JOEL KOTKIN: The Revenge of the Material Economy: “America’s narrow escape last week from a major rail-worker strike brought home an important truth: people who make and ship real things – let’s call them material workers – now hold the whip hand over our supposedly ‘post-industrial’ economy. Firms trading non-tangibles – currency, bits and bots – may still hoard the most cash. But when it comes to eating, staying warm and, for many, making a living, the material economy is what matters most.”

Plus: “The green script has changed slightly over the years in response. It used to warn that scarcity was on its way unless we made radical changes, whereas now it calls for us to create scarcity deliberately. Today, no one talks about ‘peak oil’. Instead, you hear calls to keep fossil fuels in the ground, where they cannot be used. Another difference between the 1970s and now is that the impetus for Net Zero policies comes not only from green activists and politicians, but also from the financial regime imposed by ‘woke’ capitalists, who have gone to great efforts to deprive fossil fuels of investment.”

Making ordinary people’s lives worse is not a side-effect of a desired policy. It is the policy.