The End Is Near and It's Going to Be Awesome: How Going Broke Will Leave America Richer, Happier, and More Secure

In The End Is Near and It’s Going to Be Awesome, Kevin Williamson, a National Review Online contributor, makes the bold argument that the United States government is disintegrating—and that it is a good thing!

Williamson offers a radical re-envisioning of government, a powerful analysis of why it doesn’t work, and an exploration of the innovative solutions to various social problems that are spontaneously emerging as a result of the failure of politics and government.

Critical and compelling, The End Is Near and It’s Going to Be Awesome: How Going Broke Will Leave America Richer, Happier, and More Secure lays out a thoughtful plan for a new system, one based on success stories from around the country, from those who home-school their children to others who have successfully created their own currency.

The End Is Near and It's Going to Be Awesome is a radical re-visioning of what government is, a powerful analysis of why it doesn't work, and an exploration of the innovative solutions spontaneously emerging thanks to the fortunate failure of politics.

Every year, consumer goods and services get better, cheaper, and more widely available while critical necessities delivered by government grow more expensive, even as their quality declines. The reason for this paradox is simple: politics. Not bad politics, not liberal politics, not conservative politics, not politics corrupted by big money or distorted by special-interest groups, but the simple practice of delivering goods and services through federal, state, and local governments and their obsolete decision-making practices.

National Review columnist Kevin Williamson describes the crisis of the modern welfare state in the era of globalization and argues that the crucial political failures of our time—education, health care, social security, and monetary policy—are due not to ideology but the nature of politics itself. Meanwhile, those who can't or won't turn to the state for goods and services—from homeschoolers to Wall Street to organized crime—are experimenting with replacing the outmoded social software of the state with market-derived alternatives.

Williamson compellingly analyzes the government's numerous failures and reports on the solutions that people all over the country are discovering. You will meet homeschoolers who have abandoned public schools; see inside private courtrooms that administer the law beyond government; encounter entrepreneurs developing everything from private currencies to shadow intelligence agencies rivaling the CIA; and learn about the remarkably peaceable enforcement of justice in the allegedly lawless Wild West.

As our outmoded twentieth-century government collapses under the weight of its own incompetence and inefficiency, Williamson points to the green shoots of the brave new world that is already being born.

“Williamson is eminently reasonable throughout, even when he’s burning down city hall.” - Kirkus Reviews

Praise for Kevin Williamson: “Smart, funny, pathbreaking.” - Dave Weigel, Slate

“Mr. Williamson is an astute observer and a talented stylist, and his book is full of vivid images and sharp phrases. Fans of his work in National Review will find much to enjoy here.” - Kyle Peterson, Washington Times

“Kevin Williamson’s new book is quite possibly the best indictment of the State since Our Enemy, the State appeared some eight decades ago. It is a lovely, brilliant, humane, and remarkably entertaining work.” - National Review