soil they so despise...
.... why we can even automate it, they can be waited on by Droids.
Why transfer them at airports? Let them drop from one plane to the one flying below!!
Or use a large mail sack approach, attaching them to a pole or rigging from one plane as it flies over, which is then snagged by the next one.
But the advantages of specialization and trade are too great to totally avoid globalization. Perhaps trade with a reduced role for China, Russia, Iran, and North Korea, and a few others. The tricky part is deciding how to ensure your national security supply lines are robust enough. Maybe we should set up Sovereign Reserves (like we have for oil), where we store piles of Co, Ni, Cu, etc. as needed for armaments and for support equipment and communications, etc. But part of that equation has to be to also have the dedicated human and equipment/factory capital as required. Some solutions will degrade over time, or obsolesce with technology advances. As I said, "tricky".
Interesting article. Item on pg 35 on ERP almost makes we want to come out of retirement and take that stuff up again - I said "almost".
Also noted he said there was private investment along with govt subsidies, so not a total waste of money. I do find it disturbing the three pieces of legislation he mentions providing those subsidies appear to have been generated under the Biden administration [boo, hiss, etc.]. But David P Goldman has been calling for reshoring/ R&D investment for a while, so half a loaf is better than none.
Still, the focus seems to be on high tech, which has some relationship to ensuring our tactical and strategic interests are protected, but transport and chemicals also play a role. On the plus side this sounds like opportunities for some Somewhere's to actually become (the right kind of?) Anywhere's. Human and physical/money capital in Mexico might provide more support for non-top tech stuff.
But we have to buy our paperclips, flip flops, garden hoses, etc. from somewhere so they have the money to buy our tech and weapons systems. Trade is still needed, if modified and constrained from the 2000 to 2022 span. Just need to avoid the IP stealing CCP to the max extent possible, while at the same time we avoid putting that rat in a corner such that he has to come out fighting.
"Super cycle" seems like hyperbole, but still some valuable and promising prospects. Thanks for the alert.
By the way, to the extent 🇺🇸 had a hand in Globalization, 🇺🇸 is killing it off. The 🇺🇸 Anywhere’s are funding and leading a industrial reshoring that is now being called a Manufacturing SuperCycle.
This is because the 🇺🇸 Anywheres fear the 🇺🇸 Somewheres -
- also we’re (sorry*) consolidating the 🇺🇸 Empire around CONUS core while smashing the Atlantic and Pacific borders into submission (in the case of Germany poverty). Which is why Australia must buy American subs, mustn’t buy French ones, and the good news for us all is we’re breaking with China. Well, I hope it’s good news for Australia too.
Amid the elegant and compelling arguments here, one stands out in particular, for this reader. That 'overdoing' any project designed to eradicate 'wrong noticing' serves only to drive interest in the wrong noticings.
I this way it reminds me of the kinds of feedback loops that cause bureaucracies to grow. In other words, it's possibly more of a feature than a bug. I may have expressed this inadequately. An example is how trying to eradicate Trump may lead to another Trump term. Under which the 'correct thinking' apparatus will only grow.
There's psychology in play, too, in which opposition to ever closer union in the EU serves only to fuel the determination of its promoters, who are afraid that such scepticism more or less guarantees a return to nationalist wars.
Revolt of the Somewheres......a UK focus:
Something that is not widely appreciated amongst other Western conservatives is just how much of a special case the UK is in terms of the progressive/conservative 'culture war'. It is a special case (an especially dismal one) for various reasons but one of the biggest is the decades-long unusually monolithic nature of its BBC-dominated television news media. Other countries' media has had a far less uniformly progressive stranglehold; particularly the US. Last election in the US about 40% (was it?) voted for a non-liberal-establishment candidate. In Britain, thanks to decades of BBC -type taming, they would get maybe 5% max. In the last 30 years the UK has made itself virtually conservatism-free.
