At this point in time, a full-Russian occupation of Ukraine is essentially entirely off the table. Perhaps we’ll see a partial occupation, hopefully we’ll see no Russian occupation at all. Whatever the terms of the peace treaty, one thing is for sure, whatever is left of Ukraine, will be in ruins.

Ukraine has lost over $1.7T USD in economic damages as a consequence of this war and estimated reconstruction costs are over $588B USD. If this war stretches on, the cost for reconstruction could reach over $1T USD, especially due to Russia’s intensifying missile barrages.

For context, Ukrainian GDP in 2025 was $214B USD, and in 2021 before the war was $200B USD (current USD for both figures).

The issue with simply funnelling money to Ukraine for its reconstruction is that much of it will be lost to corruption and the rest may not be spent efficiently. Corruption must be minimised and the capital must be distributed efficiently to the various reconstruction efforts.

The way to achieve this in my eyes is through the use of multinational financial institutions, such as the European Investment Bank, International Monetary Fund and World Bank, along with other investors such as from the private sector.

The next step would be EU membership, to continue the recovery, integrate Ukraine with western markets and ensure long-term economic success and a stable democracy.

How International Finance Can Rebuild Ukraine

International financial institutions are highly transparent bodies with clean track records. Funnelling capital through these bodies allows for accountability and creates incentive to use the money right rather than waste it. They’re not perfect, but they’re experienced and fairly competent, much more so than the Ukrainian government.

For example, instead of giving, say, $300B USD directly to the Ukrainian government, Western governments, with input from Ukraine, work out a deal with the EIB, WB, etc, to invest $300B into Ukrainian reconstruction. The payment can be returned through perhaps a 1% of GDP return for 25 years, starting from 5 years after the $300B is fully invested, with a maximum timeframe of 40 years. This creates incentive for these multinational financial institutions, who have great know-how and institutional experience in developing countries from the ground up, to ensure money is used efficiently. The higher GDP growth is every year, the more money is recouped. Whether or not this will actually pay off the invested money entirely isn’t as relevant, what matters is that there is an incentive in place to give these multinationals a stake in long-term Ukrainian prosperity. The actual deal that should be struck will almost certainly look different to the example I used, but nonetheless it should follow the same principle.

Investment in Ukrainian reconstruction should also be open to capital from private sector investors and hedge funds. Blackrock, State Street, Vanguard, etc. They will help significantly speed up Ukrainian reconstruction, have their own vested interests in ensuring Ukrainian prosperity, and will alleviate some of the financial burden on Western governments and other financial institutions.

They will also be the best at being able to spot untapped potential. For example, the Russo-Ukrainian War has given birth to a vibrant tech sector in Ukraine, which is primarily concerned with defence munitions such as drones for the moment, but will no doubt play a major role in Ukraine’s future economy. With investment, Ukraine could definitely become a technology powerhouse in Europe, the human capital and organisational structure is already there.

Another key potential investment opportunity is for European and American defence contractors. The Ukrainian military and munitions manufacturers (including the aforementioned tech sector) are the only ones in the entire Western World with knowledge and genuine expertise on fighting a land war with a former superpower. The people with the skills and know-how are in Ukraine, and the European and American defence contractors want those people and skills.

Overall, the amount of investment funnelled into Ukraine for reconstruction may be well over $1T USD. If this amount was simply in the form of a grant to the Ukrainian economy, the majority of it would be lost to corruption. However, since its investment is managed by institutions which have vested interests in Ukrainian prosperity, they will ensure money is used efficiently rather than blown on useless things or flushed down golden toilets.

But why will these organisations, private and otherwise, invest without the rule of law and competent institutions on the Ukrainian side? This is where EU membership comes in.

EU Membership

EU membership will help significantly streamline investment efforts into Ukraine, allowing capital to cross borders with little interference. While immediate EU membership is likely unrealistic for Ukraine, after some political reform and a few years of reconstruction it becomes more reasonable. Till then, EU-Ukraine coordination is still more than possible. It’d also further reduce corruption by giving EU corruption watchdogs access and creating EU oversight.

EU institutions can work to uphold the rule of law in Ukraine to ensure mass investment is possible. Give the EU and various European institutions, perhaps including the EIB, full access to Ukrainian government records to ensure maximal transparency and minimal corruption. Obviously, this will be a short-term arrangement, until Ukrainian institutions can be trusted to uphold the rule of law and fight corruption, but will work to give investors confidence in the Ukrainian government.

Once EU membership is attainted, trade ties are automatically formed with the rest of Europe, ensuring economic growth continues even after reconstruction largely winds down. Doing business in the EU without being an EU member state is much more difficult. Even trade with non-EU states becomes difficult since Turkey controls Black Sea access, which EU member states have an easier time dealing with thanks to a Customs Union Agreement signed in 1995.

Where does the Money Come From?

For the private investors, such as the hedge funds and military investors mentioned earlier, it comes out their own pockets (although they can be incentivised/subsidised by Western governments).

The money will likely come from a mixture of tax-payer dollars (most if not all of which will be earned back) and frozen Russian assets, which may also be paid off as well to the banks which originally held the assets, or whatever arrangement may be decided. There are many legal objections around this, so if liquidation proves impossible, the frozen assets themselves can perhaps be used as collateral in a loan or insurance agreement, or transferred to Ukrainian control to allow the Ukrainians to use it as leverage in any possible negotiations after the war. If the last option is picked however it won’t be available for use in a reconstruction fund.

Money can be spent subsidising private investors as well, particularly in slightly higher risk areas, through subsidised insurance rates or tax benefits for example. Perhaps a deal could be struck between investors and governments where if private investors invest a certain amount into Ukraine, they receive tax benefits at home.

There are multiple possible schemes and strategies and whatnot that can be devised for where to get the money and what to spend it on, but overall, the net cost to the Western taxpayer will likely be small, and possibly even a net positive. The main point is that all investors should have a stake in the Ukrainian economy’s long-term performance.

Conclusion

The blueprint is this:

1. Give the EU and related institutions access to all Ukrainian government records
2. Liquidate/use Russian assets
3. Use a mixture of tax-payer money and liquidated assets to subsidise private investors, while funnelling most of it through bodies such as the IMF, EIB, etc.
4. Create agreements and deals which ensure all the financial institutions become stakeholders in the Ukrainian economy, gaining vested interest in long-term Ukrainian prosperity. They can eventually all be made to leave if the Ukrainians really want, once they’ve paid off all their dues over time.
5. EU Membership and the end of special EU access to the Ukrainian government, once deemed politically ready.

Revolution is a political term that refers to a popular rebellion which overthrows the current paradigm and replaces it with a new system. This is fairly obvious, but I’m mentioning it to rule out coup d’états, protesting, and riots. I’m also mentioning it as in today’s discourse, “✨The Revolution™✨” generally carries left-wing connotations. While communist revolutions are a common type of revolution, revolutions are far from exclusive to the political left.

The three criteria that must be met for revolution to become possible are the following:

1. There must be great anger amongst the populace.

2. There must be some form of authoritarian government, be it dictatorship or simply a flawed democracy.

3. There must be some form of educated middle class, even if very small.

If you look at history, every single grassroots rebellion shares these 3 factors.

Anger

If people aren’t angry about something, there is no reason to rebel against the current system. Not only anger, but major anger, not merely discontent. The anger that sparks rebellion is usually a result of economic hardship.

Authoritarianism

The reason that the system of government must be authoritarian in some way is simple; if the system of government is democracy, then all the anger is diverted into the ballot box. What sense does rebellion make in a functional democracy? You already know whether or not people actually support you, and, instead of a violent, bloody uprising, you just need to win at the ballot box. For a rebellion to be successful, you already need major popular support, and at that point, you might as well win an election. Elections are the ultimate tool for political legitimacy, and therefore, any rebellion in a functional democracy is politically illegitimate.

If, however, there is an authoritarian system in place which prevents popular support from converting into political power, then often, the only option becomes rebellion. If you have support amongst the elites, you might be able to pull off a coup, if not, well, all political power grows out the barrel of a gun.

The only form of revolution that is really possible in functional democracies is successionist revolution, but this is a different form of revolution than the one being discussed here, it doesn’t seek to replace an old system with new, it seeks to create an entirely alternate system.

Academia

In reality, ‘academia’ in the strict, modern sense is not necessary for rebellion, I picked the word for alliteration purposes. However, it is necessary to have some form of educated middle class for a grassroots rebellion to occur. I’d like to mention that by ‘middle class’ I’m not necessarily talking about economically middle class, but rather on a power basis, even if the two are often similar.

Without an educated middle class, there is no one to replace the existing elites to lead the rebellion and organise the masses. Starving peasants don’t start rebellions, at least not successfully and on a large, nation-wide scale. This is why for most of human history, there was only ideologically neutral authoritarianism. The reason governments still changed before the creation of the middle/merchant class is because disillusioned members of the elite may mobilise the populace to rebel against other members of the elite, however, this isn’t a stereotypical grassroots rebellion.

This is why so many rebellions occurred in the 18th, 19th and early 20th centuries. Capitalism/modernisation created the educated middle class that organised the masses, harnessed their anger and led the rebellions against the ruling elites. Some of these rebellions were communist, such as in Russia, and some were democratic, like in Germany.

Is the US ripe for revolution?

As you’ve probably guessed, no. The US remains a functional democracy and there isn’t nearly the sufficient level of anger amongst the populace. People on social media like to be angry, but if you touch grass, most people are not particularly mad about the current system. They might be mad about the current state of affairs, but not necessarily the actual, underlying political and economic system.

American democracy isn’t perfect, the conversion of popular support to political power is somewhat flawed, due to several factors such as the primary system and the Electoral College. Overall, however, it isn’t flawed enough to prevent a majority from exercising a sizeable amount of political power.

The only way I see revolution happening in the US is if Trump somehow destroys American democracy. This is likely not going to happen. But if it does, it would create the anger for revolution and destroy the mechanism that converts popular support to political power.

Iran?

Iran has an authoritarian system, it has an educated middle class, and there is anger amongst the populace.

So why is there no rebellion in Iran? There is likely not enough anger amongst the populace to overthrow the entrenched Iranian regime as of this moment. Overthrowing a theocratic, entrenched regime like the IRGC requires substantial levels of anger, and far more popular support than a simple majority due to the existing power dynamics. Could the regime be overthrown in the coming years? Perhaps. It depends on the economic strain that is inflicted on Iran. Economic strain on the regime weakens the existing power dynamics, but economic strain on the population is a double-edged sword. It may cause anger against the Iranian regime, but it may also lead to a rally around the flag effect and reduce anger against the regime, while increasing it against the West.

Personally, I don’t believe that revolution will occur in Iran in the next 5 years unless the US adopts a new strategy.

Conclusion

Anytime you wonder if there will be grassroots revolution in a country, always apply the 3 criteria as a baseline, and even if they’re seemingly met, never assume rebellion is guaranteed. As demonstrated by Iran, the anger variable is difficult to truly ascertain, and every system has a different level of anger necessary for it to be overthrown.

Don’t fall prey to sensationalist takes on the coming American/Russian/Chinese/etc revolution, always use your brain. Revolution is not so easy that it simply happens when a regime becomes slightly unpopular.

The Liberal Party of Australia has historically been seen as the superior economic manager. This is common for right-wing parties in most nations. However, the Coalition has lost this perception from voters as of late. For the first time in recent history, voters no longer believe the Coalition economic manager.

This is big news. If the Liberals lose their perceived edge on the economy, then there’s little reason left to vote for them. For example, historically, socially moderate/centre-left individuals who still valued economic growth would largely vote either for the teal independents or the Liberal Party. Individuals who were concerned about migration but wanted a strong economy would vote Liberal. Now, socially centre/centre-left voters would vote Labor, and migration voters would vote One Nation.

A belief that the Liberal Party is the better economic manager is what kept voters with diverse viewpoints together. It was the peg that held up the Liberal big tent that consisted of people from Malcom Turnbull all the way to Andrew Hastie.

