When time and labor had developed riches, cupidity restrained by the laws, became more artful, but not less active. Under the mask of union and civil peace, it fomented in the bosom of every state an intestine war, in which the citizens, divided into contending corps of orders, classes, families, unremittingly struggled to appropriate to themselves, under the name of supreme power, the ability to plunder every thing, and render every thing subservient to the dictates of their passions; and this spirit of encroachment, disguised under all possible forms, but always the same in its object and motives, has never ceased to torment the nations.
Constantin François de Chassebœuf, comte de Volney, The Ruins, or, Meditation on the Revolutions of Empires (1793; second English-language edition translated by Thomas Jefferson & Joel Barlow, Philadelphia, 1802).
On March 9, 1776, Scottish philosopher Adam Smith published An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations, which became the first widely accepted landmark work in the field of economics.
The Wealth of Nations (as it is usually cited) was not the first general treatise on the subject, however; that designation almost certainly belongs to banker Richard Cantillon’s Essai sur la Nature du Commerce en Général, cited by Smith in his more famous book. It is also worth noting that Étienne Bonnot de Condillac’s systematic treatise, Le Commerce et le Gouvernement, also saw publication in 1776.
In late January, Paul Jacob reminded readers that the biggest domestic issues, inflation and over-spending, were being overshadowed in the first flush of the Trump Administration’s rush to Get Things Done.
And then went on, in the following weeks, to talk up DOGE and other Trump efforts to root out “waste, fraud and abuse.”
There is no contradiction here. It’s a question of balance. Paul quoted Veronique de Rugy in that January commentary. So why not quote her again in defense of praising DOGE, to the extent it does good?
In “Yes, Cutting Government Waste Is Important,” Ms. de Rugy argues that those who shrug “off the cost-cutting work, arguing that finding waste in discretionary spending is like bailing water out of the Titanic with a teacup” are “missing part of the point.
After all, politicians do spend large sums without restraint, much of it borrowed, on boondoggles that most Americans wouldn’t support if they knew what was happening.
It’s also a matter of good sense. Imagine telling a family drowning in debt that they shouldn’t bother canceling unnecessary streaming subscriptions or eating out less because “the real problem is the mortgage.” It’s a bad argument when applied to household budgets or the federal budget.
The opposite thesis was made eloquently years ago by British comedian David Mitchell:
Of “eliminating waste” he sarcastically counters “if only we thought of that!” Mitchell’s message is the jaded one that waste is an inevitable part of bureaucracy and we must learn to live with it.
But that is not what DOGE is finding. The waste in Washington today is Volney’s veritable “intestine” condition, featuring, in this ruin of empire, a twisted mess of special projects cooked up by Democrats to employ their family members and college roommates to push DEI to the tune of over $100 million.
That is waste, sure. Abuse, of course. But it is also a parlaying of tax funds for partisan pet projects.
Pictured at top: Volney, author of The Ruins, who provided the inspiration for today’ title.
Never have the young taken themselves so seriously, and the calamity is that they are listened to and deferred to by so many adults. A society that takes its solemn adolescents seriously is headed for serious trouble. How humorless and laughable the solemn young! One realizes that one of the chief differences between an adult and a juvenile is that the adult knows when he is an ass while the juvenile never does.
On March 8, 1775, “African Slavery In America,” often described as the first known essay advocating the abolition of slavery in America, was published anonymously in the Pennsylvania Journal and the Weekly Advertiser. Thomas Paine is believed to be the essay’s author.
The first anti-slavery society was formed in Philadelphia weeks after publication, and Paine was a founding member.
Exactly 120 years earlier, a court in Northampton County of the Virginia Colony ruled that John Casor, then working as an indentured servant to Robert Palmer, must be returned to Anthony Johnson as Johnson’s “lawful” slave for life. Johnson himself was one of the original indentured servants brought to Jamestown, had completed his indenture to become a “free Negro,” and became the first African landowner in the colony. The case marked the first person of African descent to be legally recognized as a lifelong slave in England’s North American colonies. In summary: the first official chattel slave in English-speaking North America was of African descent was owned by a man also of African descent.
“Get used to high egg prices,” The Atlanticblurbed Annie Lowry’s February 27 article, “it was a miracle they were low in the first place.”
Titled “It’s Weird That Eggs Were Ever Cheap,” it appears to have an agenda: prepare us for yet higher prices, or worse: no eggs.
“Consumers are furious,” explains Ms. Lowry, emphasizing that eggs are a very, very popular food. “Or at least they were, until a highly pathogenic form of bird flu spread to American flocks in 2022. Today, the Department of Agriculture is tracking 36 separate outbreaks across nine states. The disease has led to the death or culling of 27 million laying hens — nearly 10 percent of the nation’s commercial flock — in the past eight weeks alone.”
The culling of flocks — and which birds are selected — could potentially be the most controversial element of the story. Donald Trump, on the campaign trail last year, complained about the cull orders and promised to bring down egg prices fast.
But his administration’s new five point plan is no quick fix:
subsidize on-farm biosecurity upgrades
compensation to farmers forced to cull their flocks
investing in bird-flu vaccines and therapeutics
nixing some regulations
increasing foreign imports.
That comes to $1.5 billion spending increases to lower egg prices!
But it was a jokey comment by USDA Secretary Brooke Rollins that sent Trump critics into paroxysms. “I think the silver lining in all of this is, how do we solve for something like this?” said the Department of Agriculture head. “And people are sort of looking around, thinking, ‘Maybe I could get a chicken in my backyard,’ and it’s awesome.”