(In other parts of Europe, rightist polities do still exist..... and are growing.)
The great exception in UK recent history - and the template, however unlikely for a future Somewheres revolt - was Margaret Thatcher's leadership. "What made her electable - despite a personality and set of values anathema to the grain of her time (and ours) - was her unlikely visceral appeal to lower middle class and skilled working class voters (the C1s & C2s) many of whom were not even quite sure why they were switching their vote to her. They could sense that - unlike the normal type of ‘higher-ups’ of both Left and Right - she was (although she would never dream of using the term herself) not full of s***." https://grahamcunningham.substack.com/p/mrs-thatcher-and-the-good-life
"Last election in the US about 40% (was it?) voted for a non-liberal-establishment candidate. "
Some believe it well might have been 51% or 55%, but no one has the incontrovertible evidence that the Anywhere's cannot ignore, as to the various election frauds or mistakes that were allowed to occur with Covid. Can you have so much smoke that it hides the fire?
Yes. There’s only smoke no fire.
It’s an oversimplification to attribute the “driving up rents and house prices by using zoning to restrict housing supply” in the US to the Anywheres. Somewheres consistently support restrictive housing policies because they are trying to protect their communities--and their control over their communities’ political and civil institutions--from the onslaught of in-migration, both by lower income immigrants with alien cultural backgrounds, and by higher income Anywheres. If the Anywheres are responsible for those policies, it’s because they have created, and continue to support, an economy that pushes innovation through destruction of existing communities and economies.
I think I agree with this, but I'll wait for Lorenzo's comments (he's currently asleep).
Without the level of migration, the zoning effect would be much less, but fair point.
I think this NIMBY phenomenon is universal - applying equally to somewheres and anywheres in different ways.
The issue here is that the anywheres determine the house price and living amenity of the somewheres by their policy decisions in relation to immigration levels, block size, investment in schools, public transport, distance from work etc.
The net result is somewheres are increasingly being forced into the outer suburbs in tiny houses, with poor access to health, education, and work; and facing 60 min commutes to pay for it.
The anywheres - by dint of controlling the political and policy processes - are the ones who make it like this. That's what is causing the pushback as somewheres are increasingly annoyed by this.
A few comments.
1. We need to stop conflating “educated” and “degreed.” If one sees the purpose of education to be a free, prosperous and fertile society under law, then no such thing as a “highly-educated” Progressive exists.
2. A footnote quoting Hirsi Ali on the reduction of women’s rights seems at-odds with the expressed thought on the current devolution of society via its feminization, no? The fact of the matter is that all current social pathologies are downstream from suffrage and feminism: “oh that poor...” illegal alien, incarcerated thug, socially-promoted student, fatherless child, etc., are driving empathy votes destroying safety, borders, laws, education, families.
3. Is everyone noticing the increasing prevalence of this argument? It wasn’t heard a decade ago but is difficult to miss today.
It’s increasing accuracy is testified to by the increasing commentary.
Whence does it go from here?
FTA: Feminisation of the academy, professions, and institutions, which undermines free speech norms and increases moralised aggression (often mean-girl mobbing). This is coupled with demands to trade in other folk’s freedoms and careers to protect highly educated women’s feelings.
‘Degreed’ is the right term. The feminisation is elite feminisation. That women are not the solidarity sex is very much on display in elite women’s disinterest, even hostility, to discussion of repressive treatment of (very much not elite) women in Muslim enclaves.
It’s not just disinterest by elite women. Do a quick search in IMDB on “mean girls.” The result is pages of current media, film and TV, on the pathology.
This likely is evolutionary as women needed to cull competitors in the drive to pass-on their genes. As such, women today still are mean as hell to one another for no current, good reason. It also means it can’t be changed just because some think it can; it’s human - female - nature.
It can be culturally ameliorated. Roman and Spartan culture seems to have stepped on poor female behaviour quite strongly as part of being relatively gender egalitarian.
