End of History

YOU CAN’T HAVE A CLASH OF CIVILIZATIONS WHEN THERE IS ONLY ONE:

Francis Fukuyama Was Right About Liberal Democracy (Michael A. Cohen, Feb. 18th, 2025, New Republic)

Still, his underlying point that no serious ideological competitor to liberal democracy would emerge stands strong. No non-democratic model, be it Russian kleptocracy, North Korean totalitarianism, Iranian or Saudi theocracy, or Chinese market-driven authoritarianism, has captured the world’s imagination. Few people are pining for a society where their self-worth is fundamentally denied.

YOU CAN’T ENGINEER HUMAN NATURE:

Edward C. Banfield and What Conservatism Used to Mean: Hard thinking on difficult and uncomfortable questions about how to keep everything from falling apart. (Joshua Tait, Feb 01, 2025, The Bulwark)

IN GOVERNMENT PROJECT, BANFIELD TELLS the story of Casa Grande from its genesis to dissolution. It was fundamentally a relief project, to give succor to the Depression poor. Administrators made the decision to establish Casa Grande as one of four FSA cooperative farms—or “collective” farms, to use a term more evocative of the Soviet Union—despite the ways this ran against the expectations of the settlers, their neighbors, the press, and Congress. (There were another eleven FSA farms that were partly, but not fully, operated cooperatively.)

The rationale for running Casa Grande on a cooperative basis arose from the understanding that a major transition was underway in American agriculture. Technology had changed the economics of farming, but culture had not kept up. Diesel tractors gave such an advantage to large-scale farmers that the small family homestead became all but obsolete. The climate and landscape of this part of Arizona further seemed to suggest the need for treating this farm differently. To make Casa Grande at all viable, it would have to be at scale, which, to maximize relief, meant it would be a cooperative. No one would own their “property as lord of the manor,” as Banfield recounted; they would “use it only in common with 59 others.”

Eventually, FSA signed off on the project, funding was appropriated, and the beginnings of a cooperative legally established. The settlers were a varied bunch. Some were Arizonans; a later batch were Okies fleeing the Dust Bowl. Casa Grande did not promise them wealth; it was relief. But for the vast majority, Casa Grande offered them housing, amenities, pay, and security superior to any they had ever experienced. It also, at least in theory, offered the sense of purpose and satisfaction that can come with work, and the sense of camaraderie that can come with being part of a team. The FSA hoped these benefits and shared experiences would hold the settlers together despite their lack of a common background and ethos.

Yet, as Banfield notes, an academic who spent a month at Casa Grande in early 1941 said that “the most striking fact about the Casa Grande project is that it seethes with dissatisfaction.” More than three quarters of the settlers were dissatisfied with the project. Why? In some respects, they were comparing their situation against an ideal. They did not like industrial-scale farming: The hours were less flexible and the roles less autonomous than on small farms. The settlers got little real training in the techniques of farming. There was little for teens or young adults to do. Their neighbors made fun of them for taking government aid. And they were still poor. But above all, the settlers simply did not like one another. Casa Grande—like most of FSA’s other collective projects—was riven with factionalism.

ALL THE NEW ENEMIES ARE THE OLD ENEMIES:

The Open Society and Its New Enemies: What Karl Popper’s classic can teach us about the threats facing democracies today. (Matt Johnson, 29 Jan 2025, Quillette)

“In his criticism of democracy, and in his story of the rise of the tyrant,” Popper wrote, “Plato raises implicitly the following question: What if it is the will of the people that they should not rule, but a tyrant instead?” Popper took this “paradox of freedom” seriously, and he didn’t have any illusions about democracy. He recognised that some democratically elected rulers will be demagogic, incompetent, and even authoritarian. In fact, he believed that this outcome ought to be expected in a democracy. This is why he presented a “theory of democratic control” to address this concern: “The theory I have in mind is one which does not proceed, as it were, from a doctrine of the intrinsic goodness or righteousness of a majority rule, but rather from the baseness of tyranny; or more precisely, it rests upon the decision, or upon the adoption of the proposal, to avoid and to resist tyranny.” He continued:

This principle does not imply that we can ever develop institutions of this kind which are faultless or foolproof, or which ensure that the policies adopted by a democratic government will be right or good or wise—or even necessarily better or wiser than the policies adopted by a benevolent tyrant. … What may be said, however, to be implied in the adoption of the democratic principle is the conviction that the acceptance of even a bad policy in a democracy (as long as we can work for a peaceful change) is preferable to the submission to a tyranny, however wise or benevolent.

Popper argued that the first responsibility of a democratic system is avoiding bad outcomes—not engineering some prefabricated utopian future. Responsible leaders must confront the “greatest and most urgent evils of society, rather than searching for, and fighting for, its greatest ultimate good.” According to Popper, the primary goal of democratic governments should be to “create, develop, and protect political institutions for the avoidance of tyranny.”

