Today, Amit Seru reviews the benefits of recent cryptocurrency regulation legislation while cautioning against complacency in the adoption of stablecoins in the financial system; Andrew Roberts interviews Conrad Black about the latter’s new book on the strategic history of the world; and Thomas Weber speaks with The Wall Street Journal about what a recently opened Library & Archives collection reveals about the nature of the Nazi regime.
Answering Challenges to Advanced Economies
Analyzing the complex implications of the recent passage of the Genius Act, a measure to regulate the use of cryptocurrency in US finance, Senior Fellow Amit Seru argues that despite “all the hype, stablecoins haven’t transcended banking. They have replicated its tensions in new form.” An early and genuine “promise of blockchain was to end trust dependencies,” says Seru, but now “we are doubling down on them, now under federal supervision.” Seru notes several consumer protections built into the Genius Act, such as monthly reserve disclosure requirements and the prioritization of redemptions during bankruptcy proceedings. But he stresses that cryptocurrencies, like all forms of money, remain based on “a promise that someone, somewhere, will make you whole.” Warning that stablecoins merely “repackage old risks as innovation,” Seru suggests that only by remembering crypto’s vulnerabilities and risks can the technology be deployed safely across the US economy. Read more here.
Revitalizing History
For the latest episode of Secrets of Statecraft, Distinguished Visiting Fellow Andrew Roberts speaks with Canadian media entrepreneur and historian Lord Conrad Black. Black is the author, most recently, of a second volume to his Political and Strategic History of the World, which spans 14 AD to the year 1648. Roberts and Black discuss the role of human nature in the study of history; Black’s thoughts on the historiography of Rome and Britain; and the legacy of Marxist approaches to historical inquiry. The episode concludes with Black sharing a favorite historical “what if,” focusing on how the Mongol conquest, which peaked in the early 14th century, could have extended farther into Europe had not internal political difficulties limited its advance. Listen here.
Wall Street Journal editorial page writer Barton Swaim recently visited the Hoover Institution to explore the Library & Archives’ newly acquired Gerd Heidemann records, “a large collection of interviews with former Nazi officers recorded in the 1970s and ’80s.” Swaim discussed the historical significance of the materials contained in the Heidemann collection with Visiting Fellow Thomas Weber, a historian specializing in authoritarianism, international security, and the Nazi regime. The piece focuses on how and why modern historians and readers often fail to grasp the complexity of 20th-century Nazi ideology. “We make a mistake, I think, when we don’t take these perpetrators seriously, or when we assume they’re all stupid and driven by revenge and pure emotion,” says Weber in the article. Read more here.
Confronting and Competing with China
One way to examine the thinking and ruling style of Chinese President Xi Jinping is to explore his father’s role in the rise and evolution of Chinese-brand communism. For the latest episode of Matters of Policy & Politics, Research Fellow Joseph Torigian, author of the recently released The Party’s Interests Come First: The Life of Xi Zhongxun, Father of Xi Jinping, tells Distinguished Policy Fellow Bill Whalen what the study of the elder Xi can reveal about his powerful son. Torigian offers insights from his extensive archival research on how Xi Zhongxun’s experiences—his involvement in the Red Army, his economic political reform, his working alongside Zhou Enlai in dealing with ethnic minorities and organized religion, plus his years of political exile after running afoul of Maoist sensibilities—all play into how his son runs the modern-day Chinese Communist Party. Watch or listen here.
Revitalizing American Institutions
Writing at his Substack The Modern Federalist, Senior Fellow Paul E. Peterson argues that a recent settlement between the Trump administration and Columbia University will benefit both parties in the long run. Even though “Columbia is making some administrative adjustments and will pay millions of dollars in fines,” Peterson writes, “Columbia’s leaders are breathing with satisfaction and relief, knowing that fundamentals have been left securely under their control.” Meanwhile, the president gets “the razzle-dazzle he needs to impress a public that pays more attention to cash on the barrelhead than arcane administrative detail.” Digging into those details, Peterson shows that critically, “Columbia makes no promise to change instructional practice.” All told, none of the government’s final terms will place “free inquiry or university independence at risk.” Peterson concludes by suggesting that the Columbia settlement likely foreshadows similar agreements with other elite institutions, which, despite their flaws, “also save lives, generate wealth, and make America great already.” Read more here.
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