It’s only 13 years after Osama bin Laden declared his own private war on the West and think how well he’s done since 2001. This is from The Diplomad:
One did not have to be Nostradamus to see that Obama’s sneering disregard for American and Western interests, and the institutions and principles which maintained those, would have dire consequences for the West and the world. We see those consequences in the arc of insanity that runs from Mauritania to Iran; in Putin’s gleeful mocking of the West and in his drive to rebuild the empire of the Tsars; in China’s growing aggressiveness; in the collapse of our foreign policy in Central and South America epitomized by the wave of illegals blatantly crossing our southern border and the increasingly bizarre politics of Argentina, Venezuela, Bolivia, Ecuador, and Brazil. Everywhere we look around the world, the interests of the West–not just of America–are in retreat or collapse.
All driven along by our fools on the left who have been nurtured on their own hatreds of the West and of our religious base. The freest, most open, most prosperous civisilation in history is threatened by some of the most barbaric people who have ever been seen on the face of the earth and not only is there no serious response, you cannot find within the media much of any demand for such a response. This is the description of the American president but in many ways it seems to fit large parts of the left in general:
When discussing Obama and his foreign policy, the range of options are that he is stupid, uninterested, or an evil little worm out to destroy the West. I think, others might disagree, that he is, in fact, all three.
Given the leadership we now have from America, and with the stong possibility of eight years of Hillary after two more from Obama, just where do you think we will be 13 years from now?
This is a note I put up on the Societies for the History of Economics website last night.
So far as I can tell, aside from Robert Owen’s New Lanark – which is now a World Heritage Site – there are no historic sites that one would associate with the study of economics. Yet there is, in fact, one that ought to be preserved in just the same way, both because of its association with one the greatest economists of all time and also because of its on-site interest as a place in which, even now, one can trace out the contours of the industrial revolution from the earliest years of the nineteenth century almost right down to the present. I refer here to the textile mill that was set up by Jean-Baptiste Say following his exile from Paris in 1805 at the hands of Napoleon.
Auchy-lès-Hesdin is a small village, and to be quite technical about it, is found in the Pas-de-Calais department and Nord-Pas-de-Calais region of France. Say, who had been a journalist and writer, having refused to alter the text of his Treatise to suit Napoleon’s statist demands, went off to Auchy to start a textile mill. He went there because by the river sat an old abbey that had one specific feature, a waterfall which could be harnessed to run the machinery of the mill. The waterfall is still there, as are most of the buildings that were subsequently built on the site (but not the original abbey). These include the power plant that used to generate the steam when steam replaced water, and even more remarkably, an electric generator that was used even later that was driven by diverting the river past a water wheel.
There is also the “Château Blanc”, a massive three-storey house that Say commissioned to be built but which he never lived in since by 1813 he was able to return to Paris. There are also worker’s cottages nearby which are still lived in. So what we find, if you will excuse my enthusiasm, is a kind of Versailles for economists. The buildings are falling apart but are still intact. There is restoration work going on and there seems to be a determination to save this site for posterity if it can be done. But having just been there myself, I cannot tell you just how extraordinary it is. We on this discussion thread have an interest in history, and this is a kind of living history of the industrial revolution that is also a place of great interest because of its association with J.-B. Say.
At the moment, and I cannot tell you why, there is a collection of antique fire trucks housed in one of the buildings. But other possibilities are latent in how this site may be developed, including a museum for the history of economic thought. At the moment, there are some scattered artefacts associated with Say in place but things are at an early stage in thinking this through. I am off here in Australia but this is something that the European Society along with the UK Society should consider becoming closely involved with. And while it may not be politic to say it about a destination in France, as was pointed out by M. Zephyr Tilliette – who has written the history of Auchy and is an authority on all of this – the town lies midway between Azincourt and Crécy. It is also is a short drive from the Calais and Chunnel crossing points.
If I may be allowed to say so, this is a place you should visit if you get the chance. The website I am told is coming, but in the meantime you can make arrangements to visit the site by phoning this number in Auchy: 06.45.49.59.29. You will not be disappointed.
For some idea what you will find if you go, see this, which is an invitation to join J.-B. Say’s Nexus, which is something you might also consider:
I would emphasise here that in participating in both, neither is in any way an endorsement of Say’s Law. This is about Say and his pioneering work on entrepreneurship and the entrepreneur. It is also about one of the great early works on economics which is still worth reading today. It is thus one more reminder how studying the history of economic thought is of benefit in making sense of how an economy works.
