What If Everything We Know About Education is Wrong?

We saw a kid performing handstands on the sidewalk as the bus took us to the Delhi Garden of Five Senses, and one of the women in the party mourned that the kid was not in school.

Yes, I know we are all supposed to believe that kids in government school are the best thing since sliced bread. But is it?

We know, for instance, that throughout the 19th century Europe literacy increased enormously, and it isn't clear to me that government schools were the reason. And female literacy was about a generation behind male literacy.

In addition, I understand, parents stopped sending their kids out to work once they didn't need the wages for food.

But we all believe -- and that means especially that women believe -- that all kids should be in school throughout childhood.

I don't think so. I suspect that we would do much better dumping the responsibility for their children's education on the parents.

What about this idea? We repeal all child labor laws; we close all the government schools. What would happen?

My question is this. If corporations started employing children again, would they revive the apprenticeship system? Would they educate the children in their charge?

The simple answer is: We Don't Know.

But we do know that when a foundation took computer tablets to an Ethiopian village, the kids had the tablets charged while the adults were congratulating each other, were singing the ABC song in two weeks, and had hacked the tablet to re-enable the camera within six months.

We do know that every girl in the world desperately needs to be literate enough to compete in the social media world of smartphones, and the boys need to be literate enough to master video games like Minecraft.

Maybe they can only really do this in school. But maybe not. Maybe if we evil geniuses figure out how to grab their attention, maybe we can get kids literate, numerate, market-aware, etc., without the trillion dollar a year expense of government education.

Of course, I understand the allure of free stuff. Free education: Yay! And maybe we should have a free system, just on principle, to keep the slaves to free-stuff happy

But I think the future requires getting away from the government model, and demands an education that responds to the needs of parents that want the best for their children and corporations that want good productive employees in their future.

What If Liberals Abolished the Middle Class?

In his latest piece bemoaning the state of California, Victor Davis Hanson suggests that the liberal masters of California are quite comfortable with the fact that the middle class is leaving California in the millions.

Would-be Calexit leader Shankar Singam, in a recent television appearance, was unapologetically candid in celebrating the departure of the middle class from California. Indeed, he saw it as a sort of win-win bargain for the state: The tired people are leaving, and the energetic people are replacing them. 

I don't think liberals really understand what they are doing. Their whole shtick is to play ruling class saviors of the helpless victims against the the cruel oppression of the evil white middle class. Do they not realize that if they abolish the evil middle class they will have abolished the enemy by which they rally the helpless victims to their sideq? If there is no middle class left in California then who will be the enemy of lefty politics?

I will tell you, based on Lee Kwan Yew, former Prime Minister of Singapore.p In a multicultural society, people vote according to their race and religion. And I bet that the old politics that has served our liberal friends so well will convert into a politics in which liberals don't get to direct traffic as in the olden time. In fact I wouldn't be surprised to see a politics of the lower class against the precious -- and rich -- people of San Francisco, Marin County, and Silicon Valley. Of course, I could be wrong about that.

Yep. Liberals may be patting themselves on the back for teaching those racist sexist homophobic middle-class Californians a lesson and sending them packing out of state, and reducing the Republican Party in the state to a shell. But I don't think they will like what comes next.

But then we all know that liberals are clueless about politics. They all know and can recite the latest lefty meme. But they don't have a clue about why we have three branches of government, about why we have the electoral college. And if it comes to that they don't  understand the First Amendment. The whole point, liberals, is to permit unpopular and bigoted speech. So it is right out in the open. But liberals think that the First Amendment is there to allow liberals to advance their progressive religion to bend the arc of history towards justice. And then shut the bigots up.

Assorted Opinions, Maxims, and Aphorisms

Government is force. Politics is violence. Government is injustice. System is domination. Politics is civil war by other means. Government never learns — Christopher Chantrill

Government is an armed minority, occupying territory, and taxing the inhabitants thereof to reward its supporters.

Government is force plus loot and plunder.

Government is injustice.

Government is downstream from politics.

More government means less affordability.

All government is unjust, because government leaders reward their supporters before the rest of the people.

The only warrant for government power is an existential peril.

If you give politicians more power in an emergency, they will create more emergencies to get more power. — Douglas McKinnon

Soft power is gifting friends; hard power is fighting enemies.

