- African soldiers (excellent film review) Jeremy Harding, London Review of Books
- Not born in the USA Irfan Khawaja, Policy of Truth
- Iraq’s Kurds versus Turkey’s Kurds Mahmut Bozarslan, Al-Monitor
- Branko Milanovic’s confusion on inequality David Henderson, EconLog
Author: Brandon Christensen
Nightcap
- Hannah Arendt On Why It’s Urgent To Break Your Bubble Siobhan Kattago, IAI
- Does the right to self-defense apply against agents of the state? Jason Brennan, Reason
- Amazon (the company) and the Department of Defense Melanie Sisson, War on the Rocks
- ‘I have noticed a difference between older EDM stars and younger ones’ Cory Arcangel, Are.na
Nightcap
- Chinese and Soviets backed South African liberation movements…and apartheid ones, too Martin Plaut, QZ
- The dilemmas of competing with Xi Jinping’s China Peter Mattis, War on the Rocks
- Frankopan’s New Silk Road: A review Francis Sempa, Asian Review of Books
- How the sneaker conquered the world Luke Leitch, 1843
Nightcap
- A short romp through medieval London Philip Parker, Literary Review
- The new globalisation Richard Baldwin, VOX
- Why we miss the WASPs Ross Douthat, NY Times
- The fragility of badness Irfan Khawaja, Policy of Truth
Nightcap
- At home with the homeless Johannes Lenhard, Aeon
- Naguib Mahfouz’s Cairo Ursula Lindsey, the Nation
- Tyler Cowen on geopolitics marginalrevolution
- Collected. Bought. Looted? Friedel & von Gliszczynski, Africa is a Country
Joakim Book: Winner of the 2018 Money Metals Exchange & Sound Money Defense League essay contest
Just to keep readers up to date, Joakim just won a scholarship for an essay on sound money and banking. Here is the link to the essay. Here is the link to the announcement. It reads as follows:
For the third straight year, Money Metals Exchange, a national precious metals dealer recently ranked “Best in the USA,” has teamed up with the Sound Money Defense League to offer the first gold-backed scholarship of the modern era. These groups have set aside 100 ounces of physical gold to reward outstanding students who display a thorough understanding of the economics, monetary policy, and sound money.
A gold-backed scholarship?! Freakin’ awesome. Here is Joakim’s latest post at NOL, which was highlighted at the Financial Times‘ “Alphaville” blog (the FT is like the Wall Street Journal for countries that were once part of the British Empire).
One of the things I liked most about Joakim’s latest blog was the fact that he incorporated a post by another Notewriter into his thoughts (in this case Rick’s musings on Mariana Mazzucato and counterfactuals). The folks at “Alphaville” have been good to us over the years, too. They’ve linked, since 2017, to thoughts from Shree, Federico, Vincent (twice!), Mark, and Tridivesh as well as Joakim.
Joakim’s well-deserved award stacks up quite nicely with Lucas’ 2018 Novak Award from the Acton Institute and Nick’s winning entry for the Mont Pelerin Society’s 2018 Hayek essay competition. All in all, it’s been a good year for the Notewriters.
Nightcap
- Hayek and liberal dictatorship Matthew McManus, Areo
- Rule of Law: the case of open texture of language and complexity Federico Sosa Valle, NOL
- How the Germans finally caught up with the West Wolfgang Streeck, London Review of Books
- Rebuilding Europe after World War II Barry Stocker, NOL
Afternoon Tea: “Confucian Constitutionalism in Imperial Vietnam”
The phantasm of “Oriental despotism” dominating our conventional views of East Asian imperial government has been recently challenged by the scholarship of “Confucian constitutionalism.” To contribute to our full discovery of the manifestations of Confucian constitutionalism in diverse Confucian areas, this paper considers the case of imperial Vietnam with a focus on the early Nguyễn dynasty. The investigation reveals numerous constitutional norms as the embodiment of the Confucian li used to restrain the royal authority, namely the models of ancient kings, the political norms in the Confucian classics, the ancestral precedents, and the institutions of the precedent dynasties. In addition, the paper discovers structuralized forums enabling the scholar-officials to use the norms to limit the royal power, including the royal examination system, the deliberative institutions, the educative institution, the remonstrative institution, and the historical institution. In practical dimension, the paper demonstrates the limitations of these norms and institutions in controlling the ruler due to the lack of necessary institutional independence. At the same time, it also suggests that the relative effectiveness of these norms and institutions could be achieved thanks to the power of tradition. The study finally points out several implications. First, the availability of the constitutional norms and institutions in the tradition is the cultural foundation for the promotion of modern constitutionalism in the present-day Vietnam. Second, the factual material concerning the Vietnamese experiences can hopefully be used for further study of the practice of Confucian constitutionalism in East Asia and further revision of the “Oriental despotism” － based understanding of imperial polity in the region. Third, the findings may also be useful for a more general reflection on pre-modern constitutionalism.
