A tragic Trump tariff tale tweeted

"After failing to make trade deals, Trump is now just posting letters to world leaders announcing new tariff rates."

~ Meidas Touch

"Every one of the tariff letters ends by noting 'These Tariffs may be modified, upward or downward, depending on our relationship with your Country.' No American company is going to open a new factory based on the protection offered by a tariff [that] could disappear before the concrete sets."

~ Justin Wolfers

"They're not even letters. They're posts on the President's social media platform. .... So far: Japan 25% South Korea: 25% Malaysia: 25% Kazakhstan: 25% (very niiice) South Africa: 30% Laos: 40% Myanmar: 40% ... PLUS the sectoral tariffs"

~ Justin Wolfers

"Reminder: the US has a FREE TRADE AGREEMENT with South Korea, signed by the President (GWB) & implemented into LAW by Congress, and TRUMP HIMSELF signed a mini-deal w/ SK in 2018. Now ALL South Korean imports get a 25% tariff — for now. NO incentive for South Korea (or anyone else) to negotiate with him."

~ Scott Lincicome

"Unlike most of the countries Trump is shaking down with tariffs, South Korea has a free trade agreement with the U.S. (KORUS) that was ratified by Congress. The Constitution gives control of trade policy entirely to Congress, the president has no legal authority to do this."

~ Aaron Fritschner

"Trump punishes nice allies while he has not imposed any tariff on Russia or Belarus & no new sanctions either. Trump is transparently for our enemies & against our friends."

~ Anders Aslund

"[T]he logic is not just wrong - it’s economically backwards. Here's why:  

    "First, tariffs are not paid by foreign countries. A 40% tariff as an example goods means U.S. importers pay 40% more. Those importers pass the cost to consumers. Tariffs are taxes — and they hurt Americans, not the governments being 'punished.

    "Second, the letter treats the trade deficit as a threat. But a trade deficit isn’t inherently bad — it’s a reflection of dollar dominance. The U.S. dollar is the world’s reserve currency. Foreign nations want to hold dollars and invest in American assets — like U.S. Treasury bonds, real estate, and equities. This demand for dollars keeps the currency strong and allows Americans to buy more goods from abroad. That’s what creates a trade deficit — not weakness, but strength and global trust. So while countries exports goods to the U.S., the U.S. exports financial assets to the world. That’s not losing - that’s global balance.  

    "Third, the idea of retaliatory tariffs — 'if you raise yours, we’ll raise ours higher' — is not a strategy. It’s a threat that damages diplomacy, disrupts supply chains, and raises costs for American companies and consumers alike. Trade is not a zero-sum game. This kind of mercantilist thinking — where every deficit is seen as a loss and every surplus as a win — belongs in the 1700s. In a modern, interconnected global economy, it’s outdated and harmful. Bottom line:  

• Tariffs are taxes on Americans 
• Trade deficits reflect dollar strength, not weakness 
•  Retaliatory trade policy only hurts U.S. businesses 

"Economic nationalism may sound tough, but it’s American wallets that take the hit."

~ Jon Wiltshire

"Trump: What people don’t understand is... the country eats the tariff, the company eats the tariff and it’s not passed along at all… China is eating the tariffs. 

"Fact-check: False. Costs associated with tariffs are almost universally passed to consumers."

~ The Intellectualist

Compromise: A Ukranian example

"It is only in regard to concretes or particulars, implementing a mutually accepted basic principle, that one may compromise. For instance, one may bargain with a buyer over the price one wants to receive for one's product, and agree on a sum somewhere between one's demand and his offer. The mutually accepted basic principle, in such case, is the principle of trade, namely: that the buyer must pay the seller for his product. But if one wanted to be paid and the alleged buyer wanted to obtain one's product for nothing, no compromise, agreement or discussion would be possible, only the total surrender of one or the other.

There can be no compromise between a property owner and a burglar; offering the burglar a single teaspoon of one's silverware would not be a compromise, but a total surrender—the recognition of his right to one's property. ...

"Contrary to the fanatical belief of its advocates, compromise [on basic principles] does not satisfy, but dissatisfies everybody; it does not lead to general fulfillment, but to general frustration; those who try to be all things to all men, end up by not being anything to anyone. And more: the partial victory of an unjust claim, encourages the claimant to try further; the partial defeat of a just claim, discourages and paralyzes the victim. ...

"In any compromise between food and poison, it is only death that can win. In any compromise between good and evil, it is only evil that can profit. In that transfusion of blood which drains the good to feed the evil, the compromiser is the transmitting rubber tube . . ."

~ Ayn Rand, composite quote from here articles 'The Cashing-In: The Student 'Rebellion',' 'Doesn't Life Require Compromise?,' and 'Galt's Speech.' [Hat tip for cartoon Maksym Borodin]

"All of this helps to explain why a forcible annexation of Greenland would ultimately also harm U.S. interests [as well]."

"All of this helps to explain why a forcible annexation of Greenland would ultimately also harm U.S. interests. To trade in the most stable and powerful military alliance in modern history for control over a frigid and sparsely populated island—plus a place for Trump in the history books—is a bad deal for the American people. But that doesn’t mean that the Trump White House will see things the same way."

~ Yascha Mounk from his post 'They Really Just Might Invade Greenland'

"Is there any actual US policy to get Russia to accept a ceasefire? Or is the US is an ally of Russian imperialism?"

"Ukraine has proposed a ceasefire without conditions. Russia will almost certainly reject this and try to dictate to [US Special Envoy Steve] Witkoff that the US help Russia achieve colonial control of Ukraine, something that Russia could never achieve on its own.
    "Then we see if there is any actual US policy to get Russia to do what Ukraine has done, to accept a ceasefire, or if the US is an ally of Russian imperialism and this whole process has just been a cover story for American submission to Russian wishes. If Witkoff comes back from Russia endorsing Russian demands regarding Ukrainian sovereignty we have our answer.
    "Russia has no more right to dictate anything that happens inside Ukraine than Ukraine has to dictate what happens inside Russia. And the 'root causes' of this war are all inside Russia, as the Russians are reminding us."

~ Timothy Snyder

"Europe is at a critical turning point in its history."

“President, Mr. Prime Minister, Ladies and Gentlemen Ministers, My dear colleagues,

"Europe is at a critical turning point in its history. The American shield is crumbling, Ukraine risks being abandoned, Russia strengthened. Washington has become the court of Nero ...

"This is a tragedy for the free world, but it is first and foremost a tragedy for the United States. Trump’s message is that there is no point in being his ally since he will not defend you, he will impose more customs duties on you than on his enemies and will threaten to seize your territories while supporting the dictatorships that invade you.

"The king of the deal is showing what the art of the deal is all about. He thinks he will intimidate China by lying down before Putin—but Xi Jinping, faced with such a shipwreck, is probably accelerating preparations for the invasion of Taiwan.

"Never in history has a President of the United States capitulated to the enemy. Never has anyone supported an aggressor against an ally. Never has anyone trampled on the American Constitution, issued so many illegal decrees, dismissed judges who could have prevented him from doing so, dismissed the military general staff in one fell swoop, weakened all checks and balances, and taken control of social media. 

