The Long Ledger: Part 3 Free Markets as Foreign Policy Trade Agreements, Capitalist Hegemony, and the Limits of Economic Freedom, 1991–2008 When the Berlin Wall came down in 1989, something unusual happened in Western intellectual life: a significant number of serious people decided that history had ended. Not literally, of course, but in the sense that the great contest of organizing principles was resolved. Liberal democratic capitalism had won.

After the Cold War, free markets became foreign policy. Examine NAFTA, the Washington Consensus, China's WTO entry, and the 2008 crack in the neoliberal consensus. Does #freetrade save the world? #TheLongLedger

The Long Ledger, Addendum The Realignment Has Already Begun The Iran Conflict, the Petrodollar, and the Economic Pivot Nobody Voted For A caveat before anything else: this post was written in late March 2026, while the conflict is still active and the full picture is still forming. Some of what is documented here will look different in six months; responsible analysis of an ongoing situation requires being honest about that.

The Iran conflict is reshaping global currency markets in real time. Track the yuan's rise at Hormuz, Europe's deliberate distance, and what it means for the dollar order. #TheLongLedger