How Much Ruin Does It Take?

a lot

Don’t forget the famous quote from Adam Smith:

In late 1777, Adam Smith received news of General Burgoyne's defeat at Saratoga, promising calamity for Britain's war effort in America. His correspondent expressed deep concern that the nation was ruined. "There is a great deal of ruin in a nation", was the great economist's calm reply.

Easy for him to say. In fact though, nations can go broke and struggle on for decades. France was broke for a century before the Revolution — mostly because of wars. Spain was permanently broke right through its empire in Central America, and after the gold and silver got mined out it got worse. Hungary? Apart from conquest by the Mongols and the Ottomans, it was broke. Russia? Ditto. Again and again.

Usually these broke governments managed to hobble along and conjure up some new way to fleece the peasants without quite provoking them to rebellion. And if the peasants did rebel, well, they were deplorables and bitter clingers. The regime had no compunction in crushing peasant rebellions, although it was usually more careful with the upper classes.

Of course, sometimes the regime miscalculates and gets overthrown, usually when it takes away some sacred benefit from the people.

All I am saying is that, however bad it gets, most people will keep supporting the government. Most obviously this is true in Chicago, which just elected a radical left politician, Brandon Johnson, as mayor. Well, of course it did. Johnson is black, and his opponent, Paul Vallas, is Greek. You think that the black voters of Chicago are going to vote for a Greek? Or the Latino voters?

The fact is that lower class Americans have always voted for their ethnic group — their race, if you want to get personal. The Irish did it; the Italians did it; the Jews did it. It’s a question of trust. You trust your own kind, because who else can you trust? And lower-class people aren’t exactly sophisticated economic analysts doing spreadsheets to evaluate the candidates. OK, no voters do that. Instead they defer to their leaders until after it is too late.

Also, there’s the question of that river in Egypt. When you read about some lowlife getting gunned down or gunning someone else down, you usually also hear from the grieving relatives about how he was really a good kid that was really starting to get his life straightened out.

All I am saying is that the shenanigans that the Democrats are pulling on Donald Trump are par for the course down the ages. When a regime is threatened it turns around and threatens its critics. When a regime runs out of money it blames the Jews and the moneylenders and the greedy bankers. Almost always the pushback works.

Yes, but whatabout the rule of law? Whatabout free and fair elections? Whatabout freedom? Whatabout property rights? Whatabout women’s rights? Unfortunately, rulers don’t care about any of that. They only care about staying in power, and if they violate all the laws but still hang onto power, well, what’s the problem?

You want regime change? It’s not enough for the government to be broke. You need to have people starving in the streets. Or banks failing. Or people losing their homes. Or hyperinflation.

And really, who is prepared to trade a corrupt thieving regime for famine or homelessness or collapse of the economy?