Spontaneous Order in Action

The Universal Product Code

By Stephen Gross

Have you ever wondered who regulates the Universal Product Code (UPC) and barcode industry? Probably not. Because of its complexity, there must be a central authority that administers these product identification numbers and the zebra-looking line segments on almost every product sold around the world. Even products imported from tiny villages in tiny countries have these identifying codes on them. There must be an international authority that determines all of this for those producers, right? Wrong.

But wait. Wasn’t there a congressional hearing or presidential panel some years back that concluded it was in the consumer’s best interest for businesses to come up with a system to manage the inventory of almost every product sold? No!

Think for a moment about all the items we see in grocery stores. There are thousands of them, all with their own identification numbers and barcodes. Somehow, when we bring our baskets up to the register and the products are swiped across the scanner, the system not only identifies our products and their prices but also provides merchants with inventory information. With some large retailers and superstores, inventory information can also be sent directly to a supplier. Barcode technology also gives sellers a reliable mechanism to reduce product and revenue loss by more closely tracking inventory. This little innovation, which we consumers now take for granted, has enabled merchants to achieve greater efficiency—that is, lower costs. That in turn benefits the public through lower prices because when producers reduce their costs, competition transfers the gain to consumers.

What will Ankara do?

Turkey is on the edge

by Vijay Prashad 

Death has escaped from Syria. The numbers within its borders have climbed to near 30,000. But over the past few months, death has scaled the borders into Lebanon, threatening, as the Lebanese Prime Minister Najib Mikati put it, to "drown" the country in its neighbor's flood. Turkey has not been immune from the escalating violence either. 

Syrian refugee camps have been targeted by the Syrian government's forces, and yesterday a mortar attack into the Turkish town of Akcakale killed at least five people and wounded eight. These numbers are miniscule compared to the dead Syrians, and to the dead Turkish Kurds (30,000 killed, including in "operational accidents"). 

Nevertheless, they have set Turkey on edge. The government has begun to clear camps on the border, and Turkey's Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu said, "No one should doubt Turkey's defense capabilities." 

Turkey retaliated with artillery fire toward the Syrian city of Idlib. The North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) went into a huddle as did the UN Security Council. Whether this will escalate is to be seen. NATO's statement stayed with a call for consultation (article 4 of its Charter) and not with a call to arms (article 5). This indicates that there will be no escalation at this time. 

Breaking Bad: the best thing on the box

The moral descent of a drug-dealing chemistry teacher with cancer has been turned into sublime TV

by Emmet Livingstone 

To all you TV illiterates out there who have not yet seen Breaking Bad, hang your heads in shame. To the chosen few who are in the know, pause for a moment and share among yourselves a self-congratulatory chuckle. You are witnessing the acme of the golden age of television.

Criminally overlooked by the Emmys and British broadcasters alike, AMC’s drama charts the rise of the drab Walter ‘Walt’ White, a high-school chemistry teacher and study in mundane underachievement. On learning that he is suffering from an aggressive form of lung cancer, he turns to manufacturing crystal meth to secure his family’s financial future, finding his role releases him from the kind of mouldering suburban rot we all dread. In an era of easy TV thrills, a series opening with the midlife crisis of a grizzly depressive should be commended. The series’ genius lies not in the originality of its conception, however, but in the depths to which it explores the capacity for evil and its rancorous taint.

The Incredibly Ballooning Bailout Of Cyprus

How can a tiny country get in so much trouble in such a short time?

By Wolf Richter

Cypriot President Christofias dug in his heels. On Greek TV. Not behind closed doors with the Troika, the austerity gang from the European Commission, the IMF, and the ECB that have performed such miracles in Greece.

But as Cyprus veers toward bankruptcy, his game of playing the Russians against the Troika has fallen apart, banks are in worse condition than imagined, and the bailout amounts jumped again. How can a tiny country get in so much trouble in such a short time?

