"None of us are greedy. It’s only the other fellow who’s greedy."

"Q: When you see the bad distribution of wealth, so few who have so much and so many who have nothing… did you ever have a moment of doubt about capitalism and whether Greed's a good idea to run on? 

"A: Well, first of all tell me: do you know of any society that does NOT run on greed? Do you think Russia doesn't run on greed? You think China doesn't run on greed? 

"And what is greed? None of us is greedy, of course. It's only the other fellow who's greedy.

"The world runs on individuals pursuing their separate interests. The great achievements of civilization did not come out of government offices. Einstein didn't build his theory on the order of a bureaucrat. Ford didn't revolutionise the automobile industry that way. The only cases in which the masses have escaped the kind of grinding poverty you're talking about -- the only cases in recorded history -- are those where they had capitalism and largely free trade. 

"If you want to know where the masses are worse off it's exactly in the kinds of societies that depart from that. So that the record of history is absolutely crystal clear that there is no alternative way so far discovered of improving the lot of the ordinary people that can hold a candle to the productive activities that are unleashed by free enterprise system.

"Q: But it seems to reward the ability to manipulate the system, not virtue. 

"A: And what does reward virtue? Do you think a communist commissar rewards virtue? You think a Hitler? Do you think American presidents reward virtue -- do they choose their appointees on the basis of the virtue of the people appointed, or on the basis of their political clout?

"Is it really true that political self-interest is nobler somehow than economic self-interest? 

"You know I think you're taking a lot of things for granted. And just tell me: where in the world are you going to find these angels who are going to organise society for us? I don't even trust you to do that, let alone myself."

~ Milton Friedman, in conversation with Phil Donahue

"A subsidy arrives as mercy. It stays as an expectation. Then it becomes the thing men vote for instead of working for."

"Rome fed 200,000 families free grain by 46 BC, and it called this generosity. Julius Caesar inherited a dole of 320,000 recipients and trimmed it, not out of principle but because the treasury was bleeding. This was the annona, the grain distribution that started as emergency relief under the Gracchi in 123 BC and hardened into a permanent entitlement. Once free grain became a right, no politician could touch it and keep his head. 

"You already know how this works, because you watch the same play run today. A subsidy arrives as mercy. It stays as an expectation. Then it becomes the thing men vote for instead of working for. 

"The Roman citizen once farmed his own land, served in his own legion, and expected nothing from the state but courts and roads. By the time Trajan was staging 123 days of games in AD 107, slaughtering 11,000 animals and pairing 10,000 gladiators for the crowd, that citizen had become a spectator. He no longer fought Rome's wars: hired auxiliaries and Germanic mercenaries did. He no longer fed himself: Egypt and North Africa did, shipped in on the public account. He no longer chose his rulers in any meaningful sense: he cheered them in the Colosseum and collected his ration. 

"The free grain and the free games purchased compliance, not compassion. A man dependent on the state for his dinner and his entertainment does not organize resistance to that state, and every emperor from Augustus onward understood the arithmetic. Panem et circenses [bread and circuses] was a bribe paid in exchange for civic surrender, and the mob accepted the terms gladly. 

"Here is the mechanism the welfare enthusiast never grasps. Virtue is not a feeling. It is a practice, and practices atrophy when the incentive to perform them disappears. Take away a man's need to provide, defend, and decide, and you domesticate him rather than liberate him. Rome spent four centuries proving it, then handed the ruins to Odoacer in AD 476 without much of a fight, because the men who might have fought had long since learned to wait for the grain ship instead."

~ Handre

"Freedom is not empowerment. Empowerment is what the Serbs [had back in the Yugoslav civil war]. Anybody can grab a gun and be empowered. It’s not entitlement. An entitlement is what people on welfare get, and how free are they? It’s not an endlessly expanding list of rights — the “right” to education, the “right” to health care, the “right” to food and housing. That’s not freedom, that’s dependency. Those aren’t rights, those are the rations of slavery — hay and a barn for human cattle.

"There is only one basic human right, the right to do as you damn well please. And with it comes the only basic human duty, the duty to take the consequences."

~ PJ O'Rourke from his 1993 'Liberty Manifesto'

The natural condition of humanity before capitalism expanded globally: Poverty

 

"In 1820, 94 out of every 100 people lived in extreme poverty. Forty-three children out of every 100 died before the age of five. Eighty-eight adults could not read. Not a single person was vaccinated against diphtheria, whooping cough, or tetanus.

"That was the natural condition of humanity before capitalism expanded globally.

"Two centuries later, those numbers are 10 people in extreme poverty, 4 child deaths per 100, 85 who can read, and 86 vaccinated. The world's population grew nearly eightfold during that period, and the number of people living in misery fell in absolute terms.

"The explanation lies in the mechanisms capitalism introduced at global scale. The price system began allocating resources to where they were most valued. Property rights gave people a reason to innovate, invest, and save. Free trade connected regions that had been isolated from one another, generating mutual gains where precarious self-sufficiency had existed before. Together, these mechanisms made wealth creation a continuous process.

"No other economic system in human history has produced this result. Socialism promised equality and delivered scarcity. Feudalism kept the majority trapped in subsistence for centuries. Capitalism was the only one that raised the floor for everyone."

~ Students for Liberty [Data: OurWorldInData]

"'Real Socialism' has never been tried in the same way that 'Real Capitalism' has never been tried. 

"The difference is 'Almost Socialism' resulted in the impoverishment & death of hundreds of millions of people. 

"While 'Almost Capitalism' has lifted billions from absolute poverty."

~ Mark Antro

#250 YEARS: "Like modern historians, British imperial officials never understood the principles, temperament, and character of the American revolutionaries"

 

"[A] phrase the Americans of the 1760s and 1770s invoked repeatedly [was] the “spirit of liberty.” The phrase “spirit of liberty” united theory and practice for America revolutionaries; it implied an action in defence of a principle; it was characterised by certain virtues in defence of liberty. ...

"No theme ran as broadly or deeply through American culture in the 1760s and 1770s. The colonists’ spirit of liberty served as a kind of moral and psychological tripwire that was first triggered by the passage of the Stamp Act and kept active with the passage of every piece of British legislation aimed at the Americans in the decade leading up to 1776. ...

