Wars are mass-murder, massive theft, and unrelenting propaganda. In this country they’re lucrative overseas entanglements, as government diverts loot from taxpayers to the war industry. They’re also perpetual, as war embellishes the sanctity of the state as well as providing grounds for increased plunder of its population. Wars are government as Houdini—drawing attention to the bloody far-away while relieving attention on the corrupt close-at-hand. For the victor, the propaganda is inked as truth in the history books.

Free speech is not dead—it has just been parceled out among favored groups. This explains why the British Prime Minister Keir Starmer insisted that there is free speech in the UK, despite the fact that thousands have been arrested for social media posts that are offensive to the left. Even in the most despotic regimes there are surely pockets of free speech to be found, among those whose speech may, for the moment, be deemed unthreatening to the regime.

Whiskey never signed a treaty; neither did cocaine, nor did covid. Yet, for over a hundred years, American politicians have declared “wars” on these abstractions with the same certainty that they declared wars on foreign nations. But, unlike wars against actual enemies, these crusades can never end in a victory because they have failed to realize that nouns cannot surrender.

[Common Knowledge and the Mysteries of Money, Power, and Everyday Life by Steven Pinker, (Scribner, 2025; 384 pp.)]

Interest rates should be determined by the market, according to its needs, to operate efficiently and effectively distribute society’s financial resources, allocating capital among different stakeholders according to the results of their investments. For example, an entrepreneur who achieves an IRR of 10 percent would be willing to pay 5 percent interest to expand his business, attracting those investors who cannot obtain 5 percent for their capital.

Western and American culture can be said to have undergone a process of infantilization—reduction to a childish and immature state. The familiar maxim “hard times create strong men; strong men create good times; good times create weak men; weak men create hard times” has been applied quite a bit recently to American culture. This quote seems particularly apt regarding, not just economic ignorance, but economic immaturity.

In 1918, the Austrian political scientist Joseph Schumpeter delivered a now-famous lecture titled “The Crisis of the Tax State.” The question he addressed was whether or not the First World War would bring about a destructive fiscal crisis for European states. Would the burdens of post-war debt and taxation threaten to destroy these states?