Decline Is a Narrative

Discourse asked me to write a response to the murder of the Russian dissident Alexei Navalny, so I sent them a piece that expands on my previous comments in this newsletter.

I hail Navalny as “a warning and a beacon.” The warning is that, at a time when authoritarianism seems to have wide appeal around the world, the fate of Navalny “reveals the cold, hard reality of authoritarianism, which is actually built around a strongman leader’s ability to kill his critics with impunity.”

I’ll have more to say about this in the future, but the biggest mistake you can make with an authoritarian leader is believing his claims that he needs to get into power in order to do some one particular thing: revive the economy, preserve the traditional faith, protect against a hated enemy, make [insert country here] great again—whatever it is. His actual goal for getting into power is to wield power, for whatever goals he chooses. Usually, as with Putin, that means looting the country.

The beacon is the example Navalny set, and the fact that it is so much easier for us to follow it.

The point here is not that I am calling upon you to show the same level of courage as Alexei Navalny. The point is that you don’t have to. None of us do. Navalny showed that courage and honesty are weapons against authoritarianism, and we are called upon to exercise far, far less bravery than he was. So we have no excuse not to.

Read the whole thing.

Paul Krugman Makes Sense, Which Doesn’t Make Sense

Something kind of weird has been happening lately, which is that New York Times columnist Paul Krugman has been writing things that actually make sense. Even more astonishing, he is writing things where he sounds like a real economist and not just a partisan polemicist.

Consider Krugman’s review of why Europe is growing more slowly than the United States. One thing he points out is that labor productivity is about as high there as here (particularly in Northern Europe), but Americans choose to work longer hours, while Europeans prioritize leisure time.

But the bigger picture is more than just a lifestyle choice.