So far as I can think, aside from a few gravesides, there are no historic sites that one would associate with the study of economics. Yet there is, in fact, one that ought to be preserved both because of its association with one the greatest economists of all time and because of its on-site interest as a place in which, even now, one can trace out the contours of the industrial revolution from the earliest years of the nineteenth century almost right down to the present. I refer here to the textile mill that was set up by Jean-Baptiste Say following his exile from Paris at the hands of Napoleon.
Auchy-lès-Hesdin is a small village, and to be quite technical about it, is found in the Pas-de-Calais department and Nord-Pas-de-Calais region of France. Say, who had been a journalist and writer, having refused to alter the text of his Treatise to suit Napoleon’s statist demands, went off to Auchy to start a textile mill. He went there because by the river sat an old abbey that had one specific feature, a waterfall which could be harnessed to run the machinery of the mill. The waterfall is still there, as are most of the buildings that were subsequently built on the site. These include the power plant that used to generate the steam when steam replaced water, and even more remarkably, an electric generator that was used even later that was driven by diverting the river past a water wheel.
There is also the “Château Blanc”, a massive three-storey house that Say commissioned to be built but which he never lived in since by 1813 he was able to return to Paris. So thus what we find, if you will excuse my enthusiasm, is a kind of Versailles for economists. The buildings are falling apart but are still intact. There is restoration work going on and there seems to be a determination to save this site for posterity if it can be done. But having just been there myself, I cannot tell you just how extraordinary it is. We on this discussion thread have an interest in history, and this is a kind of living history of the industrial revolution that is also a place of great interest because of its association with J.-B. Say.
At the moment, and I cannot tell you why, there is a collection of antique fire trucks housed in one of the buildings. But other possibilities are latent in how this site may be developed, including a museum for the history of economic thought. At the moment, there are some scattered artefacts associated with Say in place but things are at an early stage in thinking this through. I am off here in Australia but this is something that the European Society along with the English should become involved with. And while it may not be politic to say it, as was pointed out by M. Zephyr Tilliette – Auchy’s self-appointed historian – the town lies midway between Azincourt and Crécy and is a short drive from the Calais and Chunnel crossing points.
If I may be allowed to say so, this is a place you should visit if you get the chance. The website I am told is coming, but in the meantime you can make arrangements to visit the site by phoning this number: 06.45.49.59.29. You will not be disappointed.
WHEN a man who has made a name for himself deliberately chooses to remain a bachelor the world is naturally curious to know what the reasons were that impelled him to this choice.
Marriage has come to be considered the natural thing for every normal man, and when some pre-eminent man shows a firm determination to sidestep it everybody wonders whether his superior intelligence has revealed to him some fatal defects in the institution of matrimony which are not apparent to the average person.
But the public’s curiosity in this respect is seldom gratified. Most of the distinguished bachelors try to pass off their bachelorhood as a joke, saying that it is not a matter of choice, but because they have never been able to find a woman who would marry them. As a rule, they are singularly averse to giving any serious reasons for their failure to become husbands.
Nikola Tesla, the great scientist and inventor, is a striking exception to this rule. In a recent interview with a representative of this newspaper he frankly explains why he has never married and why he probably never will marry.
Well if you look in the Oxford dictionary in fact, the word terrorism is the use of violence against a community or a section of the community for political purposes. So I would say to you that the ordinary English meaning is precisely what the Americans and the British are doing in Afghanistan, and what they did before in Iraq, to establish their own military and economic interests no matter what the cost is to the life and wealth of the people… I think there is something called state terrorism, which in fact the Americans are in fact engaging in quite regularly.
The Islamic State’s terrorism is “pro-life”:
I think that there is terrorism which is pro-life, and there is terrorism which is against life. You know, you could terrorise the enemy in order to make sure that the war ends quickly. And I think this is what the Islamic State in fact are trying to do, to scare off the Americans and their own allies in Syria and Iraq. And then there is terrorism which is against life, which is like carpet bombing, dropping nuclear weapons, the shock and awe that we saw in Iraq before.
Terrorism is “part of Islam” and killing civilians is legitimate:
Allah mentions in the Quran in fact, if you look in Chapter eight, verse 60, he said “Prepare as much as you can steeds of war to terrorise the enemy.” So terrorising the enemy is in fact part of Islam, I mean this is something that we must embrace and understand, as far as the jurisprudence of jihad is concerned. Secondly, I think that think that people need to appreciate is that in war, the Muslims are not distinguishing in general between civilians and military. Because those very civilians are those that put the people in charge, and those people in charge – Barack Obama and others – are sending their troops to Muslim countries. So they’re not making that distinction, let alone between people who are journalists, who are considered to be the right hand in fact, and the propaganda machine of the Obama administration.