"In 1767, John Dickinson penned his 'Letters from a Farmer in Pennsylvania,' which many historians regard as one of the most influential pamphlets of the Revolutionary period. Dickinson’s 'Letters' present a powerful analysis of the ways in which unchecked power asphyxiates liberty. The letters also provide the best analysis of the American spirit of liberty written during the Revolutionary period.

"Dickinson’s primary concern in the 'Letters' was to sound the alarm against the Townshend Acts ... a tax. [however small], and “Those who are taxed without their own consent, expressed by themselves or their representatives, are slaves. ,,,

"Dickinson attacked the Townshend duties precisely because they were so comparatively small. It would be a “fatal error,” he warned, to disregard and therefore to acquiesce in these new duties because of their trifling amount. In fact, the “smallness” of the duties is a trap. No matter how inconsequential the tax, no matter how reasonably and equitably applied, the colonists should regard the act with “abhorrence.” He suggested that the Townshend duties were intentionally designed to be small so that the Americans would not notice or object and a noose-tightening precedent could therefore be established. ...

"Americans, he warned, must be vigilant and exert 'the most watchful attention' against Parliament’s subtle designs; they must prevent a creeping form of slavery under the guise of legalities, otherwise 'a new servitude may be slipped upon us, under the sanction of usual and respectable terms.' He goes on to warn against those 'artful rulers' who attempt to 'extend their power beyond its just limits' by subtly manipulating language and legal technicalities. ... Thus, it was necessary, Dickinson argued, that the people should always be on guard to protect their liberty as they protect their property. He encouraged them to “watch,” “observe facts,” “search into causes,” and “investigate designs,” and of course he insisted that they assert their “right of judging from the evidence before them, on no slighter points than their liberty and happiness.” He implored his fellow Americans to be ever vigilant. Quoting from Montesquieu’s 'Spirit of the Laws,' Dickinson reminded his readers that “slavery is ever preceded by sleep.”

"Dickinson equated the American spirit of liberty with jealousy, watchfulness, and vigilance. “A perpetual jealousy, respecting liberty is,” he told the American people, “absolutely, requisite in all free states.” ... This idea of preserving natural liberty in its pristine form and so resisting even one small precedent against it had come close to the centre of the American consciousness. This idea is precisely why the colonists viewed the rather trifling stamp tax and Townshend duties so ominously: they viewed each as the entering wedge of a broader campaign to deprive them of rights and liberties.

"Like modern historians, British imperial officials never understood the principles, temperament, and character of the American revolutionaries, which meant they never understood their deepest motives. They had no way to know that the revolution’s trigger was embedded in the spirit of American liberty. British officials therefore could never understand why it was necessary for the Americans to dissolve the political bands that had connected them to Britain for over 150 years.

"Likewise, twenty-first century Americans who still revere the revolutionaries’ spirit of liberty are beckoned to recover the moral impulse and moral logic that drove their ideological ancestors to independence and freedom.

"Happy Independence Day!!! Long live the United State of America!"

~ C. Bradley Thompson from his post 'Independence--Forever! On Rekindling the Spirit of American Liberty'

Lies, Damn Lies, and the History of Capitalism

Modern historians have rarely told the truth about the history of capitalism, especially about the early days of the Industrial Revolution. In this Guest Post, Wanjiru Njoya reckons it's time to set the record straight...

Lies, Damn Lies, and the History of Capitalism
by Wanjiru Njoya

Mark Twain popularised the phrase, “There are three kinds of lies: lies, damn lies, and statistics.” It could equally well be adapted to depict the role of socialist narratives taught as “history”—narratives that wreak even more economic havoc than outright lies. Lies can be debunked with facts, but socialist narratives appeal to political and moral ideologies that are less easily dislodged once they take root.

The socialist view of economic history teaches that capitalism is based on exploiting the poor. It alleges that Western nations are rich due to colonising the Third World. As the economist Peter Bauer observed:

The principal assumption behind the idea of Western responsibility for Third World poverty is that the prosperity of individuals and societies generally reflects the exploitation of others.

The industrial revolution is said to have been powered by theft from poor countries, with white nations acquiring wealth by subjugating other races. Bauer details the essential facts proving these beliefs to be false. He also identifies some of the reasons why these types of anti-capitalist narratives are so influential, arguing that “acceptance of emphatic routine allegations that the West is responsible for Third World poverty reflects and reinforces Western feelings of guilt.”

These guilt narratives, which masquerade as “historical facts,” are more pernicious and more difficult to defeat than blatant lies because, much like statistics, they are assumed to be objective and factual—even when they bear no relationship to the truth. Bauer describes them as “not only untrue, but more nearly the opposite of the truth.”

These myths have fed the prevailing tendency to view “capitalism” as a catch-all phrase denoting cruelty to the less fortunate. In his book Capitalism and the Historians, Hayek explains that this hostile view of capitalism is based on false history:

Who has not heard of the “horrors of early capitalism” and gained the impression that the advent of this system brought untold new suffering to large classes who before were tolerably content and comfortable? We might justly hold in disrepute a system to which the blame attached that even for a time it worsened the position of the poorest and most numerous class of the population. The widespread emotional aversion to “capitalism” is closely connected with this belief that the undeniable growth of wealth which the competitive order has produced was purchased at the price of depressing the standard of life of the weakest elements of society.

That this was the case was at one time indeed widely taught by economic historians.

Hayek argued that despite the “thorough refutation of this belief,” it has not lost its influence—“Yet, a generation after the controversy has been decided, popular opinion still continues as though the older belief had been true.” He warned that this “socialist interpretation of history,” and in particular economic history, had “governed political thinking for the last two or three generations.” Like Bauer, he emphasised that it has no basis in truth:

Most people would be greatly surprised to learn that most of what they believe about these subjects are not safely established facts but myths, launched from political motifs and then spread by people of good will into whose general beliefs they fitted. . . most of what is commonly believed on these questions, not merely by radicals but also by many conservatives, is not history but political legend.

