We are developing the social individualist meta-context for the future. From the very serious to the extremely frivolous... lets see what is on the mind of the Samizdata people.
Samizdata, derived from Samizdat /n. - a system of clandestine publication of banned literature in the USSR [Russ.,= self-publishing house]
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The Anglosphere is not doomed “The world financial crisis has provoked a stark feeling of decline among many in the West, particularly citizens of what some call the Anglosphere: the United States, Canada, the United Kingdom, Ireland, Australia, and New Zealand. In the United States, for example, roughly 73 percent see the country as on the wrong track, according to an Ipsos MORI poll—a level of dissatisfaction unseen for a generation.”
So write Joel Kotkin and Shashi Parulekar. And as they go on to point out, the idea that the English-speaking nations are in imminent danger of being crushed by some sort of Asian/other menace is – with all due respect to the likes of Mark Steyn and Co, wildly overblown. And of course, given that trade is not a zero-sum game, there is nothing to lose from the hopefully long-term enrichment of countries such as Brazil or India.
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Who Are We? The Samizdata people are a bunch of sinister and heavily armed globalist illuminati who seek to infect the entire world with the values of personal liberty and several property. Amongst our many crimes is a sense of humour and the intermittent use of British spelling.
We are also a varied group made up of social individualists, classical liberals, whigs, libertarians, extropians, futurists, ‘Porcupines’, Karl Popper fetishists, recovering neo-conservatives, crazed Ayn Rand worshipers, over-caffeinated Virginia Postrel devotees, witty Frédéric Bastiat wannabes, cypherpunks, minarchists, kritarchists and wild-eyed anarcho-capitalists from Britain, North America, Australia and Europe.
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Sheez, some of these quotes of late make one feel like just spilling over.
If you receive one of those polling calls or encounters, the poor pollster has to deal with the list of questions as they are:
“Do you feel the country is on the right track or the wrong track?”
There is no point in asking what is meant by “track” or “wrong” the pollster doesn’t have a clue, just a job; and encompassing the “Country” is beyond most respondents’ information.
So, responses to such are not a basis for statistics.
Questions that explore such emotional reactions to identified conditions can give a sense of general sentiments.
We might as well ask “How d’y’all think about the way things are goin’ ”
What things, which things, going where?
I don’t think that we’re “in imminent danger of being crushed by some sort of Asian/other menace”; we’re self-destructing all on our own. China et al may be the beneficiaries of our collective insanity, but it’s merely because they were in the right place at the right time.
Bad enough we sell them the rope: beyond bad that we make them our only rope-makers.
We in the US are on the wrong track.
I am optimistic though that we are sooner than later going to switch to the express track. Things will get better. No pain, no gain. Or as Professor Reynolds (Instapundit) is fond of saying, “things that can’t continue, won’t”. I just hope to live long enough to see my children’s lives better than my own.
Vast amounts of wealth (eg Tata steel?) is being transferred to the Asian nations and other 3rd world type scenarios where things are lorded over by a very much tinier elite than in the west.
But if the west were to go under then the rest of the world would be doomed.
It is the western way (with its trace of liberty) that has made it all happen, and that is indeed, that which keeps it going.
There are two entirely different matters that must be separated and which political types prefer to conflate.
Capital, like water, flows downhill. The flow of capital to Asia is something natural and logically predictable. I did in fact predict it decades ago… based on nothing more than basic economics. If country A has lower wages than B, money flows to it. If it invests the money in growth, it will grow faster and money will continue to flow until the playing field levels, ie the labour and capital costs in A and B become roughly equal. This probably means that A will come down some amount while B goes up, but in the long run both will benefit.
Governments destroy economies. The other matter is the general loss of wealth and competitiveness is mostly due to the actions of the State. The regulatory burden, the tax burden, the increasing paperwork and associated fines, the confusion and proliferation of laws… those are the base cause of much of our woes.
Politicians wish to conflate one with two so that they can blame someone else and not take their own just blame for wrecking their country.
I agree with you, Dale, but I do think there is a deliberate agenda at work to concentrate wealth in the hands of the elite.
And get rid of (or at least reduce) that troublesome western middle class that seems to imagine it can sometimes think for itself.
With the US economy improving (less unemployment), opinion polls would now show optimism about the Anglosphere, I believe.
The two most important nations of the “Anglosphere” are the United States and the United Kingdom.
Both are well down the road to self destruction.
Please note “self destruction” – theories about a Yellow Peril (or whatever) are not needed.
As for the idea that the main thing is a plot to concentrate wealth in the hands of an elite (at home or somewhere else).
Oh if only things were so innocent!
Sadly even George Soros is a idealist (under all the corruption of course).
His ideal is not to concentrate wealth in his hands and those of his friends.
His ideal (and the ideal of the rest of the establishment) is much worse than that.