1,861 words
Communism’s hallmark, a command economy, is a failed system. Centrally planning pencil production over five years is ludicrous—even with AI. But the command economy has one use: as a reference point, or thought experiment, for other economic systems. Assuming we had a one-party state ruling the nation as conceived as one factory, one farm, and one office, how would we run things? (more…)
1,278 words
No matter what happens with AI, it’s going to be an economic catastrophe. If AI is just a giant bubble, obviously that bubble is going to burst, and it will bring down the whole economy. Indeed, the American economy is mostly stagnant. All the growth right now is in AI.
If AI actually works, however, a whole lot of people will lose their jobs, and that will be an economic catastrophe as well. Moreover, neither the Left nor the Right can fix this problem.
Let’s say that you have a hotdog stand. (more…)
3,090 words
Earle Labor
Jack London: An American Life
Farrar, Straus & Giroux, 2013
“The greatest story Jack London ever wrote was the story he lived.”
– Alfred Kazin
American writer Jack London was born John Griffith Chaney on January 12, 1876. Born into poverty in San Francisco, London later said that “life is not always a matter of holding good cards, but sometimes playing a poor hand well.” He would go on to become one of America’s most famous literary sons, albeit one whose life contained many contradictions and internal oppositions. “No American writer,” writes London scholar Earle Labor “has been subjected to more misleading commentaries.” (more…)
Phil Eiger Newmann, Jack London, 2021
3,314 words
Right or Left does not have a chapter on the eighteenth century. Rousseau is mentioned only three times, Diderot and Kant once each. The three references to Rousseau are all predictably negative, linking Rousseau to communist dictatorship and naivety about man in the raw state of nature. An opportunity is missed again, in this case the opportunity to review how right and left view the relation of human societies to biological reality and the natural world and what consequences their views might have in respect of a right or left world view. (more…)
3,162 words
Robert Colls
George Orwell: English Rebel
Oxford University Press, 2013
Yet on the political and cultural left, the very name of Orwell is enough to evoke a shiver of revulsion.
Christopher Hitchens, Why Orwell Matters (more…)
David Lammy, the UK’s new Foreign Secretary, who made sure to mention in his very first speech in the post that he is “a descendant of enslaved people.” (Image source; UK Parliament website)
David Lammy, the UK’s new Foreign Secretary, who made sure to mention in his very first speech in the post that he is “a descendant of enslaved people.” (Image source; UK Parliament website)
2,607 words
England swings like a pendulum do.
Bobbies on bicycles two by two.
Westminster Abbey, the tower of Big Ben.
The rosy red cheeks of the little children.
— Roger Miller, “England Swings”
And so, as they say, it begins. Labour’s predicted landslide in last week’s United Kingdom general election proved to be just that, with the party winning 412 seats out of the parliamentary total of 650. It is the second-largest Labour majority in history in a general election which had the second-lowest voter turnout (a pathetic 52%) in that same history. (more…)
1880 cartoon showing the “Solid South” being forced to carry Ulysses S. Grant and the Reconstruction regime at bayonet point.
1880 cartoon showing the “Solid South” being forced to carry Ulysses S. Grant and the Reconstruction regime at bayonet point.
3,095 words
Part 3 of 3 (Part 1 here, Part 2 here)
Creating & Expanding the Solid South
The end of Reconstruction did not immediately lead to segregation or the disenfranchisement of sub-Saharans in the South or any other part of the country. In 1878, segregation and sub-Saharan disenfranchisement seemed impossible — especially since the South had just barely thrown off a military occupation government. In parts of the South, in fact, sub-Saharans outnumbered whites. South Carolina even had a white minority. (more…)
2.552 slov
English original here
Následující text je překladem přednášky F. Roger Devlina z jarního setkání Counter-Currents 2023
Termín populismus se v Americe hojně rozšířil od vzestupu Donalda Trumpa, v Evropě pak ještě o něco dříve, jako negativně zabarvené zastřešující označení protiimigračních protestních stran. Po všelidovém hlasování o Brexitu a zvolení Trumpa prezidentem se v anglicky hovořícím světě vyrojily knihy o populismu jako houby po dešti. Vsadil bych si, že za mnoha z nich stojí zadání vypočítavých vydavatelů, kteří doufali ve snadný zisk z náhle módní materie. (more…)
3.504 slov
English original here
Už tak velice nízká porodnost v Jižní Koreji se v roce 2023 dále propadla na pouhých 0,72 dítěte na ženu, což je přibližně jen třetina hodnoty nutné pro zachování velikosti populace (2,1). Na webu BBC se dokonce objevil článek, jehož autorka si klade otázky, proč se tolik Korejek rozhodlo zůstat bezdětných. (more…)
2,265 words
England is not the jewelled isle of Shakespeare’s much-quoted message, nor is it the inferno depicted by Dr. Goebbels. More than either it resembles a family, a rather stuffy Victorian family, with not many black sheep in it but with all its cupboards bursting with skeletons. — George Orwell, “England, Your England”
Evening has fallen, the swans are singing.
The last of Sunday’s bells is ringing.
The wind in the trees is sighing,
And old England is dying.
— The Waterboys, “Old England” (more…)
South Korean teens in Jongno, Seoul. (Photo courtesy of Flickr)
South Korean teens in Jongno, Seoul. (Photo courtesy of Flickr)
3,828 words
Czech version here
South Korea’s birth rate per woman, which was already low, fell even lower in 2023 to 0.72, which is roughly a mere third of the country’s replacement level of 2.1. The BBC even published an article exploring why women in South Korea are choosing not to have children. (more…)
The Fabian Window is a work of stained glass which portrays prominent socialists as religious figures. The goal of the Fabian Society was to achieve socialist principles through the Fabian Strategy — to achieve their aims by inches and through stealth. Their symbol was a wolf in sheep’s clothing.
The Fabian Window is a work of stained glass which portrays prominent socialists as religious figures. The goal of the Fabian Society was to achieve socialist principles through the Fabian Strategy — to achieve their aims by inches and through stealth. Their symbol was a wolf in sheep’s clothing.
3,061 words
Part 2 of 2 (Part 1 here)
Metapolitical action
America emerged from the Second World War as the premier superpower. The nations of Europe were starving and in ruins. Japan was likewise wrecked. Even the victorious British were reliant on American aid. But American society was beset with three different kinds of problems. The first was that the economy was shackled by the New Deal, although this was not yet fully understood at the time. (more…)