In Melanesia the Big Man earns the community’s trust on his ability to distribute pigs, shell money, and other resources. In the welfare state the politician gets elected by promising to distribute checks, jobs, and subsidies.

Home is anywhere that you know all your friends and all your enemies — Orson Scott Card

Laffer’s Five Pillars: low-rate broad-based flat tax; spending restraint; sound money; minimal regulations; free trade

Laffer: the more you redistribute, the greater will be the drop in total income.

Taxing and spending make us poorer.

There is nothing more annoying to a politician than the lack of a crisis.

Do politicians know what they are doing, or just do what they know?

Why do politicians lie? Because we the voters insist upon it.

It isn’t a lie if nobody calls you on it.

The last refuge of a political scoundrel is the scapegoat.

What people want from government and political leaders is protection.

Politics is the art of division.

Politics is all, and only, about rallying the men to fight against the foe — external or internal enemy — in the present emergency.

Politics is the royal road to injustice.

Politics is the exercise of collective power against human opposition. — Curtis Yarvin

Politics Never Solves Anything.

Today’s rulers want you to take the knee — to them, not BLM, silly!

The political is the distinction between friend and enemy — Carl Schmitt

Who are our enemies? Who are our friends? — Mao Zedong

Communism is not love. Communism is a hammer which we use to crush the enemy — Mao Zedong

There is no politics without an enemy — Curtis Yarvin

Voice or no voice, the people can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders. That is easy. All you have to do is tell them they are being attacked and denounce the pacifists for lack of patriotism and exposing the country to danger. It works the same way in any country. — Hermann Göring

The world must be made safe for democracy — Woodrow Wilson

With phrases which on close examination dissolve into thin air, such as the defence of civilization, nothing tangible can be defined — Klemens von Metternich

The world is full of opposing forces... International life, like life in general, is a battle — Charles de Gaulle

Communism is a hammer that we use to destroy the enemy — Mao Zedong

How to unify Germany, by Otto von Bismarck: Ally Prussia with Austria to defeat Denmark; Then ally Prussia and Protestant German states against Austria and Catholic German states to defeat Austria and create North German Confederation; Then ally all German states against France to create the Second Reich.

Markets make friends where politics creates enemies.

The whole point of social animals is to find a way to avoid politics

For my friends, everything; for my enemies, the law — Óscar R. Benavides, president of Peru 1933-1939

Rules of Engagement: The enemy must be destroyed — William Hall

If you know the enemy and know yourself, you need not fear the result of a hundred battles — Sun Tzu

Never ascribe to malice that which is adequately explained by incompetence — Napoleon Bonaparte

There is no religion without a Satan.

The aesthetic is the distinction between beautiful and ugly — Carl Schmitt

The economic is the distinction between useful and harmful — Carl Schmitt

The moral is the distinction between good and evil — Carl Schmitt

For men, the cultural is the distinction between ok and not-ok.

For women, the cultural is the distinction between nice and not-nice.

Passion is the distinction between love and hate.

There is no religion without an Evil One

The field of reporting is the distinction between truth and lie

The field of perception is the distinction between reality and fantasy

The vastness of reality is too complex to be simulated — Scott Adams

The Cathedral... Either you see it, or you don’t. — Jacob Siegel

The productive classes are always governed by unproductive aristocrats — Curtis Yarvin

There is no expert without an idiot.

Politician: follow me or you will all be killed. Priest: follow me or you will go to Hell.

Politics for men: I will fight for you! Politics for women: I will protect you!

Men: “Lead me!” Women: “Protect me!”

Men: “March toward the sound of the guns.” Women: “Shelter in place.”

In 1900 poor women worked and rich women were supported by Daddy or Hubby. In 2020 rich women work and poor women are supported by gubmint checks.

[Voters are] tired of politicians who won’t let the wounds of the past heal. — Winsome Sears

Four political strategies: Unite the country against a small country for a quick win; unite the country against a big country for a world war; unite half the country against the other half for a civil war; unite most of the country against a small minority for a witch-hunt. (Grok)

Rule 1... is: ‘Do not march on Moscow’…[Rule 2] is: ‘Do not go fighting with your land armies in China.’ — Lord Montgomery

The only thing that politics knows is hate and loot and plunder.

If you are fighting for justice, what you will win is injustice.

There is no such thing as justice, only injustice.

The more politics, the more injustice.

If you want more politics, you are really saying you want more enemies.

The more politics, the more enemies.