"This is not an illiberal drift, it is the beginning of the confiscation of democracy. Let us remember that it took only one month, three weeks and two days to bring down the Weimar Republic and its Constitution. 

"I have faith in the strength of American democracy, and the country is already protesting. But in one month, Trump has done more harm to America than in four years of his last presidency. We were at war with a dictator, now we are fighting a dictator backed by a traitor. 

"Eight days ago, at the very moment that Trump was rubbing Macron’s back in the White House, the United States voted at the UN with Russia and North Korea against the Europeans demanding the withdrawal of Russian troops. 

"Two days later, in the Oval Office, the military-service shirker was giving war hero Zelensky lessons in morality and strategy before dismissing him like a groom, ordering him to submit or resign. 

"Tonight, he took another step into infamy by stopping the delivery of weapons that had been promised. What to do in the face of this betrayal? The answer is simple: face it. 

"And first of all, let’s not be mistaken. The defeat of Ukraine would be the defeat of Europe. The Baltic States, Georgia, Moldova are already on the list. Putin’s goal is to return to Yalta, where half the continent was ceded to Stalin. 

"The countries of the South are waiting for the outcome of the conflict to decide whether they should continue to respect Europe or whether they are now free to trample on it. 

"What Putin wants is the end of the order put in place by the United States and its allies 80 years ago, with its first principle being the prohibition of acquiring territory by force. 

"This idea is at the very source of the UN, where today Americans vote in favour of the aggressor and against the attacked, because the Trumpian vision coincides with that of Putin: a return to spheres of influence, the great powers dictating the fate of small countries.

Mine is Greenland, Panama and Canada; yours are Ukraine, the Baltics and Eastern Europe; his is Taiwan and the China Sea. 

"At the parties of the oligarchs of the Gulf of Mar-a-Lago, this is called 'diplomatic realism.' 

"So we are alone. But the talk that Putin cannot be resisted is false. Contrary to the Kremlin’s propaganda, Russia is in bad shape. In three years, the so-called second-largest army in the world has managed to grab only crumbs from a country three times less populated. 

"Interest rates at 25%, the collapse of foreign exchange and gold reserves, the demographic collapse show that it is on the brink of the abyss. The American helping hand to Putin is the biggest strategic mistake ever made in a war. 

"The shock is violent, but it has a virtue. Europeans are coming out of denial. They understood in one day in Munich that the survival of Ukraine and the future of Europe are in their hands ...  

"It is a Herculean task, but it is on its success or failure that the leaders of today’s democratic Europe will be judged in the history books. ...

 

"Europe will only become a military power again by becoming an industrial power again. ... But the real rearmament of Europe is its moral rearmament. 

"We must convince public opinion in the face of war weariness and fear, and especially in the face of Putin’s cronies, the extreme right and the extreme left. 

"They argued again yesterday in the National Assembly ...  They say they want peace. What neither they nor Trump say is that their peace is capitulation, the peace of defeat, the replacement of de Gaulle Zelensky by a Ukrainian Pétain at the beck and call of Putin. ...

"Is this the end of the Atlantic Alliance? The risk is great. But in the last few days, the public humiliation of Zelensky and all the crazy decisions taken in the last month have finally made the Americans react. 

"Polls are falling. Republican lawmakers are being greeted by hostile crowds in their constituencies. Even Fox News is becoming critical. 

"The Trumpists are no longer in their majesty. They control the executive, the Parliament, the Supreme Court and social networks. 

"But in American history, the freedom fighters have always prevailed. They are beginning to raise their heads. 

"The fate of Ukraine is being played out in the trenches, but it also depends on those in the United States who want to defend democracy, and here on our ability to unite Europeans, to find the means for their common defense, and to make Europe the power that it once was in history and that it hesitates to become again. 

"Our parents defeated fascism and communism at great cost. 

"The task of our generation is to defeat the totalitarianisms of the 21st century. 

"Long live free Ukraine, long live democratic Europe.”

-Claude Malhuret speaking to the French Senate Tuesday March 4 2025.

 

There is no 'leader of the free world' anymore.

"There's no leader of the free world anymore. ...

"[T]he Trump Administration's ... stupid trade war isn't about leverage to get other economies to open up; it is old fashioned autarky* ... the economics of hardened Marxists and moronic economic nationalists ...

"[I]t is however the moral depravity of the line on Ukraine which deserves the most opprobrium.

"There is no morality in surrendering to an aggressor all that it has [grabbed] so that you have 'peace' while the aggressor rebuilds...  and at the same time your erstwhile ally has blackmailed you into signing a predatory deal to hand over resources [without even] vague promises of security. ...

"[T]o be even-handed between Russia and Ukraine is a complete moral inversion. [Trump] has been excoriating about Zelenskyy, but said nothing negative at all about Putin or the behaviour of Russia. ...  He has only demanded that Ukraine stop....

"Of course everyone wants the war to end. It could end tomorrow if Putin just decided to end it and withdraw. But he's a psychopathic kleptocrat who feeds young Russian men (from poor backgrounds) and North Korean men to their deaths. ...

"If the war does ends soon on [Trump's terms, with a capitulation to Russia granting it time to rearm and come again] then it will only prolong the inevitable. Russia can spend a few years rearming, and use its renewed economic potential after sanctions are lifted by the US, to steal military capability and be ready for another attack. ... 

"[Contemplate this:] If the territorial integrity of sovereign states doesn't matter in Ukraine, then maybe it doesn't matter anywhere that the Trump Administration doesn't care about, and that includes any country—in Europe, Asia, in the Indo-Pacific ...

"[T]he cost ... of letting it be known that the US is isolationist and won't act to protect any nation states from attack ... is going to be much higher than the tens of billions taken to bolster Ukraine. 

"Even Marine Le Pen is critical of Trump on Ukraine, because by and large, European countries want to ensure defence against the predatory criminal gangster state to the east that treats its neighbours with impunity.

"Perhaps a deal will be struck,... [Perhaps] Europe will do all it can to support Ukraine. Regardless, it is now a time for small countries everywhere to acknowledge that it's all on now — that the US doesn't care if you are attacked, that you have to fend for yourselves with any other allies.

"There is no 'leader of the free world' anymore."

~ Liberty Scott from his post 'There's no leader of the free world anymore'

Why America (and New Zealand) Should Be on Ukraine's Side and Not Putin's Side, explained in 8 minutes.