I’d offer that becoming egalitarian would create a far more equal society. Were we to choose equal rights for all people - as I argue we have but refuse to acknowledge - we would culturally and societally oppose those interest groups demanding equality but which in fact are demanding superiority. No current cohort demanding equality, whether on race, sex or orientation, is interested in equality; each is demanding superiority and the means to achieve it.
I'm not sure to be hurt or proud when looking at that table of MPs' Occupations 1979-2015.
Zero engineers.
As in, professional degree-qualified engineers.
Are we counted among the "Manual Workers"? Do we just not count?
Or are professional degree-qualified engineers too sane to get involved in politics?
Titter.
"... too sane to get involved in politics?"
Maybe only until we retire? Then the internet sucks us in.
But politics and diversity are interested in Engineering degrees and income, Citizen.
Pointless attempt to promote the sub-system "democracy" as if having scoundrels and fraudster from the "working class" in the DEMOcracy cirCUS means anything beneficial to the herds of modern moron slaves!
Bi-caramel legislatures are supposed to provide a protective layer of deliberation against the populist passions. The US Senate is currently hardly functioning in that capacity, having fecklessly passed their legislative role to the executive branch administrative state. Not sure about the anglophone parliamentary systems, except I keep hearing the Lords are being side lined??
You all have just earned a paid sub for this post (as well as the consistent quality and the Zoom idea - that is an excellent value add).
Loved the article - one thing I would add though, that you hinted at with the comments around EU failure but didn’t quite go full blast.
The fact is that a lot of ethnonationalist appeal (particularly in Europe but some in the US) is because the State Apparatus and the ‘new’ populations are directly and openly hostile the local population.
Additionally, as the Anywhere Elites become more and more diverse, the cognitive dissonance of a local Somewhere being ruled by a “How Did They Get Here?” so to speak is unnerving for many.
A great example of this is the family tree of say, a Rishi Sunak - a lineage who has not stayed in a single country for more than a generation in over 100 years I believe, and a man who is married to a person who seemingly prefers to live somewhere else, in addition to his own heavy US residency ties.
And this man is the most powerful Anywhere Elite in the UK, metaphorically speaking.
But great article and looking forward to your Zoom calls!
Thank-you kindly sir - I do encourage you to read the whole series (all linked on the front page under Substack’s big gold elephant stamp).
Will do - I hope that a full (Amazon-able) book is eventually in the work with the series; would love to send it as a 'gift' to some non-Substacked friends. Would be willing to donate handsomely to a project like that - maybe some other fans would too.
“How Did They Get Here?”
Perhaps you are also eliding to Ms. Haley or Mr. Ramaswamy, in the US?
We might note that the Indians invented the concept of "0", later promulgated by the Arabs.
But most Indians we see in public roles are not total zeros, and maybe some fresh blood is what is called for?
We may have had similar attitudes about the Irish, Italians, Swedes, et al. in the US.
Maybe the Saxons has a similar question about the Normans?
And the Oz Aboriginals may be wondering how their European neighbors managed to take over, too. [Are there any Australian equivalents to the Trail of Tears or the Little Big Horn in the US?]
The correct comparison of the Sunaks et al is not to the Irish or Normans but to the Roma or...
'We' were right to have those attitudes - each of those groups you listed profoundly and unalterably changed the host country. Sometimes for better sometimes for worse. Often both at the same time.
And yes, Aboriginals would have been right to assume that European rule would turn Australia into a European-style region, ha.
Thus, I personally don't subscribe to the implicit assumption that upon arrival to a new country, all ethnic groups think, behave, or produce the outcomes -
So inasmuch as you're saying that having Indian immigrants 'running' a country would be different than having Italians running it or Swedes running it or Irish running it -
Yes, it would. It the outcomes will be totally different.
And yes, the Normans 'take over' England changed the country immensely and to this day Norman descendants are often at the still at the top of the totem pole (see - The Grosvenor Family).