James Foley and other journalists are seen as the enemy:
I don’t know the details of Mr James Foley… But what I can definitely tell you is that journalists in general from the West, the civilians from places like America, at the current time are in a position where there is no sanctity for them in Muslim countries. There is no one to give them that sanctity. We are uprising against our own regimes, and they are seen as enemies of the Usama Muslims.
Taking hostages is what Mohammed did, too, and all non-Muslims in Muslim lands are targets:
…the Prophet himself took hostages from a tribe which had an alliance with another tribe, who had actually taken the Muslims hostage…. But what I can say to you definitely is that at the current time, in Muslim countries, there is no sanctity for non-Muslims who are citizens of those regimes who are fighting against Muslims. So my advice to you, which is good advice, is to withdraw completely your own civilians, and your own journalists, and your own armies from Muslims countries.
Everyone’s against the Muslims, who are the victims and entitled to hit back at these criminals:
You know, the killing of James Foley is not going to make a difference to the heinous, very barbaric, criminal nature of the American regime and the history of atrocities against Muslims… You can see that what happened with the Taliban, and what’s happening with the Islamic State, and what’s happening to the Americans and their own allies in the area, is a direct result of their own policy over the last decade… China occupies and tortures people in the Xinjiang. The Russians do it in Chechnya. The Burmese do it to the Muslims in Burma. The Indians do it in Kashmir. We are the only ones defending ourselves, we are rising up. You know, when people rise up, of course there will be casualties.
Never mind the atrocities we see from the Islamic State:
It is never justified to kill women and children, as a general rule… Many of the images that you see are from other battlefields, from the Nusayris [Alawites] for example in Syria, from Hizbullah in Iran, who have killed women and children, and then they’re blaming the Muslims…
OB: (crosstalk) But Mr Choudary, we can also see images of people being executed, soldiers, Syrian soldiers being executed en mass and being put into mass graves. I mean, those images exist.
AC: Remember, we’re talking about people who are criminals. The soldiers of the Syrian regime committed horrendous crimes. Remember, the Nusayris [Alawites] in Syria are people who consider the Sunnis to be like animals, even the children and women are animals. They slaughter them the way they would a dog or a cat.
Shariah is coming to the West, which must submit:
I believe that one day the Sharia will be implemented in Russia and in China and America. There is no, if you like, permanent treaty between the Islamic State and any nation which is implementing non-Islamic law. There could be a temporary ceasefire with those people who are not enemies to the Muslims. But definitely, because of the aggression of the Americans, and the British and others, there will never be a treaty with these people. I think eventually they will be conquered… Now we see the re-emergence of the Khilafah [Caliphate], we can see a new world order. Finally, we have a state where the Muslims are implementing Sharia, and it is expanding once more, and inshallah all the world will be governed by the Sharia.
Only a bigot believes that all Muslims are terrorists, but only a fool believes there is no link between Islam and terrorism.
Yet as still another innocent person is beheaded and paraded before the world, there are two odious coalitions that refuse the embrace or admit the truth.
The first is in some ways easier to deal with. This dark gang includes Islamic fundamentalists, anti-Zionist and anti-Semitic fanatics, haters of the west and in particular the United States and hard left extremists who believe all violence and instability aids their cause.
The second is more complex and nuanced. This alliance involves the cowardly, the absurdly naive, the usefully stupid, the relativist deniers and those who due to good will or a total lack of historical consciousness believe all religions are the same and if only everybody had high speed Internet and a full belly we could all dance together into the sunset.
There are in fact four stages involved in the denial of Islamic terror. The first is where we empty our heads. The second is where we bury of heads. The third is where we bow our heads. The fourth is where we lose our heads.
The first three are metaphorical, the last is literal.
The first stage involves ignorance. We assume Islamic violence is all our fault because of, for example, the Crusades.
This is what I call the Kevin Costner school of history.
In the movie Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves, dashing Kev tells us that his dad thought it wrong to try to convert people to another religion. Quite so, but Robin’s dad obviously knew little of the Crusades because they never tried to convert Muslims and were a direct response to 300 years of Islamic violence in the Holy Land. They were a product of Islamic brutality, not its cause.
From the Crusades we blame imperialism, even though the major empire o f the Islamic world was Turkish and Muslim; we blame Israel; we blame George Bush; we blame everyone and everything other than the genuine article.
The second stage is an attempt to ignore what is going on, to pretend if we are sufficiently indifferent it will all disappear and we can return to our Netflix and HBO and be terribly smug and clever in our own cocoons of moribund complacency.
