The Mask of Civilization
In this musing, I discuss my essay Predation Wearing the Mask of Civilization, which builds on Institutions Cannot Be Transplanted, and examine the CYG/CAML arbitrage opportunity in the mining sector.
Articles by Jayant Bhandari
India in Rapid Decline
I speak with Chris Baker on Fountainhead Forum about why I now think India can decline rapidly, not merely slowly, and why the country’s problems are civilizational rather than merely political or economic.
The Inferiority Behind Immigrant Superiority
In this essay, I examine the insecurity, mimicry, and status anxiety often hidden behind exaggerated immigrant displays of superiority, identity, and cultural pride.
Institutions Cannot Be Transplanted
My essay, Institutions Cannot Be Transplanted, examines why Western institutions cannot simply be imported into societies that lack the moral and cultural substrate that gave rise to them. I also discuss the EUR/CRML arbitrage and an options-based way to improve the economics.
Predation Wearing the Mask of Civilization
An essay on India’s institutions, corruption, bureaucracy, moral decay, and how predation can survive beneath the outward forms of civilization.
Discussion with Richard Kary: May 2026
A two-hour discussion with Richard Kary on the Iran–U.S. war, China today, India’s deeper weaknesses, and the shifting global order.
Second-Hand Modernity
Why does Western modernity fail in the Third World? Advanced tech grafted onto pre-modern minds creates fragile “second-hand modernity.”
Institutions Cannot Be Transplanted
An essay on why institutions cannot be transplanted from one society to another, and why law, democracy, markets, rights, and governance depend on deeper cultural and moral foundations.
Why the West Misreads the Third World
Western observers misread the Third World because they assume corruption is an exception rather than a rational adaptation to incentives, power, and weak moral consciousness.
Why Societies Take Millennia to Change
Why societies change slowly, and why institutional reform fails when deeper moral habits remain unchanged.