From time to time, I am asked what I mean by restoring an industrial national state. I speak about it often, because I consider it a meaningful path out of our current malaise—and therefore an absolute priority.
What I have in mind is a state with a high degree of self-reliance (full independence is likely unattainable), where the foundation of the economy is industrial production, and where all major areas of public life are oriented toward supporting that production.
- Education, for example, exists to produce people capable of working in factories, engineering offices, and the kinds of research institutes that industry actually needs. That means mathematics, logic, and the natural sciences—alongside a strong emphasis on practical training. The coming wave of automation must also be taken into account: we will need more technologists and toolmakers, fewer workers standing directly at the machines.
- Foreign policy, in turn, must prioritize access to energy, raw materials, and markets.
- Energy policy must ensure an ample supply of affordable power for industrial enterprises.
- The financial sector should be structured so that it serves the real economy to the greatest extent possible.
- Housing policy should make it easy for people to move to wherever productive work—factories, above all—is actually located.
- Environmental protection should preserve designated natural reserves, but outside of them, it must not become an obstacle to industrial development.
- And defense procurement should, first and foremost, strengthen and expand domestic manufacturing capacity.
And so on.
There is nothing particularly novel about this. For roughly a century and a half, this is how European nations functioned—and during that time, they reached the pinnacle of civilization. Then came a generation of clever theorists with ideas like the “service economy,” and within a single generation we slid from that peak toward the edge of decline.
The old system cannot be restored in its entirety. But its core principle can: to be productive, to be useful. Be useful, be productive—and the rest will follow.