In this episode of New Ideal Live, Elan Journo and Nikos Sotirakopoulos discuss historian Niall Ferguson’s “We’re All Soviets Now,” a viral essay about American economic and cultural decline.
Among the topics covered:
Ferguson’s argument that America is following the path of the late USSR;
The disanalogies between America and the Soviet Union;
Ferguson’s blindness to the role of ideas in his comparative analysis;
How Ferguson’s doomsaying prepares the grounds for authoritarianism;
How some of Ferguson’s valid criticisms misidentify root causes of American decline.
The podcast premiered on July 11, 2024.
