World Order Reversed

Background from the Hoover Institution’s Thomas Sowell: “One of the ideas that has proved to be almost impervious to evidence is the idea that wise and far-sighted people need to take control, and plan economic and social policies so that there will be a rational and just order, rather than chaos resulting from things being allowed to take their own course. It sounds so logical and plausible that demanding hard evidence would seem almost like nit-picking.”


Thank you Tom. Indeed, we have all studied control of the violent variety: French, other revolutions. Even of the less violent flavor, the planners are high IQ types; they have all the facts at their disposal and naturally the power of enforcement. And almost everybody has to try it just once.

Friedman and others saw the central flaw. Most charged ahead, which includes of course the USSR in the extreme sense, the UK after WWII and Europe to one degree or another. The US took the other course, with a needed mid-stream correction applied by Ronald Reagan.

The USSR’s experiment folded, Thatcher resuscitated the UK, yet most of Europe continued to surrender decision making to gov’t types. Meanwhile, the US remained a beacon.

Until now. We have witnessed a drastic and rapid reversal of world order. Past two years most of Europe have moved center right, this after years of witnessing the destruction to society effected by planners. It was the crisis of Q4 ‘08 (for which we thank the Democrats) which accelerated the process. As reported in today’s Washington Times, “If you look across Europe, the political center of gravity has clearly moved to the right,’ notes Charles Kupchan, sr fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations, ‘There were deep and broad structural problems of the economy that Europeans had to tackle.” The nearest role model was the UK under Thatcher. “Now that process,” continues Kupchan, “of undoing large state-centered economies is moving to the Continent.”

Thus, as the balance of the free world moves right, embracing personal initiative and personal freedoms, we under BO have moved decidedly left.

Another needed mid-stream correction is soon to be applied.

Robert Craven