There are many forms of giving, but only one that generates general prosperity: capitalism. It does not begin with exchange, but with giving. It is not the state that creates prosperity, but the entrepreneur and businessman. The cause of mass prosperity is individuals, specific people, their actions and their ideas.
What conservatives and liberals often have in common is their opposition to certain forms of dirigiste and tendentially collectivist political measures. However, this is driven by very different motives, as elucidated by Friedrich A. von Hayek. The difference is still of high relevance today.
The French Revolution was a complex historical event, and its intellectual foundations were likewise complex. It is a mistake to reduce it to the Jacobin terror. It was a liberal revolution whose ideals sprang from the Anglo-Saxon legal tradition.
Inflation is profoundly socially unjust. Its causes lie above all in an expansionary monetary policy, and this must be stopped. If policymakers want to prevent the inevitable recession that will follow, they will only make the problems worse.
In Germany, there is a growing gap between the inflation of the state apparatus and its ability to fulfill its tasks. Politics suffers from political fantasies of omnipotence and constitutional ignorance. Who is to blame?
Since Putin’s war against Ukraine, the West once again has a clear enemy. Many now recall Carl Schmitt, who saw the essence of the political in the distinction between friend and enemy. But that is too simplistic.
Does trade among nations promote peace? The liberal-minded Enlightenment affirmed this under the phrase “doux commerce.” At present, however, we are witnessing how economically closely linked nations are at war with each other.
It is perfectly legitimate to point out the dangers of an uncontrolled escalation of the Ukraine war. Left-wing intellectuals who do so, however, have largely adopted Putin’s propagandist view. Behind it, however, lies a dangerous ideology.
