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1 week ago | 
insider.iea.org.uk | Kristian Niemietz
On 13 February, The Philosopher’s Yard, a debating society at Birmingham University, organised a panel discussion on capitalism. The IEA’s Kristian Niemietz represented the pro-capitalist side. The article below is based on his opening remarks. I am here today to defend capitalism. I realise that that is not a popular cause, and I am not expecting any applause. All the surveys show that capitalism has a terrible reputation.
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2 weeks ago | 
lbc.co.uk | Kristian Niemietz
Britain needs to build more homes rather than focusing on vacant housing Britain needs to build more homes rather than focusing on vacant housing. Picture: Alamy By Kristian Niemietz Given the severity of Britain’s housing crisis, it is not surprising that people are outraged when they hear about vacant properties. It just feels wrong to leave a property empty and unused when so many other people are struggling to find a place to stay.
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2 weeks ago | 
substack.com | Kristian Niemietz
A while ago, I read an article by a British-born journalist who now lives in France, and who was complaining about the food there. My first reaction was: “Come on! Get real. You come from the land of beans on toast – and you have the nerve to complain about the food in France??”But as I started reading, it started to make sense.
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1 month ago | 
open.substack.com | Kristian Niemietz
A few years ago, the psychiatrist and science blogger Scott Alexander recounted an interesting anecdote from his university days on his Slate Star Codex blog. One of Alexander’s professors was an expert in herpetology, a branch of zoology focused on the study of amphibians and reptiles.
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1 month ago | 
open.substack.com | Kristian Niemietz
In late 2021, I spoke on a panel on classical liberalism and freedom of speech. Given the complete cultural hegemony of woke progressivism at the time, it inevitably turned into a debate on the Culture War, and on whether liberals should take part in it. During the Q&A session, one of the attendees asked me an interesting question:“You used to write a lot about the rise of “Millennial Socialism” in the past.
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1 month ago | 
insider.iea.org.uk | Kristian Niemietz
In late 2021, I spoke on a panel on classical liberalism and freedom of speech. Given the complete cultural hegemony of woke progressivism at the time, it inevitably turned into a debate on the Culture War, and on whether liberals should take part in it. During the Q&A session, one of the attendees asked me an interesting question:“You used to write a lot about the rise of “Millennial Socialism” in the past.
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1 month ago | 
open.substack.com | Kristian Niemietz
There is no “British DOGE”, but the idea of slashing government bureaucracy seems to be in vogue all of a sudden. With their latest announcement to radically slim down, or possibly even abolish NHS England, the Starmer government is trying to tap into that vibe. But it is just that: a vibe, not a policy programme. “NHS England” is a terrible name, because it makes it sound as if it were the England branch of the NHS, in the way NHS Scotland is its Scottish branch.
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1 month ago | 
insider.iea.org.uk | Kristian Niemietz
There is no “British DOGE”, but the idea of slashing government bureaucracy seems to be in vogue all of a sudden. With their latest announcement to radically slim down, or possibly even abolish NHS England, the Starmer government is trying to tap into that vibe. But it is just that: a vibe, not a policy programme. “NHS England” is a terrible name, because it makes it sound as if it were the England branch of the NHS, in the way NHS Scotland is its Scottish branch.
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2 months ago | 
capx.co | Kristian Niemietz
A work of socialist fiction from 1934 foresaw the Attlee government Too often, leftists assume away all the difficulties of their ideology Democratic socialism is only viable in one's imagination The year is 1980, and 44 years have passed since Britain’s socialist revolution. A new generation has grown up, which has no active memories of capitalism, and only a hazy concept of what ‘capitalism’ even was.
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2 months ago | 
insider.iea.org.uk | Kristian Niemietz
‘Classics Revisited’ revisits a publication from a previous century from a present-day perspective, to show how much, or how little, has changed. Writing in 1934, Gilbert Mitchison imagined a near-future socialist BritainWhen I first joined Twitter around 2014, a popular theory on that platform was that the Cameron government was deliberately defunding the libraries in order to keep the population ignorant.