 

'A Day of American Infamy' [update 2]

"In August 1941, about four months before the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, Franklin Roosevelt met with Winston Churchill aboard warships in Newfoundland’s Placentia Bay and agreed to the Atlantic Charter, a joint declaration by the world’s leading democratic powers on 'common principles' for a postwar world. ...
    "The Charter, and the alliance that came of it [including the supply of military equipment to Britain by Lend-Lease] is a high point of American statesmanship. On Friday in the Oval Office, the world witnessed the opposite. Volodymyr Zelensky, Ukraine’s embattled democratic leader, came to Washington prepared to sign away anything he could offer President Trump except his nation’s freedom, security and common sense. For that, he was rewarded with a lecture on manners from the most mendacious vulgarian and ungracious host ever to inhabit the White House.
    "If Roosevelt had told Churchill to sue for peace on any terms with Adolf Hitler and to fork over Britain’s coal reserves to the United States in exchange for no American security guarantees, it might have approximated what Trump did to Zelensky. Whatever one might say about how Zelensky played his cards poorly — either by failing to behave with the degree of all-fours sycophancy that Trump demands or to maintain his composure in the face of JD Vance’s disingenuous provocations — this was a day of American infamy.
    "Where do we go from here?"

~ Bret Stephens from his editorial 'A Day of American Infamy 

PICS: Bottom, war leader Winston Churchill at the White House 3 January 1942, wearing his air-raid suit (Imperial War Museum); top, a war leader at the White House with two thugs (Getty Images) 

UPDATE 1: 

"What does seem clear is that Trump is putting an end to the foreign policy the United States has pursued since the end of World War II. Indeed, his worldview seems to rest on two assumptions that run directly counter to the way in which, for all the serious differences between them, every president since 1945 has thought about America’s role in the world.
    
"The first is that Trump has a fundamentally zero-sum view of the world. America’s relationship with allies like Japan or the United Kingdom has been based on the assumption that both sides would benefit from the partnership. In particular, America would provide its allies with a security guarantee; in return, it would enjoy international stability, reap the benefits of free trade, and have huge sway over the rules governing the world order. Even if the United States might be a net contributor in the short run, expending more for its military budget than its partners, these alliances would over the long run serve the country’s 'enlightened self-interest.'

"Trump, by contrast, seems to believe that every deal has a winner and a loser; since American allies in Europe or East Asia are not unhappy about the current arrangements, this must mean that it is his nation that’s the sucker. ...

"The second assumption shaping Trump’s foreign policy is his belief that spheres of influence are the natural, and perhaps even the morally appropriate, way to organise international relations. ... [and] that maintaining an alliance structure that ignores spheres of influence is naive, needlessly costly, and fundamentally sentimental. ...

"Panama and Greenland are in America’s sphere of influence, and so Trump believes that he is entitled to make outrageous demands on them. Conversely, he seems to regard Ukraine as falling into Russia’s natural sphere of influence ...

"If Trump gets his way, the world will become much more transactional. America’s erstwhile allies in the western hemisphere will either need to learn to stand on their own feet or to pay financial tribute to their protector. Those which happen to be located in the vicinity of the world’s most powerful authoritarian countries will need to accommodate themselves to the diktat of Beijing or Moscow ..."

~ Yascha Mounk from his post 'Help Me Understand... The New World Order'

UPDATE 2:

"In light of the events of the past week [which includes the US siding with Russia and North Korea on a UN resolution condemning Russia's invasion of Ukraine, and a three-ship Chinese naval circumnavigation of Australia], the Washington faction of NZ's Ministry of Foreign Affairs & Trade faces a new and major problem. ...

    "President Donald Trump’s affection for dictatorial regimes; the brutality of his transactional approach to international affairs; and his apparent repudiation of the 'rules-based international order' in favour of cold-eyed realpolitik; makes it difficult for America (and its increasingly apprehensive allies) to retain their footing on the moral high-ground.
    "It is difficult [therefore] to criticise the transactional elements of the relationships forged between China and the micro-states of the Pacific – the Cook Islands being only the latest in a succession of Chinese-initiated bilateral agreements negotiated in New Zealand’s 'back yard' – when the United States is demanding half of Ukraine’s rare earths in part-payment for the American munitions supplied to counter Russian aggression.
    "What those three Chinese warships have produced, however, is a much more compelling argument for aligning New Zealand’s defensive posture in general and its military procurement in particular with Australia’s. In the much colder and more brutal world that is fast emerging from the collapse of the 80-year-old Pax Americana, only the Australians can be relied upon to protect us – and only then if they are satisfied that the Kiwis are pulling their weight."

 ~Chris Trotter from his post 'What Are We Defending?'

"Consequently, there is no incentive for the politicians to change their behaviour. It is for this reason we see tariffs consistently fail as a negotiation tool."

"To listen to protectionists, one would think tariffs are something of a miracle drug. Anything and everything can be solved by tariffs. Prices too low? Tariffs will raise ‘em. Prices too high? Tariffs will lower ‘em. Sprained knee? Just take two tariffs and call me in the morning. ...

"Take, for example, the argument that tariffs can be used as negotiation tools. The argument goes that you can threaten another nation with tariffs, impose the costs of the tariffs on them, and force them to bend to your will (whatever that will may be). ...

"[Yet] politicians face a different set of incentives. The major issue with many tariff supporters’ models is that they improperly model these incentives. This is a side effect of collectivist thinking; we must always remember that a 'nation' is a useful abstraction, but ultimately is made up of individuals who choose. A 'nation' never, ever chooses. And a government is not synonymous with the nation or the people located therein. ...

"Consequently, there is no incentive for the politicians to change their behaviour. It is for this reason we see tariffs consistently fail as a negotiation tool.

"Indeed, so-called trade sanctions and tariffs end up having the opposite effect. The American embargo of Cuba entrenched the Castro regime. Tariffs and embargoes on Iran failed to halt their nuclear program or weaken the regime. Putin still wages war in Ukraine despite (or because of?) trade sanctions. Perhaps most damningly, the Chinese government developed DeepSeek as a direct response to Trump’s original 'economic statecraft' against the Communist Party (continued by Biden).

"Adam Smith recognised this problem. In the 'Wealth of Nations' ... he notes that tariffs could be a potential tool to negotiate lower barriers in other nations. ...   Such negotiations could work, he states, but could also lead to war ...."

~ Jon Murphy from his post 'The Political Problem of Tariffs'

"They talk endlessly about the cost of beating Russia. But they never talk about the more frightening and much more expensive alternative. The cost of not."

"Together, they were not simply telling Ukraine that America was overextended, or that the paradigm had shifted. They were broadcasting to the whole world that the United States could not offer so much as moral support to a country invaded by another country—a country run by a despot who wants to reassemble the empire the United States once crushed.
    "This was a betrayal not only of Ukraine, but America. ...
    "What is the point of an America that does not defend, if only from the bully pulpit, the right of ... smaller, weaker countries to defend themselves against their bigger, rapacious neighbours? How have we become so alienated from ourselves that we not only find it difficult to empathise with the Ukrainians but feel compelled to demonise them? We used to celebrate the likes of Zelenskyy, who proudly refused an American offer to airlift him out of his country two days after Russia invaded it. 'The fight is here,' he said. 'I need ammunition, not a ride.'
    "Neither Trump nor his subordinates ever says what will happen after Russia is rewarded for its aggression. They simply say that that is our only option. They don’t imagine or talk about the new world order according to the authoritarians ... Nor do they ever bring up the countless democratic movements that America helped usher into being.
    "They talk endlessly about the cost of beating Russia. But they never talk about the more frightening and much more expensive alternative. The cost of not."

