“The Food and Drug Administration announced on Wednesday that it would ease regulatory roadblocks for low-cost copycat versions of certain medicines.

Biosimilars, as the copycats are called, are seen as a crucial way to drive down drug prices. They are akin to generics of biologic drugs that are made through complex biological processes. Some well-known blockbuster drugs are now available as biosimilar competitors, including Herceptin, for breast cancer; Lantus, a widely used insulin; and Humira, for autoimmune conditions like arthritis.

The F.D.A. said it would advise drug developers that they generally no longer need to conduct expensive and time-consuming clinical trials aimed at showing that the copycat is just as effective as the original brand-name product. The agency also said it would push to make it easier for pharmacists to swap in biosimilars when dispensing a prescription, as is standard with generics…

The makers of biosimilars often spend several years and tens of millions of dollars conducting a clinical trial to show that its version is as effective as the original brand-name version. Under the F.D.A.’s proposed changes, developers would still have to show that their molecule and manufacturing process are similar.

Dr. Marty Makary, the F.D.A. commissioner, said at the news conference that the move would halve the current five- to eight-year timeline to win approval for a biosimilar. He said the changes would save biosimilar manufacturers tens of millions of dollars in development costs, saying that could be passed down in the form of lower costs for payers and patients.”

From New York Times.

Summary: Recent praise for feudalism overlooks the grim reality of life under it. Far from being a system of mutual care, it was defined by hardship, hunger, and oppression for the many and insecurity even for the few in power. History shows that markets—not monarchs—turn self-interest into shared prosperity.

“Feudalism is so much better than what we have now. Because at least in feudalism, the leader is vested in the prosperity of the people he rules,” declared Tucker Carlson recently on The Tucker Carlson Show. His guest, writer Auron MacIntyre, agreed enthusiastically. Carlson added, “If all your serfs die, you starve.” McIntyre replied, “Yeah. There’s a true incentive to care for those people.”

The conversation sparked ridicule online, but it also reflected a broader, bipartisan trend. As Amanda Mull observed in The Atlantic, social media has grown “strangely nostalgic for life in the Middle Ages.” Samuel Matlack of The New Atlantis noted the puzzling frequency of the argument that the preindustrial past may have been superior to modernity.

Carlson’s reasoning implies that feudal lords, out of self-interest, nurtured the well being of their serfs. Yet the system he imagines has more in common with modern markets than with medieval Europe. Adam Smith explained the principle long ago: “It is not from the benevolence of the butcher, the brewer, or the baker, that we expect our dinner, but from their regard to their own interest.” If customers are displeased, businesses collapse. Markets channel self-interest into mutual gain in ways that feudalism never could.

History makes that clear. Start with life expectancy. Even kings in the feudal era rarely lived into old age. Between the 11th and early 15th centuries, most European monarchs died young. Alfonso VI of Castile and León, who reached 79, was the outlier. Only a few others across England, Aragon, Germany, and France managed to live into their 60s. For most rulers, living to 70 was unattainable, and commoners fared far worse.

The average European life expectancy in the 11th century hovered around 25 years, driven down by staggering child mortality. Historian Richard Hoffmann notes that of 1,000 children who survived infancy, as many as 250 died by age seven. Only between 40 and 70 percent ever reached adolescence. In contrast, life expectancy in Europe today exceeds 80 years.

Nor were feudal peasant lives leisurely. A persistent myth claims medieval peasants worked less than modern people. This misconception stems from an early estimate by historian Gregory Clark, who suggested peasants worked only 150 days annually, an estimate he later revised upward to about 300. That number is higher than today’s 260 working days, even before accounting for paid holidays and vacation. Serfs’ labor was grueling and often damaging to their health. They were legally bound to the land, compelled to work their lord’s fields in addition to their own, and held few rights against mistreatment.

Another common misconception is that feudal societies provided security in exchange for labor. In reality, medieval Europe was marked by frequent famine, war, and violence. Crop failures were devastating, and local lords often demanded their share of harvests regardless of whether peasants had enough left to survive. Raids and small-scale wars were constant features of life, and the people at the bottom had little protection when armies swept through their fields. Unlike citizens in modern states who benefit from the rule of law and relatively impartial modern justice system, peasants depended on their lords for protection but had no meaningful recourse when those same lords were the source of oppression. For most peasants, daily life combined backbreaking labor with exposure to hunger, violence, and disease, far from the idyllic stability sometimes imagined today. (I explore these harsh realities in my forthcoming book, The Grim Old Days: An Introduction to the Preindustrial Past).

In Russia, where serfdom endured until 1861, abuse could be extreme. Serfs were frequently beaten or killed without legal consequence. The notorious case of Darya Saltykova, who tortured more than 100 of her serfs to death, was unusual only in that she faced punishment.