Two quick examples of all of this - the Amish in the US are ethnically Swiss (more specifically a combination of Celts and a bit of 'plains' Germanic peoples - they speak a form of German).
If you go through Alsace right now and get to know the people there, there will be some eerily similar overlaps in everything from behavior and 'temperament' and to architecture and agricultural styles.
Similarly, many of the Italian immigrants to the U.S. at the turn of the 20th century were from Sicily - it shouldn't be surprising to any student of history that a mafia that specifically required someone to have Sicilian blood cropped up in NYC.
In short, yes people change the place they're from, this is quite obvious.
Your remarks about Swiss-Amish and Sicilian-Mafia suggest we have to watch for the balancing act between new and old cultures and "tribes". We desire new immigrants to be assimilated into our culture, and are objecting to the inability to absorb such a large influx as we are seeing now (of legal or illegals). The impact of the European tribes was mollified via Church law and marriage rules, including enhancing bequeaths to the Church rather than kin, clan, and tribe. I understand this has contributed to our orientation in Western civilization towards individual rights, etc., over group rights. People substituted religion as an alternative "tribe", and eventually the "state" got into the act and came along for a parallel ride as part of an intermingled church-state "tribe".
We appear to have an inherent (evolved) preference to join some "tribe", so we need to be careful that we aren't creating tribes with undesirable features (like wokeness) and continue to support and advance those groups fostering liberty and prosperity. The history of the last 100 years or more suggests we have not been as careful about this balance as we should have been.
Substack and contributors like Helen and Lorenzo appear to be one path towards this corrective. Can we be sure Substack cannot or will not become compromised by the "censor industrial complex" that Shellenberger has formulated?
I collected my thoughts and comments as I read through this essay, but rather than dump them all into one large comment, I will present them as mostly individual ones. This may make replying easier?
And some are questions for Lorenzo.
A couple of minor editorial items?
"Parliamentary/representative politics have a long history, dating back to the late C12th. The industrial revolution’s factory and office employment not only separated production from households." This phrasing represents quite a jump in thinking and in history. Perhaps some transitional language is merited in the book version?
"It created tough, committed (through generally small) armies." [ through, or though?]
Yes, that should be ‘though’. And yes, in book version a transitional sentence or phrase would be a good idea.
A typo I missed. I've fixed it.
"The identification of nationalism as the central problem of European history is false. The real problem of European history is unaccountable power. Yes, nationalism can be—and has been—mobilised by power without accountability." Great observation!!!
"Early medieval Latin Christendom’s sanctification of the Roman synthesis: law-is-human (i.e., not based on revelation)..." So the adage that the Holy Roman Empire was not holy, Roman, or an empire is wrong: they at least were "Romanized"? :-)
Romanised indeed …
"The selection processes of history—operating among intensely competitive states—had far more variety to work with than in any other civilisation." A plug for social and political evolutionary adaptiveness, and another good argument against a one world government. Selecting good memes will be most successful when there are a variety of options among which to choose.
Multiculturalism is flawed mush. Extract the best from each culture as you learn about it/them.
"The upward spiral of bargaining politics is why various forms of national identity developed unusually strong resonance in Europe." So, coupled with the decline in kin/tribal oriented social structures and the move away from shame-honor culture (to shame-guilt culture? via Christianity?) prevalent in so many other (non "western") nations/ societies, this is part of why they have failed to master the liberty- prosperity calculus we tend to enjoy?
We in the US have a history of distancing ourselves from the European "experts" and views, so perhaps we also have overlooked the cultural contributions from Europe that have enhanced our lives as well. One area: the "self evident truth" of our DOI is really only self-evident from within a Judeo-Christian civilization. No one else would ever have generated such a phrasing.
The liberty-prosperity calculus was always something of a balancing act. With the level of evolutionary novelty we are now experiencing, it is perhaps not surprising that things are becoming unbalanced.
