Monied Interests – The Scholar's Stage

35 Theses on the WASPs

12 January, 2026By The People, Culture, Demographics, Electoral Intrigues, Monied Interests, The Cybernetic Web

LAST MONTH American Affairs published my review of Alexander Karp’s The Technological Republic. While I had plenty critical to say about Karp’s book, the meat of my essay was a historical survey of the ascendant “Eastern Establishment” of the Gilded Age. This class of men dominated American industry and exerted outsized influence in American politics in the decades between 1860 and 1930. They pioneered humanity’s leap into the industrial age and America’s rise to global preeminence. Much can be learned from them.

There are two groups who may reap special benefits from pondering the old Establishment’s origins and accomplishments.

3 Comments

Book Notes: The Technological Republic (2025)

10 December, 2025Complex Systems, Culture, History, Monied Interests, The Cybernetic Web

ALEXANDER KARP AND NICHOLAS ZAMISKA’S The Technological Republic: Hard Power, Soft Belief, and the Future of the West may not be the worst book I have read this year, but it is by far the most disappointing. Karp is the rare CEO more famous for his intellect than his entrepreneurship. The overlap between the students of Jürgen Habermas and captains of industry is small. Among the technology brethren, Karp is regularly portrayed as a latter-day philosopher king. Karp leans into this image. I do not begrudge him this—founders must sell both themselves and their companies, and a company like Palantir is easier to sell when its founder is wreathed in mystique.

There are some downsides to mystique. If people believe you are some philosophic savant, they expect you to write a book with real intellectual heft. An important book. The sort that teaches men how to merge principle with practice. The sort of book that might be remembered.

7 Comments

Watch Xi Jinping Slowly Strangle the Dengist Economic Paradigm

11 March, 2023History, Monied Interests, Political Theory, The Middle Kingdom

Xi Jinping’s decision to openly label the United States the source of China’s ills rolled through the newsletters, wire services, and commentators on China this week. Much has been written about this already; I have nothing to add. Here I call attention to something else that occurred at the National People’s Congress, an incident whose significance is perhaps not properly appreciated. Here is Nikkei’s description of the incident in question:

20 Comments

The Lights Wink Out in Asia

02 February, 2023Entangling Alliances, History, Japan, Monied Interests, Narrative, The Middle Kingdom, Wealth

Japan’s 2022 National Security Strategy concludes with a dramatic pronouncement:

At this time of an inflection point in history, Japan is finding itself in the midst of the most severe and complex security environment since the end of WWII. In no way can we be optimistic about what the future of the international community will hold

I find myself strangely affected by this document.

33 Comments

Of Sanctions and Strategic Bombers

31 May, 2022Bargaining and Balancing, Diplomacy, Monied Interests, Political Theory, Russia

In the aftermath of the First World War, military theorists across the West were desperate to fashion a path around the next war’s trenches. Engineers and tacticians spent that war tinkering away on machines that promised an escape from attrition: the gas shell, the U-boat, and the armored tank were all deployed with these hopes. All were found wanting. The aeroplane was not expected to have quite the same impact. The flying contraptions of the First World War were feather-like: they were both too light for heavy ordinance and too slim for bulky fuel storage. Few of these biplanes and triplanes could penetrate deep behind enemy lines. None carried a payload capable of making a serious dent in the nearer trench works. Thus the incipient air forces of the First World War were chiefly used to reconnoiter the static defense works of the enemy—or to shoot down the enemy’s reconnoiterers. But the airmen flying and dying in Europe’s gray skies dreamed of something more.

38 Comments

On the Party and the Princelings

30 November, 2021Culture, Monied Interests, The Middle Kingdom, Tyranny, Wealth

Desmund Shum is a red billionaire. Red Roulette is his memoir, a tell all expose of his family’s climb to the summits of wealth and the foothills of power. The book describes how he and his ex-wife maneuvered to the top—and why they subsequently crashed back to earth. Their fall was as dramatic as their rise: Shum now lives in exile; his unfortunate ex now lives in prison. With nothing to lose, Shum lets loose: his memoir promises to hang Beijing’s dirty laundry for all to see. What a sight this laundry turns out to be! Read this book. Though Shum is unreliable narrator, his memoir is the best single introduction to elite Chinese life yet written.

10 Comments

Yale and the Education of Governing Elites

07 October, 2021Diplomacy, Dogs of War, Education, History, Monied Interests, Political Theory, Possessions For All Time

The resignation of Beverly Gage, professor of history at Yale and director of the Brady-Johnson Grand Strategy Program, is the great brouhaha of the last weekend.

I am not a graduate of the grand strategy course, but have followed its development over the last decade and a half.

16 Comments

Xi Jinping’s War on Spontaneous Order

28 September, 2021Complex Systems, Culture, Monied Interests, Political Theory, Tyranny

Yesterday the Wall Street Journal published a letter I wrote to their editor in response to Kevin Rudd’s exposition on Xi Jinping’s “Common Prosperity” campaign:

38 Comments

Further Notes on the New Right

24 May, 2021, Electoral Intrigues, History, Monied Interests

Last month’s essay “The Problem of the New Right” caused a small stir. Formal writeups have been authored by Ross Douthat, Eric Levitz, Jordan Bloom, Lars Schonander, Peter Spilakos, and Aaron Ren. On Twitter there was even more chatter about the essay, much of it critical. I have found the critiques of my piece […]

47 Comments

The Framers and the Framed: Notes On the Slate Star Codex Controversy

25 February, 2021Bargaining and Balancing, Community, Media, Monied Interests, Narrative

Let’s talk about the grand Slate Star Codex brouhaha. A lot of people have already written about this. Here is the original New York Times piece that started the controversy. [1] Against the Grey Lady we have Cathy Young, Robby Soave, Micah Meadowcroft, Matthew Yglesias, Freddie DeBoer, Scott Aaronson, Noah Smith, and Dan Drezner, as […]

26 Comments

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