The real-estate and construction bubble, fed by corruption and abetted by banks, burst two years ago. Home sales and prices have collapsed. Some 130,000 homeowners (in a country of 840,000 souls) are tangled up in a nationwide title-deed scandal [Another Eurozone Country Bites the Dust].

The Troika estimated that 50,000 homes would be dumped on the market—though only 4,876 homes were sold during the first nine months of the year! Losses have gutted banks. Unemployment has reached record levels. And the construction industry, once a major employer, is being annihilated.

Signs of the gold standard emerging In China?

The classical gold standard, conjoined with other free market policies, can lead to worldwide prosperity

By Ralph Benko

As noted in last week’s column about the rising recognition by authorities in Germany about the virtues of gold, the gold standard is receiving impressive new recognition internationally. The GOP plank calling for a commission to study “possible ways to set a fixed value for the dollar” — with an unmistakable nod to gold — is the most prominent element of the 2012 GOP platform still being heard to “reverberate around the world.” Meanwhile, it continues to gain impressive momentum in the United States.

CNN’s Kevin Voigt writes, in The China Post, “Currencies: Re-evaluating the ghost of gold:”

One platform of the recent U.S. Republican National Convention that, ultimately, could reverberate around the world is a plan to study a possible return of the U.S. to the gold standard. While it was perceived as a move to appease the party’s extreme right wing, economists like Mundell think the world needs a limited return to the gold standard.

This is by no means an isolated blip on the economic radar screen of China watchers.  As Christopher Potter, president of Northern Border Capital Management, so astutely observed in a column entitled China’s Preparing for the End Game — Are We Paying Attention, published in The Lehrman Institute’s TheGoldStandardNow.org — which Potter advises (and this columnist professionally edits):

• China is … increasing its monetary gold reserves at an alarming rate.  Five years ago China surpassed the US in gold production and five years from now it will own more gold than the US Federal government.

Poor Athens; The Gods Flee Mt. Olympus

What I like to drink most is wine that belongs to others

 “Look now how mortals are blaming the gods, for they say that evils come from us, but in fact they themselves have woes beyond their share because of their own follies.”

                                                        -Homer
By Mark J. Grant

When asked, and oh so many times, how I thought that Greece would play out, I have always offered the same answer. “They will continue to beg, they will say anything, do anything, until the money stops and then they will proclaim Greece for the Greeks and revolt.” The Greeks only assume the mantle of serfdom to keep the pipeline of capital flowing. As an outsider I would say that they have damaged their national psyche in the process and caused undue pain for their citizens but it must seem simpler, to the elite of Greece, to beg rather than go back to work. The problem for Europe now is that the amount of money is so large and the pain will be so great that they wince at the consequences of their misbegotten strategy. Europe provided money, demanded austerity, and kept the charade in play far longer than good sense would dictate. This should have all been shut down years ago but the poorly performed play limped along as the benefactors wanted neither the shame of closing it down nor the financial loss that it will ultimately entail. Now, however, I would assert; the tragedy is about to end and the farce about to begin.

“What I like to drink most is wine that belongs to others.”

                                                      -   Diogenes

Merkel’s First Greek Crisis Visit May Mark Turning Point

Greek democracy stands before what is perhaps its greatest challenge

By Rainer Buergin and James Hertling 

German Chancellor Angela Merkel will travel to Athens for the first time since Europe’s financial crisis broke out there three years ago, a sign she’s seeking to silence the debate on pushing Greece out of the euro.

Merkel’s visit to the Greek capital Oct. 9 to meet with Prime Minister Antonis Samaras underscores the shift in her stance since she held out the prospect last year of Greece exiting the 17-nation currency regime.

“The meeting could mark the turning point to the Greek crisis,” said Constantinos Zouzoulas, an analyst at Axia Ventures Group, a brokerage in Athens. “This is a very significant development for Greece ahead of crucial decisions by the euro zone for the country.”