Material conditions were equally bleak. In 1300, the United Kingdom’s average income was about $1,657 in today’s dollars. That represented one of the wealthiest regions in Europe at the time. Even kings lived in poverty by modern standards, while ordinary peasants experienced deprivation that is difficult to imagine today.

When Friedrich Hayek titled his classic The Road to Serfdom, he did not mean it as praise. He used “serfdom” to warn against a return to systems that crushed freedom and prosperity. Carlson’s romantic vision of feudal life bears little resemblance to the historical reality.

Modern economic systems, for all their flaws, have delivered longer lives, safer working conditions, and unprecedented prosperity. The record of feudalism offers no reason to wish for its return.

This article was originally published at LA Progressive on 9/22/2025.

Summary: When President Nixon imposed wage and price controls in 1971, it created chaos. Gas shortages, rationing, and angry customers became daily realities, teaching one young gas station attendant how disastrous top-down economic planning can be. A decade later, when markets were finally freed, supply returned and abundance followed. The lesson endures: politicians create scarcity, but entrepreneurs and free markets create plenty.

Shortly after I turned 15, President Richard M. Nixon managed to make my life miserable. On Sunday August 15, 1971, against the advice of his economic counselors, and in total repudiation of his party’s campaign platform, he announced on national TV that he was suspending the gold standard, imposing a 10 percent tariff surcharge, and imposing wage and price controls.

At the time, I didn’t know a thing about macroeconomics. What I did know was how to make customers happy at my dad’s gas station: Fill their tanks fast, wash their windows, and send them off with a smile.

Nixon’s decision not only shook the foundations of global finance—it trickled all the way down to a teenager pumping gas on Main Street, teaching me firsthand how government policy can reach into everyday life. Nixon’s policies caused a decade of artificial shortages and almost destroyed my father’s business. As Robert Bleiberg, editor of Barron’s, noted at the time, “Price controls, as their advocates have claimed all along, do work like magic. They can make things disappear in the twinkling of an eye.” For me, Nixon’s policies meant no more happy customers, which translated to no more tips.

Like many gas station owners at the time, my dad decided to attempt rationing his limited allotment of fuel by restricting sales to only five gallons per customer. After waiting in line for sometimes more than an hour, most customers were furious to be told that they could only buy five gallons of gas. They took their anger out on their lowly attendant, not on the perpetrator of the calamity living in the White House.

The president, along with the politicians and corporate leaders who cheered for price controls, never had to face the fury of my customers. They could make sweeping decisions from behind their podiums and boardroom tables without ever paying the price for being wrong. As Thomas Sowell once put it, “It is hard to imagine a more stupid or more dangerous way of making decisions than by putting those decisions in the hands of people who pay no price for being wrong.”

Price controls tied the hands of domestic producers while leaving foreign suppliers, such as OPEC, untouched. The result was the opposite of what policymakers had intended. Instead of fueling independence, the policies throttled domestic supply and handed foreign oil giants the keys to America’s energy future.

In 1981, just eight days after taking office, President Ronald Reagan swept away the federal price and allocation controls on domestic oil and refined products. Overnight, my decade of gas-line misery came to an end. Prices did rise—but for the first time in years, people could fill their tanks without rationing, limits, or fear of empty pumps. I learned a key lesson: Politicians create scarcities, entrepreneurs create abundances.

When oil prices surged in the early 2000s, entrepreneurs and markets responded with a wave of innovation. Breakthroughs such as horizontal drilling and hydraulic fracturing unlocked vast new oil reserves, unleashing a surge of supply. America’s unique system of private ownership of subsurface mineral rights—rather than government control—supercharged this revolution by giving landowners a direct stake in production. The results were astonishing: The United States, whose oil industry was once thought to be in irreversible decline, has become a net exporter of petroleum products.

Since 1950 the average time price for a gallon of gasoline has been around six minutes for blue-collar workers. We’re actually around five minutes today. The United States has some of the lowest gasoline time prices on the planet.

Yes, we’ve had periods where the price has spiked, typically due to political turmoil, but time and again, innovation and markets have responded by creating greater abundance. Julian Simon predicted such would be the case, as long as politicians and bureaucrats don’t impose “solutions” that have counter-productive consequences.

Nixon resigned on August 8, 1974, to avoid impeachment for his crime of covering up the Watergate break-in. But to me, his darker crime wasn’t in a hotel—it was in every gas station in America. His Soviet-style controls left behind a nation of frustrated, unhappy customers and pump attendants who bore the real cost of his misguided policies.

Find more of Gale’s work at his Substack, Gale Winds.

Summary: The International Court of Justice has suggested nations could be held liable for historic greenhouse gas emissions, opening the door to lawsuits over centuries of industrial activity. Yet this approach risks punishing the very innovations that lifted billions out of poverty and advanced human health and flourishing. Lasting progress on climate challenges will come not from courtroom battles, but from technological solutions and continued economic development.

