If there was one event that ended Fukuyama’s ‘end of history’, it was 9/11. The growth and predominance of globalisation were followed by anti-Western intellectual movements. Many, especially on the Left, are still obsessed with rationalising the insanity of the attackers – most notoriously streamer Hasan Piker, who claimed in 2019 that ‘America deserved 9/11’. […]
If you think this summer has been sticky, count yourself lucky you were not in the Cabinet in August and September 1931, in the midst of possibly the worst economic crisis the country has ever faced. It is worth looking at what happened then, because high energy and Government borrowing costs mean a crisis of […]
One doesn’t like to be a disappointment to one’s parents. But in (at least) one crucial regard, I’ve let my dad down. He is a steam train enthusiast, and I’ve never shown a blind bit of interest. So it was more with filial duty than pleasure that I took the old man to the Didcot […]
Josiah Quincy Jr., who was the mayor of Boston in the middle of the nineteenth century, wrote in his Last Will and Testament that his son should read ‘John Locke’s works, – Lord Bacon’s works, – Gordon’s Tacitus, – and Cato’s Letters. May the spirit of liberty rest upon him!’ Indeed, there is nothing closer […]
If you have argued in favour of market-based solutions in some area of society which is under government control, you may have received objections along the lines of ‘I don’t believe the market can handle X’, ‘companies only look at the short term’ or ‘companies are motivated by greed and cannot be trusted to handle […]
At midnight on May 4, 1926, the General Strike began. In Blackburn, William Woodruff’s family ‘sat in silence in our kitchen, holding their breath, waiting for the revolution to begin’. Instead, Britain’s trade unions suffered total defeat. These unions had been growing in power before World War I, but this coincided with a relative weakening […]
Economic comparisons have been made in recent months with the 1970s, with fears of an energy crisis and talk of stagflation. But it’s worth focusing instead on the Thatcher revolution of the 1980s and the sea-change that then gripped the economy, with enterprise, home ownership, risk-taking and a can-do attitude to the fore. While many […]
This week marks the 250th anniversary of Adam Smith’s ‘An Inquiry Into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations’. At the Adam Smith Institute (ASI), we have naturally been busy celebrating the masterwork’s semiquincentennial. Talks have been held, even graphic novels scribbled. Most importantly, pieces have appeared this week in CapX, written by […]
From Alexander the Great to Benjamin Franklin, nations and empires have long imprinted on their currency the likenesses of their most respected luminaries. It projects power, influence and most importantly, immortalises historical legacy. Who knows this better in the modern age than us Britons? Go to Canada, Australia, New Zealand and much of the Caribbean, […]
Yesterday marked the 250th anniversary of Adam Smith’s ‘An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations’. The book is an exploration of why some countries grow faster in the long term than others, with a particular focus on what was happening in Britain at the time, i.e. its early industrial development. […]
1776 has a claim to being the single most important year in the history of the English-speaking peoples. America declared her independence, James Watt sold his first steam engine and Adam Smith invented modern economics. Edward Gibbon might also win ‘highly commended’ for publishing the ‘Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire’ in the same year. […]
Last Friday morning, there was a palpable sense that Britain was having a nervous breakdown. The abominable Greens had stormed to victory in the Gorton and Denton by-election; in Parliament Square, the statue of Winston Churchill had been defaced with graffiti branding the Greatest Briton a ‘Zionist war criminal’ and calling for the globalisation of […]
Three and a half years ago, the British Monarchy appeared serene in its stability. After a lifetime of grandeur and service, a great reign had ended. In response, the national mood appeared to be one of solemnity and gratitude. Although there were complaints from fringe groups, they appeared to be speaking for no one except […]
Sven Beckert, a Harvard professor, has written a very long history of capitalism. As its subtitle suggests, ‘Capitalism: A Global History’ covers all of the inhabited world and spans a millennium, starting with 12th-century merchants trading through the port city of Aden. The enterprise is of more than purely historical interest. As Beckert points out, […]
It is impossible to pinpoint an exact place or moment when capitalism began. Capitalism is a process, not a discrete historical event with a beginning and an end, and it did not drop fully formed into a particular location. Even today, no society is organised along fully capitalist lines, and some have argued that a […]
The decline of Christianity is nothing new. Some 150 years ago, Matthew Arnold, in his poem ‘Dover Beach’, mourned the ‘melancholy, long, withdrawing roar’ of the ‘Sea of Faith’. And that was in the high noon of Victorian England. Today, he would have far more to be concerned about. The last 20 years have witnessed […]
Tracing the dynamics of progress in time and space reveals a fundamental tension running through the historical record: technologies that strengthen bureaucratic control can temporarily spur development but later hinder new discoveries and sow the seeds for stagnation. Early dynastic China leveraged technology to achieve its goals, such as tax collection, power consolidation and warfare. […]
The British economy is not in a happy state. Many fear that stagnant economic growth and enormous long-term liabilities, especially in the context of an ageing population, not to mention our yawning deficit, make our public finances unsustainable. Bond markets are getting nervous: perhaps a debt crisis and painful correction await. Few believe that Rachel […]
I’m a former RAF pilot. I’ve written books and made films about Nelson, Churchill and the Battle of Britain. I’m reliably on the ‘Oh come off it!’ side when empire-bashing academics bang on about reparations for slavery or present my country as the great villain of global history. And yet my recently published book, ‘1945: […]
There is much discussion right now about the dysfunctionality of UK politics. This goes beyond complaints about the policy incoherence or ineffectuality of any particular government, whether that be the current one or its Tory and Coalition predecessors. Rather, there is a growing feeling that the political system itself, the whole process of politics, no […]
I first heard the names Adam Smith and John Maynard Keynes when I was a high-school sophomore. My teacher announced, as if it were a fact as firm as any law of thermodynamics, that the Great Depression was caused by laissez-faire policies advocated by Smith, and that salvation came from the more scientifically sound ideas […]
It is time to choose your favourite cliché. Grasp the nettle, bite the bullet. Whichever it is, Kemi Badenoch has done it. For years, many eminent Tories have been aware that the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR) and its legal penumbra are causing problems here. But there were determined efforts at evasion. Just kick […]
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