This article will look at the following macroeconomic measures over time to examine which party is the better economic manager, the Liberal Party or the Labor Party:

1. Inflation
2. Real GDP per capita growth
3. Real GNI per capita growth
4. Budget deficit as percentage of GDP
5. Unemployment

We’re only going to measure from 1983 onwards, as that’s roughly the beginning of the modern Labor Party under Hawke, following which comes the modern Liberal Party under Howard. Comparing from the post-war era seems unfair due to the post-war boom, most of which happened under a Liberal government despite not necessarily being the result of Liberal policy. Also, Liberal and Labor policy during the post-war boom was ideologically different to today, with a greater emphasis on state intervention due to Keynesian influence.

Inflation

Average inflation under Labor was 4.68% while under the Coalition it was 2.26%. This, however, tells us little about who the better economic manager is. This is for 2 reasons.

1. Inflation is largely in the hands of the RBA, which acts independent of the ruling government for the most part.

2. Inflation is heavily dependent on factors outside of the power of the ruling party, such as commodity cycles.

So, inflation should not factor in too much in these discussions. However, it is worth mentioning that the Albanese government’s demand-sided tax cuts and higher government spending have increased inflation in the past few years. The main factors nonetheless remain Covid supply-chain shocks and RBA Covid era money-printing.

Real GDP per capita growth

Average real GDP per capita growth under Labor was 1.36% and 1.78% under the Coalition. A 0.42% difference is fairly large over a long period of time; however, it is worth noting that much of it is once again irrelevant to the actual government but is dependent on timing.

If we exclude all recession years, which is unfair for the Liberal Party but regardless, Labor jumps up to 2.24%, and the Coalition improves marginally to 1.94%. So perhaps the Labor Party is the better economic manager but simply unlucky with electoral timing? No.

Real GNI per capita growth

GNI per capita is generally a more accurate measure for prosperity, since it actually measures the income that people make. For example, a nation like Ireland has an extremely high GDP per capita but a much lower GNI per capita due to being a tax haven. The GNI per capita figure is a much better measure of Irish prosperity than GDP per capita.

Labor averages 1.41% annual growth while the Coalition averages 2.29%. If we remove all recessions this time around, Labor averages 2.64% while the Coalition averages 2.84%. Keep in mind, this is highly unfair for the Coalition.

Perhaps the Coalition does better economically by borrowing from the future, while Labor remains responsible with the budget?

Budget Deficits

Labor averages a deficit of -1.47% while the Coalition averages -0.68%. The coalition has over 2 times lower deficit spending than Labor. What if we exclude the entire John Howard government since he governed during the mining boom? Well, this is extremely unfair, especially since Howard and the Coalition deserve credit for using the proceeds from the mining boom on paying off the deficit rather than buying votes with tax cuts and welfare spending.

If we remove Howard, the Coalition averages -2.49%. But if we exclude Howard, it’s only fair to exclude the Covid-19 pandemic as well, in which case the Coalition averages -1.66%, a 0.19% difference, and certainly not enough to explain the difference in growth under the Coalition vs. Labor.

Unemployment

Labor averages 6.88% while the Coalition averages 6.15%. However, this is similar to inflation where it’s not really Labor’s fault.

Conclusion

Overall, it’s clear that the Liberal Party has historically been the better economic manager, when compared to Labor. There are two counterarguments against this fact. Firstly, Labor delivers more re-distribution. This is generally true, but cedes economic growth to the Liberal Party, and in the long-term, growth always beats re-distribution. Also, the difference between re-distribution between Labor and the Coalition is simply not as big as the growth difference.

The other argument is that this is all because the Coalition governed during the mining boom. This is partially true, but Labor also governed during the recovery from the Oil Crisis and 1970s stagflation. This is the driving force behind Labor’s poor performance on inflation and unemployment, but also bumped up its growth numbers.

All in all, the Liberal Party’s historical reputation of superior economic management was well deserved, and the Liberals must recover this reputation if they want to win any more elections in the future.

I would just like to mention before I start, that this article is not directly related to the late professor Arday (R.I.P.) but does discuss DEI/Affirmative Action.

Academia makes up the bedrock of the Western World. Our universities are the engine behind our entire society, state and economy. The excellence of Western academic institutions has been a key factor in separating the West from the rest of the world for several centuries now. This is why the decline of academia is such an important issue that must be rectified.

Saving academia is a matter of civilisational importance. It isn’t an ideological game or political hot-topic. It is a process which will require time and effort and must be bipartisan. It must not be lumped in with the rest of the culture war, for it’s a much deeper, more fundamental issue than most other culture wars. Academia mustn’t become a tool utilised for political leverage but rather should be treated as one of the most fundamental elements of a successful nation and civilisation.

Why Does Academia Need Saving?

There are a few issues in academia today.

-A general decline in meritocracy
-A general increase in ideological conformity
-A lack of focus on the core purpose of academics

Academia has become less meritocratic over time. Today many are overly concerned with increasing diversity of college campuses; both students and faculty. We should be much less concerned with diversity. Academia is not just an inconsequential field where merit can be sidelined for the sake of an ideological project.

When diversity comes in the way of meritocracy, it must always be sidelined. Academia isn’t a vehicle to fulfil social justice, it’s way, way more serious than that. The success of the Western World depends and always has depended on the quality of academic institutions; there is no headroom that can simply be sacrificed for social goals. Academia isn’t a tool of self-improvement of those that partake in it, it’s a set of institutions which serve society through the pursuit of truth and knowledge. Therefore, more diversity in academia shouldn’t be seen as a way to better the position of certain social groups in society, even if it does ultimately function as such.

Ideologically, academia skews heavily to the left. This is not normal, but rather a development of the last few decades. Historically, US academia used to skew slightly left but was fairly balanced (although still biased towards the left). This is no longer the case.

Why is this? Well, there are a few factors. Firstly, there has been a growth of staff in fields that lean leftwards and a decline in more right-wing/moderate fields.

As you can see, fields such as fine arts, social sciences and humanities have increased, while engineering and natural sciences have declined. However, this is not the only factor. Every field has also become more liberal over time.

Why is this? Hard to say, but likely a mixture of demographic trends, cultural shifts and perhaps targeted efforts. Not targeted efforts from some shadowy socialist institution, but rather the general view from leftist individuals that academia is important. This, in my opinion, is firstly due to the right largely giving up on academia, something which began with Bush jr. and his focus on his relatability over John Kerry’s education/intellectualness. The other reason is the ‘Long-March Through the Institutions’ type thinking which many on the fringe of the left have. There are certainly some (although not as many as some may try to make you believe) that are actively seeking to infiltrate academic institutions and take control of them from the inside. The percentage of far-left faculty specifically has increased greatly, by 2-3×.

This brings us to ideological conformity. Between 18% and 55% of academics would discriminate against a right-wing applicant for a job/grant. 40-45% of North American academics would not hire a Trump supporter and 1/3 of British academics would not hire a Leave supporter. This form of often times open animosity has led to many academics self-censoring.

Ideological conformity and discrimination has only worked to increase the number of left-wing professors while stifling right-wing academic perspectives.

For many, academia has become a vehicle to push certain ideas about reality, rather than uncover the truth about reality. As previously mentioned, academia must not be seen as a tool, but as a foundation of a successful society. This is why the ‘Long-March Through the Institutions’ is so dangerous, and many academics seem to be doing it unconsciously to an extent.

How can it be saved?

The main issue in fixing this is that it may swing the pendulum the other way while undermining free-speech and academic freedom. Most solutions involve state meddling, which is a very slippery slope.

The first step however is fairly easy. End affirmative action and DEI policies. Not only do these policies undermine meritocracy, but they also often become vehicles for left-wing academics to bring in more left-wing academics. In fact, this may have been a major reason on why every academic field has become more left-wing over time, especially since the 90s.

The second step would likely be state-mandated free-speech protection, where academics/students cannot be removed for speech, even inflammatory speech. This would reduce the need for right-wing academics to self-censor and would prevent the weaponisation of power by academics against ideological opponents.

One idea beyond these steps is perhaps creating an independent governmental body, staffed with a politically diverse range of former academics. It could monitor ideological discrimination in universities and perhaps publish some sort of ranking/index on ideological diversity and discrimination in different universities. The extent to which this would work is difficult to know, especially as this body should not have enforcement powers.

Another idea is instating a form of DEI but for political perspectives rather than race/gender. This however may reduce meritocracy, just like traditional DEI. Whether that is offset by having a less biased academia is a debate to be had. It could be enforced by requiring ideological diversity in exchange for public funding.

Conclusion

Ultimately, we need to strike a balance between government interference in academia and ideological domination in academia. Either extreme is unacceptable, but currently, this issue is largely only discussed by right-wingers, many of whom propose radical solutions which will undermine academic freedoms.

What is more likely to save academia is not ideological fervour from the right, but the combined efforts of all sides, especially moderates, to create a fairer academia. Currently, half the political spectrum doesn’t seem to care, 25% wants to implement borderline authoritarian policies in response, and another 25% actively sees it as a good thing, not an issue. The moderates in this issue are few and far between.

India on paper, and in reality, has always been between two worlds. The authoritarian world and the Western World. India is a fairly democratic nation, scoring a 7.29 on the Economist Intelligence Unit, slightly above Slovakia, slightly below Poland. However, it isn’t a liberal democratic nation. 20 out of 28 states have various laws regulating the act of slaughtering cattle and prohibiting the slaughter or sale of beef. A comedian was arrested (although shortly released) for a joke he didn’t make (being arrested for jokes seems to be becoming commonplace in some Western countries too these day). Of course, India isn’t an authoritarian state, it has a fairly functional judiciary (at the top levels that is, lower and middle courts are a different story) an example of this judiciary upholding civil liberties is when it protected content creator Ranveer Allahbadia (known as BeerBiceps) and comedian Samay Raina from the flood of police complaints filed against them for an obscene joke. India has potential to transition to liberal democracy in the next few decades.

During the Cold War, India participated heavily in the non-aligned movement, seeking to balance relations between the communist bloc and the West. In practice, India was fairly friendly with the USSR and less so with the West, partly due to the US prioritising an alliance with Pakistan over India. Since the end of the Cold War, India has warmed up somewhat to the US but remains allies with Russia and maintains a general policy of being non-aligned. For example, India maintains a neutral stance on the Russo-Ukrainian War. When questioned about this stance at the GLOBSEC Bratislava Forum in Slovakia, Indian External Affairs Minister, S. Jaishankar, famously replied:

“Europe has to grow out of the mindset that Europe’s problems are the world’s problems, but the world’s problems are not Europe’s problems.”

India is less neutral, but still highly pragmatic, in its own region, and is currently building partnerships with nations like Afghanistan, Iran, and Western nations like Japan and Australia. India is strange in that it has managed to maintain fairly close partnerships with Russia, Iran, Israel and the United States at the same time. But what does the future hold? Will India keep walking this tightrope, or will it shift towards the Western World?

The Case for a Western India

The case that India will become a Western nation rests on 2 premises.

a. India will become more liberal as it develops, becoming a liberal democracy.

b. India will drop non-alignment in favour of Western alignment due to the above process and other factors.

Firstly, we’ll look at point a.

I think the premise that nations become more liberal and democratic as they develop is generally true. Especially since development requires some model of market capitalism which in of itself promotes liberal democracy and weakens illiberal forces. The exceptions here seem to be, well, all the rich non-liberal democracies (of which there are not many).

Singapore is a good example. Singapore started fairly democratic, more democratic than many other nations, but still quite a flawed democracy, less democratic than India today and in the past. It has grown more democratic as time has passed, but only slightly, not as much as one would expect from its rapid development.

However, there are 3 caveats. Firstly, India is already more democratic than Singapore, so perhaps it'll simply continue to get more democratic and liberal as time moves forwards. Secondly, Singapore is a tiny island nation where control is fairly easy to maintain, and lastly, Singapore may still very well transition to liberal democracy in the future. Much of Singapore’s authoritarianism is based on the fact that most people support the rule of the People’s Action Party, the ruling party. Perhaps this would be different if Singapore had more liberal free-speech laws, but I’m doubtful.

Many Indian institutions are largely based off their British counterparts, and India has a large English-speaking population which may help it globalise over time. Singapore also has both of these things; it speaks more English but has less ‘British’ institutions.

The general notion that development leads to liberal democracy is known as modernisation theory. Increased development leads to (and is also caused by) a more educated populace, increased urbanisation and a large middle class. All of these help to create a liberal democracy and we’re already seeing these processes play out in India.