The International Court of Justice’s advisory opinion purporting to establish legal grounds that would allow nations to sue one another over climate damages represents judicial overreach that ignores economic history and threatens global development. While the opinion was undeniably legally adventurous, the framework it envisages would be practically unworkable as well as economically destructive.

The ICJ’s ruling suggests countries can be held liable for historical emissions of planet-warming gases. That creates an accounting nightmare that no legal system can resolve. How does one calculate damages from coal burned in Manchester in 1825 versus emissions from a Beijing power plant in 2025? How does one stack up the harm caused by a warming world against the benefits of industrialization?

Britain began large-scale coal combustion during the Industrial Revolution, when atmospheric CO₂ concentrations were 280 parts per million and climate science did not exist. Holding Britain liable for actions taken without knowledge of consequences violates basic principles of jurisprudence. The same applies to the United States, whose early industrialization occurred during an era when maximizing economic output was considered unambiguously beneficial to human welfare.

Critics of historical emissions ignore what those emissions purchased. British coal combustion powered textile mills that clothed much of the world, steam engines that revolutionized transportation, and factories that mass-produced goods previously available only to elites. American industrialization followed, creating assembly lines, electrical grids, and chemical processes that form the backbone of modern civilization.

These developments were not zero-sum exercises in resource extraction. They created knowledge, infrastructure, and institutions that benefited everyone. The steam engine led to internal combustion engines, which enabled mechanized agriculture that now feeds 8 billion people. Coal-powered steel production made possible skyscrapers, bridges, and the infrastructure that supports modern cities, where most humans now live longer, healthier lives than their ancestors.

The data on human welfare improvements since industrialization began are explicit. Global life expectancy increased from approximately 29 years in 1800 to 73 years today. Infant mortality rates fell from over 40 percent to under 3 percent. Extreme poverty, defined as living on less than $2.15 per day in purchasing power parity terms, declined from over 80 percent of the global population in 1800 to under 10 percent today.

Nutrition improved dramatically. Caloric availability per person has increased by roughly 40 percent since 1960 alone, while food prices relative to wages fell consistently. Height, a reliable indicator of childhood nutrition, increased significantly across all regions. Educational attainment expanded from literacy rates below 10 percent globally in 1800 to over 85 percent today.

These improvements correlate directly with energy consumption and industrial development. Countries that industrialized earliest experienced these welfare gains first, then transmitted the knowledge and technology globally. The antibiotics developed in American and European laboratories now save lives worldwide. The agricultural techniques pioneered in industrialized nations now feed populations that would otherwise face starvation.

The International Court of Justice’s liability framework threatens to undermine the very mechanisms that created these welfare improvements. Innovation requires investment, which requires confidence in property rights and legal stability. If successful economic development subjects countries to retroactive liability, the incentive structure tilts away from growth and toward stagnation.

Consider current developing nations. Under this legal framework, should India or Nigeria limit their industrial development to avoid future liability? Should they forgo the coal and natural gas that powered Western development? That creates a perverse situation where the legal system penalizes the exact processes that lifted billions from poverty.

The framework also ignores technological solutions. The same innovative capacity that created the Industrial Revolution is now producing renewable energy technologies, carbon capture systems, and efficiency improvements that address climate concerns without sacrificing development. Market incentives and technological progress offer more promise than legal blame assignment.

Which emissions count as legally actionable? All anthropogenic CO₂ remains in the atmosphere for centuries, making every emission since 1750 potentially relevant. Should liability begin with James Watt’s steam engine improvements in 1769? With the first coal-fired power plant? With Henry Ford’s assembly line? The temporal boundaries are arbitrary and politically motivated rather than scientifically determined.

Similarly, which countries qualify as defendants? The largest current emitters include China and India, whose recent emissions dwarf historical American and British totals. China alone now produces more CO₂ annually than the United States and Europe combined. Any coherent liability framework must address current emissions, not just historical ones.

And where would the money go? This aspect of the case was brought up by Vanuatu. If the island nation receives compensation from the UK and the US, should it not be obliged to pay the British and the Americans for a plethora of life-enhancing Western discoveries, including electricity, vaccines, the telephone, radio, aviation, internet, refrigeration, and navigation systems?

Climate adaptation and mitigation require technological innovation and economic growth, not legal warfare between nations. The countries that industrialized first possess the technological capacity and institutional knowledge to develop solutions to today’s problems. Channeling resources toward litigation rather than innovation represents a misallocation that benefits lawyers while harming global welfare.

The ICJ opinion reflects wishful thinking rather than practical policy. Legal frameworks cannot repeal economic reality or reverse the historical processes that created modern prosperity. Instead of seeking retroactive justice for emissions that enabled human flourishing, policymakers should focus on technologies and institutions that sustain development while addressing environmental concerns. The alternative is a world where legal systems punish success and innovation while offering nothing constructive in return.

The original version of this article was published in National Review on 8/12/2025.