~ Peter Savodnik from his post 'My Ancestors Fled Ukraine. It Was America That Allowed Me to Return.'

"We are witnessing a very sad moment in American history." [updated with a FACTCHECK]

 

I confess that I never thought I'd be posting a video here by Bernie Sanders.

But it is the right time.

He captures the gravity, and the tragedy, of an American president dictating verbatim Russian propaganda lines to a willing American audience, an abject capitulation to dictatorial force, dismissing with a wave a Western Alliance that has lasted eighty years—and outraging folk as diverse as Bernie in Vermont, Emanuel Macron in Paris, and even the illiberal Peter Dutton in Canberra. 

It is indeed a very sad moment in American history.

There is literally nothing in Trump's recapitulation of Russian propaganda in any way based on reality.

"Trump Blames the Victim," says National Review, accurately. National Review! 'The American Betrayal of Ukraine' is its headline.

[S]o far in his second term, regarding the Russian invasion of Ukraine, Trump has offered to Vladimir Putin that Ukraine will not retake all its annexed and occupied sovereign territory, that Ukraine will not join NATO, that there will be no U.S. troops on Ukrainian soil after the war, and that the U.S. will lift sanctionson Russia. And Trump might even throw in a withdrawal of the extra 20,000 U.S. troops that Joe Biden sent to NATO’s eastern flank after the invasion of Ukraine.
And in exchange, Putin offered . . . well, nothing, really. ... 

So much for the "art of the deal," huh.

"Peace" talks? These are talks to see how quickly Putin can be given all he asks for on a plate. 

    Russia has killed more than 12,000 Ukrainian civilians, and more than 6 million Ukrainian citizens live under the brutal hand of occupying Russian forces, and our government is talking about [terms of surrender and] 'historic economic and investment opportunities' with them?
    What exactly does Russia have to offer us that we want so badly?

Who the hell knows. But this is Trump sending his Secretary of State to "impose terms of surrender on a sovereign nation that committed the crime—in his eyes now—of refusing to allow Russia to take it over." This, above and below, by the way, is written by a former speechwriter for Ronald Reagan.

Trump literally blamed [Zelenskyy] and the country he leads for the war itself:“Today I heard, ‘Oh, well, we weren’t invited.’ Well, you’ve been there for three years. You should have ended it—three years. You should have never been there. You should have never started it. You should have made a deal.”
    You should never have started it. What madness, what cravenness, what repulsive factitiousness, is this?

"Started it"? Zelenskyy wasn't even within a sniff of his presidency when Putin invaded for the first time, in 2014. And the second invasion, in 2022, all he had time to start was firm resistance to Putin's bid for lebensraum.

As Volodomyr Zelenskyy responded, as diplomatically as he knew how, "Trump is living in a disinformation bubble."

[Trump's] claim is effectively that Zelenskyy is illegitimate; according to Trump, Zelenskyy has a 4 percent approval rating. That’s a near-psychotic lie. The last poll, for whatever a poll in the middle of a war is worth, had the Ukrainian leader at 52 percent.

That's a better rating than Trump's, for what it's worth.

Trump insists Zelenskyy holds elections, even as it struggles under the martial law imposed since Putin's second invasion. However, 

the Ukrainian constitution literally creates an election exception under conditions of martial law; not only are elections not to be held under its terms, but once martial law is lifted, there is to be no election for six months. As the scholar Elena Davlikanova explains, “Several laws would need to be changed in order for presidential elections to be held, which raises its own problems. Even if a legal solution could be found, security, financial, and organisational obstacles to holding free, fair, and representative elections are far more serious.”

It is not for Trump to decide whether Ukraine continues to defend its territory and its sovereignty. He is, of course, within his mandate as president to cut off aid, and thereby make the war sputter out—in order to make the Ukrainians suffer for their disobedience in refusing to walk quietly to the gallows while thanking him as they are hanged in the worldwide public square.

Down here, Oliver Hartwich weighs in on this historic shift in world affairs. 'The Day the West Died' is how he titles his piece.

Predictable though these developments were, they are still shocking. Not since the end of World War II has there been such a dramatic shift in the global security architecture. And rarely has a great power abandoned its allies with such devastating consequences.
    If you are not sure just how dramatic the events of the last week are, think about them this way. When World War II was coming to an end, US President Franklin D. Roosevelt, British Prime Minister Winston Churchill and Soviet Premier Joseph Stalin met at Yalta to plan post-war Europe. But they did not invite Hitler to these discussions.
    Now, as the Ukraine War appears to be ending, it is the aggressor (Putin) and a sympathetic US President planning Ukraine’s future.
    Meanwhile, Ukraine and America’s European allies are effectively excluded from the talks.
    As Estonia’s former Prime Minister Kaja Kallas, now EU foreign policy chief, put it, “Why are we giving Russia everything they want even before negotiations have started?” ...

    As former Swedish Prime Minister Carl Bildt observed on X, “It’s certainly an innovative approach to a negotiation to make very major concessions even before they have started. Not even Chamberlain went that low in 1938.”

If Europeans had fronted up when they needed to—as a friend pointed out, if NATO were even barely competent, "this shouldn't matter. It'd be the same as Luxembourg negotiating with Russia on Ukraine's behalf." But they've made it matter by sitting on their hands when it mattered, and now it matters that an American president is hearing siren songs from a saurian despot.

Historian Niall Ferguson summarises, in firing back at a raving J.D. Vance:

I simply cannot understand the logic of beginning a negotiation this difficult by conceding so many crucial points to Russia. 

    As I understand it, before negotiations have even begun, NATO membership for Ukraine has been taken off the table and the loss of 20% of its territory has in effect been conceded. Correct me if I am wrong. 

    I have read also (though it may not be true) that “American officials are suggesting a different sort of peacekeeping force, including non-European countries such as Brazil or China, that would sit along an eventual ceasefire line as a sort of buffer.” China? Seriously? 

    On Wednesday, President Trump accused Ukraine of having “started it,” meaning the war. He also cast doubt on the legitimacy of President Zelensky’s government. 

    It is not “moralistic garbage” but a hard and realistic lesson of history that wars are easy to start and hard to end. As for “historical illiteracy,” here are some facts. 

    It took 1 year, 10 months, 25 days for Woodrow Wilson to negotiate an end to World War I (it helped that the Allies won); 2 years, 18 days to negotiate an end to the Korean War; 3 years, 5 months, 24 days to negotiate an end to the Vietnam War; and 5 years, 5 months, 1 day to negotiate peace between Israel and Egypt. 

    I earnestly hope that the Trump administration can negotiate an end to this war. 

    But if we end up with a peace that dooms Ukraine first to partition and then to some future invasion, it will be a sorry outcome.

