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The Lockdown Sceptics’ Library

by Toby Young
1 April 2021 6:41 PM

We’re publishing an original piece today by David McGrogan, an Associate Professor of Law at Northumbria Law School, in which he recommends some books that can help us understand how we ended up living under the plimsol of soft totalitarianism. One of his recommendations is The Collapse of Complex Societies by Joseph Tainter:

Tainter’s thesis is relatively straightforward: as societies grow and develop, they become increasingly complex, with new laws and regulations and public services being endlessly created. These increasing layers of complexity cannot be removed once they’ve become entrenched – because we get used to them, and they come to appear essential. This results in a never-ending conglomeration of purportedly necessary government schemes, none of which is ever revoked; in the end, all this stuff becomes a drain, gobbling up resources, until the society is denuded of productivity and becomes brittle, ready to be pushed over as soon as a genuine crisis hits. Some, including Rishi Sunak, entertain the naïve belief that there will be a ‘back to normal’ moment for our economy. Tainter would tell them that the opposite is much more likely: furlough and other forms of government support for businesses, vaccine passports, mass-testing, Covid regulations and ‘guidance’, massive quantitative easing/money printing, quarantine and the like will all become part of the furniture, something we ‘have to do’ indefinitely, draining productivity and constantly increasing public debt, until a real emergency comes along and it all comes falling down like the biggest house of cards in history.

Have a look at David’s piece to discover the other books on his lockdown reading list – and then email us if you can think of books we should add.

Tags: Erich FrommLockdown LibraryMichael OakeshottRobert Caro

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26 Comments
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Redspan
Redspan
3 years ago

As Toby Young pointed out when he quoted,

“but the reality is that most people are just not actually interested in finding out the truth for themselves. They are much more interested in conforming with what they perceive to be the “moral truth” — the prevailing moral norm.’”

They’ve won the propaganda war on climate change. Unlike Covid restrictions there’s no end in sight. It’s reinforced every day in multiple ways and trying to counter it seems futile.

What you can do is point out that if you truly believe that CO2 emissions are the root of all evil then rejoice in the fact that the UK’s annual emissions have been dropping every year for over 20 years.

The UK’s annual CO2 emissions in 2019 was 369.88 million tonnes and it’s been decreasing for over 20 years. Europe’s & the USA’s combined total was 12.6 billion tonnes while China’s annual CO2 emissions in 2019 was 10.17 billion tonnes and it’s increasing.

3
0
TruthHurts2077
TruthHurts2077
3 years ago

Where did this article sneak in from? It wasn’t there at 6:16pm on Wednesday.

1
0
Mark
Mark
3 years ago

Not a coincidence that The Science always supports the elite dogma, because studies and opinions refuting it are systematically discouraged, suppressed and denied.

Coronapanic, climate alarmism, antiracism, sex and gender, normalisation of homosexuality. All the topics recognised as having a “politically correct” position as far back as the 1990s, with covid panic added last year.

3
0
Matt Dalby
Matt Dalby
3 years ago

I’m totally convinced that net zero (not AGW) is a serious threat to our liberty and way of life, much worse than lockdown as it will go on for much longer. Therefore it’s only right that dailysceptic highlights this. However there are a large number of climate sceptic websites/blogs already in existence. Therefore I feel it may be better if dailysceptic stuck to mainly covid related issues, but included permalinks to other websites that are sceptical of the official narrative, whether it’s on climate change, woke ideology etc. rather than just repeating was is available elsewhere on the web.

0
0
nisanyan
nisanyan
3 years ago

Rather disturbing that no name or link was provided for the article bashed here. How are we supposed to know if such an article even exists or that it actually says what the author here claims it does?

2
-1

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