Strange how we’re more often driven by negative emotions than constructive sentiments. As Nietzsche recognized, resentment is among the most potent political motivators and politicians have become adept at stoking all its versions. In Law and Liberty, Theodore Dalrymple scrutinizes our current historiographical narrative that the past consists of nothing but injustices.
At Least He Paid his Losing Bet
Paul Ehrlich, author of the spectacularly incorrect 1968 best-seller The Population Bomb, recently died at 93. Despite his longevity, Ronald Bailey points out in Reason, Ehrlich did not live to see even one of his numerous apocalyptic predictions come true. The world’s population certainly grew, but not merely larger, richer and fatter too. Most famously, Ehrlich once bet economist Julian Simon that the world was approaching economic collapse – but in 1990 had to mail Simon a cheque.