A line has been drawn here. A line Bernie is not alone in recognising. Writing on The Origins of Totalitarianism, Hannah Arendt observed that

The ideal subject of totalitarian rule is not the convinced Nazi or the convinced Communist, but people for whom the distinction between fact and fiction and the distinction between true and false no longer exist.” 

The distinction right now is between those who are still reality-based, and those willing to entertain the ravings of a fantasist. A fantasist in thrall to dictators, oligarchs, and his own headlines.

 

But one who holds, for another four years, the once-respected office of the US presidency.

FACTCHECK:

Claim: Ukraine started the war

Fact: Russia started the war, openly initiating in 2022 what they termed a special military operation after denying for weeks that they were preparing to invade. Russia also invaded Crimea by force in 2014 and organized the conflict in Donetsk and Luhansk starting that year to destabilize Ukraine, using Russian forces masquerading as local separatists.

Claim: Zelenskyy is unpopular with approval rating polls at 4%.

Fact: Zelenskyy approval rating polls are ~50%.

Claim: Zelenskyy is a dictator.

Fact: Putin is a dictator. Zelenskyy was elected in a free election and would win a second term depending on whether or not General Zaluzhnyi (popular former C-in-C, currently Ambassador to UK) runs. Pro-Russia politicians are extremely unpopular. Elections with much of four regions under Russian occupation would be difficult, and Ukraine's Constitution forbids elections during martial law, a status that Parliament must approve every 90 days (and has). Russia's last even partly free election was in 2000.

Claim: Russia is winning the war.

Fact: Russia has lost half of its military capability in the war, and proven that a supposed first rate military power cannot defeat a third rate power. Russia's economy is crippled by sanctions, brain drain, and 21% interest rates. They have suffered an estimated 500,000 battle casualties, naval decimation, and a recent embarrassing loss of its satellite state in Syria. The cards dealt to Trump in negotiating are actually quite strong.

Claim: U.S. has spent $350 billion on the war, half of which is missing.

Fact: U.S. government figures have Congress approving $183 billion for Ukraine and NATO partners assisting Ukraine, of which $86.7 billion has been spent. $58 billion of that was spent in the U.S. fulfilling arms orders, and $32 billion on direct budget support for Ukraine's government. A private estimate by the Kiel Institute adds indirect spending to total $124 billion to date. The $350 billion number is a 2022 World Bank estimate of the cost of rebuilding Ukrainian infrastructure after the war. Zelenskyy's comment about missing money was about the U.S. not spending the full amount Congress has approved.

Claim: The U.S. has spent $200 billion more than Europe on aiding Ukraine.

Fact: Europe has spent more total aid, $140 billion to date. The U.S. has spent slightly more on military equipment ($67 billion vs $65 billion) but Europe has spent more on financial and humanitarian aid.

Claim: Ukrainian provinces have voted to join Russia.

Fact: The sham referendums - claiming 87% to 99% support for Russia - were hastily arranged with no secret ballots, involved armed men going door to door to collect ballots, multiple ballots cast by supporters, and documented reprisals against those who refused to cooperate. Many residents had also fled the Russian occupation of their regions. Prewar polling of Russian annexation of their region ranged from 1% (Kherson) to 13% (Luhansk).

Claim: The U.S. launched a coup in 2014 against Ukraine's government.

Fact: Russia attempted a coup against Ukraine's government in 2013-14, sending support to a pro-Russian President's attempt to end an agreement with the EU that Parliament had ratified, jail his opponents (deploying "Berkut" riot police against them), and curtail press freedom. Ukraine's Parliament voted 328 to 0 to remove the President, who fled to Russia. Polling showed overwhelming Ukrainian support for his removal and the country had a free election later in 2014 to select his replacement.

Claim: Ukraine could have made a deal.

Fact: Ukraine negotiated up until the full-scale invasion in 2022, and even after it began. Russia's pre-conditions were (and remain) annexation of Crimea and four Ukrainian regions including portions Russia does not currently occupy, NATO rejection of Ukrainian membership and withdrawal of NATO forces from eastern Europe, and the replacement of Ukraine's democracy with a pro-Russia government. Ukraine ended negotiations after the Bucha massacre.

Claim: Zelenskyy was asleep and refused to meet with Treasury Secretary Bessent last week and refused to agree to Ukrainian mineral wealth being sold to the U.S.

Fact: Zelenskyy and Bessent met (see photo). The mineral wealth deal - Zelenskyy's idea of encouraging post-war investment while showing tangible value for American aid - is continuing to be negotiated. The first draft did not contain security guarantees which Ukraine views as vital and was written as a joint venture between governments rather than a private investment arrangement.

 

By detaining Pavel Durov, says Will Duffield in this guest post, France threatens both free speech and Telegram’s unique neutrality.

France Detains Telegram Founder Pavel Durov

Guest post by Will Duffield

On August 24, French police arrested Telegram founder Pavel Durov moments after his plane touched down at Le Bourget airport outside Paris. He remains detained on “an arrest warrant alleging his platform has been used for money laundering, drug trafficking and other offenses,” according to French television network TF1. Although Durov has not been officially charged, his unprecedented arrest threatens Telegram’s unique neutrality.

Telegram is an instant messaging platform particularly popular in post-Soviet states. It allows its 900 million users to communicate via one-to-one, optionally encrypted, chat, and in large public channels. Durov created Telegram in 2013 as his previous social media platform, a Russian Facebook analog called VKontakte, was being expropriated by Putin-friendly oligarchs. Then, recounting resistance to FSB demands for Euromaidan channel data, police intimidation, and a Douglas Adams-inspired “so long and thanks for all the fish” resignation from VK, he was celebrated in the West as a dissident.

A 2014 New York Times profile titled “Once Celebrated in Russia, the Programmer Pavel Durov Chooses Exile” quoted Durov saying, “me myself, I’m not a big fan of the idea of countries,” and characterized him as “Neo from the ‘Matrix’ movies … moving from country to country … One day he is in Paris, another in Singapore.”

Russia’s 2022 invasion of Ukraine and the attendant return of great power geopolitics has made stateless nomadship much more difficult. Everyone and everything—even social media platforms—have been expected to pick sides. Nevertheless, Telegram has remained uniquely neutral, and, until now, unmolested.

Since 2022, social media, and to an extent the entire internet, has been steadily separating into Russian and Western spheres. Both shifting user attitudes and state sanctions have played a role. The EU sanctioned the owners of VKontakte, prohibiting payments to the platform. At the same time, Russia banned Meta for “extremist activities” after Facebook and Instagram relaxed their hate speech rules to allow Ukrainian invective against Russian invaders. While WhatsApp has remained popular in both Russia and the West, its maximum group size, 1,024, is far smaller than Telegram’s 200,000 user limit, making Telegram the preferred platform for public conversation. Although there are a few prominent Russian state accounts on Twitter, and some Russians still lob insults at American volunteers on Instagram, division is the rule. Telegram is the exception.

Everyone on both sides of the war uses Telegram. They were already using it when Russia’s full invasion began and quickly pressed their favorite social media app into wartime service. Heads of state, government agencies, military units, and civilians all began to coordinate, troll, boast, and propagandize on Telegram. Ukraine’s security services set up chatbots to allow the reporting of Russian troop movements. Overnight, Telegram became simultaneously a digital Switzerland and a battlefield.

