10 May

I see all sorts of theories as to why Western democracies seem to be a complete mess. But to me you can trace their decline to one point. That point we stopped building things. For 50 years China has built pretty much everything we use. The Romans knew that building things was the key to all peace and propsperity. Not really because it just gives you stuff, but because to plan, build and maintain takes social cooperation, across generations. Today China and Germany, for example, remember that. They’re both ‘economies’ that build things. Also the most successful economies in the world. Meawhile other countries are a sewer of ‘opinions’, unhitched from any collective social effort towards creating anything