Popper argued that the “one really important thing about democracy” is the “restriction and balance of power.” He observed that democracy “provides an invaluable battleground for any reasonable reform, since it permits reform without violence.” Liberal democracy is a political “battleground” because it is explicitly unconcerned with ultimate ends—it doesn’t exist to lay the foundation for a utopian workers’ state, a racially pure nationalist ethnostate, or any other teleological fantasy. Nor does it exist to save citizens’ souls and shepherd them into some otherworldly utopia in the afterlife. Liberal democracy isn’t meant to give people’s lives meaning—it’s meant to create the conditions that allow diverse citizens to pursue lives of meaning as they see fit, as long as they don’t prevent others from doing so.

“Institutions are like fortresses,” Popper wrote. “They must be well designed and manned.” Democracy is always vulnerable because institutions are only as strong as the people who maintain them. And this maintenance doesn’t always come naturally, as leaders and citizens must set aside their tribal loyalties to respect impersonal rules and norms that privilege the health of democracy over their narrow parochial interests.

The objection of the ethnonationalists–like Donald, Bibi, Orban, Putin, Xi, etc.–is to republican liberty: the idea that every citizen should participate in governance and that every lawadopted should apply to all univeresally, which is the entirety of liberalism. Conservatism seeks to conserve liberalism.

CONSERVATISM SEEKS TO CONSERVE LIBERALISM:

When Scottish Sages Christened “Liberal” (Daniel Klein, 12/10/24, Law & Liberty)

Several Scotsmen, including George Turnbull, David Hume, and Adam Ferguson, had made pregnant remarks using “liberal”—remarks that may have suggested using the adjective to describe a political attitude. But the “liberal” christening was really kicked off by William Robertson in 1769, and in 1776, Adam Smith went all-in, in The Wealth of Nations. The political meaning was, essentially, a policy posture, premised on a stable, functional system of governmental authority. The policy posture is one of leaving people be, of “allowing every man to pursue his own interest his own way,” within the bounds of commutative justice. The “liberal” christening took.

Hayek Was Right

In 1960, Hayek questioned the consensus view that “liberal” first obtained a political meaning after 1800 on the Continent, from which Britain then imported the term. Hayek suggested otherwise:

I am more inclined to believe that it derives from the use of the term by Adam Smith in such passages as W.o.N., II, 41: “the liberal system of free exportation and free importation” and p. 216: “allowing every man to pursue his own interest his own way, upon the liberal plan of equality, liberty, and justice.”

Hayek’s view had had little hope of overturning the consensus. Before the digitization of millions of texts, mounting a case for Hayek’s view would mean spending years gathering a few score quotations. Tedious quotations, cherry-picked by one of those Hayek votaries with an axe to grind, from the vast uncharted forests of innumerable texts, could not get far. Such curiosa could easily be ignored and dismissed.

But, around 2012, the data came readily to hand, thanks to the Google Books Ngram Viewer.

DONALD’S BLACK BART STRATEGY:

America Is Not an Economic Island (Desmond Lachman, November 27, 2024, AEIdeas)

Much as Trump might want America to go it alone behind high tariff walls, the fact of the matter is that the US economy is highly integrated in the world economy. As such, if Trump’s high tariff policy has the effect of tipping the European and Chinese economies into recession and of inviting trade retaliation, those economies troubles might come back to adversely impact both our economy and our financial markets. That could cause serious political trouble for Trump in the 2026 mid-term Congressional election.

One indication of how integrated we are with the rest of the world economy is the fact that exports currently constitute around 11 percent of our economy and a multiple of that number in the agricultural, aerospace, and pharmaceutical industries. Any marked slowing in the global economy or the resort by our foreign trade partners to retaliatory tariffs would be sorely felt in those industries.

Other indications of how interlinked we are with the rest of the world’s economy are the high percentage of the total earnings that our companies derive from abroad and the massive exposure of our financial system to foreign lending. It is estimated that foreign revenues comprise almost 30 percent of the S&P 500’s total revenues. Meanwhile, our banking system has literally trillions of dollars of foreign loans on its books. One only has to recall the shockwaves that the Asian, Russian, and the Eurozone economic crises caused to our financial system to recognize the importance of a healthy world economy for our banking system.

As we were painfully reminded during the 2020 Covid-19 pandemic, our economy is deeply intertwined with the global supply chain. We rely on imports of key raw materials like rare earth metals for electronics, renewable energy, and defense technologies. In addition, many consumer products, including automobiles, depend on components coming from abroad. This makes our economy highly vulnerable to retaliation by our trade partners in general and China in particular should they choose to withhold key materials or components needed for our production process.

