Why are some parts of the world so rich and others so poor? Why did the Industrial Revolution–and the unprecedented economic growth that came with it–occur in eighteenth-century England, and not at some other time, or in some other place? Why didn’t industrialization make the whole world rich–and why did it make large parts of … Read more

Institutions progress but human beings don’t, and their capacity for cruelty and violence is infinite. A pessimistic thought, to be sure. But British philosopher Roger Scruton is rather optimistic about pessimism. Indeed, in The Uses of Pessimism he prescribes “a dose” of that very tendency as the tonic for the kind of utopian thinking indulged … Read more