Unintended Consequences

The Case of the Red-Cockaded Woodpecker

By STEPHEN J. DUBNER and STEVEN D. LEVITT

One year from today, a new president moves into the White House. This president will be eager to carry out any number of plans — including, surely, plans to help the segments of society that most need help. Extending a helping hand, after all, is one of the great privileges and responsibilities of the presidency.

But before charging ahead with such plans, the new president might do well to first ask him- or herself the following question: What do a deaf woman in Los Angeles, a first-century Jewish sandal maker and a red-cockaded woodpecker have in common?

A few months ago, a prospective patient called the office of Andrew Brooks, a top-ranked orthopedic surgeon in Los Angeles. She was having serious knee trouble, and she was also deaf. She wanted to know if her deafness posed a problem for Brooks. He had his assistant relay a message: no, of course not; he could easily discuss her situation using knee models, anatomical charts and written notes.

The woman later called again to say she would rather have a sign-language interpreter. Fine, Brooks said, and asked his assistant to make the arrangements. As it turned out, an interpreter would cost $120 an hour, with a two-hour minimum, and the expense wasn’t covered by insurance. Brooks didn’t think it made sense for him to pay. That would mean laying out $240 to conduct an exam for which the woman’s insurance company would pay him $58 — a loss of more than $180 even before accounting for taxes and overhead.

Progress is met by protest rather than praise

How Shale Gas Can Benefit Us and the Environment

By STEVE SEXTON

It took less than an hour for Apple to sell out the initial supply of its new iPhone 5. It’s thinner, lighter, faster, brighter, taller than its predecessors, and yet it costs the same. That’s called progress.

Elsewhere, progress is met by protest rather than praise.

A suite of technologies has brought vast supplies of previously unrecoverable shale gas within reach of humans, dramatically expanding natural gas reserves in the U.S. and around the world. Horizontal drilling and hydraulic fracturing have produced a fuel that can at once promote a cooler planet and an expanded economy, essentially eliminating the tradeoff between climate change mitigation and the pursuit of other public projects and, perhaps, economic growth. But unlike the iPhone, the productivity gain embodied in shale gas technologies doesn’t attract a cult following and its benefits get obscured. 

Among some of the most ardent advocates of climate policy, the growth of shale gas extraction is lamented because, in addition to being 30-50% cleaner than coal (even accounting for escaped methane), it is also (gasp) cheaper than coal. And cheaper than wind. And cheaper than solar.

A Capitalist Revolt in Socialist France

A country on a death march

By Wolf Richter   

The French government is trying to reign in its deficit by jacking up taxes, including the capital gains tax, which it wants to bring to the same level as the tax on income earned by the sweat of your brow—an old philosophical pillar of the French left. But an explosive essay published last Friday hit a nerve with entrepreneurs, venture capital investors, artisans, and mom-and-pop business owners. And their anger, which spread across the social media, the papers, and finally TV news, turned into an open revolt.

The trigger was an editorial in La Tribune by John-David Chamboredon, Executive President of ISAI, an internet startup fund. After the Finance Law 2013 was proposed during the presidential elections, he wrote, “la France du business stopped breathing.” Investments and hiring were put on hold. The cause: the capital-gains tax provisions. An entrepreneur, for example, who risked his savings, spent 10 years growing his business, created perhaps hundreds of jobs, survived all the challenges, and then wanted to cash out, would have to pay two layers of taxes on the capital gains, totaling, according to his calculations, 60.5%. And so would investors.

It would kill entrepreneurship. Funding for startups would dry up. And growth in the private sector would wither. “If the fiscal maelstrom is confirmed, the sequence of events is quite clear,” he wrote. “Instead of hiring people and developing the business, owners threatened by this confiscation would spend the rest of 2012 imagining ways to escape it.”

An Empire on the Run

The Unraveling of Obama’s Foreign Policy

by Patrick J. Buchanan

Three days after Ambassador Chris Stevens was assassinated, Jay Carney told the White House press corps it had been the work of a flash mob inflamed by an insulting video about the Prophet Muhammad.

