David Craig, on November 25th, 2023weekend/Monday/Tuesday blog
It’s clear that we’re in for an exciting time. The era of ‘pax Americana’ – where America was the world’s only superpower and the world’s policeman – is over. That has created a vacuum in global geopolitics and nature abhors a vacuum. So America and the West are being challenged for global domination by a new grouping of autocracies led by China.
The decline of the West
It’s obvious that the West is collapsing due to its own greed, complacency, lassitude and narcissistic self-absorbtion:
- our rulers want all the trappings and benefits of power but none of the responsibilities. So they increasingly hand countries’ sovereignty over to international bodies such as the EU, the IMF, the WHO, the UN, the UNHCR etc
- a whole generation has been indoctrinated to hate everything the West has achieved – personal liberty, freedom of speech, limited state interference in our lives, virtual eradication of poverty, education for all etc etc
- ludicrous culture wars debilitate us as we are constantly being hectored that women can have penises, all our institutions are racist and we are consciously or even subconsciously racist
- most of our mainstream media pours out a never-ending torrent of anti-Western propaganda
- we are told that we should be paying reparations to all our former colonies to which we gave roads, railways, ports, schools, universities, the rule of law and so much more when they hadn’t even had the brains to invent the wheel
- our ruling elites loathe us and do all they can to import Third-World migrants to destroy our communities and sense of belonging to a recognisable country
- all our institutions – civil service, education, health, police – are failing as woke nonsense makes them more interested in internal navel-gazing than in doing the jobs they were set up to do. As our NHS claims a lack of money, it spends ever-increasing amounts on diversity managers and now our armed forces prioritise diversity targets, rather than ability, when hiring new recruits
- an economically-suicidal cult – supposed man-made global warming or climate change or climate emergency or climate crisis or global boiling or whatever it now calls itself – is causing massive economic devastation wrecking whole industries in the West and destroying millions of jobs as manufacturing moves to those countries which realise global boiling is nonsense on stilts
- most Western countries are essentially bankrupt living on increasingly worthless printed and borrowed money to support their ever-increasing welfare bills
Douglas Murray is probably the commentator who has best described the West’s self-inflicted decline.
The ascendancy of autocracies
As the West withers away, a new grouping of autocracies is rising in the East. Led by China, the core group is China, Russia, North Korea and Iran. Their leaders don’t have to worry about 4- or 5-year electoral cycles, so they can make longer-term plans for achieving their aims – economic and military conquest of the West and cementing their position as the new global superpowers.
The world takes sides
Watching this power struggle between a collapsing West and a rising East, many countries are deciding to back the likely winner. And they are choosing the China-led autocracies. In a previous blog, I warned about the growing size and power of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization and showed the list of countries who are already members and who are close to joining:
(left-click on image then left-click again to see more clearly)
As you’ll see, the list includes several key previously pro-western oil-producing states. As Lady Bracknell might have said: “‘To lose one friendly Middle-East oil-producer, Mr Biden, may be regarded as a misfortune; to lose two (or even more) looks like carelessness.”
Who will win?
At the moment, most punters would probably put their money on the China-led autocracies emerging victorious. But democracies, for all their flaws, can be surprisingly resilient. We’re already seeing revolts against our useless, self-serving, quisling ruling elites in countries such as Hungary, Poland, Italy, Sweden, the Netherlands, Ireland and potentially France if Le Pen can unseat Macron. Moreover, hopefully Trump will win the 2024 US elections. Autocracies, on the other hand, look strong until they’re not. They can come quickly crashing down into rubble should the autocrat have a medical emergency (heart attack, stroke, cancer or whatever) or else be deposed in a coup.
Time to get in a few beers and pizzas and watch the fun.
Category: 
Is it really a clash of civilisations? China/India and Europe/USA are at the same sage of advancement although there is a big difference in the incomes and living standards. Isn’t it more a clash of cultures, and it because they are moving closer together that the clash is happening. China is becoming capitalist and the west is becoming socialist.
Surely, it isn’t a vacuum that we have, it is more an abundance of insane beliefs that have taken over the west, which you list. Yesterday I watched the first episode of Channel 4’s “The Great Climate Fight”. The people involved are completely insane. It is even worse that the belief in witchcraft because we have science and evidence to show that there is no human caused climate crisis and also that everything else you list is nonsense.
At this particular time it is perhaps appropriate to look back at President Kennedy. I saw a reference to a speech he gave in June 1963 called his speech on peace which he gave at a university and he quoted John Masefield: “[a university is] a place where those who hate ignorance may strive to know, where those who perceive truth may strive to make others see”, which I think was in 1946. Isn’t it the universities that are failing us?
