But victorious capitalism, since it rests on mechanical foundations, needs its support no longer. The rosy blush of its laughing heir, the Enlightenment, seems also to be irretrievably fading, and the idea of duty in one’s calling prowls about in our lives like the ghost of dead religious beliefs.
Ever since Donald Trump first came down that golden escalator, everyone from laymen to various pundits and historians have debated if it is appropriate to speak of him and his Republican Party as fascist. It has generally been the position of the professionally-contrarian pundit class that to use the f-word
This essay is based on the invited comments delivered on March 10, 2023, celebrating the Lee Kong Chian Chair Professorship of Chandran Kukathas at Singapore Management University. I congratulate Singapore and the faculty and students of Singapore Management University for luring the pre-eminent liberal theorist of our age, Chandran Kukathas,
Our media is obsessed with wealth inequality. From Succession to The White Lotus, with Parasite and Triangle of Sadness taking big-screen accolades, the comings and goings of the ultra-rich are of mass interest. This, of course, coincides with a surge in wealth inequality. The share of the pie going to
In January of this year, media personality Matt Walsh tweeted “Singapore is able to have nice things in part because they execute drug dealers by hanging and arrest even petty vandals and thieves and beat them with a cane until they bleed. We don’t have nice things because we
It is often remarked that the Americans and Europeans use the term ‘Liberal’ in quite different contexts—in the US, to signify a greater welfare state, while in Europe it is a signifier of free markets, with the two usages coinciding only on social issues. The distinct history of the
Antisemitism is a great blight upon massive swaths of the world. It takes many forms, of course, and does not always resemble the violence and pogroms of so many centuries, The Dreyfus Affair in France, or the Nazi regime and the Holocaust all across Europe. It can be aggressive or
In recent years the modern world has come under fire. In 2022, one study found that 58% of Americans said they were dissatisfied with how democracy is working in the United States. Similarly, in 2021 another found that only 49% of 18- to 34-year-olds held a positive view of capitalism,
Democrats, whether politicians or pundits, constantly urge their partisans to vote as the solution to just about every possible problem. Obama famously told a crowd not to boo Donald Trump, but to vote against him. Willie Nelson campaigned for Democrats by leading a crowd in a sung chant: “Vote them
Our children are in danger and we need to protect them. There is a crisis in America, it’s bad and it’s spreading. You may have heard of it if you pay attention to the New York Times, the Atlantic magazine, or neo-fascist Matt Walsh. No, it’s not
Europe, in its unholy blindness always on the point of cutting its own throat, lies today in the pincers between Russia on one side and America on the other. Russia and America, seen metaphysically are both the same: the same hopeless frenzy of unchained technology and the rootless organization of
It is hard to not think of ancient Rome when walking the streets of Washington, DC. Rome’s legacy is carved in marble and granite and casts long shadows on the banks of the Potomac. The common quip that the United States is a ‘republic not a democracy’ suggests in