I have been struggling to understand the chicken-egg situation around the development of prosperity vs. the presence of political liberty, or the demand for political liberty as economic well being improves. I suspect you have addressed this topic in some detail in one or more of your previous essays/blog posts, if perchance you can find an applicable link(s) without too much trouble. :-)
Does part of that evolutionary novelty involve the great economic lifting of many boats, so that "at some point you have made enough money!"? Mental illness and drug addiction aside, it would seem that in most westernized nations true (sleeping in the doorway) poverty has been largely ameliorated. We don't mind the super wealthy having yachts and 10 houses, as long as they don't use their wealth to muck around beyond one man-one vote politically.
I haven’t really addressed it except in passing. The closest is in this post-of-paper-presented, the penultimate section on mercantile interests and public goods.
https://www.lorenzofromoz.net/p/downward-resilience
"So, we have a Europhile elite that tends to undermine accountability, ...[etc.] This is not a solution to the problems of nationalism. It is an invitation—and provides a set of incentives—to reinvigorate the politics of nationalism." A great statement, and appears to be true of the US as well. Are you sure you never visited or stayed in the US for any extended period? Besides accessing our media? :-) You seem to know us so well!!
And I just thought to ask: what do you think of NATO as a somewhat parallel, multi-nation institution? My perception is that the member nations still retain their localized influences and agendas, somewhat outside of the EU "political union" approach.
I have only been to the US once, and that was to attend a large medieval event.
https://www.pennsicwar.org/
But I read a lot about the US.
NATO is a very different beast than the EU, since there is no pooling of sovereignty. It is far more about guaranteeing everyone’s sovereignty. Indeed, it is my view that the EU could not exist without NATO (or equivalent).
"The salience of non-profits in the US political system...." Do you see these NGO's as being more publicly visible within the last few years compared to a more restrained agenda in the not so distant past? In other words, "why am I only learning about (or appreciating) their corruptive role now?" NGO's were supposed to be (mostly) "non-profit good guys", not Marist apparats in disguise.
Marxist, not Marist :-(
You should be able to go back and edit your comment. I am sure I've turned on the ability for commenters to fix typos. If that facility isn't available, I've made a tech snafu somewhere.
Oh, now I see it. You mean those three nearly invisible* dot dot dot on the right.
There are some really poorly done web site interface designs out there.
Given there is plenty of room next to the Like/Reply/Share for more buttons/ commands, perhaps at least the two captured via ... should be included.
Or the ... should have been labeled "More" or some such.
*Displays may vary, but mine shows the text as dark gray against a light beige background. Not really invisible, but easily ignorable. Anyone know how to convert the displayed text to a real black?
The non-profits have got bigger in scale and operation. The advocacy economy has tended to swell, as use of trusts to deposit wealth has swelled. Also, there is rather more hiring of non-profits to provide services. They have also become more colonised/coordinated by bad ideas.
Not that this is entirely a new problem. Both Hadrian and Saladin engaged in a purge of the non-profits of their day.
I’ve seen it argued that the trans rights movement was invented by NGOs like GLAAD and the Human Rights Campaign, who saw their revenues shrinking as the gay rights movement saw their goals being achieved. Once gay rights were ensconced in law, those same NGOs needed a new market to tap, and thus they selected a new group of victims.
Whether or not they invented it, they certainly turbo-charged it.
From the link “ (Marx) has also encouraged them to discount the difficulties in ensuring a state apparat operates as the agent of wider society.”
WE NOTICE 😈
Let’s consider Somewheres vs Nowheres.
When I was in school this story, “The Man Without a Country” was required.
https://archive.org/details/TheManWithoutACountry_Hale
The Prisoner is sentenced to be passed from Navy Ship to Navy Ship without seeing land or hearing or seeing the words “The United States” ever again, this is his punishment for uttering at his treason trial “God Damn The United States! I wish to never hear of the United States again.”