He went on to say that we did not need a “Pax Americana enforced on the world by American weapons of war” and said the peace we want is: “Not the peace of the grave or the security of the slave. I am talking about genuine peace, the kind of peace that makes life on earth worth living, the kind that enables men and nations to grow and to hope and to build a better life for their children — not merely peace for Americans but peace for all men and women — not merely peace in our time but peace for all time.” The USA with a huge contribution from Britain has been conducting wars ever since he was assassinated for wanting peace. Even now with Ukraine and Palestine, the west is funding and arming one side and keeping the violence going when it should be doing everything possible to stop the violence.
We need to limit the power of our politicians because they are the ones responsible, but there is no way to do it except civil unrest or revolution. Voting makes no difference because that is how it was designed. We are fools for accepting this for so long. I also have an unfinished draft of a book written by Randolph Bourne called “The State” which is free on the internet. I have only read part of it but he makes a distinction between a nation and a state. He says that wars tend to bring nations together to support the state. Events in Palestine are bringing different groups together, but we are divided in the support and that cannot be a good omen.
A former head of M16 Sir Dearlove said “China is on the road to global domination by 2050. So that they idea they will just wait in a state of benign peaceful co-existence is just absurd. “
You might be interested in a piece just published by the Mises Institute about Milei’s election as President of Argentina, called “Rothbard, Milei and the New Right in Argentina”
This stood out for me, which is a summary of Murray Rothbard’s view of what is wrong and what needs to be done, from another Mises article “A Strategy for the Right”, written in 2010:
“The first wrong is the so-called Hayekian strategy, which consists of converting the main philosophers to the correct ideas that would then convert academics, journalists, and politicians until the masses were converted to support freedom. Besides taking a lot of time, the crucial flaw
in this strategy is that the media and academics do not place truth above their personal interests; therefore, this strategy is doomed.
The second improper strategy is the so-called Fabian strategy, used successfully by the socialists of the Fabian Society. It consists of creating think tanks to try to influence the centres of power. The fatal error is that what works to increase the state does not work to reduce it.
Obviously, ruling elites will welcome socialist ideas that will increase their power and reject libertarian ideas that will diminish it. That said, Rothbard explains what the winning strategy is:
And so the proper strategy for the right wing must be what we can call “right-wing populism”: exciting, dynamic, tough, and confrontational, rousing and inspiring not only the exploited masses, but the often-shell-shocked right-wing intellectual cadre as well. And in this era where the intellectual and media elites are all establishment liberal-conservatives, all in a deep sense one variety or another of social democrat,
all bitterly hostile to a genuine Right, we need a dynamic, charismatic leader who has the ability to short-circuit the media elites, and to reach and rouse the masses directly. We need a leadership that can reach the masses and cut through the crippling and distorting hermeneutical fog spread by the media elites.”
So all we need to do is find a “dynamic, charismatic leader”. It isn’t Rishi or Starmer.
I’m returning to this again. I was wrong about the date of the Rothbard statement. It was published in 2010 but he said this in 1992. We discuss this as though it is a problem specific to today but it isn’t. Last night Neil Oliver was discussing the issue as a problem specific to now, but no solution was identified because none of them saw it as a problem as old as time.
There is a recent brief Mises article I have just looked at about Progressivism:
https://mises.org/progressivism?utm_source=Mises+Institute+Subscriptions&utm_campaign=4c127dc136-EMAIL_CAMPAIGN_2020_05_15_02_03_COPY_01&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_8b52b2e1c0-4c127dc136-229039839
It discusses the socialist states (and they are all socialists) attempting to merge our individual personalities into that of the state. Before the state it was the Church that decided what we should think based on the nonsense of a god. The state is now relacing the church and the church and the state are in conflict to determine who controls us. Somebody will because that is the way it has always been. Most people do not want freedom and responsibility for their own lives.
I have never believed in a god. Show me the evidence and I might change my mind. I am starting to think that Jesus was that charismatic leader that Rothbard says we need. He wasn’t the son of god, just somebody who saw the corruption and he was crucified to get him out of the way. We have had other charismatic leaders over the years, but they have all ended up as tyrants and worse than the state they replaced.
Perhaps we should stop being concerned and just get on with life as best we can. This is what I have done through most of my life and I doubt I would have changed if it wasn’t because I know enough about physics to see the nonsense of climate alarmism and that has made me look at everything else. I now see all the lies throughout history and especially about wars. There is nothing I could have done had I seen this when I was younger and the next election will not make any difference because elections are not designed to give us the power over our lives.
In answer to your question “who will win” – it definitely will not be us, the people.