Next is submission, where we become subservient to an Islamic ascendancy that takes the shape of anti-racism, anti-Islamophobia, liberalism and a bewildering belief that Christianity is oppressive and reactionary and perhaps Islam really does have quite a lot to offer if we give it enough time and thought.
Finally comes, well, the decapitation of the few followed by the political and moral decapitation of the many.
If you doubt me, ask Arab Christians how quickly the Islamic cringing minority becomes the angry, demanding group insisting that their rights and sensitivities triumph over all other feelings and aspirations.
This is not about individual Muslims but about an Islamism that runs directly contrary to progress, human rights, sexual and gender equality, pluralism, independent opinion and individual, scientific and ethical advancement.
The blades are hovering quite close now, closer than you might imagine.
Only a bigot believes that all Muslims are terrorists, but only a fool believes there is no link between Islam and terrorism.
Yet as still another innocent person is beheaded and paraded before the world, there are two odious coalitions that refuse the embrace or admit the truth.
The first is in some ways easier to deal with. This dark gang includes Islamic fundamentalists, anti-Zionist and anti-Semitic fanatics, haters of the west and in particular the United States and hard left extremists who believe all violence and instability aids their cause.
The second is more complex and nuanced. This alliance involves the cowardly, the absurdly naive, the usefully stupid, the relativist deniers and those who due to good will or a total lack of historical consciousness believe all religions are the same and if only everybody had high speed Internet and a full belly we could all dance together into the sunset.
There are in fact four stages involved in the denial of Islamic terror. The first is where we empty our heads. The second is where we bury of heads. The third is where we bow our heads. The fourth is where we lose our heads.
The first three are metaphorical, the last is literal.
The first stage involves ignorance. We assume Islamic violence is all our fault because of, for example, the Crusades.
This is what I call the Kevin Costner school of history.
In the movie Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves, dashing Kev tells us that his dad thought it wrong to try to convert people to another religion. Quite so, but Robin’s dad obviously knew little of the Crusades because they never tried to convert Muslims and were a direct response to 300 years of Islamic violence in the Holy Land. They were a product of Islamic brutality, not its cause.
From the Crusades we blame imperialism, even though the major empire o f the Islamic world was Turkish and Muslim; we blame Israel; we blame George Bush; we blame everyone and everything other than the genuine article.
The second stage is an attempt to ignore what is going on, to pretend if we are sufficiently indifferent it will all disappear and we can return to our Netflix and HBO and be terribly smug and clever in our own cocoons of moribund complacency.
Next is submission, where we become subservient to an Islamic ascendancy that takes the shape of anti-racism, anti-Islamophobia, liberalism and a bewildering belief that Christianity is oppressive and reactionary and perhaps Islam really does have quite a lot to offer if we give it enough time and thought.
Finally comes, well, the decapitation of the few followed by the political and moral decapitation of the many.
If you doubt me, ask Arab Christians how quickly the Islamic cringing minority becomes the angry, demanding group insisting that their rights and sensitivities triumph over all other feelings and aspirations.
This is not about individual Muslims but about an Islamism that runs directly contrary to progress, human rights, sexual and gender equality, pluralism, independent opinion and individual, scientific and ethical advancement.
The blades are hovering quite close now, closer than you might imagine.
From Mallory Millett who is described as a CFO for several corporation living in New York:
It was 1969. Kate invited me to join her for a gathering at the home of her friend, Lila Karp. They called the assemblage a “consciousness-raising-group,” a typical communist exercise, something practiced in Maoist China. We gathered at a large table as the chairperson opened the meeting with a back-and-forth recitation, like a Litany, a type of prayer done in Catholic Church. But now it was Marxism, the Church of the Left, mimicking religious practice:
“Why are we here today?” she asked.
“To make revolution,” they answered.
“What kind of revolution?” she replied.
“The Cultural Revolution,” they chanted.
“And how do we make Cultural Revolution?” she demanded.
“By destroying the American family!” they answered.
“How do we destroy the family?” she came back.
“By destroying the American Patriarch,” they cried exuberantly.
“And how do we destroy the American Patriarch?” she replied.
“By taking away his power!”
“How do we do that?”
“By destroying monogamy!” they shouted.
“How can we destroy monogamy?”
Their answer left me dumbstruck, breathless, disbelieving my ears. Was I on planet earth? Who were these people?
“By promoting promiscuity, eroticism, prostitution and homosexuality!” they resounded.
A very sober article, not to be missed. And as one of those who read Sexual Politics in its first edition, I all too well know just how strong a message it had for its time. Nowadays its ideas are utterly mainstream.