The unique circumstances of its birth had, until August 24, allowed the platform to remain awkwardly neutral throughout the two-and-a-half-year conflict. Although Russia tried to ban the platform in 2018, it didn’t stick, and by 2022 the Russian state itself had become too reliant on the platform—both for external and internal communication—to abandon it.

It didn’t have the same sort of moderation controversies as Meta when used by combatants because it did less to restrict violent speech to begin with and didn’t offer concessions to one side over the other. Indeed, Durov merely tried to assure Ukrainians that their data would be secure against wartime hacking. This isn’t to say Telegram isn’t unmoderated. But its combination of channel-based communication and largely reactive moderation—relying on user reports—creates a more laissez-faire moderation paradigm than more centralized, web-first platforms.

Because Durov had already left Russia and taken Telegram with him, it didn’t fall under the sanctions that affected the Russian-based internet and European services operating in Russia. Indeed, last year, I contrasted perceptions of the platform’s independence with perceptions of TikTok, writing “TikTok isn’t a small founder-run operation like Telegram, which while born in Russia, escaped its orbit and is now registered in the Cayman Islands and headquartered in Dubai.” However, Durov’s refusal to limit Russian use of Telegram and the platform’s commitment to light-touch moderation as other social media platforms have grown more restrictive, has gradually soured attitudes towards Telegram among many Western elites.

In the Second World War, Swiss neutrality was often disdained by the Allies, especially later in the war. Nevertheless, a neutral Switzerland had undeniable value, not only to journalists and spymasters but to many downed airmen as well. Likewise, even if a neutral Telegram offers Russia access on equal terms, it allows for the observation of Russian chatter and activity, the identification of captured soldiers, and the simple maintenance of pacific and familial ties between friends and family separated by the conflict. It is also the only place where ordinary Russians can get an uncensored view of their country’s awful military misadventure. These are all goods worth safeguarding.

Telegram’s neutrality might have become an annoyance, but this shift alone doesn’t explain Durov’s perplexing arrest. Telegram has long been more pugnacious in its relations with courts and regulators than most publicly traded platforms, but it is far from unique in offering encrypted messaging. In fact, end-to-end encrypted chat makes up a much smaller portion of its use than competing services. While Telegram’s “secret chats” are end-to-end encrypted, its massive public channels are not. If Telegram’s encryption is at issue, WhatsApp owner Mark Zuckerbeg and Signal founder Moxie Marlinspike and many other tech luminaries should avoid France.

More generally, it is hard to see how France has jurisdiction over Telegram. Telegram isn’t a French company. France might have personal jurisdiction over Durov as a French citizen, but operating a social media platform offering encryption isn’t a criminal act in France. To the extent that Durov’s arrest is related to Telegram’s platform policies rather than Durov’s private activity, France has just taken a hostage. France shouldn’t follow in the footsteps of Turkey and India.

Absent official clarity, speculation and likely misinformation abound. Some have claimed, without evidence, that Durov’s arrest is the roundabout work of the American State Department. Durov’s arrest is much more likely to have been prompted by French anxieties about Russian disinformation campaigns targeting Francophone Africa, where eight countries have experienced coups in the past four years. many of which brought them closer to Russia. Durov’s refusal to suppress such campaigns may have been the trigger for his arrest. It is also worth noting that while Telegram isn’t uniquely encrypted, it is simply the communications platform of choice—for everyone—in the parts of the world from which organised crime comes to Western Europe.

On August 26, Jean-Michel Bernigaud, Secretary General of Ofmin, a French child protection agency, muddied as much as he clarified in a Linkedin post saying, “At the heart of this issue is the lack of moderation and cooperation of the platform (which has nearly 1 billion users), particularly in the fight against pedophilia.” He, confusingly, attached a link to a documentary about pedophiles’ use of Instagram. French President Emmanuel Macron [already attached to Jacinda Ardern's anti-free speech attacks on social media] tweeted that he had “seen false information regarding France following the arrest of Pavel Durov,” and proclaimed France’s commitment to “freedom of expression,” “the spirit of entrepreneurship,” and “the rule of law,” but offered no greater clarity as to why his country had arrested Durov.

France owes Durov, Telegram users, and the internet as a whole, a rapid explanation. Its actions are already damaging its reputation as both a friend of liberty and a safe place to do business. More importantly, Durov’s opaque arrest threatens Telegram’s unique neutrality and potentially the safety of its users on both sides of the conflict. The appearance of capture can be just as damning as the real thing. If France is truly an ally committed to a free internet, it should free Pavel Durov.

* * * * 

Will Duffield is an adjunct scholar in the Cato Institute’s Center for Representative Government, where he studies speech and internet governance. His research focuses on the web of government regulation and private rules that govern Americans’ speech online.

His post first appeared at the Cato At Liberty blog.

TEN YEARS AGO: Putin's Libertarians

 

Since this blog has been going so long (nearly twenty years!), and so much is still so relevant, I'm going to start a regular series of posts and writing from ten and/or twenty years ago. 

From twenty years ago comes my interview with painter Michael Newberry, in which we get down and dirty on art, creativity and passion — and on his call for a Moral Revolution of Human Values in the Arts.

And from ten years ago this month comes this still timely post by Russian libertarian Mikhail Svetov  on the strange attraction felt by some so-called libertarians to the would-be destroyer of Ukraine. (Some of the pics have sadly been lost.)

(And if you want to search the archives here yourself, click down there on the right-hand side on the "Everything We've Ever Written" drop-down menu.)

Putin's Libertarians

Guest post by Mikhail Svetov

I DECIDED TO WRITE THIS after I noticed that western libertarians have unaccountably developed a soft spot for Russian president Vladimir Putin.

The consensus among them seems to be that Putin is in the right in Ukraine. Even Ron Paul, whom I normally admire, has fallen for his charms. But as a Russian libertarian myself, it leaves me disappointed and terribly sad.

The biggest complaint from libertarians about the Ukraine seems to be that the government in Kyiv is somehow “fascist,” which in their eyes warrants Russian military intervention. I would like to start by outlining some facts about Russia and Ukraine, and hopefully dispel some myths about the war in the Donbass region of Ukraine (also known as the Donetsk Basin).

The simplest way is to focus on some of the most notable characteristics of fascism. The defining characteristic of Fascism is that the good of the State comes before the good of the individual, identified by Laurence Britt as being commonly manifested in the following ways …

UN 'integrity'

"Twenty years of soft power, lobbies and corruption and we have a UN where Russia occupies the chair of Security Council, Iran chair of Disarmament, Saudi Arabia as chair of Gender Equality and Women's Rights."

~ Arthur Rehi

"'Every leader kills people' ..."

