Category Archives: History

Two more interesting articles on covid mass hysteria

Posted on February 25, 2021 by Paul Frijters

Guess which crackpot started his article on covid in that notorious right-wing publication ‘The Guardian’ with the sentence “The virus has been used as a pretext in many countries to crush dissent, criminalise freedoms and silence reporting”? It’s that obvious … Continue reading →

Posted in Coronavirus crisis, Democracy, Health, History, Inequality, Political theory, Politics - international, Science, Social Policy | Leave a comment

Saving democracy: one secret ballot at a time

Posted on February 18, 2021 by Nicholas Gruen

  Though I have a deep interest in and faith in sortition as “the other way of representing the people”, my own view of a good system and of the path of activism to get there is protean, eclectic and … Continue reading →

Posted in Democracy, History | 11 Comments

What to expect during a cold war with China?

Posted on February 17, 2021 by Paul Frijters

In 2005 I did my first economic projections of the major powers (published in a textbook) and concluded from the trends then that China would have a larger economy in purchasing power terms than the US in 2017, which is … Continue reading →

Posted in Democracy, History, Philosophy, Politics - international, Society | 15 Comments

Interesting new articles on mass hysteria and medical morality

Posted on February 10, 2021 by Paul Frijters

While the hysteria marches on here in Europe, an interesting economics article came out in a decent journal on the political economy of that mass hysteria. Their abstract: In this article, we aim to develop a political economy of mass … Continue reading →

Posted in Coronavirus crisis, Death and taxes, Democracy, Health, History, Science | 34 Comments

Can you spot the countries with high vaccinations? Or recent lockdowns?

Posted on January 20, 2021 by Paul Frijters

I am all for effective vaccines and have been impressed with how fast vaccines have been developed against covid, but I never expected them to be the wonder weapons some promised them to be. After all, the yearly new vaccines … Continue reading →

Posted in Coronavirus crisis, Health, History, Innovation, Medical, Politics - international, Politics - national, Society | 12 Comments

History is repeating: Dennis Glover on the Capitol Hill riot

Posted on January 15, 2021 by Nicholas Gruen

If something can happen once, it can happen again. This is the oft-ignored first lesson of history. The second lesson is that humans usually forget lesson number one. Watching the attempted coup unfold at the Capitol building, those two lessons … Continue reading →

Posted in Democracy, Economics and public policy, History, Political theory, Politics - international | 62 Comments

A brief summary of a long work – Piketty’s Capital and Ideology: by Ian McAuley

Posted on January 10, 2021 by Nicholas Gruen

Ian McAuley circulated the summary below and I asked him for permission to make it available here – which he agreed to. Piketty’s books remind me of one of John Clarke’s lines. Back in Fred Dagg’s ten minute History of … Continue reading →

Posted in Democracy, Economics and public policy, History | 1 Comment