The Red Jackal

How the Western World surrendered willfully

With the election of Zohran Mamdani, it raises the question what is the fate of the western world? New York City, despite being a heavily democratic city, was always seen as the center of capitalism but now even this city has succumbed to lure of socialism/communism. Even as other major cities in the world have fallen in the past decade such as Berlin, Paris and London, it was believed that New York City would not suffer the same fate. It was believed that the overall US political system differed from the cradle to crave system of European countries, but as the new generation of Americans have been coddled, socialism has that fools’ gold appeal in which everything is taken care for. As Europeans are finding out today, eventually the check comes due.

How did the western world get to this point that they have willfully surrendered so easily to not only the socialist movement but the surrendering their sovereignty? I think there are four main reasons: Weak leadership, cradle to the grave entitlements, big corporations and academia. These are more pronounced in Europe but these are now seeping into America at an almost exponential rate.

When I refer to weak leadership one might assume that I mean leftist governments such as the SDP leader Gerhard Schroeder, or Labor leader Tony Blair. True, both caused irreparable harm to their countries through the expansion of government but right (allegedly) party leaders have done damage as well. Tories leaders in the UK such David Cameron, Boris Johnson and Theresa May did nothing to further the British cause as all were willing to submit their country’s sovereignty to Brussels even after the Brexit vote. The Tories had a chance with Liz Truss, but her conservative views of reigning in the spending did not focus test well. She was replaced almost immediately by another faux conservative who expanded the public sector and spending and led the the large Tory defeat to a Marxist leader in Keir Starmer.

In Germany and France, the people most responsible for the shocking collapse of German and France is Angela Merkel and Emmanuel Macron. In Germany, Merkel opened the floodgates to immigration and decimated their energy sector with the utopian pursuit of zero emissions. Germany now has some of the highest energy costs in the world and is saddled with paying entitlements to immigrants that have no interest in working. In France, Macron and what was considered a pragmatic party, offered paltry changes to the generous entitlement programs by cutting out a couple of holidays and extending retirement age by two years, but did not have gumption to see it through. All the aforementioned conservative leaders mentioned above had a chance to reform the entitlements but in the end lacked the courage to implement changes to reform these programs.

Somewhat related to weak leadership, is the expansion of the state through cradle to grave entitlements. This has always been a Ponzi scheme as you are collecting money from one generation through taxes being paid by another generation. This works if the population is growing but like all Ponzi schemes once the new investors dry up, what you invested disappears as well. Falling birth rates coupled with rapidly aging populations and mass immigration has strained both France and UK to the point of requiring a bailout from the IMF. Germany is not faring too much better as their GDP is now equal to that of Mississippi, a state not considered an economic powerhouse. Even with the obvious, politicians will not make changes to their entitlements but instead promise more.

The US has not been immune to the entitlement issues as record numbers of people now get assistance from the government which probably most should not get any. Not only are there illegal immigrants receiving benefits but there are many able bodied people who have gamed the system that it is more beneficial to find a job. The idea that there are 42 million people that need food stamps is absurd but in the end our politicians look to get more people getting government assistance as this means future votes. To sum up with what economist Art Laffer said, when you have one group of people who work being taxed while another portion or the population sits home and collects benefits, the latter will grow exponentially.

As to large corporations, ironically, the increase of wealth by big corporations has always stagnated the growth of western countries. You would think nothing could be more capitalist than a large corporation but that is incorrect. Big corporations love regulation as this stifles smaller companies as they do not have the capital to meet the regulations and therefore you almost get an oligarchy that governs as they have deep ties to government officials. That is why you see such a large push for H-1B visas to get foreign workers into the country as they are cheaper than a worker in the US.

But the greatest threat to the western world is academia which is littered with hard core Marxists whom do not believe in merit based systems. These professors despise capitalism as well as the colonial past of western countries. But it was the western world that provided prosperity as we went through periods of enlightenment and changes. If you look at parts of the world that did not have these periods, they have not evolved and have resulted in poverty (basically the rest of the world). This is not only reserved for university, but teachers from elementary are teaching children that merit is some type of racially based standard that contradicts their idea of quality and that socialism is the only answer.

Winston Churchill once said: ” Democracy is the worst form of government except for all other forms that have been tried from time to time.” The idea that socialism will raise everyone to same level but in reality it brings everyone down. The socialist teachings coupled with a coddled generation that they are entitled to everything and that they should be taken care of. But to be fair, life has been unaffordable, but it is not because of capitalism, it is because of government spending which results in increased taxation, especially in our major cities which have the highest combined tax rate.

In the British Telegraph, they interviewed a WWII veteran who basically said when he sees the west today, he is not sure the sacrifice the world made defeat fascism is worth it. It will be bleak unless people on the right start articulating the benefits of a merit-based society, you will lose to the socialist movement which preaches equality by force.