"Tucker Carlson’s visit to Moscow ... servile interview with Putin ... [and] pretended naïveté made it hard to regard him as the journalist he once might have been. Instead, he appeared as a blind cheerleader for the Russian government.
    "His next engagement at the World Government Summit in Dubai about Russia confirmed this impression. 'Every leader kills people, some kill more than others,' Carlson told the crowd. 'Leadership requires killing people, sorry, that’s why I wouldn’t want to be a leader.'
    "Four days after Carlson’s conference appearance, Russian opposition politician Alexei Navalny died in prison. Perhaps Putin wanted to prove Carlson right at least once."

~ Oliver Hartwich, from his op-ed 'How to explain the right's Putin mania'

Since we've been invited to talk about ancient Russian history ...

... then let's go back to Russia in 862AD:

"They could neither read nor write, were totally ignorant of astronomy and mathematics, medicine and engineering, were familiar neither with philosophical, moral, nor religious teachings, had never seen a casting of iron — if fact they stepped upon the stage of history with empty hands. As Herder, after many years of study of the Slav people wrote ... 'They take up more space on the map than they do in history'....

    "Incapable of solving [their endless and bloody] quarrels themselves, the Slavs called for foreign help. 'We must get ourselves a king,' they said, 'who can rule over us, and lead us properly.' ... So the Slavs sent messengers across the Baltic to the Varangians [i.e., the Vikings who travelled though these undeveloped eastern lands] ... in Roslagen, Sweden ... [This] new empire of the Swedish rulers was rapidly extended towards the alluring south ...

    "Scarcely had the Slavs acquired the status of a major power ... before they embarked, quite characteristically, upon the first of a long series of aggressions against the West...."

~ from Werner Keller's East Minus West = Zero, p. 18-20

"The stark truth is that this war will only end for good when Russia’s neo-imperial dream finally dies."

"Just as the French decided in 1962 that Algeria could become independent of France, just as the British accepted in 1921 that Ireland was no longer part of the United Kingdom, the Russians must conclude that Ukraine is not Russia. ...
    "The stark truth is that this war will only end for good when Russia’s neo-imperial dream finally dies."

~ Anne Applebaum, from her post 'The West Must Defeat Russia' 

                                                                                [hat tip Tymofiy Mylovanov]

"Far from being a project of US imperialism, NATO expansion has been a process driven by the small and vulnerable countries, which are also the most fundamentally anti-imperialist ones"

"In order to accept the premise that Russia could have vetoed former Soviet or Eastern bloc states from ever choosing to enter into certain international alliances, it is first necessary to deny those states full sovereignty.... It is not often acknowledged that entertaining this Russian talking point capitulates to the sphere-of-influence politics of the Cold War...
    "The expansion of NATO since the end of the Cold War is often discussed solely as a US policy decision. But this ignores the goals and interests of the small countries, whose politicians made the case for NATO membership much more forcefully than anyone in Washington, and often in the teeth of American doubts and objections....
    "It had often been the fate of the small nations of Europe to be dominated by the larger ones.... An important lesson of the 20th century was that, while appeasement encouraged aggressors, strength deterred them. And it had been the strength of the United States which had changed the course of European history.... Still, Europeans have often struggled to convince Americans that it is in their interests to support freedom on the European continent. ...
    "Far from being a project of US imperialism, NATO expansion has been a process driven by the small and vulnerable countries, which are also the most fundamentally anti-imperialist ones, since their continued existence is predicated upon their ability to deter imperialist neighbours. While many of the threatening imperialisms of the European past have happily vanished, the Russian one maintains its claims.... It is for this reason that a Ukrainian victory—in teaching the Russians where their borders lie—could end the Russian imperial story for good, and hasten the day when a civilisation at ease with itself can live in harmony beside Europe."

~ Oscar Clarke, from his post 'When Havel Met Biden'

The coup that went WTF

This description on Twitter of Prigozhin’s coup is spot on: 

“Yesterday the defenders of Russia decided to seize power in Russia.

Therefore, other defenders of Russia flew to kill the first defenders of Russia, but they themselves got killed.

And the Hero of Russia Prigozhin went to kill the Hero of Russia Shoigu.

Because of this, the Hero of Russia Kadyrov went to kill the Hero of Russia Prigozhin.

And because of this, the Hero of Russia Bortnikov opened a case against the Hero of Russia Prigozhin but immediately closed it.

Because the most important hero of Russia, Putin, first guaranteed that the traitors would be punished, and then guaranteed that they would not be.

And no one gives a damn about those very first defenders who were killed.

The main thing is that they are all defenders and heroes, and we can continue to be proud of what heroic defenders Russia has.“

 

 

One of the biggest myths about Marx, whose followers were responsible for so much human misery, is the misbegotten notion that the bearded bullshitter was famous in his lifetime. Instead, as Phil Magness has well documented (and summarises for us in this guest post) his fame and hence his later following is simply an accident of history: if some thuggish beret-wearing pseudo-intellectual coffee drinkers hadn't hijacked the Russian Revolution, putting him on the map and elevating him into academic prominence, we probably wouldn't know about the dead-set human loser at all. He'd simply be another failed journalist and deadbeat dad who abused his wife. And many more millions might not have been put to death in his name ...

Three Myths About Marx

Guest post by Phil Magness

Myth 1: Marx was a famous economic and social commentator in his lifetime.

Many socialists depict Karl Marx as one of the most famous and influential thinkers of his era. They attribute this alleged renown not only to his philosophical treatises but also his journalism and activism on a variety of mid-19th century labour causes.

In reality, Karl Marx (1817-1883) died in London in relative obscurity. He had a small number of intensely devoted followers in socialist and communist movements, but few people outside of those far-left circles had any knowledge of his work in his lifetime. Contemporary figures from the intellectual circles in England left only a few passing assessments of him. John Stuart Mill, the exhaustively well-networked Victorian philosopher, lived in the same London neighbourhood as Marx for many years, and yet his works contain no mention of ever encountering Marx or Marxist doctrine. In 1885, future British prime minister Arthur Balfour remarked that “Marx is but little-read in this country.” Balfour, who was famous as a voracious reader of obscure philosophical tracts, offered the comment to contrast Marx with Henry George, who “has been read a great deal.” Fellow socialists similarly commented upon Marx’s obscurity at his death. Henry Hyndeman, a British socialist who became a personal acquaintance of Marx in the latter’s final years, would recall in his memoirs that “in 1880 it is scarcely too much to say that Marx was practically unknown to the English public,” save for the occasional association of his name with radical revolutionary causes such as the Paris Commune of 1871.

So when did Karl Marx burst into the intellectual mainstream? It wasn’t until 1917, when an obscure band of revolutionary Marxist intellectuals took advantage of political instability in Russia and staged a coup d’état, seizing control of its government. The Bolshevik Revolution and its aftermath almost instantly turned Marx into an intellectual celebrity on the left. This fact was widely acknowledged at the time, including among other leftist intellectuals. G.D.H. Cole, a non-Marxian socialist from Britain’s Fabian Society, would quip in that until 1917 “Marx’s works lay securely buried in the grave of their author.” “Lenin,” Cole continued, “altered all that. He resurrected Marx, and gave to Marxism a new theoretical context.” On the other side of the Atlantic, W.E.B. Du Bois would similarly remark in a 1933 memoir that “until the Russian Revolution, Karl Marx was little known in America” and “treated condescendingly” by the few academics who even bothered with his work.