That is from Son Ngoc Bui, a legal scholar at the Chinese University of Hong Kong’s law school. Here is a link.
Nightcap
- After Federalist No. 10 Greg Weiner, National Affairs
- Photos of the Paris “Yellow Vest” Riots Alan Taylor, the Atlantic
- A century of HIV Thomas McDow, Origins
- The long, entwined history of America First and the American dream Kevin Kruse, the Nation
Nightcap
- Will Mexico get the populist “full package”? Alberto Mingardi, EconLog
- What is populism? Christopher Caldwell, Claremont Review of Books
- The poverty of the Brexit debate Oliver Wiseman, CapX
- Jews revolutionized the university. Will Asians do the same? Barbara Kay, Quillette
Nightcap
- Between populism and internationalism: conservative foreign policy after Trump Colin Dueck, War on the Rocks
- Recovering the profound divisions that led to the Civil War Gordon S. Wood, New Republic
- The private intellectual Tobi Haslett, New Yorker
- Christian humanism: A path not taken Paul Seaton, Law & Liberty
Afternoon Tea: “Highland Chiefs and Regional Networks in Mainland Southeast Asia: Mien Perspectives”
This article is centered on the life story of a Mien upland leader in Laos and later in the kingdom of Nan that subsequently was made a province of Thailand. The story was recorded in 1972 but primarily describes events during 1870–1930. The aim of this article is to call attention to long-standing networks of highland-lowland relations where social life was unstable but always and persistently inclusive and multiethnic. The centrality of interethnic hill-valley networks in this Mien case has numerous parallels in studies of Rmeet, Phunoy, Karen, Khmu, Ta’ang, and others in mainland Southeast Asia and adjacent southern China. The implications of the Mien case support an analytical shift from ethnography to ethnology—from the study of singular ethnic groups that are viewed as somehow separate from one another and from lowland polities, and toward a study of patterns and variations in social networks that transcend ethnic labels and are of considerable historical and analytical importance. The shift toward ethnology brings questions regarding the state/non-state binary that was largely taken for granted in studies of tribal peoples as inherently stateless.
This is from Hjorleifur Jonsson, an anthropologist at Arizona State University’s School of Human Evolution and Social Change. Here is a link.
Nightcap
- Making sense of Japan’s new immigration policy Emese Schwarcz, Diplomat
- Deportations with benefits Irfan Khawaja, Policy of Truth
- Democracy as an information system Henry Farrell, Crooked Timber
- Against debate Chris Dillow, Stumbling & Mumbling
Nightcap
- Ethnicity and Philosophy Nick Nielsen, Grand Strategy Annex
- Revisiting the Dyson Sphere Caleb Scharf, Life, Unbounded
- Reading VS Naipaul Branko Milanovic, globalinequality
- Deep Learning and Abstract Orders Federico Sosa Valle, NOL
Afternoon Tea: “Dividing Power in the First and Second British Empires: Revisiting Durham’s Imperial Constitution”
In his Report on the Affairs of British North America, Lord Durham proposed that “internal” government be placed in the hands of the colonists themselves and that a short list of subjects be reserved for Imperial control. Janet Ajzenstat maintains that Durham did not intend to formally restrict the authority of the new colonial legislature by dividing power. This paper argues otherwise: that Durham’s recommendation fell squarely within a tradition of distinguishing between the internal and external affairs of the colony. This was the imprecise but pragmatic distinction that American colonists invoked during the Stamp Act crisis as a means of curtailing imperial authority over internal taxation while maintaining their allegiance to the British Crown. It also was a division that Charles Buller relied upon in a constitution for New South Wales that he proposed prior to sailing to Canada as Durham’s principal secretary. Durham likely was drawing upon this tradition when he made his recommendation, a distinction that began to crumble away almost immediately. In the result, Canadians inherited a robust semblance of self-government, just as colonists during the Stamp Act crisis had desired, but without the need for revolution.
This is from David Schneiderman, a law professor at the University of Toronto. Here is the link.
Notes On Liberty 