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]
|
Samizdata quote of the day – The EU produces rules, the US produces companies, China produces scale. Europe has spent decades believing that you can regulate prosperity, tax innovation, and distrust entrepreneurship, while Silicon Valley and Shenzhen built the future.
Now, European Commissioner Virkkunen “Spuit11” warns that Europe is dependent on American and Chinese AI for digital security. As if that were a natural disaster. It’s not a natural disaster. It’s policy.
The EU produces rules. The US produces companies. China produces scale. Europe produces commissions that explain why we’re falling behind.
– Roald Schoenmakers
|
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.
|
In 2010 the USA and the EU had approximately the same GDP. In 2025 the US had a 50% higher GDP than the EU. Those are the facts.
However, here is the thing, with AI and robotics this is about to get much, much worse. Because of the hyper regulatory environment of Europe nobody is going to build these technologies there (though Tesla has a big factory in Berlin that I think they will build robots in.) These technologies are going to take over because humans simply can’t compete. So the USA will have this massive growth going on from the huge amounts of value these technologies bring, and Europe will have nothing. The USA will see traditional industries replaced at large scale by these new technologies but be compensated by the huge value they produce. Europe will have what few industries they have replaced too, but will not have the new technologies to compensate the losses.
Europe is going to need the support of either the USA or China to survive. It does not look good. People who live in Europe should be very much thinking how they are going to survive this while they still have a few years to prepare.
Fraser Orr – GDP is a bad measure of an economy as it is a measure of consumption rather than production, but I accept your point that the European Union is lagging behind the United States.
China dominates production – its manufacturing is about twice the size of the United States, and that will (eventually) translate into MILITARY power – Donald John Trump has been quite correct to warn about all this, which he has done for many years (long before becoming President – although his warnings are one of the principle reasons he was elected President, no one else seemed to care about the hollowing out of various American industries – and their replacement by “GDP” Credit-Money bubbles).
One problem that all three share (and Britain shares as well) is demographic – due to the Social Revolution (very much a TOP-
DOWN thing – the idea that it was organic, that “feminism” and so on just appeared naturally, is false) the fertility rate of the European nations and of the United States and of China (yes China as well) has collapsed.
The mass immigration policy followed by the establishment elite in Western Europe (including the United Kingdom) AND the United States has not been a good answer to this problem – indeed it has been a disaster, and the disaster is getting worse – although it has not really hit places like Makerfield yet (which is one reason they voted for Mr Burnham – “what great replacement – this area seems the same as it has ever been” was the common attitude, and for people who do not look outside the area that seems fairly close to the truth – people only tend to really worry about demographic transformation when it hits their own area, by which time it is too-late).
China has not followed this (terrible) policy – but it has not reversed its own version of the Social Revolution either.
The great question is can this Social Revolution (this collapse of the fertility rate – due to the cultural changes pushed from above, women going out to work, mass contraception, abortion, involuntarily celibate men, and-so-on) be reversed – or are European peoples (including Russians – for this hits them to), Americans and Chinese (and other East Asians) going to face gradual elimination and replacement by peoples who have NOT undergone this Social Revolution – the Islamic peoples and the African peoples.
It must be stressed that none of this is the fault of Islamic peoples or African peoples – the Europeans (including the Americans and Russians) and the East Asians (such as the Chinese – but the other East Asian nations as well) have done this to themselves – or rather their establishment elites have done it to them, via a top-down Social Revolution – which got under way as far back as the 1960s (if not before), but is only now having dramatic visible effects.
It takes time to destroy great historic nations, peoples, it is not done over night.
As for economic policy….
Aberdeen South was interesting – although mostly overlooked as most people were concentrating on Makerfield (the coronation of Mr Burnham – before he is appointed as Prime Minister).
Aberdeen South was an election about economic policy – between a relatively free market Conservative and a Collectivist (and European Union worshiping) Scottish “Nationalist” (somewhat confusingly the “Scottish National Party” is rabidly ANTI nationalism, ANTI independence, it believes that Scotland should be ruled by the international community – i.e. international officials and “experts”, such as the European Union).
The Conservative candidate won – people in Aberdeen South voted for a more free market policy. They voted against the rabid statism of the SNP.
This will NOT translate into a more free market policy – it is only a by-election, but it is a sign that people are open to pro free market economic arguments – at least in some places.
I must also confess that I was wrong about an important matter – I thought that, between them, Reform, Restore and the Conservatives would get a majority of the vote in Makerfield (I was ready to denounce all these parties for not uniting), and they did not – Mr Burnham got 54% of the vote.
The people of Makerfield really do seem to want even-more statism – and think that the problem with the present government is that it is not leftist enough.
It is hard to really understand such a mentality – but, of course, people may have any opinions they wish to have.
In the days of the Universal Davos Policy rule production was desired and a marker for compliance. The EU has not yet adjusted to the slow collapse of the Universal Davos Policy and the current Commission knows no other way.
Discovered Joys – at least the European Union is talking about deregulation.
The British government (or rather the local branch of the international establishment) wishes to impose even more regulations – on all aspects of economic life.
Mr Burnham believes that Sir Keir Starmer (of all people) is too moderate – he believes that policy should be even more extreme.
The United Kingdom will be “interesting” when Mr Burnham is appointed Prime Minister, Britain will follow the policies of the officials and “experts” to their ultimate extreme – it may well be the first Western European country to totally collapse.
The British establishment has a habit of taking international ideas to an extreme (both good ideas, such as 19th century Free Trade, and bad ideas) – for example pro union policies were fashionable in the early 1900s (internationally) but no other nation went as far as the British 1906 Act (and the 1875 Act had been the first in the world to legalize obstruction – “picketing”), this is why Britain created Unemployment Benefit in 1911 (which nations such as Germany did not have at that time) – because the British government had created Institutional Unemployment (created by such Acts as that of 1906).
The utter collapse of the United Kingdom may be blamed on independence (“Brexit”) – but it will really be due to the extremism of the local branch of the international establishment.
The British part of the international establishment are demented in their extremism – everything they do seems to be designed to destroy the nation.
For example, if they go ahead with their internet restrictions – companies that use the internet will have to leave the United Kingdom.
China can get away with cutting off the international internet – because China is a great manufacturing nation.
Britain no longer is – indeed its relative decline goes back a very long time.
When Winston Churchill was born (1874) the United Kingdom dominated world manufacturing – by the time of his death (1965) Britain was becoming a much lower ranked place.
These days some organizations still claim that the United Kingdom is number 10 in production – but it is not.
Innovation is anathema to the bureaucratic mind–socialist, fascist, or whatever you want to call what they’re doing in Brussels.
Top down control of the economy requires that there be plans, and plans require that there be no disruption. Innovation is disruptive, especially to longer term planning.
So they try to control the innovation. As long as there’s some place that doesn’t do this, the real innovators will go there (mostly, some people love their home communities enough to stay there and work within the system).
William O Blivion – yes.
And, tragically, the British government is becoming even more extreme than the European Union.
If the British government carries on with its endless new regulations (in the labour market, on the internet, on everything), as it is likely to do (whoever is Prime Minister – as they are all statist establishment puppets, especially “Andy” Burnham), this country will collapse.
Utterly collapse.