Walter Russell Mead: Rethinking the Development of the Liberal, Capitalist World Order

12 thoughts on “Walter Russell Mead: Rethinking the Development of the Liberal, Capitalist World Order”

1. Other Lectures in Series:

   https://portals.jhuapl.edu/rethinking/PastSeries/2014-2015.aspx

   Audio Feeds Only:

   http://feeds.feedburner.com/PrinciplesOfWarSeminarSeries

2. An hour and forty-two minutes? Dear God, you could teach the whole of Euclid’s Elements in that time.

3. There are notes made by an attending staff member here:
   https://portals.jhuapl.edu/media/RethinkingSeminars/110515/Mead_Notes2015.pdf

   Also, one of the options on the youtube video under the gear icon at bottom right is playback speed. This allows you to speed up the delivery without changing pitch. Between that and skipping the intro and musical segues, one can make it much shorter.

4. o As Calvinists the Dutch believed that God created some people to be damned and some to be saved – it was all God’s will, and therefore, not an individual’s fault

   o As a result the Dutch were willing to let people of all types live their lives in their own ways as long as they were quiet and paid their taxes

   o Any views were acceptable as long as people didn’t try to overthrow the government

   o People could do most anything in their own homes (not on the street)since they would be paying for their sins later in hell

   o Even Jews and atheists were accepted as long as they were willing to contribute

   Well I was going to second Dearieme on the length until Douglas graciously shared these notes. Now I’m for sure going to have to set aside a block of time to watch.

   I was having a related comment-conversation with Charles Cameron on the subject of the Dutch and their penchant for liberty. The one thing I’m wondering now is why the Dutch-Americans took their Calvinism and became libertarians, but the Dutch South Africans went the other direction and started apartheid.

5. why the Dutch-Americans took their Calvinism and became libertarians, but the Dutch South Africans went the other direction and started apartheid. The Dutch-Americans never sought to enslave and exploit the indigenous population, only, with all the other ethnic groups in early America except the Quakers, to encroach and exterminate them. In South Africa, there was the pre-existing system of enslaving Africans that was easily adopted to provide low cost labor.

6. “In South Africa, there was the pre-existing system of enslaving Africans”: really, among the Bushmen and Hottentots?

7. Wonderful. He describes well a lot of the mechanisms of how the world works, how it got here and why. He is somewhat disingenuous but basically nails it.

   He is not facing the change of greatest power, and this obscures some of the purpose in foreign policy that the US employs, but really a great presentation.

   Thanks Mike.

8. “and awaay we go”

9. “In South Africa, there was the pre-existing system of enslaving Africans”: really, among the Bushmen and Hottentots?

   No, amongst europeans.

10. Thank you for this. It is very persuasive for me since it organizes a lot of my thinking – i.e. he agrees with me.

    I’ve been very impressed with work on long cycles which seem to revolve around hegemonic challenges. Those challenges are the BIG wars that flare every 70 to 100 years. The last one was WWI/WWII where Germany tried to become world hegemon by displacing Britain. Of course, the US could have taken over from WWI but retreated and was finally convinced it was our responsibility following WWII.

    2020 is about time that another challenge is due and guess who is the contender? Trotsky even made that prediction as did others.

11. “No, amongst europeans.” In what sense? The Dutch were the first Europeans to settle in South Africa.

12. the europeans had been enslaving africans in west africa for two centuries by the time they finally got to settle south africa. It is no surprise they then enslaved them in the south. shift key broken.

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