There’s also social pressure towards Westernisation, something that’s also observable in many other Asian countries. English is heavily promoted and seen as a sign of being an educated upper-class individual. Foreign brands are socially desirable, in the same way that the iPhone was seen as a status symbol in China.

Already, India’s youth are far more Westernised than their parents. If new generations continue to become more Westernised, then it’s plausible that India become a Western nation in a few decades time, in the same way that Japan or South Korea have. Of course, there are caveats, the urban, educated youth are far more Westernised than the village youth, many of whom aren’t all that Western.

b.

The question here is if being a liberal democracy automatically aligns you with the Western bloc, out of a sense of ideological duty.

Most people in the Western World would weigh ideology fairly heavily in alliance structures. The West sticks together, in part because we’re all liberal democracies which are generally committed to upholding certain values on the international stage. This mentality was formed during the Cold War, as it divided the globe into clear ideological factions, whereas in the past it was absolute/semi-constitutional monarchies going to war against each other for land or resources.

India didn’t have the same ideological pressure to pick a side in the Cold War due to it being largely in the middle of the 2 camps ideologically. Its economy was partially based upon the Soviet model whilst maintaining some elements of a market economy. Its political system was a democracy. For a variety of factors, it ended up leaning closer to the Soviet Union than the US. This is best observable in the 1971 war, when the US sent a naval task force, led by the carrier USS Enterprise, into the Bay of Bengal to show support for West Pakistan and pressure India. the USSR moved its own naval assets into the area, including a nuclear submarine, to pressure and neutralise the US threat.

In the modern day, India’s non-alignment stems from realpolitik. It maintains neutrality while reaping the benefits from cheap Russian oil and broad American support. However, it may end up being forced to drop neutrality due to the growing power of China and declining power of Russia. Russia always ensured that China couldn’t go too far with India, but as Russia becomes more and more irrelevant on the global stage, India may be forced to ally more heavily with the West.

In the past, the US was fairly close allies with Pakistan, even designating it as a Major Non-NATO Ally in 2004. However, relations have strained somewhat, especially due to Pakistan’s ties with terrorist groups, and the US is more open to cooperation with India.

If the ideological argument that liberal democracies naturally ally with each other, even if non-alignment may have better outcomes, is true, then India will align with the Western World if it becomes a liberal democracy. So far, there’s not even one liberal democracy that’s not been Western aligned.

If the ideological argument is not true due to factors such as the end of the Cold War, then it is still possible that India aligns with the Western World due to shifting geopolitical headwinds. If this is the case, it is possible that India aligns with the West before it even becomes a liberal democracy, and that this will work to promote India’s Westernisation.

The Case Against

The only countries to hitherto Westernise that were not originally part of Western civilisation have been Taiwan, South Korea, Japan and Eastern Europe. These countries were all significantly under the influence of the West before their Westernisation.

Taiwan was propped up by American economic and military aid.

Japan was occupied by the US for nearly 7 years, and its economy was kickstarted by the US and relies significantly on the US. Before this, the Meiji Restoration had forcefully Westernised Japan as well.

South Korea was occupied for nearly 3 years and then was propped up in large part by the US in the Korean War and beyond.

Eastern Europe was largely absorbed by Western institutions such as the EU and received heavy funding for post-communism reconstruction.

While India was historically colonised by the United Kingdom, after this colonisation it remained fairly distant from the Western World.

The other factor is the Modi government, a Hindu nationalist/Hindutva government. The Modi government has been fairly open to economic globalisation, more so than its predecessors, but socially/culturally attempts to promote a more Hindu/homegrown culture rather than a globalised India. However, India is more liberal today than the start of the Modi government in 2014. One of the key reasons for this is the openness to economic globalisation, which has led to cultural/social globalisation as well.

Could India be considered Western under a BJP government? In its current form, probably not, but the BJP is likely to evolve over time if the rest of Indian society continues to Westernise as well.

There are concerns that the Modi government has led to democratic backsliding. This concern is somewhat supported by evidence. The V-Dem index shows significant backsliding, whilst the Economist Intelligence Unit shows a period of slight backsliding followed by a slight resurgence.

Conclusion

Overall, while India is likely to continue Westernising like the rest of the planet, I’m not so sure if India will ever become a Western nation like Japan. It’s definitely possible, but there are too many factors at play to be certain. India will probably be a liberal democracy by the end of the century, but whether or not it geopolitically aligns with the West, if such a geopolitical grouping of nations even exists at that point, is more up in the air.

The Western World should definitely put resources into turning India into a Western nation, or at the very least a liberal democracy. India already serves as a bit of a counterweight to China in Asia, and this effect will only be amplified by a Western, liberal democratic India.

India is a lot of things. It’s the world’s largest country by population, the world’s largest democracy, the world’s most diverse country, the land of spirituality. It also isn’t a lot of things, such as wealthy, liberal or ordered.

India is arguably an experiment. Can a truly massive nation, several times the size of the US, >50 times the size of Australia, survive without an authoritarian regime and over-arching dominant culture? So far, the answer has been a resounding yes. Despite all odds, India is the most stable nation in South/Southeast Asia. Pakistan, Nepal, Bangladesh, Myanmar, Thailand, etc, are/were all less stable than the Republic of India. Considering the size and diversity of India compared with these nations, this is a truly great achievement. India is unique among the nations of the world in being able to unify hundreds of diverse cultures, ethnicities and religions into a cohesive, functional nation-state.

By many, many metrics, India should have been a resounding failure, yet it survived. For many decades, it did just that, survive, and nothing else. India’s economy grew at roughly the same rate as its population for decades, up until the dismantlement of the Licence Raj. India is now firmly a nation on the ascent. Will India be a superpower by 2030? No. 2040? No. 2050? Probably not, but it is nonetheless a country forging ahead.

India is ultimately more than just a nation in my eyes; it’s a civilisation. Not only is it a civilisation, it’s the single most successful civilisation in human history. By that I don’t mean as of current; as of current it’s very obviously Western civilisation, but rather I mean as an aggregate of all human history. For most of human history, India was the wealthiest, most developed, most scientifically advanced civilisation. China was the wealthiest for the second longest cumulative period and Western Europe in third.

9th century Arab traveller and historian Al Ya’qubi stated:

“The Indians are men of wisdom and vision, and in wisdom are superior to all other nations. Their views on astronomy are most authentic. Their dictums in medicine are preferable.

10th century Arab traveller and Historian Al-Mas'udi declared:

“India was, in the ancient days, the country of wisdom and justice, and the source of governance. The inhabitants were balanced in their humours, and their minds were clear... Consequently, they discovered the foundations of the sciences, invented the game of chess, and became masters of philosophy, geometry, and medicine.”

Side note: I’m not sure if these quotes are 100% real, word for word, however these two did write about India and did say things in a similar vein so I’ve included them anyway.

Overall Western civilisation is the greatest civilisation; it created liberalism and is the most prosperous civilisation in history. But this is again a modern development, for most of history, India was by far and away the greatest, most developed civilisation.

This civilisational angle means that India’s rapid growth is not just a country developing, but a civilisation regaining its way; not just a nation in ascent, but a civilisation ascendent. Will India overtake the Western world? Probably not in the near future, or even in far-future perhaps. There’s also always the possibility that Indian civilisation will ‘merge’ with the Western world in the same way that Japan, South Korea, etc, integrated into the Western world. The reason I say this is because India is a democracy, perhaps not a liberal democracy, but a democracy, nonetheless. I will write more about this possibility in my next post.

Personally, the reason I’m making this special is because I’m a member of the Indian diaspora. Whilst I’ve lived in Australia for most of my life, since I was 4, and would call it my home, India will of course continue to hold a special place in my heart. Jai Hind and happy Independence Day.

The debate between America and Europe on who is wealthier has been raging for some time. What people fail to realise is that Australia is richer than both of them. However, its economy is facing some headwinds, and if things don’t change, it will be outpaced by the American economy.

Australia’s economy in many ways is a middle ground between the US and Europe. It has lower taxes than Europe but higher than the US. It has slightly less welfare than Europe but more than the US. Overall, it’s probably closer to Europe. It has universal healthcare and a fairly robust social democratic welfare state. In recent years the Australian government has been expanding rapidly in size.

Australia’s median personal income for all individuals was $58,216 AUD in 2022-23. The US in the same period was $43,150 USD. So, the US has a ~$2,000 advantage when AUD is converted into USD. However, this includes everyone from retirees to students. If we look at only full-time employed people, Australia has a median income of $90,532 AUD while the US is at $62,608 USD, both in 2025. This gives Australia the edge by ~$1,500 USD. I believe this is because Australians work less than Americans.

However, Australia has a similar unemployment rate to the US, 4.4%, while the US has a 4.1% unemployment rate. Much of the reason that (some) European nations work less than the US is due to having a higher unemployment rate, meaning working less is less of a choice and more of an economic constraint. Culture is of course still a factor, but not the only factor. For Australia, it essentially is the only factor. It should be noted that even full-time work is slanted against Australia. The average amount of work a full-time Australian does is 38 hours a week, whereas full-time employed Americans do ~42.25 hours of work a week. That’s a ~12% difference. This expands the gap to ~$9,000 USD, which is fairly significant. Further keep in mind that since the US has higher inequality, not only does Australia beat the US at the median, it also beats it below the median. This is important since $1 for someone under the poverty line is of much greater impact than someone in the 99th percentile.

Looking at Europe, we’ll compare France, Germany, and the United Kingdom to Australia.

France: Median figures for explicitly full-time employees are more difficult to find, but if we look at average figures, then France is worse off by ~$13,500 USD annually (2024) when compared to Australia. Average figures actually tilt the scale in France’s favour, nonetheless, France is significantly behind. The average full-time working week is 39.1 hours, so the difference is even larger.

Germany: Median average income for full-time employees is behind ~$9,500 USD (2025) annually, compared to Australia. They also work 2 hours longer at 40.2 hours a week, so again the $9,5000 USD figure is an understatement.

United Kingdom: Median income for full-time employees is behind by ~$10,5000 USD (2025) annually, compared to Australia. The British actually work slightly less than us Aussies at ~36.5 hours/week, so the difference is slightly smaller.

What about non-pay benefits? In the US, total employer compensation costs are made up of 30.1% benefits. Statistics for Australia are more difficult to find, but ranges from 25-35%, leaning towards 35%, so slightly more than the US.

British benefits are 15-20% of pay.

French benefits are quite generous, 30-45% of gross pay. However, this still does not put it in line with Australia overall.

German benefits are 21% of pay.

Statistics are all good and all, but to enhance the comparison, I’d like to share some examples. Australian blue-collar workers are paid exceptionally well, often times higher than university graduates. The best ways to see this is by looking at blue collar work opportunities, such as FIFO jobs, where 6 figures with no experience or degree is fairly normal. Bus drivers make 90-100k AUD on average. A bus driver with 0 experience makes about the same money per hour as the median American, as can be observed in these job listings.

Keep in mind these are largely all starting salaries. More experienced FIFO workers for example can make 130-180k AUD and senior roles make over $200k AUD, all without a college degree. If you’re willing and able to work hard, living a comfortable, upper-class lifestyle is possible without a university degree or any form of tertiary qualification. Not even trade school. This is unheard of in most nations and is why Australia is called the working man’s paradise. In possibly no other nation is the working class so wealthy.

Australia is richer than the major European nations and the US. However, if things continue like they are currently, this will cease to be. The American economy is quickly pulling ahead of Australia as we speak, and it is more than possible that Australia will no longer be richer than the US in the next 10 years. Australia has been too comfortable for too long with the status-quo and must change.

The Deep State is a political concept which refers to a secret shadow government pulling the strings from behind closed doors to wield the government for its own benefit. At least that’s the definition you’ll get from a conspiracy nut.

The definition a more reasonable individual would use is that the ‘deep state’ is the administrative state of civil servants and un-elected bureaucrats. This definition includes everyone from presidential advisors to the receptionist at the DMV. This definition is the correct one, but I think a more interesting concept/definition (and more useful as well often) is the academia-think tank-military industrial-intelligence community-business-state department institutional complex.

These are all the un-elected institutions that make and shape American policies. This definition allows one to gain an insight into how policies actually go from idea to implementation.

How it Works

Academia is the base of this institutional complex. It supplies all the other parts of it with the university educated people necessary to staff these institutions. It also contributes research output (although less than other institutions at times).

