The fools imagined that they could have a cafeteria civilization, wherein they pick out what they will among the folkways of the West and leave the disciplines, as if all were not parts of a seamless garment..

As long as you comfortably live long enough to make it to your Quietus, what do you care about the state of rural sewage systems?

Finally read this week's People mag. Interesting quote from Christian Bale on filming Batman Begins in Chicago -

"Coming from London, it seemed like everybody [in the Midwest] was just fantastically happy. I thought everyone was on Prozac."

I'm counting on France's reflexive arrogance and Germany's misplaced condesention to save Britian from itself in the end, since their population still seems to be wary of getting too far into bed with either nation, due to those (and other) negative traits. That doesn't mean they're going to be saved, but it may keep them from being dragged into the continental black hole.

Communism is correctly seen as a religion itself, not as a revolt from religion. Eastern European states like Russia which went from Tsarist autocracy to Communism to the current grabathon have populations so beaten down by government that they are essentially hopeless. Christianity gives them no more hope than did Communism.

Irish relative economic success is due to its continued receipt of Continental taxpayers' money and its role as a port of entry to the EU for American companies. If it detaches from the EU, it will be back to backwater status.

Does the goober who wrote this article really want to start talking about failed Anglosphere states like Zimbabwe, Nigeria or Sierra Leone?

Sure. Some tertiary Anglosphere states failed. The primary Francosphere states--France, Germany, Russia, etc.--did.

Bart: True but the Irish have put a fairly sensible tax regime in place which will keep things chugging along and continue to induce foreign companies to set up shop there.

Don't know if it's fair to lump Eastern Germany in with the rest of Europe. They were communists for about 5 decades after all.

That being said is it religiosity that matters or beneficial tax regimes?

Australia seems to be doing allright despite not being a particularly religious country.

Look at some of the world's more overtly religious countries and they're not economic superstars by a long shot.

Ali:

Actually, you're as wrong about Australia as bart is about Ireland:

http://www.brothersjudd.com/blog/archives/003456.html

Ali,

Your point about tax policy is well-taken.

Eastern Germany remains dramatically worse off than the West despite the infusion of trillions of Euros since the Wall fell. Prior to the Communist ascendancy, the Lander that made up the former DDR were significantly better off than Bavaria, Baden-Wurtemburg and Rheinland-Pfalz. Today, their per capita income is significantly less than that of those Lander. The former DDR also has many of the pathologies of the rest of the former Soviet Bloc, high unemployment and underemployment, staggering rates of alcoholism and drug abuse, tons of street crime, decreasing birth rates, etc.

The former DDR suffers from the problem more than some places like Poland, the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Slovenia and Hungary. I think it has to do with a sense that Russians and East Germans have that maybe they can't govern themselves. When they do, they end up with Communism, Nazism, Tsarism etc, not exactly a winning record. Poles, Czechs, etc haven't had self-government since forever, so they are more of a blank slate and look to successful, or even relatively successful, models rather than recreating the same failure over and over again. And I think they see things with greater optimism.

As you are aware and apparently OJ is not, Howard won his re-election by an increased margin essentially by running a James Carville 'It's the economy, stupid.' campaign.

OJ,

Wherever the French and the British colonized essentially similar places, the French have done a far better job of preparing the locals for self-government. The British had a better navy, so they got better places, better raw material to start with.

oj:

". He argued that his homeland, Australia had come up with a novel secular social code in place of Christianity but that it remained significantly freer than Europe too (see his posts for December 26, 2002). But if you follow the link to that chart you'll see that Australia registers nearly as far to the traditional values side as we do and is in fact quite unsecular by contrast to the rest of the West."

If you look at the linked chart, Australia looks a lot closer to Canada than to the States.

Ali:

Yes and both are on the values side of the divide.

I thought the school system in Ireland was primarily responsible for attracting investors. The nuns kept teaching kids reading, writing and 'rithmatic even when the pedogogical experts said learning by rote kills creativity.

Bart -

Its is funny to see the contradictory occurrences of the Anglo-Saxon export states argument. According to the political bent of the writer you are shown either list A (USA, Canada, Australia) or list B (Zimbabwe, Nigeria, Sudan) always exclusive of one another. Though that doesn't negate the point Steyn makes in the article above. After all comparing the two lists reveals certain demographic and historiographical differences that can't be ignored.

You can take the Anglo-saxon protestant to America but you can't take the Anglo-Saxon protestant out of the immigrant. Likewise you can take the Anglo-Saxon into Africa but you can't take Africa out of the Africans. When it comes to culture its not the ruling class that counts.

Bart:

The successful Anglo-Saxon countries aren't successful because of their indigenous populations.

Steyn starts talking about post-religious societies but switches the topic to Anglo-Saxonism. Interesting that of the top four, three couuld be considered post-religious. So what is Steyn's real point?

If Ireland's recent success was merely from EU funding, it should be no better than Portugal, Spain, Greece, or Italy's Mezzogiorno. Instead, they are doing much better, and that's because Ireland's government changed their development strategy. All they needed to do was finally get rid of DeValera's baleful legacy.

Bart is the only person I know who has claimed the French did a better job of preparing locals for self government. In any case, for the most part those states that did best were those who already had some form of statehood, history, and literature before they were colonized. It's no surprise sub-Saharan Africa went into the toilet as they had few indigenous examples to go by.

Robert Duquette-

Steyn's point is that great societies are built on "three principal building blocks:" religion, family, and wealth creation.

While the three nations you mentioned are post-religious (and post-family perhaps) they still have the uniquely Anglo-Saxon ability of wealth creation. So Steyn hopes that the UK doesn't throw in economically with the Continentals and lose the one great ability they still maintain. Better to have one of the three great principals than none.

Anglo-Saxonism is based on religious faith, as opposed to the rationalism of the Continent.