A reader picks up on my grumpy remarks below about Professor Lieven and asks:

Seriously, Charles. What’s with the zero-sum thinking?

Fair enough.

One answer might be that modish moaning about Western Greed seems to me to miss the Point by several miles.

Which Point is that we probably have to try to ask a deeper question or two. Namely:

  • what if decades-long accumulated mistakes and contradictions and denials of Basic Principles have combined to create a systemic confusion which is so complex as to be in fact unreformable?
  • what if the sprawling government efforts to tackle the problem merely make it worse by piling on more collectivist looting, and/or buy a bit of time now by dumping unsustainable debt on the next generation?
  • what if we can get back to a healthier way of doing things only via a horrendous and violent convulsion or two?

What if the Joker is right?

You see, their morals, their code, it’s a bad joke. Dropped at the first sign of trouble. They’re only as good as the world allows them to be.

I’ll show you. When the chips are down, these… these civilized people, they’ll eat each other. See, I’m not a monster. I’m just ahead of the curve.