These political legends are depicted as merely descriptive of historical reality. Hayek attributed this in part to the claim of some historians to be objective:

One reason for this probably is the pretension of many modern historians to be purely scientific and completely free from all political prejudice. . . . There is indeed no legitimate reason why, in answering questions of fact, historians of different political opinions should not be able to agree. But at the very beginning, in deciding which questions are worth asking, individual value judgments are bound to come in.

Lacking a huge amount of time for independent study, many people rely on historians for factual analysis. When professional historians push their ideology over as “history” their readers are often none the wiser. Hayek saw this as a major reason why socialist ideology had become entrenched:

The remarkable thing about this [socialist] view is that most of the assertions to which it has given the status of “facts which everybody knows” have long been proved not to have been facts at all; yet they still continue, outside the circle of professional economic historians, to be almost universally accepted as the basis for the estimate of the existing economic order.

Why are false claims that have “long been proved not to have been facts at all” still taught as historical reality? It is not necessarily because socialist historians deliberately try to promote their own ideology—although that is sometimes the case. The more serious issue is failure to appreciate that interpretation of history requires selection and interpretation. As Hayek put it, value judgments necessarily influence historical interpretation:

And it is more than doubtful whether a connected history of a period or a set of events could be written without interpreting these in the light, not only of theories about the interconnection of social processes, but also of definite values—or at least whether such a history would be worth reading.

Further, the dissemination of historical narratives is not confined to formal study. When a historical narrative is dominant, in the manner described by Hayek, it is embedded as part of the general culture and generally accepted as being “obviously true.”

. . . it is via the novel and the newspaper, the cinema and political speeches, and ultimately the school and common talk that the ordinary person acquires his conceptions of history. But in the end even those who never read a book and probably have never heard of the names of the historians whose views have influenced them come to see the past through their spectacles.

Hayek emphasised the importance of getting the facts right, as “we can hardly hope to profit from past experience unless the facts from which we draw our conclusions are correct.” And one could certainly provide the detractors of capitalism with the facts about productivity and economic progress. Bauer’s work on economic development is a great resource for that purpose.

But it is not a simple matter of presenting the facts. Given people’s prior understanding of what they assume to be meant by “capitalism,” which reflects the commonly accepted narratives, any defense of capitalism merely reinforces their moral and ideological objection. Such defenses seem to be saying “yes, the rich brutally exploit the poor, but it’s worth it.”

To illustrate this point, take the example of Bauer’s observation that colonialism in fact introduced economic progress. He explained:

In the early 1890s there were in the Gold Coast no railways or roads, but only a few jungle paths. Transport of goods was by human porterage or canoe. By the 1930s there were railways and good roads; journeys by road required fewer hours than they had required days in 1890. In British West Africa public security and health improved out of all recognition over the period. Peaceful travel became possible; slavery, slave trading and famine were practically eliminated, and the incidence of the worst diseases greatly reduced.

You would expect that to settle the matter for anyone who is genuinely concerned with the facts. But, on the contrary, socialists respond with yet more mockery —“just because you built railroads does not mean colonial brutality was acceptable.” They miss the point entirely, because they cling to their erroneous view of what capitalism is in the first place. Propaganda is based on false ideology and cannot be displaced by highlighting the facts. The underlying ideology itself must be countered: pointing out that capitalism itself is the only system allowing wealth and riches to be attained without exploitation, that the trader principle of capitalism allows each party a win-win, and that it is the only political system protecting an individual's rights.

Nor is it enough to inform people of the correct definition of capitalism, because socialist ideology cannot be displaced by semantic debates. Rather than merely informing socialists that they do not understand what “real” capitalism is, it is necessary also to defeat the underlying ideology, by defending the foundational principles of civilisation—private property, individual liberty, voluntary exchange, and limited government.

* * * * 

Dr. Wanjiru Njoya is the Walter E. Williams Research Fellow for the Mises Institute, and the author of Economic Freedom and Social Justice (2021), Redressing Historical Injustice (2023), “You Stole Our Land: Common Law, Private Property, and Rothbardian Principles of Justice” (2024) and “Individual Liberty, Formal Equality, and the Rule of Law.”
    Dr. Njoya earned her Ph.D. in Law from the University of Cambridge (UK) and taught law for over 20 years at a number of UK universities, including the University of Oxford and the London School of Economics.

    Her article previously appeared at the Mises blog.

"Artificial intelligence may be the most transformative technology of our lifetimes — and a graveyard for the companies built to own it."

"Artificial intelligence may be the most transformative technology of our lifetimes — and a graveyard for the companies built to own it. 

"That isn't a contradiction. It's economics. The railways remade the world and ruined the people who financed them. Aviation shrank the planet and destroyed investor capital for a century. The pattern is old and the reasons are precise: when a productivity gain becomes available to everyone, it stops being worth anything to anyone who sells it. It becomes a gift to consumers. ...

"AI could deliver staggering welfare gains and barely register in GDP — [because] 'transformative' and 'profitable' are two very different words."

~ Pedro Santa Clara from his article 'The Vanishing Value '

#250YEARS: "A country of money..."

"To the glory of mankind, there was, for the first and only time in history, a country of money — and I have no higher, more reverent tribute to pay to America, for this means: a country of reason, justice, freedom, production, achievement. For the first time, man’s mind and money were set free, and there were no fortunes-by-conquest, but only fortunes-by-work, and instead of swordsmen and slaves, there appeared the real maker of wealth, the greatest worker, the highest type of human being — the self-made man — the American industrialist.

If you ask me to name the proudest distinction of Americans, I would choose — because it contains all the others — the fact that they were the people who created the phrase 'to make money.' No other language or nation had ever used these words before; men had always thought of wealth as a static quantity — to be seized, begged, inherited, shared, looted or obtained as a favour. Americans were the first to understand that wealth has to be created."

~ Ayn Rand from her 1953 essay '“The Meaning of Money” collected in her book For the New Intellectual

RELATED: 

"The truth is that across all the pages of history there have been two fundamental antagonists who have been variously venerated and eviscerated: the trader, and the warrior -- the former the bringer of peace, the latter the bringer of violence. The man of peace, and the man of war. The man who relies on voluntary exchange to mutual advantage, and the man who loots and plunders. The man who produces value, and the man who destroys it. The bringer of peace and prosperity, and all the benighted horsemen of the apocalypse."