As the killers had arrived with rocket-propelled grenades and automatic weapons, this story seemed noncredible on its face.

Yet two days later, U.N. Ambassador Susan Rice doubled down. Appearing on five Sunday talk shows, she called the massacre the result of a “spontaneous” riot that was neither “preplanned” nor “premeditated.”

Carney and Rice deceived us. But were they deceived?

It is impossible to believe that Carney would characterize the Benghazi, Libya, massacre as the result of a protest that careened out of control unless he had been told to do so by the national security adviser, the White House chief of staff or President Barack Obama himself.

Who told Carney to say what he did? Who arranged for Rice to appear on five shows to push this line?

Throwing a rope to Rice and Carney, the director of national intelligence, James Clapper, said last week that only recently had his team concluded that Benghazi was the work of terrorists.

Yet intelligence insiders were leaking to the press the day after Stevens was murdered that it was terrorism.

Now that the cover story—that the murder of Stevens and the other Americans was the result of a spontaneous outburst the Obama administration could not have foreseen or prevented—has collapsed, the truth is tumbling out.

The Dictator’s Handbook

Why Bad Behavior Is Almost Always Good Politics

By Svetozar Pejovich

This book has a terrific title. Every dictator should have a copy. In it Bruce Bueno de Mesquita and Alastair Smith explain the brainchild they call the “selectorate” theory.

The focus of that theory is the leadership of governments, organizations, business establishments, and other associations. Leaders’ power and longevity depend on the balance of power among three key groups in their respective communities: 1) the nominal selectorate, or “interchangeables”; 2) the real selectorate, or “influentials”; and 3) the winning coalition, or “essentials.” The nominal selectorate consists of the pool of all potential supporters. The real selectorate is the group actually choosing the leader. And the winning coalition is the subset of the real selectorate on whose support the survival of all leaders depends.

Stealing You Blind

How Government Fat Cats Are Getting Rich Off of You

by George C. Leef

Frédéric Bastiat introduced one of the most important concepts in political economy: “legal plunder,” the government’s forcible extraction of wealth from the populace for the benefit of the ruling class. French monarchs in Bastiat’s time sent out tax collectors to plunder the people, most of whom understood perfectly that the king was robbing them to pay for his extravagances and follies.

As Bastiat well knew, democratic governments also engage in legal plunder, although it is obscured by the myth that elected representatives do whatever is in the “public interest.” Under democracy the people supposedly are the government and therefore all its actions are justified. You certainly can’t steal from yourself.

Survival of the “Fittest”

Survival of the Weakest, Too

By David R. Henderson

Last April President Obama called a House Republican budget plan “thinly veiled social Darwinism.” Of course Obama meant it as a put-down. But by the Encyclopedia Britannica’s characterization, social Darwinism is simply a correct, ideology-free statement about the world. Moreover, the fact that Obama is president is evidence of social Darwinism. Let me explain.

The Encyclopedia Britannica describes social Darwinism as “the theory that persons, groups, and races are subject to the same laws of natural selection as Charles Darwin had perceived in plants and animals in nature.” “According to the theory,” says the Encyclopedia, “the weak were diminished and their cultures delimited, while the strong grew in power and in cultural influence over the weak.” The Encyclopedia states that social Darwinists “held that the life of humans in society was a struggle for existence ruled by ‘survival of the fittest,’ a phrase proposed by the British philosopher and scientist Herbert Spencer.”

That raises the question: What is “fit?” The answer to that depends crucially on the context—that is, on what is rewarded.

Take the Soviet Union. Was Joseph Stalin particularly fit? He certainly didn’t produce much that other people valued; yet he thrived. He did so by lying, manipulating, intimidating, and murdering, all on a massive scale. In the Soviet Union the fittest got the best food, houses, cars, and more, but fitness meant the ability and willingness to be untrustworthy, unscrupulous, and bloodthirsty. In that environment Stalin was indeed one of the fittest.