These and similar observations recently received empirical validation in a study conducted by me and Michael Makovi. We tracked Marx’s citations over time using Google Ngram and a separate scanned newspaper database. We found that Marx’s citation pattern tripled almost instantaneously after Lenin and the Bolsheviks came to power in 1917. These findings suggest that political events, rather than intellectual renown, placed Marx on the map.

Myth 2: The Social Democratic Party of Germany (SPD) popularised Marx before the Soviets by endorsing him with their 'Erfurt Programme' platform in 1891.

Marxists who want to avoid the baggage of Lenin and the Soviet Union often put forth an alternative history of Marx’s dissemination. Their conventional re-telling points out that Marxists within the leadership of Germany’s SPD succeeded in infusing Marxist theory into the preamble of their 1891 electoral platform, the Erfurt Programme. Since the SPD was one of the largest political parties in Germany between 1891 and the outbreak of World War I in 1913, they argue, Marx must have had a large mainstream following among the voting public.

This story grossly oversimplifies the history of turn-of-the-century SPD. It’s true that an expression of Marxist theory appeared in the preamble of the Erfurt Programme, thanks to the efforts of Marxist intellectuals including Karl Kautsky, Eduard Bernstein, August Bebel, and Wilhelm Liebknecht as well as the sanction of Marx’s collaborator Friedrich Engels. The passage does not ever mention Marx by name though, and consists of a watered-down synopsis of his beliefs at most. The remainder of the platform is a generic list of labour reform measures – shorter work hours, government-provided medical care, universal education, alleged anti-poverty programs, and expanded ballot access. Few of these measures were distinctively Marxian, and all were to be attained by legislative means – a repudiation of Marx’s revolutionary doctrines. Although the aforementioned intellectuals celebrated this platform as a triumph of Marxist principles, the average voter would not have noticed much of anything about Marx by simply reading the platform.

There are additional reasons to be skeptical of the SPD as an early disseminator of Marxist doctrine. Eric Hobsbawm, arguably the most prominent and celebrated Marxist historian of the last half-century, studied the SPD’s role in disseminating Marx’s doctrines and concluded that they fell short. As Hobsbawm writes, “there was no strong correlation between the size and power of social-democratic and labour parties and the circulation of the '[Communist] Manifesto.' Thus until 1905 the German Social-Democratic Party (SPD), with its hundreds of thousands of members and millions of voters, published new editions of the '[Communist] Manifesto' in print runs of not more than 2,000–3,000 copies.” Marx’s readers, Hobsbawm continues, “were part of the new and rising socialist labour parties and movements” but they “were almost certainly not a representative sample of their membership.”

To further test the SPD/Erfurt thesis, Makovi and I conducted a second empirical analysis of Marx’s citation patterns in German-language books and newspapers. Our preliminary results confirm Hobsbawm’s observations. We were unable to establish a statistically significant boost to German-language mentions of Marx after 1891, although we did find further evidence of a large Soviet-induced increase in 1917.

Myth 3. Marx and Abraham Lincoln were pen-pals.

In the past several years, a number of academics and journalists on the political left have advanced various claims of an intellectual kinship between Karl Marx and Abraham Lincoln, the 16th President of the United States. Some versions of this story – including a widely-circulated article in the Washington Post – allege similarities between Marx and Lincoln’s respective writings about the relationship between labour and capital. Others claim that Lincoln regularly read Marx’s journalism in the New York Tribune, and point to an exchange of letters in 1864 after Marx wrote to congratulate Lincoln on his re-election. Politics usually motivates these historical claims as well. By depicting Marx and Lincoln as 19th century pen-pals, they seek to legitimise the platforms of modern-day “Democratic Socialist” politicians such as Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. If Lincoln truly maintained a transatlantic friendship with Marx, then Democratic Socialism must be as American as the Gettysburg Address!

In reality, Lincoln did not have the slightest clue who Karl Marx was, and certainly did not draw from the socialist philosopher for his economic theories. Lincoln’s writings on capital and labour arose primarily from his reading of other 19th century economic works, most notably Francis Wayland and John Stuart Mill. He never encountered Marx’s Capital, which was not even published until two years after Lincoln’s assassination. 

And as is already well known, Marx’s writings for the New York Tribune consisted of warmed-over second-hand news summaries from the European continent, and the vast majority were published anonymously. If Lincoln encountered them by chance while reading the Tribune, it is extremely unlikely he would have recognised the author or picked up any ideas about economic theory from Marx’s journalistic contributions.

Indeed, Lincoln’s economic assessments of socialism were highly critical. In 1864, the President wrote a letter to a New York City labour organization after the left-leaning group granted him an honorary membership. While Lincoln thanked the organisation for the recognition, he strongly disputed their economic doctrines. As Lincoln wrote:

Nor should this lead to a war upon property, or the owners of property. Property is the fruit of labour –property is desirable — is a positive good in the world. That some should be rich, shows that others may become rich, and hence is just encouragement to industry and enterprise.

What about the exchange of letters between Marx and Lincoln? It is true that Marx drafted a letter to Lincoln, congratulating him on his 1864 election victory. The letter was not presented under Marx’s name though. It came from the London-based International Workingmen’s Association, and was delivered under the name of the organisation’s secretary, W. Randal Cremer. The response, also addressed to Cremer, did not even come from Lincoln’s desk. Charles Francis Adams, Lincoln’s diplomat to the United Kingdom, issued the letter from the American legation in London. It is little more than a 19th century form letter, a courtesy statement acknowledging that Cremer’s congratulatory note had been received and forwarded to Lincoln through the State Department along with thousands of other notes from well-wishers after the election. A detailed history of this exchange may be found in my article on the subject.

IN SHORT, THE NINETEENTH CENTURY ended with Karl Marx in well-deserved obscurity. Without the Bolshevik's 'palace coup' in 1917, he would have stayed there.

* * * * 

Phillip W. Magness is Senior Research Faculty and Director of Research and Education at the American Institute for Economic Research. He is also a Research Fellow at the Independent Institute. He holds a PhD and MPP from George Mason University’s School of Public Policy, and a BA from the University of St. Thomas (Houston). Prior to joining AIER, Dr. Magness spent over a decade teaching public policy, economics, and international trade at institutions including American University, George Mason University, and Berry College. Magness’s work encompasses the economic history of the United States and Atlantic world, with specialisations in the economic dimensions of slavery and racial discrimination, the history of taxation, and measurements of economic inequality over time. He also maintains an active research interest in higher education policy and the history of economic thought. In addition to his scholarship, Magness’s popular writings have appeared in numerous venues including the Wall Street Journal, the New York Times, Newsweek, Politico, Reason, National Review, and the Chronicle of Higher Education.

His post first appeared at the American Institute for Economic Research blog.