=> The three horsemen of non-apocalypse - NOT PC, 2010

"The principal view of human laws is, or ought always to be, to explain, protect, and enforce such rights as are absolute, which in themselves are few and simple."

"[T]he principal aim of society is to protect individuals in the enjoyment of those absolute rights, which were vested in them by the immutable laws of nature ...[namely] ... the right of personal security, the right of personal liberty, and the right of private property ...

“[T]he principal view of human laws is, or ought always to be, to explain, protect, and enforce such rights as are absolute, which in themselves are few and simple. ...

“The absolute rights of man, considered as a free agent, endowed with discernment to know good from evil, and with power of choosing those measures which appear to him to be most desirable, are usually summed up in one general appellation, and denominated the natural liberty of mankind. This natural liberty consists properly in a power of acting as one thinks fit, without any restraint or control, unless by the law of nature: being a right inherent in us by birth.”

~ William Blackstone (1723–1780) from his landmark Commentaries on the Laws of England (Book 1, 1765), discussed here

Freedom is a nation's greatest resource

 "Countries are well cultivated, not as they are fertile, but as they are free."

~ Montesquieu from his 1748 book The Spirit of Law [hat tip FEE]

Thank you Adam Smith

It's a busy week. This week also marks the 250th anniversary of Adam Smith's Wealth of Nations, the first in-depth exploration and explanation of (in PJ O'Rourke's words) why some nations are prosperous and wealthy and other places just suck.In honour of the anniversary, here are several of Adam Smith’s most insightful observations:

It is not from the benevolence of the butcher, the brewer, or the baker, that we expect our dinner, but from their regard to their own interest. We address ourselves, not to their humanity but to their self-love, and never talk to them of our necessities but of their advantages. [The Wealth Of Nations, Book I, Chapter II]

It is the great multiplication of the productions of all the different arts, in consequence of the division of labour, which occasions, in a well-governed society, that universal opulence which extends itself to the lowest ranks of the people. [The Wealth Of Nations, Book I, Chapter I]

Little else is requisite to carry a state to the highest degree of opulence from the lowest barbarism, but peace, easy taxes, and a tolerable administration of justice: all the rest being brought about by the natural course of things. [Lecture in 1755, quoted in Dugald Stewart, Account Of The Life And Writings Of Adam Smith LLD, Section IV, 25]

It is the maxim of every prudent master of a family, never to attempt to make at home what it will cost him more to make than to buy. [The Wealth Of Nations, Book IV Chapter I]

By means of glasses, hotbeds, and hotwalls, very good grapes can be raised in Scotland, and very good wine too can be made of them at about thirty times the expense for which at least equally good can be brought from foreign countries. Would it be a reasonable law to prohibit the importation of all foreign wines, merely to encourage the making of claret and burgundy in Scotland? [The Wealth Of Nations, Book IV, Chapter II]

Consumption is the sole end and purpose of all production; and the interest of the producer ought to be attended to, only so far as it may be necessary for promoting that of the consumer. [The Wealth Of Nations, Book IV Chapter VIII]

People of the same trade seldom meet together, even for merriment and diversion, but the conversation ends in a conspiracy against the public, or in some contrivance to raise prices…. But though the law cannot hinder people of the same trade from sometimes assembling together, it ought to do nothing to facilitate such assemblies, much less to render them necessary. [The Wealth Of Nations, Book IV Chapter VIII]

To widen the market and to narrow the competition, is always the interest of the dealers…The proposal of any new law or regulation of commerce which comes from this order, ought always to be listened to with great precaution... It comes from an order of men, whose interest is never exactly the same with that of the public, who have generally an interest to deceive and even oppress the public, and who accordingly have, upon many occasions, both deceived and oppressed it. [The Wealth Of Nations, Book I, Chapter XI]

It is the highest impertinence and presumption… in kings and ministers, to pretend to watch over the economy of private people, and to restrain their expense... They are themselves always, and without any exception, the greatest spendthrifts in the society. [The Wealth Of Nations, Book II, Chapter III]

There is no art which one government sooner learns of another than that of draining money from the pockets of the people. [The Wealth Of Nations, Book V Chapter II Part II] 

Every individual... neither intends to promote the public interest, nor knows how much he is promoting it... he intends only his own security; and by directing that industry in such a manner as its produce may be of the greatest value, he intends only his own gain, and he is in this, as in many other cases, led by an invisible hand to promote an end which was no part of his intention.
    Nor is it always the worse for the society that it was no part of it. By pursuing his own interest he frequently promotes that of the society more effectually than when he really intends to promote it. I have never known much good done by those who affected to trade for the public good. [The Wealth Of Nations, Book IV, Chapter II]

What improves the circumstances of the greater part can never be regarded as an inconveniency to the whole. No society can surely be flourishing and happy, of which the far greater part of the members are poor and miserable. [The Wealth Of Nations, Book I Chapter VIII]

Mercy to the guilty is cruelty to the innocent. [From his 1759 work, The Theory of Moral Sentiments]

The man of system…is apt to be very wise in his own conceit; and is often so enamoured with the supposed beauty of his own ideal plan of government, that he cannot suffer the smallest deviation from any part of it… He seems to imagine that he can arrange the different members of a great society with as much ease as the hand arranges the different pieces upon a chess-board. He does not consider that in the great chess-board of human society, every single piece has a principle of motion of its own, altogether different from that which the legislature might choose to impress upon it. [The Theory Of Moral Sentiments, Part VI, Section II, Chapter II]

"The time will therefore come when the sun will shine only on free men who know no other master but their reason"

"The time will therefore come when the sun will shine only on free men who know no other master but their reason; when tyrants and slaves, priests and their stupid or hypocritical instruments will exist only in works of history and on the stage; and when we shall think of them only to pity their victims and their dupes; to maintain ourselves in a state of vigilance by thinking of their excesses; and to learn how to recognise and so to destroy, by force of reason, the first seeds of tyranny and superstition, should they ever dare to reappear amongst us."

