By Richard Norman

A new book, God and Glory: Britain, America, and the Making of the Modern World, by Walter Russell Mead was discussed a couple of weeks ago by the author at the Council on Foreign Relations (video here). A summary quote:

I want to say quickly that in the book I don’t argue that Britain or America triumphed because they were purely laissez faire. In fact, what I’ve said is that they have an ability to have incredible intense competition but also rules and clear regulators. They’ve managed to mix it. It’s very interesting: almost every sport that’s played today around the world is played under rules developed in either Britain or the U.S. in the nineteenth century. And the idea in developing rules–whether it’s the Marquis of Queensberry rules in boxing or the tennis rules or soccer–is that they wanted a combination. They wanted rules, but they wanted the rules not to suppress competition but to encourage the keenest possible competition. So the idea that rules are antithetical to competition is not part of this Anglo-American genius.

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By Nick Li

Apologies for 1948’s recent lack of postings! Ron Paul, the Congressman from Texas running in the Republican Presidential Primary, has been in the news a lot – winning four of the five Republican debates so far according to straw polls and coming fourth in fund-raising due to overwhelming internet support. I support a lot of his positions, and his brand of consistent libertarianism is very seductive – anti-interventionist foreign policy, giving more freedom to people (e.g. gay marriage, legalize drugs) while putting checks on government power (banning torture, warantless wiretaps and eavesdropping, a single mandatory ID-card) – even to those of us on the left. Continue reading →