The think tanks are the ones which create the policies and provide much of the empirical evidence/research behind them. The policies which are debated by Congress and the general public usually stem from a think tank. Many of the advisors and technocratic elements of Congress and the executive branch also come from think tanks. For example, many of the Bush Jr. administration’s advisors came from the Project for the New American Century, a neoconservative think tank. Of course, think tanks are a diverse group and represent diverse interests.

The military industrial complex is another major force behind American policy making. It influences the government and commissions a lot of the research from think tanks for policies.

The intelligence community heavily utilises think tanks and the like for advice and as a source of policy. It often coordinates with think tanks and the military industrial complex to push what it sees as right and may oppose the military industrial complex and certain think tanks if it sees it as wrong.

There’s also the business world which provides large amounts of financing for the think tanks and academia. It of course influences the government as well. The business world is one of the more diverse groups here and probably has the least influence as well, at least in foreign policy, largely due to their lack of direct involvement with the government. They rely on lobbying for policy, but don’t generally have people on the inside in advisor positions. In domestic policy they’re more influential as they possess greater expertise.

The State Department is where much of this influence is directed. It directs American foreign policy and international relations. It draws ideas and expertise from think tanks, coordinates with the intelligence community, gets feedback from the military industrial complex, and is lobbied by business (although not very often).

Many of the foreign policy decisions made since WW2 can trace themselves back to influence and policy from these groups. Iraq I, Iraq II, the Containment policy, etc, were all brainstormed, scrutinised, debated and implemented through this institutional complex.

I’ve mostly discussed foreign policy, but a similar institutional framework exists for domestic policy, with less military industrial complex involvement, more business involvement and more academia involvement. Even in domestic policy, think tanks are often times more influential than lobbyists.

All of this probably sounds borderline conspiratorial if you’re unfamiliar with how policies are created. It also sounds like a bad thing, but it isn’t. This is simply how ideas are formed, poked at, prodded at, refined, made into specific policies, then poked and prodded some more, until Congress, the State Department or the executive ultimately rejects or accepts them.

Without this institutional complex behind them, politicians would make decisions based upon their own wisdom, which I’m sure is something most of you would like to avoid. Who would come up with policy ideas if think tanks didn’t exist? Who would poke a needle into those policy ideas if the military industrial complex didn’t exist? Most politicians don’t have a wide range of expertise.

A case study to see this institutional complex in action is the 2003 Iraq Invasion. Neoconservative think tanks like the Project for the New American Century (PNAC) have pushed for regime change in Iraq as early as 1998. They ended up largely ignored by the Clinton administration due to an ideological mismatch. Once the neoconservative Bush jr. administration was in power, they would be taken more seriously.

The neoconservative Bush jr. administration wanted neoconservative advisors/experts and sourced many of them from PNAC and the likes. They didn’t enforce rigid ideology requirements, but most of the Bush administration obviously skewed neoconservative. These figures pushed for an Iraq invasion. Rumsfeld and Cheney, both signatories to PNAC’s founding document, were the strongest supporters behind an Iraq invasion. However, the Bush administration had virtually no political capital to spend on this.

The military industrial complex never explicitly supported the war, but it funded many of the ideological think tanks behind it. It also aided planning efforts by building the infrastructure for much of the war gaming and provided advice to the Pentagon on munitions.

However, it was largely opposed by the US Military and State Department. Colin Powell was the most senior detractor of the Iraq War. He had considerable influence as both a retired 4-Star General and Secretary of State.

The intelligence community was split on Iraq. On one hand, CIA leadership was firmly behind the plan. Director George Tenet's CIA produced the October 2002 National Intelligence Estimate asserting Iraq possessed WMDs and he sat behind Powell at the 2003 UN presentation, showing his support. However, on the inside, the CIA was split. The INR (Bureau of Intelligence and Research, an arm of the State Department) was also sceptical of the intelligence around the Iraq War, ditto for Airforce Intelligence.

Ultimately, the reason Iraq was invaded, is because of the neoconservative ideology of the Bush administration. There is a reason the Clinton administration had rejected the plan. 9/11 had given the Bush administration enough political capital to pursue the invasion. When you zoom out, the case for the war looks fairly mixed, but the Bush administration was sure of it, and so America invaded Iraq.

Essentially, the think tanks had thought it a good idea, got the idea to the Bush administration who also believed it was a good idea (partly because they were staffed by the think tanks) and then the Bush administration sent the policy idea back down through these institutions to refine the plan, find faults and get credibility to sell the idea to the public. On one hand, the institutional framework was somewhat side-lined if it didn’t align with the Bush administration, and on the other hand, this is exactly how the system was designed to work.

This is why the Deep State is still democratic. It is a tool that is used by democratically elected politicians, not an independent group which has its own enforceable agenda. Elements of it may have vested interests in certain outcomes, but this is balanced by other groups and the fact that politicians are aware of these vested interests and factor them in.

In fact, the Deep State makes the US a stronger democracy. It is precisely the think tanks, military industrial complex, corporate lobbyists, advisors, etc, that restricted Trump from attempting upending American democracy in his first term. In his second term, he gutted the top and even middle leadership of many of these institutions. The think tanks and their advisors have been replaced with yes-men Trumpists, the intelligence agency heads have been replaced with incompetent buffoons, the military has been purged of dissenting voices. He is currently in the process of cowing corporations through cronyism. This re-vamped Deep State has been cleared of oversight and transparency as well, with the firing of 17 inspector generals.

This is how the Deep State policy making process under most administrations would work:

There’s an issue → Think tanks come up with policy ideas → Administration/political parties adopt these policy(ies) and attempt to push them → These policies are then reviewed by think tanks, intelligence agencies, and other institutions → The policies are scrutinised and debated → The policies are refined and calibrated → The ultimate decision on whether to implement the policy is decided by Congress/the executive.

Under Trump, it looks a little more like this:

There’s an issue → Trump decides on a policy (or someone whispers one into his ear) → The policy(ies) are applauded by all of Trump’s yes-men → Policies are implemented using executive orders, bypassing Congress.

This is how something like the Liberation Day Tariffs came to be.

Conclusion

Obviously, the Deep State doesn’t always get things right as shown in Iraq, but overall, they are the brains of the US government. They generally get more things right than wrong and are often side-lined by Congress and the executive. This is of course justified, since Congress and the executive are the demos part of democracy. Many times, Congress and the executives are the ones in the right.

There are real debates to be had about the impact of vested interests in this institutional complex, but on the whole, I believe them to be good people doing good work in ensuring American prosperity and international order. It’s surprising how little they’re talked about in serious political discussion. The right doesn’t talk about this outside of conspiratorial contexts while the left focuses almost exclusively on lobbyists, which are fairly influential in domestic policymaking (although less than many other institutions) but have a lot less influence on foreign policy.

I talked about the US in this article, but essentially every country on the planet has something like this standing behind their legislative and executive branches. For Australia, my home country, it’d be all the Australian think tanks like the Australia Institute and Institute of Public Affairs. The ASIS and various other intelligence agencies. The corporate lobbyists and miners, and of course, the Group of 8 universities.

This is the Australian economic problem. Australia’s economy will never grow (per capita) if this problem isn’t fixed. Productivity is the driving force behind every economy on the planet. Australia’s productivity has been entirely flat for over >10 years. Think about all the technological advancement that has happened since then: LLMs, agentic AI, advanced GPUs and CPUs, cheaper batteries and green energy, etc. All of that has resulted in no productivity growth.

This means Australia’s economic growth been very close to flat as well for 10 years in per capita terms.

If this productivity stagnation is not fixed, Australia’s economy will continue going nowhere as it has for over a decade now.

I’ve written about Australia’s economic situation before.

However, that essay was more a general overview, whilst this essay will focus on productivity in general, and will also propose a solution.

Which Sector(s) have stagnated?

Well, all of them. But some more than others.

This graph at first glance looks like a graph on the public sector vs. private sector. However, it’s closer to healthcare+education+administration (mostly healthcare) vs. private sector. Much of the healthcare and education jobs are in the private sector but state subsidised and therefore included in the ‘non-market sector’.

So why did the non-market sector stagnate? Well, this is simply because measuring the ‘output’ of education or healthcare is difficult. Essentially every country has seen this ‘stagnation’ in healthcare and education productivity.

So, the answer to Australia’s productivity crisis is in the private sector, right? Well, yes, but not entirely. There’s been an explosion of jobs in the healthcare and education sectors which has completely outpaced the rest of the economy. The root cause behind this explosion in jobs is increased government spending, since most of these jobs are state-subsidised.

Job creation in state-subsidised sectors has exploded whilst private sector job creation has slowed significantly since 2008. The Australian government is effectively printing low productivity jobs.

Some try to wave the explosion in healthcare jobs off as the consequence of an increasingly elderly populace, but this logic doesn’t hold up. The divergence clearly occurred in 2008, but Australia’s median age increased the most before 2008.

Sure, an increase from 35-40 is less damaging than an increase of 40-45, but that’s not what happened. Post-GFC, the median age barely budged until the pandemic, but the divergence did not start during the pandemic.

The government in power during the GFC was the centre-left Labor government under Kevin Rudd. The huge stimulus that was issued to keep Australia out of recession started the divergence. However, the divergence should’ve ended once the stimulus ended. Government spending died back down to pre-GFC levels by 2014/2015.

However, the nature of government spending changed. For example, the National Disability Insurance Scheme (NDIS) began rolling out in 2013. This can somewhat be observed in day-to-day government spending (which includes the salaries of public sector employees among other things).

The acceleration in government spending in 2015 is visible in the earlier graph on non-market hours worked. The divergence accelerated along with government spending. This acceleration occurred under the centre-right Coalition government (Abbot/Turnbull/Morrison).

Then came the post-Covid acceleration under the current centre-left Labor government under Albanese. Government spending never truly came down from the pandemic stimulus. The government continued printing unproductive state-subsidised jobs.

So how did the Australian government print all these state-subsidised jobs? It taxed and borrowed from the private sector. This is the main reason private sector productivity slowed down. The other reason, but not the main, was the fall in commodity prices.

We know this can’t be the main reason as market (and overall) productivity only marginally increased during the late pandemic despite the explosion in commodity prices. Also, commodity prices were lower in the early 2000s, but productivity growth was nonetheless stable.

Market productivity slowed down in 2015 when government spending started ballooning. This is no coincidence.

The Solution

The solution is to reduce government spending and re-configure the economy back towards the private sector. NDIS, Medicare, and perhaps even education spending all need to be cut. The proceeds should be used for corporate tax cuts and a balanced budget.

Saying ‘cut healthcare and disability benefits to fund corporate tax cuts’ sounds slightly psychopathic, but it’s exactly what Australia’s economy needs. Australia’s corporate tax rate is 30%, one of the highest in the OECD.

Turnbull attempted to cut the corporate tax rate from 30% to 25%, but the Senate forced him to adopt a two-tier system where only companies with a turnover under $50M AUD paid the new tax rate.

A 5% corporate tax cut with government spending cuts would help productivity growth, but probably still wouldn’t be enough to return productivity growth back to what it used to be. A corporate tax rate of somewhere between 15-22% would work better and should be funded by keeping tax on the mining sector at 30%. The mining sector is doing fine productivity wise and a higher tax rate in mining compared to other sectors would encourage greater diversification. De-regulation would also assist in boosting market-sector productivity.

Cutting healthcare, disability and potentially education may sting somewhat in the short-term, but long-term the greater productivity would allow greater economic growth and facilitate more funding in absolute terms (rather than as a percentage of GDP).

It may increase unemployment in the short-term, but it’d boost market sector job creation back to pre-GFC levels.

Big government has never delivered prosperity. Government is not a creator of prosperity; it’s a re-distributor of prosperity. When you focus too much on the re-distribution of prosperity rather than the creation of prosperity, problems arise. As the 62nd and 64th Prime Minister of Britain put it:

I believe the two main things that I’ve improved are introductions and sentence length.

I used to have 1-2 sentence introductions, sometimes not doing them at all, but these days I attempt to do 3-4 sentence introductions. I’ve thought about doing longer, as even 3-4 sentences seem to be shorter than average, but I like to be direct.

Many of my sentences in the beginning used to be quite long, I’d just drag on my thinking using commas. Now I’m more consciously aware of long sentences and also re-read before posting for extra clarity (I didn’t do that for my first few posts).