~ French philosopher & mathematician Marquis de Condorcet, from his 1794 book Sketch for a Historical Picture of the Progress of the Human Mind [hat tip Matthew H]

BOOK REVIEW: 'Who Was Behind the Bolshevik Revolution?' by Ron Asher [updated with reply by publisher]

I have in front of me a new book by Tross Publishing, which I have been invited to review. Having written a chapter or two for the publisher, it is my unpleasant job not just to recommend you not buy it, but that the publisher withdraw it. (Recommending withdrawal is not a matter of "free speech" -- the right to speak includes the right to take the consequences, including criticism -- simply a recommendation for good editorial hygiene.) Withdraw, because it sits poorly with his other titles, because it sits badly with genuine scholarship on any subject. ...

... and because it's not even a good read.

In 1917 in the midst of a war for survival on the First World War's eastern front, Bolshevists seized power from a provisional Russian government fighting the war, and proceeded to enact terror on the population and thereafter on the world. Far from a revolution, it was a squalid little coup, and what came of it was disaster, starvation, death, and mass-murder. 

There had been a revolution that swept away the Tsar -- swept away him and his autocratic regime -- what Ayn Rand was to call "the good revolution." But it wasn't the Bolsheviks who revolted against the Tsar's regime; they came to power instead in a squalid little backdoor coup eight months later -- orchestrated in part by the Imperial German High Command, who had sent Lenin into Russia to kill the war on their terms -- a backroom revolt that stabbed in the back the Provisional Government and squashed like a bug Russia's first stumbling chance at real freedom. 

The Bolsheviks didn't sweep away oppression; they brought it back.

And our friend Mr Asher has now written 93 pages (and 5 pages of notes) to tell us who really did it. And oddly, the important wartime context is never mentioned ...

The wartime context of the coup. (From Louis Fischer's

 The Life of Lenin (NY: Harper & Row, 1964), p. 109

ELEANOR ROOSEVELT WAS SUPPOSED TO have said that "Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss people."

This short book claims to reveal who was really behind the Bolshevik Revolution. Really and truly. And it will do so, we are promised, "with meticulous care and references" [p. 5; all uncredited page notes will refer to Mr Asher (2026)]. Take careful note: This is not a book about the ideas that caused the event in question. It is about the people. And, spoiler alert, our author says it was the Jews wot dunnit. They were driven to it, says the author, because they were Jews. 

That's it. That really is it.

And note the argument: it wasn't that those who driven to it because they happened to be Jews. They were driven to it because they were Jews. It was "vengeance," says our author, for earlier Russian pogroms against Jews. Or just because their religion was weird. Or ... something.

A remarkable claim, not least because head Bolshevik and the revolution's driving force was one Vladimir Ilyich Lenin, who was not at all Jewish. (He was raised in a Russian Orthodox Christian family, baptised as an infant, and identified culturally and ethnically as Russian; historians who have examined distant links, such as the author of Lenin's Jewish Question, emphasise any link was irrelevant to his identity, ideology, or actions: he critiqued all religion, including Judaism, and saw ethnicity as secondary to class struggle). Nor was Lenin's successor known as Stalin any more Jewish (he was, famously, an ethnic Georgian christened as Joseph Vissarionovich Dzhugashvili), and nor was the head of Lenin's feared secret police, the Cheka (the brutal Feliz Dzerzhinsky, who was a Pole). 

None of the heads of the snake were Jewish.

Indeed, of the 21 members of the Central Committee of the Bolshevik Party in August 1917, there were at most just six who could be categorised that way. Such niceties however do not disturb our author. (Indeed, he adds three more, without any reference for doing so.) 

And in any case.a similar ethnic make-up can be found for many other Russian movements of the time, including the Russian Orthodox priesthood, the rival Menshevik party (whose founders were both Jewish, and which actually had double the proportion of ethnic Jews to the Bolshies), and of course the Jewish Bund (a secular Jewish socialist party active between 1897 and 1920). A similar make-up can be found because any intellectual movement attracts intellectuals -- and Jewish Russians were among the most educated of the time, and were barred by the Tsar's regime from other political involvement.

So the claim is not just remarkable for being bold, but also (as we will see) for lacking the kind of "meticulous care and references" the boldness demands. It's true that historians of the various Russian revolutions and coups d'etat have generally recognised that Jews were represented in early Bolshevik leadership, but so were many other educated ethnic minorities who all faced persecution under the Tsar. (Most of whom were excluded by being non-Russian from advancement in Russian culture or in the vast Russian bureaucracy.) And of course the vast majority of Jews were not Bolsheviks, and Jews as a community suffered enormously under Soviet rule.

This is especially important today to understand. The book comes at a time when ethnic Russian fascism and anti-Semitism has escalated dramatically following Putin's insane aspirations for empire, and Hamas's murderous October 7 attack followed by Israel's bloody response. It's said that Hamas's “Sinwar placed his money on the 2,000-year belief that Jews were inherently vengeful, greedy, and lustful for the blood of innocents and children [and] in betting on Jew-hatred, Sinwar hit the jackpot."  

The irrational hatred continues even here in New Zealand, once considered a relatively safe environment for Jewish folk, and yet the NZ Jewish Council recorded 227 antisemitic incidents in the 12 months following October 7 -- more than the 166 recorded across the entire eight-and-a-half years prior.

So things are ramping up, and you might well ask yourself about such a book's publication: "Why now?" 

And about the thesis, even if proven: "So what?"

WHILE YOU PONDER THOSE QUESTIONS, consider again what such a proof might look like -- proof that it was the Jews wot dunnit -- and about that promise of "meticulous care and references." 

Let's begin by looking at some contemporary (or near-contemporary) quotes adduced by Mr Asher to describe the Bolshevik coup and the Jews' alleged responsibility for it: some examples drawn from a diplomat's alarmed despatch, a gossip columnist's interview, a White Russian general's memoir, and a State Department intelligence file drawing on a known forgery -- all of which are treated as equivalent historical evidence ...

"It’s NZ’s own Emancipation Proclamation!"

Good to see more folk acknowledging that Waitangi Day should also be recognised as NZ's Emancipation Day. 

Posted on the 6th, by David Farrar, was this:

Today we celebrate the signing of the Treaty of Waitangi – a day which should be called Emancipation Day. ....

We should celebrate 6 February 1840 as the day slavery was made illegal in New Zealand and tens of thousands of Maori slaves gained the rights of British citizens.