The False Choice between “Austerity” and Economic Growth

It is time the Keynesians recognize their failures and spare humanity the prolonged agony of economic malfunctioning

By James C. W. Ahiakpor

Keynesianism, with its emphasis on aggregate demand management to promote economic prosperity, has proven to be an abject failure since 2008 in the United States and elsewhere. President George W. Bush’s tax cuts in 2008 and the subsequent bailout of investment banks before President Barack Obama took office were in the Keynesian mold of promoting spending to sustain economic activity. President Obama’s various forms of stimulus expenditures were similarly motivated, and they have not produced the promised results. Ignoring the evidence, adherents of Lord Keynes’s view of how an economy works have changed their language from touting the virtues of economic stimulus to posing a false choice between austerity budgets and economic growth.

Such change of language apparently was influential in the last presidential election in France, when Nicolas Sarkozy lost to socialist Francois Hollande, who touted the virtue of growth promotion over austerity, or fiscal discipline. The same false choice was touted in the June Greek elections but without a decisive victory for the socialist growth promoters. The contrast between government budgetary discipline and economic growth promotion through increased government spending is sure to become pronounced in the U.S. election campaign. That is why the meaninglessness of the alleged alternatives needs to be exposed: Austerity budgets are the logical means of restoring economic growth; austerity and growth promotion are not alternatives. The failure of governments to promote robust economic recovery since the “Great Recession” will persist if a majority of the voting public is lured into thinking that voting against austerity is a vote for economic growth.

Hegel: The State as God's Will

Hegel: The official philosopher of the state

by Murray N. Rothbard

Typically, determinist schema leave convenient implicit escape hatches for their creators and advocates, who are somehow able to rise above the iron determinism that afflicts the rest of us. Hegel was no different, except that his escape hatches were all too explicit. While God and the absolute refer to man as collective organism rather than to its puny and negligible individual members, every once in a while great individuals arise, "world-historical" men, who are able to embody attributes of the absolute more than others, and act as significant agents in the next big historical Aufhebung — the next great thrust into the man-God or world-soul's advance in its "self-knowledge." Thus, during a time when most patriotic Prussians were reacting violently against Napoleon's imperial conquests, and mobilizing their forces against him, Hegel reacted very differently. Hegel wrote to a friend in ecstasy about having personally seen Napoleon riding down the city street: "The Emperor — this world-soul — riding on horseback through the city to the review of his troops — it is indeed a wonderful feeling to see such a man."[1]

Why good men do not become president

Successful candidates must hide their true beliefs, assuming they have any

By Ryan Young

To hear President Barack Obama’s supporters tell it, his challenger in this year’s presidential contest, former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney, is an out-of-touch plutocrat mainly concerned with becoming president. According to Governor Romney’s supporters, the president is an out-of-touch elitist whose main concern is staying in the White House. They’re both right.

After all, what sane person would want a job that destroys your privacy, makes it impossible for you to go out on the street, subjects your family to intrusive media scrutiny, forces you to watch everything you say, and drives some people to want to take a shot at you? Apparently someone who feels that the power that comes with the office is worth the attendant indignities.

“Great men are almost always bad men,” Lord Acton famously said. “There is no worse heresy than that the office sanctifies the holder of it.” Indeed, good men rarely run for president. And when they do, they rarely win. An honest man stands no chance against a Lyndon Johnson or a Richard Nixon. Yes, one slips through the cracks now and then. We could use Grover Cleveland’s restraint in handling the economic crisis today. I have a particular fondness for Calvin Coolidge, who conspicuously lacked the pathological need for attention that characterizes most officeholders.

Drugs: The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly

The FDA is a government a rule-driven bureaucracy, rather than α market-driven institution

by Mark Thornton

The senseless Batman killings in Aurora, Colorado, as well as those that occurred years earlier in Columbine a few miles away, have something in common with the number one cause of overdose deaths in the United States and an important potential cause of teen suicide: prescription drugs approved as safe and effective by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA).

