This blog is, after all, called “Chicago Boyz.” One of the greatest and most influential economists of all time, Prof. Coase was for many years a Chicago Boy. A career spanning eight decades has now come to an end.
Chicago Boyz Archive
Daniel Hannan: Channeling America 3.0!
Daniel Hannan is an internationally renowned voice of liberty. He is a Euroskeptic Conservative Euro MP for Southeast England, a writer for the Daily Telegraph, the author of several books
Mr. Hannan has informed us that his book and America 3.0 have shared intellectual foundations. We cannot wait to read it.
In the meantime, he had a terrific review today of a book about Russian colonization in North America called Glorious Misadventures: Nikolai Rezanov and the Dream of a Russian America
Mr. Hannan’s review contained a great concise summary of a point we made in America 3.0, when discussing why the Russian lodgment in North America did not take root:
The American settlers had an advantage over every rival power: they administered their affairs locally. Dispersed land-ownership, elected town leaders, common law, religious pluralism, free contract, county militia: these made up an Anglosphere toolkit better suited to expansion than any rival model. Small wonder that contemporary Americans thought in terms of a manifest destiny.
Yes. Yes, exactly so.
We understand his review of America 3.0 is forthcoming, and we are looking forward to it.
A Plea for America 3.0: “Can we just fast-forward to 2040? Please?”
This plea comes from Dave Swindle, the associate editor of PJ Media. Dave “writes and edits articles and blog posts on politics, news, culture, and entertainment. He edits the PJ Lifestyle section.” Dave has been posting about his progress through America 3.0.
Chapter 1 is our depiction of America in 2040, when America 3.0 is reaching full flower. Dave’s desire to jump ahead to 2040 is understandable. But, as we make clear in the book, there is a difficult transition period ahead. The outcome is not inevitable. There is plenty of work for everyone to do in the meantime. We have to make America 3.0. So, keep smiling and stay strong. And be cheerful, the tectonic forces are in our favor. But we live in the granular details, and those are up to us.
BTW, Dave tells us a full review is coming soon. Way cool. Can’t wait.
America 3.0 author Mike Lotus at America’s Future Foundation Chicago, Wednesday, September 11th, 2013
I will be speaking to on September 11, 2013 to the Chicago chapter of America’s Future Foundation about our book America 3.0, answering the question: “are America’s greatest days yet to come?”
Spoiler alert … The answer is YES.
Details at this handy link. (Interestingly, this page has a version of the cover of the book that we did not end up using.)
The event is at Ontourage, 157 West Ontario Street, Chicago, at 6:00 p.m.
You can purchase tickets here. General admission is $10, but for $30 you can pre-order the book as well. That is actually a pretty good deal.
I am thrilled to be speaking to AFF. I like their libertarian stance, which I mostly share. I like the earnestness and braininess. I like the liquor at their parties. I like the tenor of the evening at their events. I like the whole stimmung of it.
Our book has several target audiences, and our libertarian friends are one of them. Let’s see how the ideas go over with them.
I hope to see many of you there.
Unhistory Monday: The Impossibility of Writing Truthfully About a Battle
The Chief, the Quartermaster, the Adjutant-General, know well enough what the strength of the army is, and can map out to a quarter of a mile where it lies; but to the casual and ignorant spectator all this is mystery. The vastness of the area over which the armed host is spread, confounds him. He is unable to realise the fact of thousands being present when scattered around him; he only sees a few groups of white tents widely separated. And as it is in a camp, so, I apprehend, it is in a battle. When the great Duke of Wellington was asked by a lady at a ball to describe Waterloo, he pointed to the brilliant pageant which was running its course before them, and asked her if she thought she could describe all that was going on in that ball-room. If it be ever my lot to be present at a battle—although of wars and its alarms I have had enough by this time—I shall have but little to say, I fancy, about the manoeuvres of great bodies of men, desperate charges, skilful flank movements, and so forth. Such graphic narratives are best written at home, years after the event, with the general’s despatches and a good map before one. If ever I were called upon to send home an account of a sanguinary engagement between two great armies, it would most probably—if the account were candid and conscientious—be confined to mentioning that, standing somewhere under a tree, I could make out, through a race-glass, that something like an Irish row appeared to be going on in a field a long way off; and that riding away, rather in a hurry, I met many carts full of men that were wounded, and were crying out, for God’s sake, for water; and that I saw many ditches full of men that could cry no more, for the reason that they were dead.
George Augustus Sala, My Diary in America in the Midst of War, Vol. 1 (1865)