Yes, we should. After all, as someone has been saying for a while now:

It’s NZ’s own Emancipation Proclamation! 

Just how reliable are AIs? A historian's examination.

A historian and cultural commentator has been examining the reliability of AIs for historical research, with thoughts on the future of AI & us. She summarises what she's discovered below, including answers to such questions as:

• Which AIs got the highest scores overall?
• Which AIs got the highest scores by topic: scientific/technical, historical context, creativity, historical and legal?
• Unavoidable methodological issues with As
• Lessons on use of AIs for historical research
• Will AIs surpass and replace humans?

Dianne Durante has written several books, and maintains a historical blog. What she has used AIs for in the past, "and will still use," are for very specific questions:

how to trouble-shoot the document feeder on an HP 8000-series printer/scanner, where to find Gaussian blur on the Adobe InDesign menu, what stretches to use for a tight IT band, how much time to allow for a visit to the Kingsley Plantation, or what the Leopards Eating People’s Faces Party is. An AI [she says] gives me answers much, much faster than I could get them by wading through Google search results. ... 

As a historian [however], I tend to need answers to much more obscure and complex questions. When I started using Grok for such questions last summer, it gave me egregiously incorrect answers. (See Part 1 of this series.)

So I set out to discover:

Are AIs reliable for providing historical facts? Can I trust them to accurately deliver all the relevant details on matters such as Chladni figures and the Proclamation of 1763? Should I assume I always need to do further research? Should I avoid AIs altogether, and spend my research time looking for other sources?

Are AIs useful for going beyond facts to analysis? For example, are they good at providing interpretation, overviews, and/or inductive conclusions, such as a list of the most significant artworks of the 18th century, or of the major events of the 1790s?

Are some AIs better than others, in general or on specific topics?

Head to her many earlier posts (starting back in xxx 2025) to see her detailed methodology and results.

So, how did they all do?  In summary, based on the average of the scores from all 7 of her questions:

Winner: Grok, with 70%. That’s better than the others, but if you were using Grok to write your answers on an exam consisting of my 7 questions, you’d barely scrape through with a C. [That caveat is important.]

Loser: Perplexity, with 38%.

Mid-range: ChatGPT (50%), Claude (48%), and Deepseek (56%).

There was no way to ask Britannica or Wikipedia several of the questions, so I didn’t give them an overall score.

For results by category, best for Scientific and Technical: Grok and Deepseek (100% and 95% respectively; average = 81%).

                                    ... best for Historical Context: Claude and Deepseek (60%, 58%; average 51%)

                                    ... best for Creativity: Perplexity (85%; average 76%)

                                    ... best for Historical and Legal: Grok (70%; average 52%)

Head to her post to see what specific questions she asked, and why. She has a few thoughts ("If you have limited time for research, don’t spend every minute of it with AIs"), and a reminder:

LLMs don’t think. All the AIs I looked at except Britannica’s Chatbot are large-language models, a.k.a. LLMs (see Part 3). An LLM is fed an enormous amount of data so it can generate human-like language by predicting what words will follow a particular word or phrase. An AI doesn’t receive your question, gather data, observe how it relates what it already knows, analyze it according to scientific or philosophical principles, and then consider the most effective way to present the information to you. The AI just predicts what might come next. That’s why it can slide seamlessly from truth to hallucination. An AI will repeat any errors in the data fed into it, be it from major media, random posts on the internet, or Wikipedia. An AI is the ultimate in second-handedness.

So do not assume accuracy in your answers, especially if it's a topic you don't know much about.

I like her conclusion:

Re AIs becoming indistinguishable from humans, and then making humans obsolete: if philosophers, biologists, psychologists, et al., can’t explain the mechanisms of free will, the procedure for induction, etc., then we cannot program a computer to do those things. Until and unless we can, AIs are not human-like in the ways that matter most, and cannot replace humans.

 Head to her post to read it all.

Power politics from ancient Greece

"So many people quote the famous line from Thucydides—'The strong can do what they can, and the weak must suffer what they must'—and forget that the amoral imperialists who used that line in the end lost their war and their empire. 

    "Thucydides does not offer the line, 'The strong do what they can,' as a neutral analysis of how international affairs operate. He offers it as an expression of the reckless arrogance that brought about the destruction of the Athenian Empire."

~ David Frum

"Thucydides is often interpreted as the proponent of power politics .... However, again, a careful reading of the text reveals a deeper ambiguity. Is Thucydides genuinely teaching that might makes right or is he more interested in illustrating Athenian hubris or both?”

~ Franz-Stefan Gady from his article 'Hey Policy Wonks, This Is How You Should Read Thucydides'

Checking in on human progress

 The start of a year is a good time to do a stocktake. An update. A check-in on how well we're all getting on. Energy maven Alex Epstein offers an important data point...

Anti-growth (and anti-energy) catastrophists like Paul Ehrlich and the Club of Rome were wrong. Today's humans are the best-fed humans in history.

And things will keep improving—unless we fall for new catastrophist propaganda like civilisation-crippling “net zero” plans.

 

"The New Zealander prides himself on his common sense"

"The New Zealander prides himself on his common sense—that 'settled truth can be attained by observation'[10] and is 'knowable and graspable by our own experience.'[11]

"For the most part this is held so assuredly that 'to reason against the [evidence of sense and memory] is absurd'; these are held as 'first principles, and as such fall not within the province of reason, but of common sense.' [12]

"This was the argument of the enlightened Scotsman Thomas Reid, whose 'last phrase stuck' and came to New Zealand with Scottish settlers. 'It helped to produce a cultural type that some consider typically American, but which is just as much Scottish' and equally applies here: 'an independent intellect combined with an assertive self-respect, and grounded by a strong sense of moral purpose.'[13]

“'The teachings of these Scots became known as the philosophy of Common Sense: it was the real basis of the Scottish Enlightenment,'[14] and probably our own."

~ yours truly from my post on that other blog 'New Zealand: A Nation of the Enlightenment'

[10] McCosh, J. (1875). The Scottish Philosophy, Biographical, Expository, Critical, from Hutchinson to Hamilton. London: MacMillan & Co, 194

[11] Herman, A. (2001). How the Scots Invented the Modern World. New York: Three Rivers Press, 262

[12] Reid, T. (1823). An Inquiry into the Human Mind: On the Principles of Common Sense. London: Thomas Tegg, Cheapside, 28; Herman, 2001, ibid, 262

[13] Herman, 2001, ibid, 263-4
[14] Fry, M. (2025). How the Scots Made America. New York: Macmillan

Yes, let's keep piling on Anne Salmond.