As an Austrian economist, I am not saying that FDA-approved drugs "caused" these problems. The people who took those drugs and did those things are the people who "caused" those bad outcomes. What I am saying is that the FDA is guilty of manipulating information and people's choices and thereby contributes to all these negative outcomes.[1] I am also not saying that all FDA-approved drugs are inherently harmful, ineffective, or should never be used.

Most importantly, FDA-approved drugs and products help to make Americans fatter, weaker, dumber, sicker, poorer, and in general less healthy. We have been lulled into substituting prescription drugs for healthy lifestyles. "You don't need to correct unhealthy conditions in your life, just take this pill everyday for the rest of your life. The experts at the FDA have approved it and your doctor has advised you to take them." Collectively, this process is unconscionable, even though it is now considered normal.

As the pharmaceutical and medical industries pile up cash, the health crisis grows and spreads across the country. This is the irrational world created by the FDA. This powerful government bureaucracy, coupled with massive government monopolies (e.g., the American Medical Association, drug patents, certificates of need for hospitals), direct government subsidies such as Medicare and Medicaid, and indirect subsidies for comprehensive health insurance, etc., have combined to give America the most expensive medical industry and the least healthy population in the advanced world.

Spending Isn’t Production

Economic growth depends on more than just increasing demand

By ROBERT P. MURPHY

A recent NYT column by Paul Krugman showcases exactly what is wrong with mainstream Keynesian economics. Krugman takes a JP Morgan note claiming that the iPhone 5 would boost economic growth, then concludes that the analysis proves that bigger government deficits are a good thing. As we’ll see, the only thing Krugman has proved is that he’s committed a basic error, in confusing actual economic growth with a mere statistical artifact.

Let’s first establish Krugman’s case. After telling his readers that analysts have suggested that the iPhone 5 might provide a “significant boost to the U.S. economy,” Krugman went on to argue:

Do you find this plausible? If so, I have news for you: you are, whether you know it or not, a Keynesian—and you have implicitly accepted the case that the government should spend more, not less, in a depressed economy.

…

A recent research note from JPMorgan argued that the new iPhone might add between a quarter- and a half-percentage point to G.D.P. growth in the last quarter of 2012.…

Last of the Sentimental Stalinists

On the passing of Eric Hobsbawm

BY THEODORE DALRYMPLE

Eric Hobsbawm, who died Monday at 95, was the last of the sentimental Stalinists. He was one of the most famous British historians of the twentieth century, and his books sold worldwide by the hundreds of thousands. In Brazil, for example, he achieved an astonishing celebrity.

He was a gifted prose stylist and very learned. His principal and most significant characteristic, however, was intellectual dishonesty characteristic of the age in which he grew to maturity. He made the choice for Soviet Communism, for perhaps understandable personal reasons, at 14, and remained true to his choice for 81 years, long after there ceased being any possible excuse for doing so. At least no one could accuse him of being a turncoat: he supported a radical form of evil from his early adolescence to his late senescence.

French Economy Implodes

You reap what you sow

Final Markit France Services Activity Index at 45.0 (49.2 in August), 11-month low. 

Final Markit France Composite Output Index at 43.2 (48.0 in August), 42-month low.

by Mike "Mish" Shedlock

As expected, at least in this corner, the French economy has started to implode. Service sector business activity is dropping at fastest rate since October 2011.

More importantly, the Markit Composite PMI sports the steepest rate of contraction since March 2009 with job losses accelerating at the fastest pace in 33 months and output plunging at the fastest rate in 42 months.

Summary:

French service providers reported a steeper decrease in business activity during September. The latest fall in activity reflected a considerable drop in incoming new work. Companies adjusted staffing levels down accordingly, leading to an accelerated drop in employment. Input prices rose at a sharper rate but output charge discounting gathered pace, highlighting a deepening squeeze on companies’ margins. Future expectations meanwhile dipped into negative territory for the first time since February 2009.

