You are now living in a completely new world-but don’t let that spoil the weekend

The English Wars of the Roses (1450-1485) were savage bloody affairs. Forget all the costumes and Shakespearean poetry: the dynastic struggles of York and Lancaster really mattered at the time, and as late as Elizabeth 1 , the succeeding Tudor Dynasty lived in constant fear that a Plantagenet claimant might reignite the struggle. Now fast forward 80 years or so to the English Civil War, an even more sanguinary and passionate affair. No one cared in the slightest who was a Yorkist or a Tudor. You might as well have talked about Romans and Carthaginians for all the relevance it had at Marston Moor. Over, gone, forgotten.

Here’s another thought. Growing out of that civil war came a rivalry between Crown and Parliament that lasted for well over a hundred years, and twice exploded into violent war in the Jacobite rebellions (1715 and 1745) The leader of the second rebellion, called Bonnie Prince Charlie by some, lingered in exile until 1788. Read that last date carefully. Because the next year was the start of the French Revolution, unleashing a series of global changes so far reaching and dramatic that the world would never be the same again. Would anyone at Trafalgar, Waterloo or even in the British House of Commons, have tried to map their experiences onto a template provided by the Bonny Prince?

Our present age lasted from the Second World War until the second election of Donald Trump. It’s founding myth was 1940: gallant Britain battled alone until the mighty United States arrived to tip the scales decisively for the forces of freedom and goodness. After the war the benefits of Anglo-Saxon order were spread to places like Europe and Japan. It was good while it lasted. People kept gardens, obsessed with sport, brought hundreds of bright new shiny things and believed themselves to be clever and happy and free. Many thought it ws the natural order of things and would last forever.

We believe that the fundamental order of that world cracked after the US invaded Iraq in 2003. It was shattered by the financial crisis of 2008. Technological developments such as social media and fossil fuels produced profound and unmanageable instabilities in the environments of even very rich countries, rendering their political and economic settlements obsolete.

It is easy to mourn the passing of the old order, easy to rail against its destroyers like Trump and Putin. Such nostalgia is dangerous, for it will lead to attempts to live in the vanished past and even recreate it. Far better to first recognise this is a new age, and all old assumptions, all old patterns have been shattered irrevocably. There were good things in the old order. They must be preserved. There will be good things in the new, however remote and distant they seem. You have the weekend, ladies and gentlemen to consider what those might be. Enjoy it profitably, and we will see you on Monday.

#history #politics #economics #donald trump #vladimir putin #united states #NATO

Drugs: Is moral corruption our best hope of freedom?

Russia and its dominions are now plagued by an entirely new wave of drug crime. It’s a fascinating subculture, based on the dark Web and full of its own new argot with terms like kladmen, seagulls and dead drops, all designed to get around the old models of illegal buying and selling.[1] This superb article by Max Daly of the Guardian explains all. First, a confession. We freely confess that not only do we have the greatest intellectual difficulty in understanding how all this works, but also in grasping how it can possibly exist in a totalitarian, utterly regulated society like Russia, where absolute obedience is prized above all.

The answer is that an outward show of absolute loyalty buys many freedoms. A totalitarian state can brook no challenge to its legitimacy. Yet those who cheerfully profess unswerving fidelity can go about their daily business virtually untouched, It’s a truth that western admirers of the old Soviet Union found hard to grasp: how could there be so many gangs and so much corruption in a Socialist Society? But there was: outfits like the Tambov Mafia gave more than one aspiring dictator their start. The biggest threat to a totalitarian system is not the dissidents, who can be quickly arrested and crushed. It is the loyalists whose activities slowly creep up, deviating the purpose of the State until it is rotten from within. It is the same everywhere: who can be more loyal than a policeman, dedicating his life to maintaining social order? Well, read this {2] about the alleged misdemeanours of a certain Oscar Sanchez Gil who was until recently head of the economic crimes unit of the Spanish National Police, and who allegedly had about 20 million euros in cash stuck inside the walls of his house. (of course, we stress that at this stage these are allegations. The Courts may yet prove Snr. Gil to be a fine upstanding citizen of impeccable character and honesty) But it’s the sort of case that illustrates our point.

Corruption may indeed be a bit naughty. But what is it really except the classic operation of a free market rushing to supply an immediate need? One thwarted by acres of state regulation and red tape? Back in the 1990s, we always laughed at card carrying Conservatives who grew hysterical about immigration and illegal drugs. Surely, we reasoned, this was just their free market operating to the laws of supply and demand? Of course one may make a judgement about what are real human needs. But that is a moral issue, not an economic one. If free market theory is correct, then it must be one of the best descriptors of human nature yet found. And ultimately, it will bring down every system, however cruel.

[1]https://www.theguardian.com/world/2024/nov/14/russia-rise-of-powerful-darknet-drug-industry-dead-drops-punishment-beatings

[2]https://uk.news.yahoo.com/spain-arrests-anti-fraud-police-113717604.html

#russia #dark web #drugs #spain #corruption #free market #immigration #soviet union

Why we’re two years into a generational war

In the spring of 1789, Europe was at peace. It looked as if it would be a long one. The American-French victory in the Independence war had restored a rough equality of force between Britain and France, the two world powers, so that neither had obvious motives to attack. Further east, Austria, Russia and Prussia had achieved a rough status quo, or at least, had sufficiently fought each other out. To be frank, China, the Mughals and the Ottomans were ceasing to count. Just as in 1990, the world thought it could look forward to decades of relative peace, trade and prosperity.

Instead, events in France lead to the unfolding of a cataclysmic series of events. Each of them so large that on their own they would have been world-shattering. But in the twenty six years-a generation- from 14th July 1789 to 18th June 1815, they were so many and rapid that they left a world transformed and unrecognizable. Think Revolution, regicides, wars, terror, directory, Napoleon, Trafalgar, Austerlitz, Tilsit, Spain, Russia, Battle of the Nations, Elba, Waterloo all tripping in, one after the other in bewildering succession. *(If not, read Robert Harvey The War of Wars-it’s serious history which, amazingly, feels like a page-turning thriller {1])

We know believe that the events that began on 24th February 2024 with the Russian invasion of Ukraine have unleashed a chain of events which will take years and decades to play out. The two opposed coalitions are too big to easily fail. The issues at stake are too profound to escape the debate of war. As a blog which is read all around the world, you might not want to us to take sides. Yet we have to be honest about where we stand. On the one hand the US, EU and their allies have many grievous faults. The other side-Russia, Iran, China and others, may indeed claim- we stress claim-to represent the relatively disadvantaged. However, we know one thing. We are free to write these words in our country, as we would be equally free to criticise our Government, or our allies. All know that we would not be if we were sitting in one of those countries opposed to us. Our Georgian ancestors, who gave up their comfortable lives to confront a similar peril knew that was the single, irredeemable difference between them and their foes. That is what makes our cause just. And one day, we will prevail.

[1]https://www.amazon.co.uk/War-Wars-Struggle-1789-1815-1793-1815/dp/1845296354

#ukraine #russia #china #usa #EU #canada #uk #australia #iran #peace #war #freedom of speech