I’ve thought about doing multiple draft but I’m not sure if they’d genuinely improve my writing, but I am planning to test it.

How do you feel about Australia’s compulsory voting, and should America adopt it? -An American Writer & Essayist

I’m somewhat split on this. Philosophically, I don’t believe this infringes on individual rights due to the existence of the secret ballot allowing people to not vote, they just have to make it to the polling booth.

Practically, it helps to keep the politics of a country sane. One Nation, our far-right party, would find it near impossible to ever make government unless they moderate due to our compulsory voting and preferential voting system. Trump would never have happened under compulsory voting.

On the other hand, keeping a country ‘sane’ also protects the status-quo which makes it difficult to reform.

The concern on people who are un-educated on politics is real, but generally having more people voting leads to better decisions on aggregate. Also, it raises society’s political education level as a whole since if you have to vote regardless, might as well read up on policy.

Overall, I think it’s a net-positive and would support its implementation in the US, especially considering that the US status-quo ante was fairly good. Australia’s status-quo is ok, but not sustainable.

What do you think Australia does better politically than the US and vice versa? -Jordan Meadows

Australia’s electoral system, pension system and healthcare system.

We have an independent electoral commission which draws the electorates, preventing gerrymandering. We have mandatory voting and preferential voting as previously discussed, making it impossible to ‘waste’ a vote on a third-party candidate. It’s next to impossible to win the election with a minority popular vote in the 2PP (2 party preferred). We also have a multi-party system rather than strict 2 party duopoly.

Our pension system (superannuation) was privatised ~30 years ago and it’s been great. Our pension pool as of current is ~$4.5T, and no one has even lived a full working life with it in place yet. 36-41% of our stock exchange (ASX) is held in superannuation. Our stock market is fairly slow compared to the American stock market, so it’s implementation in the US would be enormously successful, something I’ve written about before in the past.

Our healthcare system is also better I believe. We have universal healthcare but incentives in place to use the private system, meaning 45-55% of people have private health cover. The Australian government actually spends less money on healthcare per capita than the American government. The US might have higher cancer survival rates and such, but overall, the Australian model is better in my eyes.

The things the US does better are probably overall economic policy and individual freedoms.

The US economy is much more dynamic than the Australian economy and features higher growth rates. Business is easier to conduct in the US while Australian businesses are covered in red tape and a 30% corporate tax.

The US also has far more robust free-speech protections, online freedoms and even individual freedoms. Australia is very much a nanny state today. We’re not even allowed to use fireworks, besides from sparklers.

Favourite Australian city and best historical Aussie PM? -Toby MacArthur

My favourite Australian city would be the one I live in, Perth. It’s big enough where it feels like a genuine metropolitan city but laid back enough that it has a bit of a town vibe too. Best of both worlds. It also has the best beaches when accounting for crowds (went to Bondi on Christmas once, absolutely packed).

For historical PMs, I’d say either Curtin or Menzies. Curtin led the country for the bulk of WW2 while Menzies presided over almost the entire post-war boom and unified the anti-labour centre/centre-right. Fairly generic picks, but they’re generic for a reason.

Have you always been a neoliberal? If not, what’s your “origin story”/intellectual development? -Conatus

I first discovered what politics was when I was 8. Before that I used to be into history and before that I was into astronomy. The jump from history to politics seems fairly standard, although I’m not sure how I went from planets and stuff to history.

When I was 8, I obviously had little idea about economics, and socially I was fairly left-wing, although not very much so. Pretty standard for an 8-year-old. Then I started to learn more about economics, and over time I went from left to right economically. It’s telling that when most people don’t know much or even anything about economics, they tend to skew to the left. Socially, while I changed my perspectives on many things, ultimately my overall social views remained roughly in the same area of the political spectrum.

I’ve always been very aware of how good we have it today compared to any other period in human history. I’m not entirely sure why, but I think a few factors may be:

-I’m just naturally an optimistic person.
-I used to (and still do somewhat) watch Kurzgesagt a lot, which is fairly an optimistic channel (and globalist propaganda depending on who you listen to).
-I was born in India and moved to Australia when I was 4, so I probably had a greater understanding of how good the Western world has it, even if I don’t remember much about India today.
-My interest in history, particularly WW2, made me appreciative of the post-war order, anti-fascism and anti-communism.
-The bulk of my childhood took place during the twilight days of the rules-based world order.
-For as long as I can remember, Trump has been the number one figure in US politics.

The fact that I understand how much better things have gotten over time is likely one of the things that made me a defender of the status-quo/status-quo ante. That along my interest in economics at a young age, when most at this age focus more on culture wars or taxing the rich, which functions as a culture war issue much of the time.

I would describe myself as a classical liberal more than a neoliberal, however I still include neoliberal considering that the ‘classical liberal’ label is broad church containing everyone from borderline libertarians to plain old conservatives. Including neoliberal signals that I’m economically closer to Reagan and Clinton than libertarianism, that I’m a globalist and that socially I’m closer to centre/centre-left than conservatism.

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Thank You

And finally, I’d like to thank you for subscribing. It’s been fun writing essays on things I care about, and if no one had read them, they’d be much less fun to write. Hopefully you’ve enjoyed reading and learned a thing or two. I know I’ve definitely learned some things while writing and researching these essays.

Throughout my Substack career, I’ve not paid much attention to culture war issues. This is largely because:

a. Beside a few of the fundamental ones, I don’t really care for them all that much.
b. Culture war issues are hard to debate because they stem much more from morals/values than quantitative reasoning. Economic issues are usually easier to debate because they involve numbers and statistics which are more concrete.

I’ve written a decent amount on immigration, but to me immigration is more of an economic/demographic issue than social. It does have some social elements, of which a few were discussed here:

In this essay, I’m going to lay out most of my takes on culture war issues like abortion and free speech.

Abortion

The abortion debate for me boils down to one point. At what stage is the foetus alive? By alive, I mean at what stage does its value become greater than the number of cells that make it up? I think a good answer is when the foetus starts developing the required brain structures for consciousness, which happens at 24-26 weeks. This is also around the time a foetus becomes viable outside the womb.

Therefore, I’d support abortion being legal without permission from a doctor/special circumstance up till ~22-24 weeks. Abortion is an individual right at the end of the day, since the foetus cannot be considered an individual up till ~24 weeks.

Affirmative Action/DEI

Affirmative Action and DEI programs are often justified by the premise that they’re closing gaps between different groups that were created by historical prejudice and persist through institutional racism.

I don’t believe that historical prejudice justifies modern prejudice, so I don’t believe that this is a fair argument. However, one point where the AA people have a point is institutional racism. Empirical data does seem to suggest that racial minorities and are discriminated against in the hiring process and in schools.

While a lot of the empirical data that the left uses is flawed, such as using the fact that racial disparities exist in suspensions to suggest that schools are racist in this manner. While they very well might be, this data isn’t enough to conclude that and may just be racial minorities are more likely to act out in school.

Another one is claiming that schools with high concentration of minorities receive less funding on average. This is true, but it’s because those schools are generally in poorer areas and has little to do with race specifically. If that’s a major factor to you, it makes more sense directing AA efforts to lower socioeconomic children, regardless of race or gender.

Some genuine data is the fact that African American students were 54% less likely to be recommended for gifted-education programs when compared to White Americans, even when controlling for standardised test score. However, if their teacher was black, they’re 3x more likely to be referred for a gifted-education program than otherwise.

In the hiring process, the exact same resumes get less call backs if the name sound African American than if the name sounds Whiter. Interestingly, white females get the most call backs, followed by white males and then black males. DEI measures for women therefore can’t be justified whatsoever.

However, I still oppose AA/DEI. It ends up damaging merit in my eyes, because it’s extremely difficult to implement a DEI policy which sufficiently reduces the bias in hiring that may (or may not in certain/many businesses) exist. It’s easy to go overboard or implement it in areas where it’s simply not needed. Trying to get each business to create a DEI policy to address whatever amount of discrimination may be present feels almost like a form of de-centralised economic planning.

It’s easier to simply let the market sort it out over time, businesses which discriminate will get lower quality workers, failing to compete in the marketplace and over time discrimination will decrease. There’re also cultural changes at play that will over time reduce discrimination on its own. We can already see this happening. In 13 years between 2004 and 2017, discrimination against African American names fell from 50% to 36%, outside of DEI policies.

I also oppose it on philosophical grounds. DEI and AA undermine individual rights in favour of group rights through reverse discrimination. As a classical liberal I value individual rights over group rights.

While all the above empirical studies were of the US, they likely apply in Australia too, however likely to a lesser extent.

Transgender Rights

Transgender people are individuals, so I do support Trans rights overall. However, I oppose them in areas where I believe they infringe on the rights of other.

There shouldn’t be any law that forces people to correctly gender trans people, misgendering a trans person is a right people deserve to have. On sports, they should have to compete in the sports of their sex at birth. It’s not fair to force biological women to compete with biological men. Women are objectively worse at sports than men on average. On bathrooms, the debate somewhat confuses me considering there’s often no real way to tell if someone is trans or not. On a theoretical level, it should depend on if one can tell if a person is trans or not.

The debate on allowing minors to transition is interesting. On the surface it looks like a ridiculous policy to allow them, considering it could cause permanent changes, but most studies show very low levels of regret. 97% of minors were happy that they took gender affirming care, even years later. Overall, however, I’d still think it should be banned unless recommended by a therapist/doctor and both parents, 3% is still potentially thousands of people. Also, we still don’t know the statistics for truly long-run studies. If you ask a 20-year-old whether they regret beginning to drink at 14, they might say no, but ask the same question to them at 40, they’re more likely to say yes. Surgery should remain out of the question till adulthood.

Hate Speech Laws

Hate speech should be legal. Hate speech laws infringe on the rights of the individual to protect a group’s right of not being discriminated against. This is one of the only culture war issues I’m genuinely passionate on. Practically, hate speech laws fuel far-right support. Many people voting for the far-right feel that their liberties are being excessively curtailed, just to protect a group they’re already lukewarm on at best.

Gun Control

As an Australian, I personally don’t understand American’s love of guns. I wouldn’t want guns to be easily accessible in Australia, but clearly guns are part of American culture, so I wouldn’t support banning them in America. Philosophically, I believe creating restrictions for gun ownership is justified under the harm principle. I would support gun control in the US; I see little reason why one needs to bear an assault rifle.

Practically, there are 2 main arguments for not banning guns.

a. A gun ban will result in law-abiding citizens surrendering their guns while criminals keep them

b. Guns among the populace will prevent tyrannical government from taking hold

Firstly, Australia was able to successfully end widespread gun ownership without problem a. occurring to a major extent after the Port Arthur Massacre in 1996. While many criminals did retain their guns, Australia’s gun crime rate is still low, lower than the US. However, in America this would be difficult due to the sheer number of guns and at times flimsy southern border. Americans also wouldn’t be so enthusiastic about giving up their guns, whereas the gun buy-back scheme was hugely popular in Australia.

The second argument is easily proven false by history. There were plenty of guns in Weimar Germany, but that didn’t stop the Nazis. Tyrannical government almost always come to power with large popular support, and scattered gun owners are no match for an organised military. A rare example of a tyrannical government coming to power without broad popular support is Communist China. However, most Chinese people were illiterate peasants at the time and the Communists had Soviet support, whereas the Nationalists were largely left to their own devices by the Americans. Even if guns were widespread China, the Communists would’ve likely still won because most Chinese weren’t necessarily supporters of the Nationalists, they were simply apathetic until they were indoctrinated by the CCP.

Slavery Reparations

You can probably tell but I don’t support this. Philosophically, it’s discriminatory big government, practically, a nation in almost $40T USD of debt can’t afford an inflationary government stimulus package.

Land Acknowledgements/Acknowledgement of Country

I have no opinion on Native American land acknowledgements since I’m not American, but we do ‘Acknowledgments of Country’ here in Australia and I don’t really care about having to do them. If Aboriginal people support them, then I have no problem doing them.

Leadership Quotas

This culture war issue is fairly unique to Australia I believe. The centre-left Labour Party adopted a 35% female quota by 2002 in winnable seats. After a few increases over the years, it hit 50% last year. The centre-right Liberal Party is current debating on if it should adopt this quota policy. The arguments for leadership quotas include making government better representative of the populace, correcting for internal discrimination and having more diverse viewpoints for governing.

