As Americans watched inflation transform from an afterthought to our "dominant political issue" over the course of the last year, the contrast between the pain at the pump or the grocery store's till and the politicians' "flailing in response" has been a sight to behold. As Ramesh Ponnurru writes in the new cover story for the June 13, 2022, issue of the magazine — "Stop the Presses!" — the "search for scapegoats" was immediate, with the Left "blaming corporate greed and consolidation":
Senator Elizabeth Warren (D., Mass.) is invoking a far-fetched conspiracy of grocery-store chains and, with seven colleagues, proposing "a federal ban against unconscionably excessive price increases" by large companies.
This sort of nonsense, which seeks to explain a variable (the inflation rate) by reference to a constant (the desire for profit), can only distract from what is truly necessary to restore price stability.
"As in the 1970s," Ramesh writes, "as in almost all inflationary episodes — what is necessary is, above all, monetary restraint."
But do Americans, American politicians (in an election year), and, above all, the Federal Reserve have the will to contain inflation — to restore "monetary restraint" — even if that slows the economy, even if that results in relatively higher levels of unemployment, and even if it causes the United States to slide into a recession?
In "Stop the Presses!" Ramesh argues that, well, the Fed better have the will to confront this problem, for all our sakes. "It took interest rates as high as 20 percent," Ramesh writes, "to get spending and inflation under control in the early 1980s." Things need not get that bad this time, as long as we get our monetary house in order. Read Ramesh's cover story here.
Also in this issue, French novelist Michel Houellebecq — the author of such controversial novels as Submission (2015) and Anéantir (2022) — analyzes this spring's French presidential election, in which the unpopular centrist Emmanuel Macron won against the even-more-unpopular Marine Le Pen of the National Front: "Voting has always been, more or less, a matter of class; but never before has it been a matter of class to such an extent":
From a sociological perspective, this year's elections teach us a lesson so simple and clear that it can be summarized in a single sentence: The rich vote for Macron, the poor vote for Le Pen, and those in the middle vote for Mélenchon. This interpretative framework is straightforward, if not brutal; but it works perfectly.
Houellebecq's essay, "Nicht Versöhnt: A letter from France," is deeply pessimistic. It's clear that he doesn't see a way out of France's long, centrist-led decline short of a great shock that knocks the French out of their quiet decadence. "I can only promise you one thing: We will do better in 2027," Houellebecq writes, ominously. "And let me add (on a less happy note) that reconciliation is not, in France, on the table for now."
Douglas Murray takes up the theme of the continuous attacks on Western Civ:
"Everything from art, mathematics, and music to gardening, sport, and food has been put through the same spin cycle. There are many curiosities in all this."
He continues:
Not the least of them is that while the West is assaulted for everything it has done wrong, it now gets no credit for having got anything right. In fact, these things — including the development of individual rights, religious liberty, and pluralism — are held against it.
The essay, "So Long, Civ?" is an adaptation of his new book The War on the West.
Murray doesn't hold back, wondering why we "open everything in the West to assault":
The culture that gave the world lifesaving advances in science and medicine, a free market that has raised billions of people around the world out of poverty, and the greatest flowering of thought anywhere in the world is interrogated from a perspective of deepest hostility and utter simplicity. The culture that produced Michelangelo, Leonardo, Bernini, Shakespeare, and Bach is portrayed as if it has nothing relevant to say.
Don't miss the rest of this issue, including:
Jim Geraghty on the struggles of moderate Democrats in "Blue Dogs Swim Upstream."
Rachel Lu on how we can approach pro-natalist policy over the long term in "Tipping the Stork."
And Mike Watson's hard look at the origins of the political philosophy and inconsistencies of the post-liberals in "Carl Schmitt's Disappointing American Disciples."
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