Monday
It does not take a degree is miserableness to note that the world is in a bad place. This is exacerbated by the fact that we are ruled by those of undistinguished intellect. Theresa May, Justin Trudeau, Emmanuel Macron, Angela Merkel, Jacinda Ardern (what were the Kiwis thinking?) and Nicolas Maduro; the list could go on and on.
At a point in history when the world desperately needs outstanding leadership, we have voted into power people with, at best, a tenuous grasp on reality. This is not a recent phenomenon, but it is a situation that has noticeably worsened since the 1970s.
Why is this so? Is it part and parcel of the general and precipitous decline in IQ, or is it something else?
The combination of the Christian-based precepts of Western civilization and capitalism have bestowed a sustained level of prosperity on the world that has never been witnessed before. Generations have lived lives of plenty – of food, entertainment, health-care, holidays, hi-tech and toys. Communism failed because the working class, rather than rising up in revolution, bought a house; it was so much less messy.
Hoi polloi have grown complacent. It is now assumed that these are natural rights – it’s the way it is, right? – and that this bounty will continue to fall into their laps forever. For their part, all governments have to do is to push some photogenic people to the front and to keep promising more and more.
This they do. They discuss ever-greater redistribution of wealth, but none of them ever, ever, discuss the creation of wealth. Why? Because they do not understand it; not one person in ten thousand can give an example of wealth creation. Nor, even more ominously, can they give an example of the capital destruction that is a feature of our times.
The politicians themselves just assume that the good times will keep rolling along. They will not. The regulatory and monetary disincentives to create capital, coupled with the destruction of existing capital, leads only in one direction.
The world is blithely ambling toward ominously interesting times.