I don’t buy these arguments. While internal pre-selection can be biased, I still don’t believe this is the correct way to fix these biases. Perhaps internal, non-binding targets are justifiable in this regard, but even then, I’m sceptical. I also don’t buy the diverse viewpoint argument, considering women do exist in Parliament, just not in the same numbers as men.

Being a member of Parliament is an extremely important job and should remain entirely meritocratic. I’d rather have a Parliament of all men or all women if they’re competent at governing (our current stock of politicians are mixed at best). I really don’t care how different a politician may be from me, as long as they’re good at their job.

Philosophically, this once again trounces on individual rights to uphold group rights, a common theme I’m sure you’ve noticed at this point.

Australian Flag Change

Australia’s flag is fine. If it’s not broken don’t fix it. Opinion polling again and again shows solid majorities in favour of keeping the flag.

Conclusion

I’m sure you see the recurring theme here. Keep government out of people’s lives, unless it upholds individual liberty or is justified under the harm principle. Individual rights always take precedence over group rights. The number one culture war issue I care about is free speech; it’s the bedrock of our society and can’t be chipped away at to uphold group rights.

However, as a whole, culture war issues aren’t a huge deal for me. I would support trans rights, but it’s not a deal breaker in who I vote for. This is the reason I’d generally vote for the centre-right over the centre-left, despite many of my culture war issues aligning with the centre/centre-left. My free speech stance is probably closest to far-right parties (such as One Nation and Reform UK). The centre-right coalition in my country voted with the centre-left to expand the draconian surveillance and hate speech laws after the Bondi terrorist attack. However, this vote actually broke apart the centre-right coalition temporarily, so it’s not so clear cut.

Cultural homogenisation describes the phenomenon of cultures across the globe growing increasingly similar over time due to globalisation. This phenomenon is very easily framed in a negative light: “We’re losing our traditions and they’re being replaced by mass produced corporate/Jewish slop,” depending on what side of the horseshoe you’re on. Cultural homogenisation has been a source for conspiracy theories for decades: “The globohomo elites are trying to wipe out our culture and traditions and supplement them with their own, all for more control.”

All of this is ridiculous because of one objective fact; cultural homogenisation is an entirely voluntary phenomenon. There is no state financing behind the curry paste on your shelf at the grocery store; no quota on McDonald’s consumption.

Traditions have no inherent value on their own. Their value stems from the common desire to continue them. If this desire no longer exists, then they are no longer relevant. Even if you’re a hardcore traditionalist, this is the simply unavoidable. If everyone stops following traditions, then those traditions no longer exist, no matter how some may attempt to wish them back into existence. The entire reason traditions were created in the first place is to improve people’s lives. If people voluntarily stop engaging with them, then clearly they no longer improve people’s lives. Why should a small minority be able to disrupt society by using the state apparatus to prop up traditions that would cease to exist if they came in contact with the wider world?

The funny thing is that very few traditions are actually disappearing due to globalisation. Grandma’s brownies and bubble tea are not mutually exclusive. Much of the panic around cultural homogenisation is largely unwarranted. Traditions and customs still exist, they just co-exist with modernity.

Clearly, cultural homogenisation does little harm to societies and cultures, but what, if any, benefits does it provide?

Firstly, it makes it easier to do business across the globe. English as a lingua-franca is an example of cultural homogenisation and has made business much easier to conduct. Workers can also move to far-away nations with less friction since many of the cultural institutions that may be in their home countries, such as McDonald’s, are also in the country they’re moving to. The same effect makes tourism easier too. It becomes easier to see another side’s perspective in a business/trade deal when you and the other side share some common cultural practices and values.

Secondly, it increases global social cohesion and reduces friction between different cultures. By creating shared lifestyle factors, people across the planet will find it easier to relate to each other. This reduces xenophobia and racism, while boosting understanding. It’s easier to feel connected with people who are more like you. It also creates shared fundamental values like basic human rights, educational norms and valuing scientific reasoning.

The final reasoning is that it increases Western influence and soft power. While cultural homogenisation is definitely a 2-way street, overall, the world has become culturally much more like the US than the other way around. This is because the US (and also the UK to an extent) has been the global hegemon during the time period that cultural homogenisation took place in. Most places have Americanised significantly, which grants the US major soft power and makes many people more sympathetic to the US. American cultural influence was one of the reasons the USSR collapsed, as silly as it may sound. Many Soviet citizens, especially the youth, wished to partake in American culture, and were prevented from doing so legally. This created not only resentment, but appreciation for US culture and way of life, which was entirely incompatible with the USSR on a values basis. If real life was a Civilisation game, the US would’ve won a cultural victory by now.

Conclusion

As an entirely voluntary process, cultural homogenisation promotes shared global values. Those shared global values happen to largely be liberal values, such as human rights and democracy (it is no coincidence that almost every single authoritarian regime claims to be democratic)

Ultimately, cultural homogenisation is pushing humanity closer to world peace. Will we ever get there? Perhaps in a long, long time. Regardless, cultural homogenisation is almost certainly a pre-requisite for such. Peace looks much more appearing when you can see some of yourself in the other side. Cultural homogenisation at its most basic level can be defined as this:

Increasing what our fellow humans have in common with us.

Would you kill your dog for $5,000 USD?

Most people would say no.

However, a true act-utilitarian would have to say yes.

Utilitarianism is the philosophical framework which posits that the most moral action is the one that creates the most overall happiness and well-being. A variation of this is act-utilitarianism, which states that an individual action is only right if it produces the greatest total amount of happiness and well-being. When this theory is taken to its extremes, it becomes borderline psychopathic.

Back to the dog example, $5000 USD is more than enough to save a human life. Estimates place a life-saving amount of money at ~$3000 USD. Therefore, not killing your dog for $5000 USD is morally indefensible from a pure utilitarian perspective.

This example can go further. Let’s assume the hypothetical individual in the dog example is 20 and will live to 70. If this individual puts his $5000 USD into the S&P 500, which averages ~6.7% average annual return when adjusted for inflation. This means that the $5000 USD will turn into $142,000 USD by the time this individual hits 70 years of age. That’s 47.33 lives saved for 1 dead dog.

Now, would you kill, say, your dad or your wife for $5,000 USD? Utilitarian wise, you absolutely would. In fact, killing your entire family for $5,000 USD (assuming the size of your family is <47) is the morally correct decision from a pure utilitarian perspective.

We don’t even need $5,000 USD to make this argument. $110 USD becomes ~$2996 USD in 50 years of S&P 500 investment. Killing your dog for $110 USD would be seen as psychopathic by the vast majority of society. Killing a family member that is above the age of the individual saved for $110 USD would be considered horrific by essentially everyone. Regardless, pure utilitarianism would dictate that murder is the correct, moral choice.

Obviously, there are some externalities here, such as some believing that long-term charity creates dependence (although this is an easy fix, simply use the money for emergencies, such as wars) or that the pain caused by the murder may trump the life saved (although I feel that’s difficult to justify) However, the core point stands. Pure utilitarianism is a scary philosophy when taken to its extremes.

This is known as the Demandingness objection, something I discovered just as I finished this essay. Pure act utilitarianism requires extreme self-sacrifice and clashes heavily with common-sense moral intuitions. Personally, I lean towards utilitarianism, but the Demandingness objection is why I’ll never be a true act utilitarian.

Australia has everything necessary to become (remain) one of the world’s premier destinations for data centre construction in the near future. Data centre related CapEx is a massive, growing market that Australia is well positioned to utilise. The Australian economy has been fairly slow as of late but tapping into this emerging market could help boost economic growth significantly.

Global data centre investment will reach $6.7 trillion USD by 2030. Much of this (over 40%) will be on computer hardware, which Australia isn’t well positioned to utilise, but that still leaves ~60%. $1T alone will be spent on the physical construction of datacentres (land acquisition, labour, etc). If Australia can manage to capture even 1% of the remaining 60%, that’s almost $60B AUD. Imagine 2%, or 3%, both of which are not unrealistic considering Australia is already second place in data centre investment.

Australia has all the necessary base ingredients for large-scale data centre construction. Land, water and energy. With a few incentives and smart policy, it could easily become one of the most important data centre hubs on the planet.

Land

Australia is massive, and empty. There is an enormous amount of completely unused land, not all of which is simply desert (35-40% of Australia is a desert). Australia’s landmass makes it the 6th largest country in the world, with 7.6 million km^2. It also has a very small population. This gives it the 6th lowest population density in the world. Much of this land is very cheap as a result. Australia is very far from the rest of the world as well, which ensures the physical security of the data centres against conflict. Australia fairs well against climate conditions too. Australia has between 30-80 tornadoes yearly (although some believe there are more since many short tornadoes in remote areas go unreported) while the US has ~1,200 tornadoes yearly. While much of these are concentrated in specific areas, even outside of these areas, the US has more tornadoes. Australia is stereotyped as having constant wildfires, but the US actually has more, Australia has ~45,000-65,000 bushfires yearly while the US has ~50,000-95,000 yearly.

The weakest link for Australia is likely temperature. Data centres operate cheapest in lower temperature environments. Even then, there is plenty of area with fairly moderate weather conditions.

Overall, Australia has massive amounts of cheap, empty land with moderate climate conditions and little risk of natural disaster. We have so much empty land that it’s in our anthem.

“We've boundless plains to share”

If Australia de-regulates land usage laws, especially in remote areas, data centre investment will significantly increase. Data centres need fibre-optic cables, so data centre construction usually takes place near them to minimise latency. Fibre-optic cables are typically concentrated on coastal/coastal adjacent areas. This is observable in data centre construction. Data centres are typically concentrated in coastal states, with dense fibre optic cable connections, such as Virginia and Texas.

In the US however, much of the coastal areas are fairly densely populated. This leads to local opposition and zoning regulations which make it difficult to build. In Australia, coastal regions are much less densely populated. ~127 million people live in East Coast states in the US, while the Australian East Coast states have a little below 20 million people.

Why wade through American urban zoning regulation and local councils when there’s so much empty, fibre-optic adjacent land down-under?

Water

Australia has a lot less water than the US, but much more on a per-capita basis. Australia also has large-scale desalination facilities and the capability to expand these existing operations. All in all, however, water isn’t a major concern. Data centres utilise a very little amount of water.

Energy

The US has more energy in total and per-capita. It also has cheaper energy. However, Australia has the potential, if executed correctly, to outshine the US here. Australia is perfect for renewables and other energy sources.

Australia has massive amounts of empty, burning hot land for solar power. It has land for wind power. It has land (and uranium) for nuclear power. It has rivers for hydro power. With a friendly regulatory regime and tax incentives, the construction of all of these things will greatly increase. Trump likes to focus on oil and gas, but most of big tech (and really most industries in general) would rather use renewables. This is visible in a state like Texas, where land de-regulation has led to exponential growth in renewables.

The conditions in Australia are even better than in Texas for renewables. The only thing in the way is government regulation.

How Australia Can Utilise This Opportunity

Currently, Australia is not on track to be able to truly harness the huge potential windfall that the exponential data centre related CapEx could provide.

Australia has fairly stringent land-use regulations, even outside of cities. Local councils still may block building, even if far from population centres, there’s a long list of environmental laws, much of the land is reserved for agriculture, mining, etc.

There’s also the risk of additional regulations. The current party in charge is the centre-left Labor party, who have a super-majority in the lower house (94/150) and a majority in the senate if they work with the far-left Greens (to be fair, the Greens aren’t a particularly cooperative party, but still). This gives them the ability to legislate without excessive need for compromise.

Already, the ruling government has plans to force large-scale AI data centres to build energy production rather than just buying it. This may sound good on the surface, but the timescales of data-centre construction and energy construction are different. Data centres can be built quicker than energy, so this will simply slow down data centre construction. Why deal with that when Texas will let you build whatever and whenever?

The alternative will lead to higher energy prices in the short-term, sure, but ultimately the increased demand will create increased supply, and much of the supply would likely be constructed by data centre investors. Long-term, Australia would have stable, or perhaps even lower, energy prices, and also the economic boon from data centre investment.

It’s a shame that the Labor government is doing this, especially considering their election slogan was ‘Building Australia’s Future’. What could possibly fit this slogan better than renewable energy integrated large-scale AI data centre networks built right here in Australia?