His wish is granted.
Perhaps we could update this for globalists who can’t accept it’s over ... they can be transferred from plane to plane at foreign airports, never leaving the airplane or perhaps even windowless airports, never seeing the Sun shine on their native soil they so despise...
.... why we can even automate it, they can be waited on by Droids.
Why transfer them at airports? Let them drop from one plane to the one flying below!!
Or use a large mail sack approach, attaching them to a pole or rigging from one plane as it flies over, which is then snagged by the next one.
But the advantages of specialization and trade are too great to totally avoid globalization. Perhaps trade with a reduced role for China, Russia, Iran, and North Korea, and a few others. The tricky part is deciding how to ensure your national security supply lines are robust enough. Maybe we should set up Sovereign Reserves (like we have for oil), where we store piles of Co, Ni, Cu, etc. as needed for armaments and for support equipment and communications, etc. But part of that equation has to be to also have the dedicated human and equipment/factory capital as required. Some solutions will degrade over time, or obsolesce with technology advances. As I said, "tricky".
Its not tricky we’re reshoring in a deluge. No, really.
“A Manufacturing SuperCycle “ in America.
https://wlea.net/reshoring-triggers-manufacturing-supercycle/?amp=1
Interesting article. Item on pg 35 on ERP almost makes we want to come out of retirement and take that stuff up again - I said "almost".
Also noted he said there was private investment along with govt subsidies, so not a total waste of money. I do find it disturbing the three pieces of legislation he mentions providing those subsidies appear to have been generated under the Biden administration [boo, hiss, etc.]. But David P Goldman has been calling for reshoring/ R&D investment for a while, so half a loaf is better than none.
Still, the focus seems to be on high tech, which has some relationship to ensuring our tactical and strategic interests are protected, but transport and chemicals also play a role. On the plus side this sounds like opportunities for some Somewhere's to actually become (the right kind of?) Anywhere's. Human and physical/money capital in Mexico might provide more support for non-top tech stuff.
But we have to buy our paperclips, flip flops, garden hoses, etc. from somewhere so they have the money to buy our tech and weapons systems. Trade is still needed, if modified and constrained from the 2000 to 2022 span. Just need to avoid the IP stealing CCP to the max extent possible, while at the same time we avoid putting that rat in a corner such that he has to come out fighting.
"Super cycle" seems like hyperbole, but still some valuable and promising prospects. Thanks for the alert.
By the way, to the extent 🇺🇸 had a hand in Globalization, 🇺🇸 is killing it off. The 🇺🇸 Anywhere’s are funding and leading a industrial reshoring that is now being called a Manufacturing SuperCycle.
https://wlea.net/reshoring-triggers-manufacturing-supercycle/?amp=1
This is because the 🇺🇸 Anywheres fear the 🇺🇸 Somewheres -
- also we’re (sorry*) consolidating the 🇺🇸 Empire around CONUS core while smashing the Atlantic and Pacific borders into submission (in the case of Germany poverty). Which is why Australia must buy American subs, mustn’t buy French ones, and the good news for us all is we’re breaking with China. Well, I hope it’s good news for Australia too.
*I deplore all this, but I’m just a Deplorable.
Amid the elegant and compelling arguments here, one stands out in particular, for this reader. That 'overdoing' any project designed to eradicate 'wrong noticing' serves only to drive interest in the wrong noticings.
I this way it reminds me of the kinds of feedback loops that cause bureaucracies to grow. In other words, it's possibly more of a feature than a bug. I may have expressed this inadequately. An example is how trying to eradicate Trump may lead to another Trump term. Under which the 'correct thinking' apparatus will only grow.
There's psychology in play, too, in which opposition to ever closer union in the EU serves only to fuel the determination of its promoters, who are afraid that such scepticism more or less guarantees a return to nationalist wars.
Pleased to join your subscriber list.
Thank-you kindly, sir!