"Salmond claims to have been guided by a list that reads like a Who's Who in 

Postmodernity... What she does not discuss is whether these thinkers are sound guides."

Anne Salmond, who recently called for thinkers to engage with open rather than closed minds—arguing that "other cultures may have insights that elude us" —was recently called out by Dane Giraud for the very same reason: specifically, for ignoring the insights of Enlightenment culture. The only position that actively suppresses inquiry, pointed out Giraud, is her own. "What is more antithetical to free thought'" he asked rhetorically, "than declaring whole categories of knowledge off-limits to criticism because they belong to the wrong culture."

Salmond, of course, has form. Her own favourite cultural whipping person is Western. Her writing, said Michael King of her 2003 book Two Worlds, gives "a strong impression that, rather than attempting to represent both cultures dispassionately, Salmond [is] straining to case every feature of Māori behaviour in a favourable light and many features of European in an unfavourable one.” 

But in doing so, she fails to learn there either. Reviewing Salmond's work, historian and former Waitangi Tribunal director Buddy Mikaere reckons Salmond's work "turns  our tipuna into cardboard caricatures." Rather than learning deeply from other cultures, he says, she offers only a "one-dimensional characterisation." For her and several other Pākeha historians, he says, "Māori [are] invariably depicted as deeply spiritual beings who only ever acted on the basis of high-minded principles. Pākehā, on the other hand, [are] mostly unprincipled rogues or fools whose behaviour was always motivated by racial arrogance, greed and self-interest."

Such is the accusation, it will be remembered, Salmond throws at the Pākehas of the Free Speech Union. It apparently never gets old.

It begins to look as if Salmond is unable to learn much from either of the Two Worlds of which she writes.

What also never gets old is re-reading the demolition of Salmond's work by the grand old man of New Zealand history Peter Munz, who destroyed her whole platform of post-modern posturing and epistemic duplicity in his 1994 review of her first major book. In her work she is guilty, he says, of not just "disinformation, but of actual misrepresentation."

Salmond claims to have been "guided by 'Heidegger, Foucault, Ricoeur, Gadamer, Habermas, [Mary] Hesse, Derrida, Eco and others.' ... [a] list [that] reads like a Who's Who in Postmodernity ...  all of whom would have helped to confirm her in her prejudices and methods."

What she does not discuss ... [is] whether [these thinkers] are sound guides. It appears that she is under the impression that these postmodern thinkers have solved the problem as to how different systems of knowledge or belief are related or, rather, not related to one another. Could it be that she is simply ignorant of the fact that there is much modern thought which rejects these facile, politically motivated doctrines of Foucault and Derrida, of Eco and Ricoeur? If she takes her stand with these people, she ought, to say the least, have produced some evidence that she has also examined the counter-arguments and, perhaps, found them wanting. But as things stand, she appears simply as an  uncritical camp-follower — which is a poor show for a professional anthropologist.

Furthermore, 

the explanations of the differences in systems of knowledge that these thinkers provide should not, I trust, be considered final. In the pre-postmodern world of good sense, belief or knowledge systems are distinguished according to whether they are true or false. ... What is really at issue and what she is trying hard to disguise by her way of constructing the past, is the brute reality of cultural evolution. ... 

[I]nstead of jumping on the postmodern bandwagon which is nothing more than a belated overreaction to the Victorian age, it is time scholars like Salmond caught up with modern thought and revised their view of evolution.

The limitations of the early mind are the result of isolation and of absence of the kind of contact which would expose beliefs and taboos to criticism. Societies and cultures, which for demographic and political reasons are exposed to contact with others, are more likely to question their own traditions, change their taboos and develop eventually a more universal system of knowledge — that is, beliefs which are more than validations or legitimizations of their own parochial cultures. In a nutshell, this is the heart of cultural evolution.

An evolution — a progress — only made possible by being open to new ideas. Says Munz:

Darwin or no Darwin, we are all descended from black Eve, and every single culture which has ever existed is a departure from the culture of black Eve, whoever she was. [I am using the notion 'black Eve' metaphorically to indicate that all existing cultures are descended or transmuted from a common stock.] ...

I would suggest ...  that one can rank the distance of societies from black Eve according to their exclusiveness. The earliest societies were totally exclusive and would not admit people other than those who belonged to their descent group. Next came societies which would admit people through marriage; and at the other end of the scale, farthest removed from black Eve, there are societies which potentially include anybody who wants to be included. Ranking in these terms is completely neutral and value-free. All it says is that while one cannot 'become' a Maori, one can 'become' a New Zealander, and that, for that reason, there is a structural difference between these two kinds of societies, and that that difference defines the distance of these societies from black Eve and that the actually exclusive structures are earlier than the potentially inclusive structures. Since this criterion is neutral, there can be no question of 'progress', only of progression. ...

[W]hatever criteria one likes to choose, the distances from black Eve can be ascertained because evolution, including cultural evolution, is a reality of life. 

If one wants to understand the coming together of two different cultures, as Salmond does, one must take into account, as Salmond does not, the different distances they have moved away from the earlier forms. Salmond has explicitly rejected evolution. 'Contemporary literature on traditional thought is still bedevilled", she writes, 'with implicit sometimes explicit evolutionism.' If she had her way, it would soon cease to be so bedevilled! I suppose she rejects cultural evolution in the face of overwhelming evidence because by making all cultures more or less equal she thinks she can heal wounds and pour oil on troubled waters and be 'politically correct'. But in the long run, there is no point in burying one's head in the sand: a distortion of reality brings about its own nemesis even if one does not quite yet know what shape that nemesis will take.

Can one say 'Ouch!'? 

15 YEARS AGO (LIBERTARIAN SUS ): Let's make Christmas more commercial!

Here's another topical post from the archives, this time from old friend Libertarian Sus who was once a regular poster here at NOT PC back in the good old days. I haven't seen her for many years (let me know if you have her current details, I'd love to catch up). In any case, I trust she's beaten us all, once again, to the first-to-get-up-the-Christmas-tree prize this December ...