It is now a day later, I am back in Australia and no one else has blogged since my own last post. Everyone really must be at the Mt Pelerin in Hong Kong. I was scheduled to go myself but I could not pass up this trip to France and the discussion on Say.
But let me say this about air travel which gets better and compared to the really old days is incredibly cheap. But there is this one thing. Which is why this story interests me so much:
My own solution was to bring a rubber hammer for the people in front and a plastic helmet to defend myself against the people in the row behind. But it is not a small matter when there is hardly any space to begin with and you have pulled your trusty PC out to do some work. So now someone has come up with a solution:
You know the moment all too well — and dread it. Just as you’re getting a modicum of comfort on a flight, the seat in front suddenly pushes back, depriving you of valuable inches of legroom.
All you can do is to glower in a silent rage at the head of the other passenger, who has decided that by reclining his seat, his comfort is more important than ours.
However, some passengers have decided to get even rather than mad, by investing £13 in a gizmo called a Knee Defender, which its manufacturer claims is as ‘devious as it is ingenious’.
On this flight, the couple in front played gin rummy until the sun went down and then we all went off to sleep with our seats pushed back. But in the day time, I can understand the fury of anyone already crammed into an economy seat having what room there is taken from them. I think of it as the same as talking on the mobile in a loud voice while sitting on the train (and soon on the plane as well).
My own rule:
No pushing seats back until after the evening meal
I understand that on airplanes people have woken early to catch the 8:00 a.m. flight, and others are connecting from flights where whatever it might say on the local clock, it is still past midnight to them. But it is more than courtesy and a kind of etiquette needs to be developed so that at least we can work out who is in the right before the fights break out.
There was a time you could smoke on airplanes as well. Let us hope for a day in the future when people remember the time when you could put your seat back in the middle of the afternoon which by then they will no longer be permitted to do.
I have just reached home and happy I am to be here but I must say seldom has any trip of mine been so complete. All my interests – economic, political and historical – came together so seamlessly that I only wish life was always like this.
Economically, the meeting on J.-B. Say and the Entrepreneur was an outstanding success. This being the first such meeting, it is of major significance that there is a casting about for some kind of successor paradigm to the fault-ridden neo-classical synthesis so accurately represented by Paul Krugman and Joe Stiglitz. As just a minor point, what became evident is that economists are useless at predicting the future so have substituted GDP estimates for actually knowing anything at all about the economy. If I tell you that Australia over the past twenty years grew by 50% and China by 150%, you would not have any idea about what either was really like, the kinds of economy each is or what is actually going on. Economists have substituted statistics for actual knowledge. It is all pretty useless, but if your aim is to pull wool over people’s eyes about what is taking place, GDP is a great number since it is almost meaningless as a statement about anything of significance.
Politically, it has been amazing to be here for the transition to a more market-oriented socialist Prime Minister. Every country is a hopeless case since the freeloaders have now overrun the productive. But if you are trying to manage the place, even the most dense political leader trying to re-engineer a recovery cannot help noticing that only those who make a net contribution to output actually create more value than they use up. A tremendous amount of capital to run through in our Western economies, but we are managing to do it. Fascinating to see it all in action in a place you would not normally expect it.
Historically, there are two sides to it. In relation to why I am here, I am part of a group that is trying to save Jean-Baptiste Say’s factory in Auchy-les-Hesdins for posterity. There are not many – any – places in the world that are actually historical sites in which economic issues are at the forefront. Auchy is astonishing in that it combines an ancient cotton mill – where the waterfall that ran the mill can still be seen – with the writings of one of the greatest economists of all time. If you are in France in the north-west around Calais or Normandy, and you have any interest in these things at all, you must come visit. The website I am told is coming but you should see it for yourself. The best way to describe the positioning of Auchy is to note that it is half way between Azincourt and Crecy. See all three, but if you have an interest in economics and its history, this place will astonish you. There is nothing like it on the planet and, as with everything related to Say, is only now in the process of being rediscovered.
Lastly there has been my following the trail of historical battles, with the last few days on the WWI battle fronts. Went to Villers-Brettoneaux yesterday which is the Australian Vimy Ridge. Very moving places both of them. Two things I found particularly noteworthy. The first was the direction finder in the tower pointing out various places of significance on the Somme battle grounds. But amongst the 20 miles to this and 30 miles to that was the arrow that pointed to 14,235 miles to Canberra. It was a long way from home for those young Australians who lie buried in the fields of France.
The other was a grave to some young lad who died on this battlefield in 1918. His name was S. Keates. It was quite a strange moment. It is truly the case that there but for the grace of God go we all.
Law of Markets 