The more politics, the more misery.

Social justice is not justice, it is vengeance.

If you bend the arc of history, you do not get justice, but injustice.

People busy bending the arc of history usually fail to learn the lessons of history.

There is no one so unjust as the one that fights for justice.

Justice is the absence of force.

When you have dominated the oppressors, what do you get? Oppression or domination?

The left says there are oppressed peoples, their allies, and white oppressors. I say there are Deceivers, ordinary Americans, and Deceived groups.

America does not have a “white supremacy” problem. It has a “spoiled, unhinged, white liberals” problem. — Kayleigh McEnany

Critical Theory creates cultural gang warfare.

Critical Race Theory creates more racial tensions, not less.

When government bureaucrats deploy Critical Theory it isn’t Critical Theory.

When government teachers teach your kids Critical Race Theory, it isn’t Critical Theory; it is just regime propaganda.

I guess you can’t make an omelette without breaking a few eggheads — @liptonnick

In a culture war there will be casualties, just like in real war.

You may think you are “woke” but how do you know you are not asleep?

When a political movement achieves its objectives it doesn’t go home.

When a political movement achieves its objectives it doesn’t have to play nice any more.

When a political movement achieves its objectives it is time to crush its enemies.

Every social movement will continue until it reaches absurdity — Ward Clark

Hitler hated Jews; feminists hate men. Explain.

Hitler is the idiot you get when the usual idiots have screwed up.

A punitive peace leads to Literally Hitler.

Capitalism works for men who do. Socialism works for men who don’t. — Daniel J. Flynn

Without capitalists, socialism would be unaffordable. — Larry Elder

Some people work for a living; other people vote for a living.

Fixing roads is for poor people, while fixing the climate is for special people. — Zman

Socialism is the religion that sanctifies loot and plunder as moral obligations.

Socialism promises belonging but delivers isolation.

Socialism promises equality but delivers scarcity.

Socialism promises dignity and compassion but delivers degradation and cruelty.

Socialism is the faith of rich kids that never had a job. Marx, anyone?

In socialism, everybody takes as much as they can. In capitalism, everybody contributes as much as they can.

Five Year Plan equals Great Leap Forward equals Build Back Better.

Reign of Terror equals Great Purge equals Cultural Revolution equals Cancel Culture

Class Analysis: A hundred years ago the rich were thin and the poor were fat; today the rich are thin and the poor are fat. A hundred years ago the rich were idle and the poor worked; today the rich work and the poor are idle.

Nietzsche: “the priests” teach us to hate ourselves. Me: the politicians teach us to hate others.

Nietzsche was “the Nazis’ favorite intellectual:” butcher’s bill 50 million. Marx is the left’s favorite intellectual: butcher’s bill 100 million. Explain.

Kant: We cannot know things-in-themselves, but only appearances. Me. 

Nietzsche: I philosophize with a hammer. Me: No, Fritzi; you philosophize with the one-liner.

Moral reasoning is nothing but the awakening of certain feelings — William Godwin, after Hume.

Politics is the division between “us” and “them;” Religion is the division between “good” and “evil.” Totalitarianism is the division between “us good people” and “them evil people.”

Politics equals “Us” vs. “Them.”

Eric Hoffer: Every great cause begins as a movement, becomes a business, and eventually degenerates into a racket. Me: Every political racket disguises itself for a season as a great cause fighting for justice.

Politics equals Hate.

We must teach our children to hate. Hatred is the basis of communism — Lenin

Wrong Turn: the Left began with errors like Marxist economics; it continued with conceits like the administrative welfare state and climate change; it committed great crimes like the government-created famines in Ukraine and China; it compounded its errors with lies like systemic racism.

Anglo culture: Liberty is the right to be left alone by government, to live life as we have always lived it.
Continental culture: Liberté stands opposed to tradition in the emancipatory overthrow of the present way of life.

Anglo culture: Equality means the ancient rights and liberties of Englishmen, and nobody is above the law.
Continental culture: Egalité means substantive equality. No social distinctions except to support the common good.

Great Reaction: Socialism is a return to slavery; the welfare state is a return to feudalism; identity politics is neo-tribalism; reparations is neo-vengeance; activism a return to revolution, rioting for the ruling class, part medieval knight-errantry, and part activisme, or gentry kids putting on a school play for their parents; helpless victims are a return to sacrifice; totalitarianism is a return to the scapegoat; social justice is good old loot and plunder.

