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Blue Cities/States and the Curley Effect
If you wonder what in the world that your average DSA (or CIA educated) politician is doing by ramping up taxes on the rich and driving them out of town, look no further. A good Irish machine politician figured it out a century ago. His name was James Michael Curley, Mayor of Boston for discontinuous terms from 1918-1950. Also US Representative. Also Governor of Massachusetts. Grok:
Edward L. Glaeser and Andrei Shleifer coined the term [Curley Effect] to describe a political strategy where an incumbent politician uses distortionary, wealth-reducing policies—such as wasteful redistribution to a core supporter base combined with rhetoric or policies that encourage opponents (often higher-income or opposing ethnic/class groups) to leave the jurisdiction. This reshapes the electorate in the politician’s favor, helping them stay in power even if it harms overall economic growth.
Gov. Kathy Hochul? Check.
Mayor Zohran Mamdani? Check.
Mayor Karen Bass? Check.
Mayor Katie Wilson? Bye.
Gov. Gavin Newsom? Check.
USW
When you think about it, it all connects with The Science.
Genghis Khan: Drive your enemies before you and hear the lamentation of their women.
Nazi jurist Carl Schmitt: the political is the distinction between friend and enemy.
Far right Curtis Yarvin: there is no politics without an enemy.
Racist-sexist-homophobe Christopher Chantrill: there is no politics without a handout.
Note that the important economic thing is the handout, not the overall prosperity of society.
Why is that? It is because, for a ruling class, the prosperity of the ruled is not that important. The rulers can grab all the loot for themselves. See Cuba, Iran, USSR, China.
The impoverishment of the people has nothing to do with the case.
Secretary of State Marco Rubio just laid out to the Cuban people how the system works in Cuba.
Thirty years ago, Raúl Castro founded a company called GAESA. This company is owned and operated by the Armed Forces, and has revenues three times greater than your current government’s budget. Today, while you suffer, these businessmen have $18 billion dollars in assets and control 70% of Cuba’s economy.
Nice work if you can get it. (You mean to say, Marco, that the rulers of Cuba are capitalists?)
Why do the people put up with it? Partly, I think, it is that the ideology of every ruling class is that we, the rulers, are saving you from a fate worse than death, and everyone must rally to the flag to save our community from the enemy. If the rulers dominate the media and censor opposition then people only hear the regime propaganda against the enemy. They believe.
LHGrey, in a characteristic rage, connects this to The Science. There’s an outfit called “The Dangerous Speech Project” From the home page:
This is a time of fear in the world: wars, disease, climate crisis, and more, amplified by lies. Building on that, many leaders use a special kind of rhetoric to convince their supporters to perceive other groups of people as monstrous threats.
Yes, but that’s always the case. That is what politicians do: inflame the people against the existential enemy.
And that is why it is essential that government should be limited, and politics kept to a dull roar in the background. Because politics is about, and only about, the fight against the enemy. There is no politics without an enemy.
But 97% of human life is person-to-person cooperation and influencing. And if you invoke Nazi jurist Carl Schmitt’s other distinctions, you understand why:
The moral: about praising good and stigmatising evil.
The economic: about doing useful things, not harmful things.
The aesthetic: about appreciating beauty and minimizing ugly.
Do you see the point? In the world of the other distinctions force is not necessary. And that’s a good thing because force, the fight against the enemy, consumes everything, as in Iran, Cuba, etc.
Our mission, if we accept it, is to stigmatize the Curley Effect, shame our Democratic friends out of it, and support Spencer Pratts as far as the eye can see.
| Wed, 20 May 2026 22:23:21 GMT |
A History of (Mainly) Elite Education
What with the end of college education, because AI, I wondered about the history of education. Starting with elite education.
Let’s start with King Tutenkhamun in Egypt, born 1342 BC. Google AI:
As a royal prince and subsequent pharaoh, King Tutankhamun received elite private tutoring from court scribes and priests. Because he ascended the throne around the age of nine, his education blended intense religious instruction—aimed at reinstating the traditional gods—with practical training in administration, statecraft, and military leadership.
And of course, there was Alexander the Great, born 366 BC. Google AI:
Before his formal academic training, Alexander was raised in the royal court, where he learned to read, write, ride, hunt, and play the lyre.
Then he and his pals, including Ptolemy, got a personal education from Aristotle, including philosophy, literature, science, medicine, practical statecraft and warfare.
So much for the kings. But Aristotle also ran the Lyceum, where students learned from walking around the grounds with Aristotle. Google AI:
Students and researchers explored a vast range of subjects, including natural science, zoology, physics, politics, and logic.
That’s all very well, but whatabout education before the invention of writing? Google AI says that “children learned directly from their families and communities. The curriculum focused entirely on survival, practical trades, and the transfer of cultural heritage.”
Observation and Imitation of parents and elders
Oral Tradition via storytelling, poetry, and song
Apprenticeship to master craftspeople, healers, or spiritual leaders
Moral and Social Values from elders and shamans through legends, ceremonies, and tribal rituals
Seems to me that education is still like that, only with writing and printing and electronics it is much easier to get an education.