To attract data centre CapEx, Australia should firstly liberalise land-usage laws. This is the most important step. Simply allowing AI companies to do what they want on land they bought will bring in investment since Australia is inherently a great place to build data centres.

Next would come the tax incentives. Australia has a 30% corporate tax rate and has recently increased capital-gains tax. This high tax environment deters investment. The Australian government should be offering lower taxes for AI companies looking to build data centres in Australia. These tax incentives should be tiered, with greater cuts for companies who also commission renewable/nuclear energy projects. It should also be dependent on how large the project is, perhaps relative to corporate size in order to avoid penalising smaller businesses.

Finally, streamline the approval/planning process. It should take very little time to go from concept to construction. It should also take not long to scale existing data centres further. With how fast AI is moving, keeping investors waiting would be a mistake.

Conclusion

The data centre CapEx boom could be what Australia needs to kickstart its stagnant economy. This, if handled correctly, could provide the largest economic windfall to Australia since the mining boom. If Australia captures 3% of the non-computer hardware CapEx, something very achievable with hard work, that’s ~$170B AUD. Australia’s GDP was $2.72T AUD in 2025. $170B AUD is ~6.25% of Australian GDP.

This government has so far proven a major economic failure, only kept afloat in the polls by the completely incompetent and fractured opposition. This could be their shot at salvaging their legacy and truly doing what they set out to do, Building Australia’s Future.

The Iran War has turned into a complete quagmire for both sides involved. Neither really knows what to do at this point. Iran can’t blockade the Hormuz forever, because they need the oil revenue. The US doesn’t want to be responsible for international economic recession that would come with simply choking out Iran. Israel has managed to ‘mow the grass’ of Iran’s nuclear program and military but failed in fixing both problems permanently. It’s hard to say anyone has won; all sides are worse off than the beginning of the war. If I had to make a judgement on the war, I’d say it’s been a pyrrhic victory for Iran.

Personally, I think the answer lies in further military action. The diplomatic route has clearly failed.

For the rest of this essay, I’ll be referring to Israel+US as the ‘Allies’ just to avoid repeating ‘American and Israeli’ all the time.

Stage 0: Prepare

Flood the gulf allies and US bases with anti-air and Ukrainian defence drones (in exchange for Patriot missiles or something similar). Troops are already amassed so no need to amass them, meaning the Iranians won’t be sure of what to expect and might view the whole thing as a defensive step.

Munition production should also be ramped up in preparation for the operations.

Stage 1: The Kurds and Domestic Opposition

The CIA should utilise its connections to get guns into the hands of the domestic opposition and the Kurds. The Turks might complain about the Kurds, but the entire operation is possible to keep secret by prohibiting the Kurds from using these weapons in Turkey.

If the Turks do find out, use the recent F-35 deal negotiations as leverage. Threaten Turkey with severe diplomatic and economic consequences if they leak any information to the Iranians.

This plan exists to create instability within Iran and force the regime to utilise greater resources on internal stability maintenance. With enough time, the Kurds could even begin an offensive into Iran with American air support, in exchange for greater autonomy in the new Iran.

Stage 2: Commando Raids

The Allies should raid Iranian nuclear sites and take the uranium. These operations should be integrated with engineers, temporary occupation of the site and full air support.

This is what should’ve been done at the beginning of the war in all reality, but the Allies were planning on decapitating the Iranian regime, having Mahmoud Ahmadinejad take power and having the Kurds invade. However, their chosen successor became ‘disillusioned’ with the plan, and the Turks pressured the Allies to drop the Kurdish plan.

These commando raids would be extremely risky, and a decent number Allied commandos would likely die. This makes it an extremely unpopular move domestically. Militarily however, if even 25% succeed, (considering the state of Iran’s armed forces combined with the element of surprise, there’s likely going to be a success rate of far higher than 25%) then Iran’s nuclear program is set back by years if not decades.

So far in this war, the US military’s performance has been unstoppable tactically, so I’m confident these raids will be fairly successful.

The Iranians will retaliate, but that’s why anti-air technology was amassed in stage 0.

Stage 3: Kharg Island

A capture of Kharg Island would be a massive defeat for the Iranian regime. It’d force the regime to come to a settlement, quickly, because it wouldn’t have the money left to fund its state security apparatus.

As Iran’s premier export hub, responsible for 90% of its exports, A US capture would leave Iran’s regime on the brink of collapse. Oil money is the only thing left fuelling the regime, the rest of the domestic economy has largely crumbled.

Before an armed assault on the island, it should be bombed heavily, with perhaps US warships joining in on the bombarding. This would ‘soften up’ any defenders on the island.

The main issue is the island is in close range to the Iranian coast, allowing Iran to continuously strike the island. The solution here is to bring engineer to fortify the island, while using ships and planes to bombard the coastal area near the island in order to prevent significant offensive strike capabilities from being built up.

The Iranians will attempt to further ramp up attacks but may not be capable of it if the Iranian military-industrial-complex has been sufficiently damaged.

A capture of Kharg Island will drive up global oil prices by taking Iranian oil almost entirely off the market. However, re-assuring investors of rapid re-construction once the war winds down will calm some of the market panic.

Results

Iran will at this point have 2 options. Come to the diplomacy table in good faith; no $300B reconstruction fund, Hormuz toll, or any other nonsense. They’ll open the Hormuz, give the Kurds greater autonomy, and perhaps surrender the rest of the uranium, in exchange for the end of war and return of Kharg.

The other option is continuing the war. This would almost certainly cause a civil war in Iran. The Kurds and Democratic Opposition on one side with the remnants of the regime on the other. With access to Kharg (and therefore oil markets), US air support and US material support, the civil war would likely be wrapped up in a few years’ time at most, with maybe a long-term insurgency in a few mountain provinces.

In today’s politics, there is great fear that AI will permanently destroy many more jobs than it’ll create. People envision double digit unemployment rates and mass white-collar replacement. However, I actually hope AI does destroy all those white-collar jobs, and more.

The destruction of a job would mean that the good and/ or service produced by it no longer requires human input to be produced. This allows for it to be produced at a significantly cheaper cost; it also allows for it to be produced at a higher rate. Considering the exponential advancement of AI, it’s possible that this higher rate of production also grows exponentially.

The creation of a new job would be responsible for another good/service. This is fine, however, it would be better that this new job is also done by AI.

The more jobs automated, the more good and services are produced cheaply. Aggregate supply in the economy would increase significantly, and since the cost to produce the good also declines significantly, there would be no dead-weight loss, unlike with subsidies.

The key issue most people have is that it would increase unemployment. However, since the total output of the economy has actually increased, all that is needed is re-distribution, through perhaps a UBI or some other program. Society would become much wealthier even despite (or should I say because of) the high unemployment rate.

The key reason people are scared of AI job replacement is because people fear change and the unknown. We still don’t have a great social nor economic blueprint for AI replacing a large chunk of jobs. Many believe their life would lose meaning without their job. There are also the doomers on the left who believe we’ll enter a new age of ‘techno-feudalism’ where the people who control AI make all the money and the unemployed are left behind entirely.

Personally, I don’t believe AI will kill more jobs than it creates (but I am hoping it does), at least in the long term. Every innovation in human history has created more jobs than it has killed. However, I can see why AI might be different; it’s essentially creating an intelligence potentially smarter than humans that doesn’t tire nor need pay.

An economy where AI does a large chunk of the work is the first step towards a post-scarcity future, where work becomes entirely optional and there’s enough goods and services for everyone to live without want.

The majority of China hawks believe the US should aggressively decouple from the Chinese economy. Manufacturing should be brought home, supply-chains should be relocated, and exports controlled. While I believe in some areas these measures may be justified, such as rare-earth minerals, overall, China and the US should become more economically intertwined.

If you asked me a year ago if I was a China hawk, I’d likely answer no. However, as time has passed, I’ve become more aware of the very immediate risk China poses to the American led order and would now describe myself as a China hawk. The China hawk rationale for economic decoupling is to weaken China and ensure the US isn’t dependent on China. I’ll explain in the face of these arguments why economic integration with China should be deepened nonetheless.

China’s Dependence on America

China is more dependent on the outside world than America.

China imports more than America, so contrary to popular belief, America is more self-sufficient than China. China is dependent on the outside world not only as a buyer of its goods and services, but also a seller of the goods and services it needs. Decoupling from China will force it to become more self-sufficient, which will aid its efforts on a possible Taiwan military operation in the near future. There are also specific, very important areas where China is heavily dependent on the rest of the world. The 3 areas are food, oil and chips.

Firstly, China has been a net food importer since 2004. It’s self-sufficiency rate decreased from 93.6% in 2000 to 65.8% in 2020 and is expected to continue declining to 58.8% by 2030. While it’s unlikely that China will starve if outside food access is cut-off due to its high level of self-sufficiency in staple crops, it’s still a large issue for China’s potential ambitions for a Taiwan war. The US on the other hand is one of the most food self-sufficient nations on the planet. If the US restricts food imports from China, this allows China to more easily stockpile food and increase food production by lowering standards for previously export bound goods. This also would negatively impact American consumers. If the US restricts food exports to China, then there is increased demand for domestic Chinese goods, forcing food production to ramp up. This would also negatively impact American businesses and workers.

Secondly, China is a net importer of oil, with over 70% of Chinese oil coming from foreign sources. 90% of total oil imports are seaborne, which makes it extremely easy to suffocate China’s oil supply. The US on the other hand is a net exporter of oil. The US also has essentially no restrictions on the usage of oil for its citizens, while China does, such as the road space rationing policy. This means that China is already somewhat operating in war-time oil rationing conditions in some ways, meaning it will be able to mobilise less fuel in the event of a war than the US. The US doesn’t buy all that much oil from China, but if it restricted oil exports to China, then China would be forced to become more self-sufficient.

Finally, computer chips. China is dependent on American consumer chips. This is an area where export controls are justified, since China can and is using the American chips to develop their own. The issue here is rare earth minerals, if the US cuts off chip exports to China, China cuts of rare earth minerals necessary to manufacture chips.

Overall, you get the gist. It’s better to create, maintain and deepen a Sino-American co-dependence to make it more difficult for China to become self-sufficient and create an economic deterrence against a Chinese invasion of Taiwan.

America’s Dependence on China

While overall, China’s dependence on the outside world is greater than America’s, America is more dependent on China itself than China on America. However, this can be utilised against the Chinese.

Trade is a 2-way-street. China is every bit as dependent on the US as the US is dependent on China. China’s export model would face economic catastrophe if the US stopped buying. The same applies for America’s import model if China stopped selling. However, China’s GDP per capita is significantly lower than America’s, which means it can take a lot less economic damage than America. A 50% reduction in Chinese GDP would lead to Botswanan living standards, while Americans would be closer to French living standards. I doubt a Taiwan war would result in a 50% GDP reduction, but a major reduction in living standards is probable. China can mobilise much less of its economy than the US.

Therefore, the greater the economic consequences, the better it is for the US. Deeper integration would increase the economic consequences. Economic integration, as previously mentioned, also works as a deterrent for the same reason.

The counterargument here is that China’s manufacturing output wouldn’t need US demand to continue operating in wartime. In this case, US demand only serves to build up Chinese industrial might. This argument is true. However, it’s too late for the US to decouple from China. China either invades Taiwan in the next 5-10 years, or it doesn’t. 5-10 years simply isn’t long enough to decouple from China, and if China doesn’t invade, a decoupling would’ve been a massive mistake. It should also be noted that much of the goods produced by China are low-quality goods which are difficult to convert to military production.

On US demand building up Chinese industry, 5-10 years isn’t enough to significantly grow Chinese manufacturing output when one factors in China’s general economic slowdown. American manufacturing output has also been fairly stable since the financial crisis, so a weakening of American industry isn’t much of a worry either.

The economic damage to the Chinese economy + time arguments are why I believe that Sino-American economic integration should be deepened rather than decoupled.

While the decoupling process itself would also work to economically damage China, it would be a slow process which would allow China to adapt. The economic shock from war on a deep trade relationship would do far more economic damage.

Conclusion

Was economic integration with China a mistake in the first place? Perhaps. It depends on if China actually ends up invading Taiwan or not. If China invades Taiwan, then it was a mistake. We made the Chinese dragon rich just so it could attack us. If China doesn’t end up invading Taiwan, it was a good thing. We made ourselves and China wealthier, and integrated China into our economic order, making it economic suicide for it to invade Taiwan.