I love Christmas. I love everything about it, from shopping to decorating to singing carols. It’s my favourite time of the year, as it is for millions around the world.

There’s something about putting your tree up. I put mine up earlier than anybody I know, with the exception of my sister who occasionally pips me to the post. I usually aim for the last Sunday in November, complete with my favourite festive music. My youngest sister, a mother of three, somewhat violently swears the two of us to secrecy, lest my nephews and niece pester her to get their tree up ridiculously early, too.

The music is important, because it simply wouldn’t be Christmas for us without it. The first is from Bing Crosby & the Andrews Sisters, originally recorded in the 1940s. My late grandfather was a huge Crosby fan and he and Nana had the record. We played it every Christmas until it quite literally warped – and even then we still played it. Several years ago we discovered it on CD, thereby preserving the tradition for the next generation, who I’m delighted to report know all the words of 'Mele Kalikimaka.'

The second is a relative newcomer, Aaron Neville’s Soulful Christmas, introduced by one of my brothers-in-law, a musician. Aaron might look like a criminal – and he does - but he has the voice of an angel. I defy the hardest heart to not be moved by his rendition of “O Holy Night” in particular. Occasionally we will permit an interloper on Christmas Day itself, but generally it’s just Aaron and Bing.

Perfect.

Anyway, back to the tree where my decorations are like old friends who visit once a year. Some were picked up in my travels in the days when the offerings in New Zealand were severely limited, but now, thanks to globalisation, we are spoilt for choice. No matter the size of the tree, though, or the quality and quantity of the decorations, they come alive with Christmas lights. The lights provide the magic.

Retailers love the Christmas season and for good reason. For many, it’s the busiest time of the year with December sales representing a healthy portion of their turnover. The big annual spend-up on Christmas gifts is an example of the market at work. Stores are stocked to the brim with goods to sell, employing thousands of staff in the process. Students are gainfully employed as much-needed additional staff to help offset the costs of their next educational year, or to just get through the summer.

Manufacturers work hard to complete orders on time and freight companies are flat out with seasonal deliveries. The livelihoods of many depend upon the Christmas season, and yet every year we hear the same cries that Christmas has become commercialised, as if it is a bad thing.

But why is that so?

To answer that question, it is worthwhile to explore its origins. Here’s a quick look. Christmas is a Christian holiday and like other Christian holidays, it has its origin in paganism.

Saturnalia was a Roman festival in honour of Saturn, the god of agriculture. It began on 15 December and lasted for seven days of feasting and revelry, just prior to the winter solstice that fell around 25 December on the Julian calendar. The solstice included glorification of Mithra, the god of light who several centuries later became known as the god of the sun. The Roman Catholic Church had the habit of absorbing pagan traditions into Christendom, converting the holiday commemorating the birth of the sun god into a “Christ Mass.”

However, Christmas-time celebrations prior to the 1800s still featured much pagan revelry among the British commoners, at times little more than wild carousals. It is believed that this drunken revelry had much to do with Oliver Cromwell – never much of a partygoer – going so far as to outlaw Christmas in the 17th century, forcing it underground for a time. This ban was extended to many of the early North American colonies where “violators” were fined five shillings. After its reinstatement, Christmas still bore much of its earlier debauchery, but some of our current traditions started to appear. For example, caroling began with groups of individuals visiting houses in the community singing songs in exchange for eggnog. Gift-giving, however, was still extremely limited, and virtually unknown within families.

The traditions of several countries are involved. The Yule log came from Scandinavian mythology, “Yule” being the Anglo- Saxon term for the months of December and January. After most Scandinavians had converted to Christianity, “Yule” became synonymous with Christmas.

By the 17th century, the Germans had converted the Christmas tree, originally a sign of fertility, into a Christian symbol of rebirth. The Dutch called Saint Nicholas, an altruistic bishop from the 4th century, ‘Sinterklaas’, who was to become ‘Santa Claus’ in the USA. In 1823 the American professor Clement Clarke Moore wrote the delightful poem entitled 'A Visit from Saint Nicholas,' better known as ‘Twas the Night Before Christmas.'

But perhaps the greatest change occurred after the publication in 1843 of A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens, providing lessons on charity and the importance of caring for family and friends. As a result, Christmas became a joyful, domestic holiday focusing on children in particular. It was an illustrator with Harper’smagazine, who first depicted Santa’s Workshop at the North Pole in the latter half of the 19th century, while Coca-Cola ran commercials in 1931 showing Santa as the children’s gift-giver, as we know him today. Rudolf, the much-loved ninth reindeer appeared in 1939 via an advertising agent on behalf of his retailing client, all of which paved the way for the commercialism seen annually for decades.

The festive colour and sparkle brightened the dark days of the long northern winters, with the seasonal sales providing welcome respite during the slower trading months.

But what of Christmas down under, occurring as it does in early summer. Is it not odd to see traditional winter celebrations imposed by early settlers upon warm, sunny days? Christmas cards depicting robins on snow-covered mailboxes? Rugged-up Carolers sipping hot toddies?

Not at all … if that’s what you like. Whether you prefer a traditional roast meal or a barbecue outside, a formal dinner or informal brunch, a church service to celebrate the birth of Christ or a walk along the beach, a large, rowdy family affair or a quiet day indulging your favourite pastimes, is entirely up to you.

And rather than decrying its commercialism, I prefer to embrace it for the wealth it provides and the jobs it creates. It would be a mean-spirited Scrooge who begrudged another his income during the Season of Goodwill. Do some people overstretch themselves financially? Sadly, yes. But the truth is that nobody forces them to do so. Beautiful doesn’t have to be big and bold. It never did. Yes, the Santa sleepwear is tacky. Yes, the reindeer antlers are tragic on anyone old enough to pay full price at the pictures, and ‘Snoopy’s Christmas’ drives me nuts, too—whoever’s singing the damn thing. But it all vanishes in comparison with the beauty of a Christmas tree lit up in the darkness, and the enrapturing melodies of some of the most beautiful music ever written.

May Father Christmas be good to you all.