Crimes of the Left: Driving working class off the road to the middle class; misdirecting women in the public square; making war on middle class culture and values; taxing business and ordinary people and enslaving them to ruling-class crusades to save the world.

Ruling Class gotta have a war.

The ruling class used to be a warrior class. Now the ruling class is an educated, intellectual class. Explain.

Understanding Yarvin’s three layers: the Gentry believe in governing the Commoners and advocating for the Clients; the Commoners just want a normal life with a job, a home, and a family; the Clients think “we was robbed!”

Three Tribes: The tribe of the educated Gentry is the educated class of the entire world; the tribe of the Commoners is the nation; the tribe of the Subordinates is the ethnic group, or clan, or village.

Three Religions: The religion of the educated Gentry is creativity; the religion of the responsible Commoners is an Axial Age religion; the religion of the subordinate clients is vengeful gods.

Reynolds’ Laws: 1. Subsidizing the markers of status doesn’t produce the character traits that result in that status; it undermines them. 2. The more a government wants to run its citizens’ lives, the worse job it will do at the most basic tasks of government. 3. Whatever politicians control, they will use against you to get what they want. 4. Longevity of political service does not make a politician more qualified; it only ensures they are more corrupt 5. Proposed legislation will fail if there is not enough opportunity for graft or control.

In southern Europe the Renaissance made man the measure of all things. In northern Europe the Reformation, in proclaiming the priesthood of all believers and offering rewards for individual effort, put the emphasis on the individual — Henry A. Kissinger

[T]he most fundamental problem of politics... is not the control of wickedness, but the limitation of righteousness. — Henry A. Kissinger

Once you believe your education makes you superior to others, then your education has failed you.

Lefties created the two greatest slave societies in history. In one century.

When the left ran out of real victims to patronize it started inventing “fake” victims.

I am all in favor of LGBT. I just can’t take it seriously.

Trump is the idiot you get when the usual idiots have screwed up.

There’s never been anything like it. — Donald J. Trump.

Fascism is the idiocy you get when the usual idiots have screwed up.

Socialism is the idiocy that intellectual idiots propose to increase the power of ruling-class idiocy.

Politics is about trying to get things you shouldn’t want.

The first rule of politics is: never tell people the truth.

Every society since the dawn of time, and especially ours, is drenched in religion.

Every human alive has a religion, that explains for him, and especially her, the meaning of life, the universe, and everything.

No society has existed without what we would call religion — Nicholas Wade

All human differences are ultimately religious ones — Cardinal Manning

It is only the things we don’t understand that have any meaning. — Jung

Everything should be made as simple as possible, but no simpler. — attr. to Einstein

Whenever I run into a problem I can’t solve, I always make it bigger. — Eisenhower

Information is surprise — George Gilder, after Claude Shannon

Action produces information — Brian Armstrong, CEO Coinbase

Tradition is a set of solutions for which we have forgotten the problems. — Donald Kingsbury

People that deny they have a religion are the most religious of all.

Politics and government are all about force; law is all about private property; religion is all about morality.

Politics is downstream from culture (Breitbart) is downstream from religion (Wright) is downstream from the meaning of “life, the universe, and everything” (Chantrill).

The press is downstream from activism is downstream from the Cathedral is downstream from the political formula.

#PleaseBelieve: Other Lives Matter / Government is War Plus Loot and Plunder / No Dog is Illegal / Love is Blind / Because Science / CO2 is Plant Food / Deplorable Rights are Human Rights / Everything is Everything

Four Laws: Socialism cannot work because it cannot compute prices (Mises). The administrative state cannot work because the Man in Washington does not have the bandwidth to run the economy (Hayek). Regulation does not work because “regulatory capture” (Stigler). Government programs cannot work because you can never reform them (Chantrill).

Plus, Activism cannot work because shouting slogans cannot solve anything.

Plus, Administrative hierarchy never works because it can’t admit mistakes.

Plus, No administrative plan survives first contact with the market.

Mises on prices: Prices are generated by the market process and are the core of a market economy. There are no prices outside the market.

Hayek's "Knowledge Problem": Hayek argues that efficient economic planning is impossible for a central authority because necessary information -- dispersed, subjective, and local knowledge -- cannot be concentrated in one mind.