Regardless of that, the current American policy should be to deepen US-China economic integration. This will act as an economic deterrence and make war extremely painful for China, giving the US a better chance at winning.

Much of the discourse on the ‘vibecession’ seems to fall into two camps, both of which are wrong in my eyes. The camp which believes mainstream economics is gobbledygook and the economy is broken, and the camp which believes people are just extremely negative and the economy is great. I think it’s a mixture of how consumer sentiment is measured, the economy itself and greater societal polarisation.

Firstly, the economy is objectively not as bad as consumer sentiment would have you believe.

Consumer sentiment is significantly lower than it has been ever. Worse than the GFC, worse than Covid, worse than the 70s. Very obviously, the economy isn’t worse than it was during the depths of the GFC. Clearly, there’s something more to this than economists just being stupid and out of touch.

I think the first factor is that the consumer sentiment survey is based upon 5 core questions, 3 of which are about the future.

• Change in personal financial situation over the past year

• Expected change in personal financial situation over the next year

• Expected general business conditions over the next 12 months

• Expected long-run business conditions (around 5 years ahead)

• Current conditions for purchasing major household durable goods

It’s possible to be highly negative on the future, even if the present is fine. In a standard-ish recession, such as GFC, it’s at least somewhat safe to assume that the economy will begin rebounding soon. In the current economic environment, this is more difficult for several unique factors.

Firstly, Trump. No matter what you think of him, it is objectively true that the economy has been much less predictable since he took office. The economic uncertainty created by the Trump administration isn’t just inherently bad for the financial state of businesses and households, it also reflects poorly on consumer sentiment surveys. Consumer sentiment had crashed from 74 in December 2024 to 52.2 by April/May 2025, before rebounding slightly in July after the United States Court of International Trade ruled the IEEPA tariffs exceeded Trump’s executive authority. This makes sense as not only were Trump’s economy damaging tariffs struck down, it restricted Trump’s power, reducing the spontaneity of the Trump administration’s economic policy. However, the second Trump administration remains more spontaneous and unpredictable than previous administrations.

Next, Iran. While Iran has largely been wrapped up by (for) now, the last data point was May 2026, while the Iran war raged and many Americans expected the war to last for months to years. News outlets were reporting on the possibility of $150-$200 USD Brent Crude prices that would take months to come down even after Hormuz opens.

The final reason Americans are so gloomy about the future is AI. Many think it’ll kill all the jobs and tank the economy in the near future.

The second factor is the economy itself. Food for example, increased in price at a much higher rate than headline inflation figures.

Food prices are something that most people interact with daily/weekly, which influences people’s views on the economy more than other things, even if their entire cost-of-living hasn’t increased by as much as they believe. This is the same for other goods purchased on a weekly/monthly basis which have inflated faster than the CPI. There’s also the housing crisis, which does help out the 65% of Americans who own a home, but the 35% that don’t are negatively impacted.

There’s also the obvious point that even if inflation currently is stable, all the past inflation is still there. While inflation adjusted incomes are higher now than pre-pandemic, the previous psychological factor of upfront, common costs like food, petrol/gasoline, etc, applies. It should be taken into account that median real personal incomes remained flat during the cost-of-living crisis, which suggests that the financial impact for the median, home-owning, suburban American wasn’t all that large in reality.

The gap between consumer sentiment between income levels has also grown.

This is likely due to the Iran War, since poorer Americans spend more money as a percentage of their income on petrol. The gap in 2025 was about the same as it was before the pandemic.

Moving on to the next, perhaps the most important reason that consumer sentiment doesn’t reflect the economy is societal polarisation. If you ask a Republican how the economy is right now, they’ll tell you it’s great. If you ask a Democrat, they’ll tell you it’s horrible.

Under Bush I, Bush II and Obama, there was a sizeable gap between Republicans and Democrats, but not very large. Interestingly the gap was absent during the Clinton presidency, perhaps due to most conservatives branding the Clinton Economic Boom as the 20th year of the Reagan Boom. The gap widened significantly under Trump I, which makes sense with the traditional Trump polarisation narrative.

It’s amazing that Democrats had higher consumer sentiment during the entire cost-of-living crisis than the first Trump presidency. Independents might seem the most trustworthy here, but I’d have caution when using them as a gauge as well. Independents haven’t liked Biden nor Trump, and Trump’s current approval rating amongst them has effectively hit rock bottom.

There’s also social media, which presents a much more negative worldview as doomer ‘analysis’ or vents get more clicks than reasonable, nuanced interpretations. This impacts the economic perceptions of most Americans.

Something that’s more difficult to get polarised about is one’s own finances. It’s easy to believe the economy is crumbling when the guy you don’t like is in the driving seat, and your feed is showing you economic catastrophe, but it’s not easy to that you yourself are poor since you have all the data with no spin or bias.

Most people are doing fine but believe the world around them is going to shit, because of social media and political polarisation.

The Vibecession is an interesting phenomenon which I’m not sure has occurred before in history. It could mark the decline of the consumer sentiment index’s importance in its current form and perhaps a replacement by something which asks much more personal financial questions. My take on the economy is that homeowners have essentially entirely recovered from the cost-of-living crisis at this point in time and are doing better than they were pre-pandemic. For renters, the cost-of-living crisis is still ongoing. Food prices may have stopped climbing but rent certainly hasn’t (although rent prices have slowed down recently). Starbucks sales are increasing, air tickets are reaching new highs, car sales have almost recovered to pre-pandemic levels, the American economy seems to be almost back into full swing. However, it should be kept in mind that renters are no small demographic, they’re 35% of households. It’s far from back to normal for many Americans still.

Recently, leader of Australia’s premier far-right party, Pauline Hanson’s One Nation, made a speech emphasising the need for Australia to toss out the supposedly failed policy of multiculturalism and embrace monoculturalism. Essentially, the age-old debate on assimilationism vs multiculturalism, melting pot vs salad bowl.

So far, the speech hasn’t been received well, One Nation polling numbers have slipped somewhat as even Paul Hogan, Crocodile Dundee himself, criticised Hanson for using him in her speech. Currently residing in California but planning on returning to Australia, he went so far as to say, ‘I want to die in Australia — in a multicultural Australia!’

Politicking aside, which approach works better for a successful society and immigration policy? Well, as usual, it’s not either extreme, but a balance.

The Case for Monoculturalism

History has shown that nations with a unifying culture are generally more stable and prosperous than those without. It is no coincidence that most developed nations aren’t, or at least weren’t, all that diverse, when compared to poorer nations such as in sub-Saharan Africa.

A unifying culture promotes social cohesion, building a high-trust society that is easier to do business in, easier to govern and more stable. This leads to greater prosperity.

If a nation loses or damages its unifying culture, it leads to societal fragmentation and the breakdown of social cohesion. This damages institutional trust, fuels polarisation and undermines societal wellbeing. Many of these issues are endemic to the West today, and the monoculturalists blame multicultural mass migration.

Monoculturalists also believe monoculturalism makes for a more successful immigration policy, being more effective at integrating migrants through national values. They believe it could reduce migrant crime and prevent radical ideologies from taking hold.

The Case for Multiculturalism

It is good for a nation to have diverse perspectives on issues. For example, many of the top China experts in the US government and academia are Asian-Americans, they have the cultural and oftentimes linguistic grounding which gives them insight into the China situation.

They also believe that multiculturalism enhances the host nation’s culture. For example, Cinco de Mayo in the US, chicken tikka masala in the UK or HSPs in Australia. If you’ve had any foreign cuisine recently, you’re benefiting from multiculturalism.

Another argument is that it leads to a more successful immigration policy. Allowing migrants to bring their cultures with them will make it easier for them to leave home and integrate into the host nation’s society. Introducing these cultures into the host nation’s society will also reduce racism and xenophobia over time, as exposure to different cultures usually does.

There’s also the uncomfortable question on how the state would enforce monoculturalism. Banning speaking another language at home? Shutting down the local Chinese restaurant? Screening immigrants won’t work since culture comes inevitably with any immigrants from a different country.

The Balance

The main point I believe the Monoculturalists have is that throughout history, nations with a unifying culture have generally done better than those without. However, I do believe that multiculturalism makes for a better immigration policy and enhances the host nation’s culture.

Therefore, I believe that in some ways, multiculturalism should be pursued and in others, assimilationism.

Monoculturalism should only be pursued in one area, patriotism. All permanent immigrants, or at least their children, should place their host nation above their original nation. This should also somewhat apply to nation values. While strict, state mandated adherence to national values is entering anti free-speech territory, at the very least, they shouldn’t hold extremist views.

Multiculturalism should be the policy for everything else. Who really cares what language people speak at home as long as they speak English? Who cares what food people eat, what entertainment they consume or what clothes they wear? As members of a free society, we have no reason to discourage or restrict these things. Even if you do care about all of this, are you sure you want state intervention on what clothing, cuisine or entertainment is allowed?

For implementation, those seeking non-holiday visas could have their social media screened for extremist beliefs such as Nazism, authoritarian communism or jihadism. There could also be changes made to the education system made to better promote fundamental national values such as human rights, democracy and tolerance, but I feel the current education system already does that well enough.

This solution is the best of both worlds. Civic patriotism and unity in diversity creates a shared national identity, while the multicultural diversity in everything else makes the nation a better place to live.

This solution also largely refrains from authoritarianism. Screening migrant social medias for ‘national values’ is cryptic and can easily be utilised to further authoritarian goals by a bad-faith government. This is more difficult to do as ‘extremist views’ are more concrete than ‘national values. It’s also somewhat anti-free speech as described before.

Pauline Hanson’s speech itself was largely ridiculous, but the debate on assimilation vs multiculturalism is very much a serious discussion. Let me know your thoughts in the comments on where on the scale the balance lies.

The United States, for all its flaws, shortcomings, and mistakes, is undeniably history’s main character. It’s the single most important nation in the world right now and has been since its inception 250 years ago. It has the strongest military and economy in history, its culture is all pervading in a way that no other culture in human history has been, it’s the world’s leader in all things innovation. I could go on and on.

No other nation has ever been as crucial, as pervasive as the United States. Every corner of the planet is touched by America in some shape or form. Almost nothing on the planet is done without express American approval. The United States, despite current events, largely remains the leader of the Western world.

The United States built the current world order as we know it. The UN, WHO, ICJ, IMF, WTO, etc, etc, etc, are all American creations, in the sense that without the US, none of them would exist. The US is the architect of post-war prosperity; the entire world economy hinges on the US.

The platform you’re reading this on is American. The device you’re using is likely American. The car you drive was manufactured using the method invented by an American. The clothes on your back were manufactured using a machine invented by an American. America is everywhere all at once.

Most Australians believe America is a deeply flawed nation. It is in many ways, all nations are, but something that I’m not sure many of my fellow countrymen would like to say out loud is that America is far more important than Australia.

Is Australia a better country than the US? I like to think so. But ultimately, Australia is a small country. It doesn’t have power, capability, population, influence, money, etc, to have even 1/10th of the impact that America has on the planet. America isn’t impacted by geopolitics, America is geopolitics. Every geopolitical question is in some way related to the United States. American history is world history and has been since it first declared independence; The American revolution was the bloody, violent birth of modern representative democracy.

Over 250 years, despite countless blunders, miscalculations, and self-goals, America has emerged has the world’s pre-eminent power. As the greatest geopolitical mind in history once said:

There are many things that Americans could learn from rest of the world. But there are also many, many things that the rest of the world can learn from Americans. Americans are the most entrepreneurial, risk-seeking people on the planet. They truly are not scared of anything; Americans live up to the name, Land of the Brave.

Americans are also some of the most charitable people in the world. As previously mentioned, the entire post-war order was built by the US. While this was not out of charity, nonetheless, my country’s peace and prosperity is a result of American leadership. This is true for almost every single nation on the planet. China, Europe, South America, India, are all significantly better off due to American leadership.

And finally, America is our greatest ally. We’ve fought side by side in every single major military conflict since WWI, from Korea to Papua. America has always come to our rescue, and we’ve always came to America’s. 4 Years won’t undo the century of mateship between our two great nations.

Happy 4th of July, Yanks, here’s to another 250 great years.