Are Nimbys a threat to national security? Britain’s inability to build houses and infrastructure is rightly at the heart of our domestic political debate. Dalibor Rohac thinks it needs to be seen as a geopolitical failing as well.
This week on The Capitalist, Rohac, incoming director of research at Globsec, discusses his new book ‘Unshackled: How Economic Growth Can Defeat the World’s Dictators’ with Marc Sidwell. The conversation also covers how to defend Western institutions while still building fast, what Mancur Olson can tell us about vetocracy, whether letting China into the WTO was a mistake and why chasing foreign students out of American universities is an own goal.
Rohac’s argument is that the accumulated sludge of special interests and regulatory stasis which reduces growth and stops houses and reservoirs being built has serious security implications – such as the shortfall in defence production across the West. Free markets can deliver in ways that more centralised systems cannot, but only if the shackles are taken off.
He remains an optimist, on the grounds that free societies have a remarkable power for self-correction. But who will stand up as a new champion of the Western order? A new Reagan or Thatcher may be harder to find.
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Will the man who paints himself as the antidote to Thatcherism lead us back to the worst of the 1970s? As Britain’s borrowing costs spiked and Andy Burnham faced MPs as Prime Minister, Marc Sidwell spoke to the economist Julian Jessop about Burnham’s plans – and whether they can really get Britain back to growth. […]
Modern life rests on inventions so ordinary that we barely notice them… until they start to fail. This week on The Capitalist, Marc Sidwell speaks to the writer and CapX columnist Jonn Elledge. His new book ‘31 Inventions That Built Our World’, surveys the technologies – from sewers to lifts – that make urban life […]
What happens when a revolt against the elite puts the worst people in charge? Richard Hanania had a ringside seat for the rise of MAGA, as his Substack essays on anti-woke issues gained traction at the highest level of the new American Right. He had high hopes for Donald Trump’s second term, and coined the […]