Hayek's "Spontaneous Order" is the unintended but orderly result of individuals pursuing their own ends while obeying abstract rules of just conduct. No one plans the overall pattern; it emerges.

Bill of Realities: #1: In the end, you have to mark your price or wage to market. #2: Capitalism is the permanent revolution of “creative destruction.” #3: You may not like capitalism but capitalism likes you. #4: There is no free lunch. #5: There is no such thing as “we are owed.”

Taleb: Never virtue-signal; never rent-seek; you must start a business. Chantrill: We are all virtue-signallers; we are all rent-seekers; we never quite got to start our own business.

Three Theses, a Critical Theory of Abolition: 1. We abolished slavery because slavery Does Not Pay. 2. We abolished racism because racism Does Not Pay. 3. We will abolish liberal race politics because wokism Does Not Pay.

Three Things that politicians love: starting a lovely War, defining reality with Propaganda, and mucking about with Money.

Three Facts of Politics: the political is the distinction between friend and enemy (Schmitt); there is no politics without an enemy (Yarvin); there is no politics without handouts (Chantrill).

The Story of Energy: Nuclear is more concentrated than oil; oil is more concentrated than coal; coal is more concentrated than wood.

We forget that for every success story there are dozens of failures.

When people start to feel the heat, that is when they start to cheat.

Most successes are a consequence of second, third and fourth attempts.

The world is full of good ideas. What it needs are good ideas that work.

A fact is a fact until it isn’t.

Liberals: a bunch of people insisting people who look different need saving — Derek Hunter

Science is the belief in the ignorance of experts — Richard Feynman

No lesson seems to be so deeply inculcated by the experience of life as that you should never trust experts — Lord Salisbury

US Politics in Four Lessons: The American People are the best people in the world. The USA is the best country in the world. When you lose a normal change election you concede with a good grace. Anyone that accuses someone of being a racist is a monster.

If you defund the police you will get vigilantes and gangs.

Anyone that calls another a racist is a hater.

Anyone that calls another a hater is a racist/sexist etc.

Anyone who raises the subject of race is a racist. The one who talks about race the longest is the racist.

A racist is absolutely anyone who’s pissed off a lefty — Glenn Reynolds

After we elected the First Black President we learned that to oppose his policies was racism. Does that mean that any opponent of the First Woman President will be sexist, and any opponent of the First Gay President will be a homophobe?

At their worst, men have a Culture of Insult and women have a Culture of Complaint.
 

At their best, men have a Culture of Courage and women have a Culture of Kindness.

Men have a Culture of Insult, as in “what’s yer problem, pal?”

Men have a Culture of Suck-it-in, as in “never complain, never explain” — Benjamin Disraeli.

Women have a Culture of Complaint, as in “I can’t believe she said that!”

Women have a Culture of Complaint, as in “Much as I hate to say it, she...”

Women have a Culture of Complaint, as in “I really shouldn’t be telling you this, but she...”

A woman complains “in the expectation of being soothed.” — George Eliot

Men are creators, fighters, destroyers; Women are learners, carers, teachers.

No society has ever been, or ever will be, without religion, art, music, fashion, ceremonies, feast days, games, etc. — Martin van Creveld

Good men do the right thing; good women say the right thing.

Women expect to be protected; Men know they are expendable.

Men join the colors; Women adopt the latest fashion.

Today’s Activist is a ruling-class stooge.

All Activism comes from a place of privilege.

Activists are fake revolutionaries.

Activists are actors, play-acting revolution.

What’s the difference between an activist and a revolutionary? The activist is building his resume; the revolutionary is burning it.

At the end of the Middle Ages courtiers enjoyed LARPing battles in their tournaments. In our age activists enjoy LARPing revolution in their mostly peaceful protests.

Creating a New Cultural Narrative

A few posts ago I wrote about the need for a new culture, one that would speak to the educated creative classes and five them a new birth of meaning to replace their current evil religion of activism and identity politics.

But then today I read a piece by David Marcus bemoaning that we don't have original movies and TV shows today that everybody gets to see and share that creates a common cultural narrative. We don't get big audience for landmark TV shows like All in the Family and M.A.S.H because the TV audience is fragmented, and the top ten movies are overwhelmingly Marvel-type superhero movies.