With writing came libraries, at Pergamon and Alexandria. Once he got back from teaching the Iranians a lesson Ptolemy set up a library in Alexandria and scoured the world for manuscripts. He also had Hebrew scholars from Jerusalem come and translate the Bible into Greek. One product of the Alexandrian system was Hypatia, born in 350ish AD. She was a mathematician and philosopher.
Whatabout ancient Rome? Wikipedia:
Education in ancient Rome progressed from an informal, familial system of education in the early Republic to a tuition-based system during the late Republic and the Empire.
Whatabout Anglo-Saxon Britain? Google AI:
Education in Anglo-Saxon Britain was primarily an ecclesiastical privilege overseen by the church to train clergy and scribes. While the masses learned practical life skills through apprenticeships at home, formal monastic and cathedral schools offered a sophisticated Latin-based curriculum that made English scholarship among the finest in Europe.
Not much different from education in the Middle Ages. Google AI:
Formal schooling was largely reserved for the elite and aspiring clergy, with curriculum focused on Latin and religious studies. The majority of the population received no formal schooling, instead learning trades and agrarian skills through hands-on work.
In Elizabethan England, per Google AI, the elite had private tutors, the middle class in the cities learned the 3 Rs in Petty School and then “Latin, rhetoric, and classical literature” in Grammar School.
Then there is colonial America, per Google AI.
In the Puritan northeast, “Towns were legally required to establish schools and grammar schools to teach literacy and prepare boys for university.”
In the middle colonies, each church ran its school and “apprenticeships were very common.”
In the South education was reserved for the “plantocracy.”
Then we get to the 19th century and, eventually, government schools for all.
Whatabout universities? Wikipedia says they represented a move away from schools designed purely for the education of priests, starting with the University of Bologna in 1088 AD. So we can see them developing over time from schools to inculcate the state religion into schools to inculcate the secular ideology of the secular educated class.
My purpose in going through this is to think about the effect of AI.
Back in the day, without writing, education was about oral tradition and apprenticeship. But with writing and priests we got the highest stratum getting an education. But education was expensive: one teacher and a few students for Alexander the Great. One teacher and many students for the rest of us.
And it seems to me that with printing, we get an expansion of education, with libraries not just at Alexandria and in monasteries. Still, education and university is still an elite thing.
In the machine age we get universal education. But still with one teacher and many students. Even now, in the electronic age, we still have one teacher and many students.
But when we see teachers complaining that students are writing their assignments using AI, I suggest we are getting to the point where:
We Don’t Need No Stinkin’ Teachers.
Or at least, not so many. Because today all a teacher needs to do is set up an assignment and let the kids use their laptops to research the answer using AI.
Yes, but, you say. This means that the kids don’t really learn anything; they just learn how to look up things on AI.
But I say that as long as the students know how to look up a topic on AI, then stop panicking and let the world turn.
For instance, I just whipped up a History of Education using Google AI and Wikipedia by entering search requests like “education in Elizabethan England.” I didn’t have to go examine the parchment scrolls in the library of Alexandria — or even the books at the local university library.
But suppose all I want to do is get a job in one of the trades. I wonder what would happen if I asked Google AI “how do I get qualified to work in the trades.”
This is not that hard.
| Tue, 19 May 2026 23:21:37 GMT |
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Christopher Chantrill
He runs usgovernmentspending.com, the go-to resource for government finance data, and is a frequent contributor to the American Thinker. He lives in Seattle, Washington. Click for more.
“I love this guy.” — Steve Ballmer
A Commoner Manifesto
Commoners have nothing to lose but their shame
Nietzsche was “the Nazis’ favorite intellectual:” butcher’s bill 50 million. Marx is the left’s favorite intellectual: butcher’s bill 100 million. Explain.
Do politicians know what they are doing, or just do what they know?
The simplest way to understand human society is as Three Layers such as Nobles, Yeomen, and Serfs.
My take on Three Layers is my Three Peoples Theory of Creatives, Responsibles, and Subordinates.
I believe that we moderns live in Three Worlds: the War World of politics, the Market World of the economy, and the Life World of family and neighborhood.
And the trouble with politics is that it reduces human society to a war against the enemy, as determined by Nazi jurist Carl Schmitt.
The world that we all live in today is the one created by the German Turn in philosophy, psychology, science, and meaning.
But our modern elite, the educated elite, has taken, I believe, a Wrong Turn and has imposed a cultural Great Reaction on the world, a lurch back to the primitive. This manifests in the elite’s conceited Activism Culture and its patronage of Subordinate people as its Little Darlings.
The principal reason for the elite’s Wrong Turn has been that it does not understand and does not want to understand how the Three Peoples’ Religions are necessarily different.
The root of the educated elite’s Wrong Turn is its conceit that it knows what the world needs. I think there is a better way; I call it “A Good Life Better than the Left”.
ABC of Politics – Activism Culture – “Anatomy of Revolution” – Allyism – Critical Theory – Downstream-ism – Dutch Finance – German Turn – Good Life – Great Reaction – Little Darlings – Perfect Plan – Women in the Public Square – Ruling Class – Three Layers – Three Peoples – Three Peoples Religion – Tribalism – Two Cultures – Wrong Turn
Today’s topic: Analysis of Karl Polanyi's Great Transformation
