Our pessimistic doctor advises the people of France and Britain to pay attention to what is happening in Argentina under the leadership of the eccentric Javier Milei as a portent for what’s to come in their countries.

There is a kind of dialectic at work here: First, the government makes people dependent on it; then the government becomes dependent on the people whom it has made dependent on it. From this infernal cycle, it is not easy to escape.