To which I say: thank goodness. All in the Family and M.A.S.H were supercilious products that are taught a generation to sneer at the white working class and the Cold War. And they succeeded. Today you can only reach a mass audience with simplistic superhero movies, because the mass audience is not that interested in the usual lefty dreck that is drenched in lefty politics and approved identity-politics role mandates. What a good thing that people just aren't interested in that stuff. Because it means that the stage is empty. All we need to do is invent a new cultural narrative, one that resonates with peoples' lives and help them make sense of the meaning of life, the universe and everything.

(You may think that I am making a joke with this oft-repeated quote from Douglas Adams' Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, but I assure you that I am not. It is a deadly serious statement that explains why every human society has a religion.)

One email response to my culture post said that the answer was direct spiritual encounter with God

My own experience has been that anyone who tries to use religion as a middleman between themselves and Spirit is going to be deceived.

Agreed, but only a few people have the spiritual chops for a direct encounter with Spirit. That is why most people want gurus and religious leaders to do the heavy lifting.

On Instapundit Sarah Hoyt says not to panic. We'll get indie movies in due course and everything will be all right.

And we will all get to share a new cultural narrative.

To See the Himalayas

Today we drove out from Shimla -- you remember Shimla, the Brit hiill station that served for over a century as the summer capital of British India -- to an overlook where we could see the snowcapped mountains of the Greater Himalayas. So I got to see the Himalayas before I died.

You should too.

Of course we did not see any of the name mountains, your Everests, your Kanchenjungas, and all that rubbish. Just your ordinary working-stiff mountains in the 20,000 ft range. But they were magnificent.

I was also delighted to visit Shimla, with all its British Empire history, and the notorious shenanigans that were alleged to go on there behind the Brit stiff upper lip. But there is not much left of all that.

In fact, it is Shimla all the way from Kalka, last stop on the plains before entering the Himalayan foothills: mountainsides full of houses and condos and hotels, until you finally arrive in Shimla and inch along the crowded streets with the south-facing slopes cram-jammed with houses and condos and hotels.

Yes, India is rich enough now that middle-class Indians want to spend a bit of the summer at their own hill station. You gotta problem with that? Goodness knows what the road to Shimla will be like when India gets from its current $2,200 GDP per capita to China's current $9,900 GDP per capita.

(I know. By that time India will have a ferocious environmental movement and you won't be able to build anything anywhere. And as for the chaps lighting open fires in the street, well, Captain Hastings' comment that hanging is too good for some people will probably apply.)

After viewing the Greater Himalayas we went for a short hike and then went to the highest point in Shimla at 8,000 ft, a Hanuman temple featuring a giant 108 ft statue of the monkey god himself. I experience Hanuman as part warrior and part trickster, but I really need to do more research.

One of the things about Shimla on this New Year's Eve is that the crowds I see on the main shopping street, the Mall, are overwhelmingly Indian and not tourist. Goodness only knows what will happen as we get towards midnight and everyone starts partying.

Unlike Z-man I Don't Think We Are Doomed

The Z-man has an interesting piece comparing the empires of old with today's American empire. He says, rightly, that the old empires collapsed when the cost of maintaining the empire exceeded the loot and tribute. But at least the rulers had the long term interests of the empire at heart. The empire might start out with armed loot and plunder, but it would soften into a more civilized centre surrounded by tributary and vassal states. And the emperor was the "owner;" he had an equity interest in the long-term success of the empire.

Today's ruling class has more of a short-term view. Its members have to pile up the loot while they are in office, and can't take the long view.

"The next election could find them back in the dreaded private sector. In order to hedge against that eventuality, they must convert as much private property into public property, in order to distribute it to friends of government."

That is Z-man's line.

But I am not sure that I see the difference. Rulers of the old empires were as short-sighted as any damn modern politician. For instance the Mughal emperor that built the Taj Mahal here in Agra spent about $2 billion in today's money on a personal his personal grief at the death of his favorites wife. Not good for the long-term health of the Mughal Empire that represented about a quarter of global GDP at the time. His sons thought it was such a dumb idea that they confined him to barracks in a corner of his palace.

Then there was the Roman Empire. In my view, the Roman Empire ran on the loot and plunder from the conquests of the Roman army. But there came a time when the empire stopped expanding, probably because the emperors were too busy playing short-term politics in Rome, or because it was just to hard to direct military operations on the far-away border. That's when the financial problems started. And the Roman emperors were made and unmade by the Praetorian guard: no longue durée for them.

