In my last post I criticized Europe’s elites for the arrogant and anti-democratic manner in which they approached what should have been a terrific project: the unification of Europe. The failures of the elites – exposed by the Global Financial Crisis – has stopped unification in its tracks and sent it backsliding, possibly never to recover. Across Europe, anti-unification parties have exploded into prominence. And France is walking away from its partnership with Germany, preferring to ally with Italy and thus calling into question the entire rationale for the unification project. read more »

We’ll start with the Europeans since I’ve written extensively on this topic over the years.(1) read more »

It’s a well-known phenomenon that a society’s elites can sometimes fail badly, running their countries right off into the abyss. We think of the First World War, the Maginot Line, the Great Depression, the Soviet Union, socialism, the War in Vietnam, the recent Global Financial Crisis and so on. The question I’m interested in is whether we are living in one of those times when our elites have failed us so badly – and on a global basis – that the consequences for world order may be dire, indeed. Elites, however dismal their failures, don’t go quietly, and whatever it is that fills the vacuum might not be all that attractive. read more »

I wasted away my college and law school years in New England, and so I have a large store of New England jokes. Here’s one: read more »

In my last post I pointed out that although Americans in general love their foundations, the US Congress seems to hate them. I based this conclusion on the long series of punitive laws passed against foundations, beginning with the Tax Reform Act of 1969 and extending up to the present day. read more »