IT WON’T BE EASY, YOU’LL THINK IT STRANGE:

If Javier Milei is successful, the world will talk about the Argentinean miracle”: An Interview with Marcelo Duclos (José Papparelli, November 26, 2024, European Conservative)

I would say that the most important thing is something that at first glance nobody notices and yet is key for the economy: the fall in the so-called “country risk” index. That is, the decrease in the indicator that measures the probability that a nation will default on its financial obligations, such as the payment of its external debt. This also means that the economic measures begin the capitalisation of the Argentine economy. However, the average worker does not yet perceive this. The important thing is that this macroeconomic consolidation will inevitably put an end to the fiscal deficit at the national level, with an historic adjustment in unnecessary spending and without resorting to printing banknotes to end the deficit and inflation. This represents another momentous change whose central objective is the promotion of economic development and the strengthening of the competitiveness of various economic sectors. In other words, in the macroeconomy, there is a fundamental correction of issues that today seem intangible, but that will be reflected in the daily lives of Argentines in a very short time.

Is there something that the citizens can perceive today in concrete terms?

Of course, inflation control. We have to take into account the government’s very important monetary correction that put an end to the state’s sources of financing through monetary issuance. We must remember that we had a president, Alberto Fernández, who said that inflation was caused by “demons.” The question of uncontrolled price increases is key, and I can say that, in Argentina, the problem of inflation is now history. Logically, the question of updating tariffs and services has meant that people have had to realise that things are worth what they are worth, and that has its consequences.

Now, when almost every day goes by with purchases not increasing in price, the moment of truth has arrived and, finally, reality ends up imposing itself. Another example is the overnight solution of the rent crisis, with the repeal of the law that fixed the market price—paradoxically, the opposite of what Sánchez and the communists did in Spain! This is also tangible for Argentines.

WE HAVEN’T FACED AN EXTERNAL THREAT SINCE BEFRIENDING BRITAIN:

Are We Too Worried About International Threats?: We should chill out and let the threats to America self-destruct—even China (John Mueller, Oct 31, 2024, Discourse)

Because of its size and economic growth, China is now in second place globally in total GDP (though 78th in per capita GDP), a position it has occupied for most of the past two millennia. Partly impelled by that development, it wants to be seen as a “great power.” As part of this, China is seeking to gain “influence” and “to assert dominance in East Asia and project influence globally” by lending money through its Belt and Road Initiative to a vast array of other countries and by engaging from time to time in “wolf warrior diplomacy” using economic and military muscle to badger and to bully.

However, these efforts have been remarkably futile and counterproductive. Rather than generating admiration or obedience from countries that once wished it well, resentment at its “wolf warrior” antics has soared not only in the West but also in important neighbors like Japan, South Korea, India, Vietnam, Indonesia, Australia and, most significantly, Taiwan, pushing some of them further into the embrace of the United States.

The Belt and Road Initiative is awash in unpaid debt, and loan outlays were cut from $75 billion in 2016 to $4 billion in 2019. As former National Security Advisor Condoleezza Rice has recently observed, “The BRI is often depicted as helping China win hearts and minds, but in reality it is not winning anything” as recipients grow “frustrated with the corruption, poor safety and labor standards, and fiscal unsustainability associated with its projects.”

China’s Taiwan Weakness
The report sees China’s potential future invasion of Taiwan as its first salvo in its drive to “dominate” East Asia. To supply his military with some guidance, Xi has given it the goal of being able to successfully invade Taiwan by 2027, a mission that the report and many others in the West consider ominous. However, Timothy Heath of RAND points out that in setting that timeline, Xi was seeking primarily “to keep the military focused on its goal of becoming more professional and resist tendencies of slipping into corruption and lethargy,” and that there appears to be no evidence of an intent, in anything like the immediate or not-so-immediate future, to actually invade. Xi himself is reported to be exasperated at the West’s claim and insists that plans to invade in 2027 (or, for that matter, in 2035) simply do not exist.

Moreover, the problems accompanying such an effort are likely to be sobering to military planners. The report does note that a Chinese invasion of Taiwan would be economically devastating, but it fails to note the difficulty, emphasized by many in the U.S. military, of a massive amphibious landing: Stormy seas and weather rule out landings for the vast majority of the year, and potential landing beaches are small in number and well-fortified. In addition, resistance in the form of guerrilla and urban warfare in the mountainous interior by some of the 20 million intensely hostile Taiwanese residents could prove to be extensive.

Moreover, in the contingency considered by some analysts to be “most likely,” a military conquest of Taiwan would require China to outdo Pearl Harbor by raining thousands of missiles not only on Taiwan but on American military bases and ships in Japan and Guam. The judgment of the CIA, according to its director William Burns last year, is that “President Xi and his military leaders have doubts today about whether they could accomplish that invasion,” and that “if they look at Putin’s experience in Ukraine, that’s probably reinforced some of those doubts.”

Impelled by such considerations, longtime diplomat and China-watcher Ambassador Winston Lord has concluded that the chances of an invasion of Taiwan in the next decade or two are “somewhere between one and two percent.”

The Potential for Chinese Decline or Stagnation
A more plausible occurrence is that rather than rising to anything that could be conceived as “dominance,” China could decline into substantial economic stagnation.