Now I think that the basic difference between yesterday and today is that loot and plunder no longer works. Hello Soviet Union and Venezuela. Take Venezuela. Chávez treated the state oil company as a piggy bank, replacing its managers with his political cronies and using its revenues to buy the support of the poor. Ok, so his daughter is worth billions, but Venezuela is toast because the national oil company does not deliver the goods anymore. The cronies are incompetent, and the petroleum engineers have all moved to Columbia.

The way to be a powerful ruler that struts upon the world stage is to have a strong economy. That is what the Reagan years and supply-side economics taught us. But to make that work you have to lay off the plundering enough to let the private sector flourish: hello the mess of Obamacare. It's a delicate balance and I dare say that many politicians and activists aren't up to the job. (The activists are definitely not up to the job.) In fact if you go read La Wik, they are determined not to learn the lesson of the 1980s.

Now, I am not saying that politicians have given up on loot and plunder; I am just saying that they just have to be more discrete about it. And they have to flat out lie about things, like President Obama lied about Obamacare. Anyway, if you look at total US government spending as a percent of GDP, it has basically been constant at about 35 percent of GDP since 1980.

Then there is President Trump. His schtick is to tell ordinary Americans that he cares about people like them, and will Make America Great Again. Then he cutd taxes, cuts regulations, appoints conservative judges, and brings the troops home. It looks like, for now, he can do this because his supporters trust him.

Another thing. Our politicians don't face ruin if they lose their seats. They just get reborn as lobbyists, and make more money than they did as politicians. And really there is not much power for anyone in our system, except maybe for the president. Our politicians have to be very circumspect about their power projects. So many special interests have to be squared away that glorious new spending give-aways are hardly worth it. Obamacare was supposed to help folks that couldn't afford full health insurance. But by the time the Obama administration had bought off the insurance companies and the healthcare providers and the activist community there was no money left for the uninsured.

So I am not as pessimistic as the Z-man. I think that the modern economy that has grown 3,000 percent per capita in the last two centuries makes up for a lot of political stupidity. In the old days of loot and plunder the plundered starved and died, or were sold into slavery if they were lucky. Today we seem to get a new technological revolution about once per generation that redeems the follies of the ruling class.

Still I grant that there is no accounting for the depth of human folly.

Smoke? What Smoke?

The basic fact about India is the smoke, wood-smoke from people burning wood fires anywhere the mood takes them, such as right on the street. But after three weeks I have been surprised that in the small heritage hotels you don't get to notice the smoke inside the hotel room.

But then we checked into the ITC Mughal, a five-star hotel in Agra, just down the street from the Taj Mahal. The corridor outside our room was noticeably smoky, and the room was detectably smoky.

I was outraged, as you might imagine. Here I was, staying in a fancy-pants five-star hotel and the pollution level in the room was worse than in hotels costing much less. The ITC Mughal is built to western standards with standard room A/C. So how could the hotel design and implement an air-conditioning system without the filtering capacity to filter out the wood-smoke from the outside? This is not rocket science, sports fans. It's an outrage and an insult!

So we complained to the manager on duty in the lobby and guess what? He said he didn't detect any smoke.

Well of course he didn't. He probably lived his entire life in Indian cities, and smoke is a way of life in Indian cities.

I have some Brahmin friends in the US to whom the air quality in the US is a revelation; they feel much healthier in the US.

But have no fear. The hotel was down with the environmental movement. There was a CO2 impact calculator in the room so you could, I suppose, calculate the environmental impact of flying to Agra in your private jet, darling. Because really, First Class these days...

Right now, after a morning tour of the Taj Mahal along with the rest of the world (yes it really is the most beautiful building in the world), I am sitting in a fancy-pants marble inlay store selling marble inlay tschotsckes after the manner of the inlaid marble at the Taj. The store is selling stuff made by the supposed descendants of the craftsmen that made the inlaid marble at the Taj in the 17th century. In here, no problem from the smoke.

How come Mr. ITC Mughal manager? What's yer problem, pal? Where are your engineers, your technicians, your environmental impact teams?👍 Are they all just churning out mindless conventional-wisdom propaganda instead of solving real problems to improve the experience and the quality of your hotel? The world wonders.

My feeling is that when corporate management starts worrying about fashionable ruling-class conceits, then it is no longer seriously in business, but just going through the motions. Sell, sell, sell.