How to Destroy Civilization

An idea so idiotic I assumed it'd never need to be refuted.

Atlanta, GA

August 16, 2024

What causes poverty? 

That seems like a good question. But it’s the wrong one to ask. 

Poverty, as Tom Woods put it, is the natural condition of mankind. Like humidity in Houston or insects in the Amazon, we needn’t do anything to bring it about. We’ll suffer the affliction unless we shield ourselves from it.

Rather than inquire into the origins of indigence, it’s more interesting to wonder at the sources of wealth.

Nasty, Brutish, and Short

For most of history, the mass of humanity was born into squalor, lived on the edge of starvation, and survived by the fickle whim of capricious fate. 

Labor was manual, backbreaking, and long. Power was provided by water, wind, wood, and brawn (ironically, the sources of energy to which we’re being urged to return).

To help prevent perishing, children chipped in. But many died anyway. Infant mortality was common…the main reason average lifespans were so short.

Large families were an insurance policy against frequent death. Pre-industrial life may not have been solitary, but it was certainly nasty, brutish, and short.

Before last century, the notion that children shouldn’t work would’ve seemed absurd. Does anyone honestly think child labor laws, minimum wages, and maximum hours would’ve produced prosperity in the Middle Ages?

Of course not. These luxuries are only possible when a society is already wealthy enough to afford them. They didn’t come about because peasants and serfs decided to unionize, take weekends off, or vote themselves universal healthcare.

The Twin Miracles

If a society is to waste wealth, it must first create it. The US and Europe spent centuries building the bounty they’re now depleting. But as the West plows thru its seed corn, it’s good to recall how it was harvested.

Where did it come from, and why did so much of it materialize relatively recently? These two charts make the point:

These graphs resemble the “hockey stick” models the climate catastrophists always throw in our face. But with one crucial difference: these charts are legitimate.

Output and population growth were fairly stagnant till relatively recently. But something happened in the last couple centuries. It’s fairly obvious what it was.

The West adopted free markets and fossil fuels. These are the twin miracles of modern civilization, and each are now under attack.

Suicidal nitwits argue for curtailing consumption of coal, oil, and natural gas…the principle resources that keep us alive. They demand we revert to the weather to generate power, as if the sun and wind are sufficient to sustain civilization.

Each offer ample energy…essentially endless. But in the aggregate that’s irrelevant, unless you’re trying to grow plants, sail a ship, or get a tan.

We need power at the margin, in large quantities over short periods of specific time. Neither sun nor wind offer this without the assistance of nuclear, coal, oil, or gas.

Which brings us back to the charts above. The parabolic curves coincide with the use of coal and, especially, the refining of oil.

These discoveries were key to the accumulation of capital. Hydrocarbons enabled industrialization, which made slavery uneconomical. As machinery replaced manpower, wages rose, children left the fields, and women’s workload began to fall.

It’s no coincidence these advances occurred when they did. In the late nineteenth century, the gold standard prevailed. There was no income tax or central bank.

Politics was tangential to daily life. People engaged in voluntary trade without distant busybodies making a case or taking their cut.

Vendors charged what they wanted, and buyers chose what they wished. No bureaucrat, congressman, or president needed to stick his nose into the exchange. Americans were perfectly capable of making decisions for themselves.

Majestically Idiotic

But no more. Today comes yet another proposal that’s majestically idiotic. Yesterday, we recounted how President Nixon ended the gold standard and imposed wage caps and price controls.

It was economic insanity, but political genius. He received credit for what he did, and was rewarded the next year with an unprecedented landslide. Kamala Harris’s handlers have taken note.

After decades printing money and piling up debt, our politicians act shocked to learn prices have risen. Having discovered the problem they caused, they do what comes naturally: they make it worse.

Because food costs have gone thru the roof, the anointed nominee has decided grocery prices should be restricted. We recall the gas lines when this genius idea was imposed during the Nixon years, and now envision those queues in the Kroger aisle.

As with reminding morons how valuable hydrocarbons are to modern life, it’s tedious having to explain the economically obvious. But I can’t believe it’s actually necessary to explain that price controls are an awful idea.

Even an imbecile should know this. Dumb as Kamala Harris is, I think even she does. But she’s a politician, which means she’s an opportunist.

Her campaign is acting on Thomas Sowell’s adage that politics is the art of replacing what works with what sounds good. Unfortunately, to far too many, her imbecilic proposal sounds terrific.

And when it blows up, our political saviors will again come to our “rescue” by punishing the usual suspects: us.

They’ll impose rationing and prohibit hoarding. The price mechanism will be further constrained, perpetuating the distortions and shortages. Grocery stores will be blamed for our leaders’ malfeasance, and their customers will bear the brunt of the punishment.

During the last decade, Western civilization has been on a kamikaze mission, fueled by what appears to be an eager ignorance of acquired knowledge. We’ve known for a hundred years how to generate dependable power, repel respiratory viruses, ensure reliable food supplies, and create prosperity thru ingenuity and enterprise.

But these lessons have been intentionally forgotten by those who inherited the bounty our ancestors bequeathed. It’s left to a slender remnant to remember.

JD