“The great heroes of capitalism are the entrepreneurs who can feel the future in their bones and will do anything to bring it into being — fanatics who are compelled to build castles in the air, as Joseph Schumpeter put it. The biggest beneficiaries of these innovations are consumers who are showered with products and services beyond the dreams of previous generations. Capitalism may have made accommodations with some horrible regimes and vile practices in the past, as Beckert shows in detail. But as a system it thrives best in conditions of freedom, where government power is limited, property rights secure and businesspeople left alone to pursue their dreams and subject them to the stern test of the market.”

– Adrian Wooldridge, Bloomberg ($), in one of his best recent columns IMHO, gently taking apart a new book by Sven Beckert that purports to show how we have become rich primarily through violence and enslavement, not mutual exchange. The book is apparently more than 1,300 pages long, and the largest ever published by Penguin. To write a book that long, and miss the key elements of why free enterprise is as great as it is, seems a lot of work for scant reward. Alas, I suspect Beckert’s book will be treated as reverently on parts of the Left as Thomas Piketty’s blockbuster, which turned out to be built on proverbial sand.

A recent Nobel prizewinner in economics,  Joel Mokyr, has written a book that I think rather more accurately identifies why, for instance, the UK became as wealthy as it did during the Industrial Revolution, and plays far more attention to the role of ideas. The Wealth and Poverty of Nations by David Landes is also a good study, in my view. Anything by Deidre McCloskey is also good.

On Twitter (X), I came across this 52-second video the other day of a (presumably) foreign gal, walking through a Buc-ee’s store, while speaking ill of the place.

Yesterday, during one of my occasional cross-country car trips, I paid a visit to the famous beaver.

If you aren’t familiar with the chain of gas station/convenience stores located throughout the southland, with their miles and miles of interstate billboards, you should be. The chain has dozens of locations, most of them in Texas, but also in 10 other states. Buc-ee’s is adding new locations every year.

The chain is known for its world-class restrooms. I also recommend the brisket sandwich (lunch) and the bacon egg biscuit (breakfast) and the 100+ gas pumps at each stop. Each facility is a sight to behold.

If Buc-ee’s is the reason Europeans hate us, let them hate.