Growth By Tax Hikes – Only in France

Curdled Sauce Hollandaise

Mountebank meets steel workers and promises to upend economic laws in their favor.

by Pater Tenebrarum

French president François Hollande continues to fulfill his election promises – promises that in essence amounted to the modern-day equivalent of a rain dance: the expectation to get desirable results from implementing policies that fly into the face of rational thinking.

In Hollande's case, it is all about fixing France's deteriorating deficit and nose-diving economy by blithely ignoring economic laws. In many respects his plans are not much different from those many other European governments have pursued, although his program has proved a good sight more radical.

According to Bloomberg:

“President Francois Hollande’s first annual budget raised taxes on the rich and big companies and included a minimum of spending cuts to reduce the deficit.

The 2013 blueprint relies on 20 billion euros ($26 billion) in tax increases, including a levy of 75 percent on incomes over 1 million euros, and eliminating limits on the wealth tax. Hollande aims to reduce spending by 10 billion euros, bringing the deficit to 3 percent of output from 4.5 percent in 2012. The budget predicts growth of 0.8 percent.

Untold Misery on the Iranian People

Hyperinflation Has Arrived In Iran

by Steve H. Hanke

Since the U.S. and E.U. first enacted sanctions against Iran, in 2010, the value of the Iranian rial (IRR) has plummeted, imposing untold misery on the Iranian people. When a currency collapses, you can be certain that other economic metrics are moving in a negative direction, too. Indeed, using new data from Iran’s foreign-exchange black market, I estimate that Iran’s monthly inflation rate has reached 69.6%. With a monthly inflation rate this high (over 50%), Iran is undoubtedly experiencing hyperinflation.

Eric Hobsbawm and the tragedy of the left

Hobsbawm’s 19th century histories were enlivened by his Marxism, his 20th century were corrupted by his Stalinism

by James Heartfield 
Eric Hobsbawm’s great gift was to the written history of the nineteenth century.

Having come to Britain from Vienna, the young communist from a well-to-do Jewish family signed up for service in the British Army, echoing Stalin’s claim that Churchill was fighting for democracy. When the British Empire was restored, communists like Hobsbawm were stung to find that they were targeted as the red menace. While some worked at getting a foothold in the trade unions, a small band of university-educated communists got jobs as teachers, and lecturers if they could.

Among them, an historians’ group started to work, led by AL Morton and Dona Torr, champions of what they called ‘people’s history’, later called ‘history from below’. Morton and Torr were solid Communist Party propagandists who burrowed into the papers and journals of working-class activists to tell a story of the steady progress of the labour movement - from the Corresponding Societies to the Chartists, craft unions and then the new model unions of the industrial working class, with the Communist Party treated as the proper inheritor of that tradition.

The Audacity of Hopelessness

"Government is the only thing we all belong to." 

By Mark Steyn

According to the New York Times, "the magic is gone." According to the New York Post, "the thrill is gone." And yet, according to the polls, he isn't a goner. Even if you shave off two-three-four points for Democrat over-sampling and other pollster malarkey, the unmagical non-thrilling President Obama remains remarkably competitive.

Which means that if he wins we won't have the same excuse as we did last time. In 2008, Senator Obama was lucky, as he has been all his political life: a global downturn, war-weariness, a Republican opponent who even in his better moments gave the strong impression that honor required him to lose . . . These and various other stars all aligned for him. But he himself was the biggest star of all: a history-making candidate, a messianic figure and not merely a national but a planetary healer. Not all of us bought into it even then: I saw him on the stump just the once and thought the silver-tongued orator was a crashing bore. Couldn't see what the fuss was about. But fuss there was. It's one thing if the Republican loses to a thrilling, magical superstar; it's quite another if the Republican loses to a mean, petty, leaden, boring, earthbound hack who hasn't lit up a room in years. In 2008, the American people said: We like this guy. In 2012, they'd be saying: We like these policies. That's far more disturbing.