No government has fallen to the temptations of economic autarky and political populism : those messages are preached on the sidelines by the likes of hungary 's jobbik , but the political mainstream remains untouched .
People fight the gold standard because they want to substitute national autarky for free trade , war for peace , totalitarian government omnipotence for liberty .
China is a capitalist dynamo , not a creaking autarky , and its market-authoritarian example is fast winning adherents around the world -- while marginalizing the values that have informed western progress for 300 years .