As we speak, the end is nigh

Re “Auld lang syne for English speakers,” Opinion, Jan. 1

Niall Ferguson should take some comfort in the fact that the world is turning out more in the fashion of the English-speaking world than of any other. The English-speaking world has made and established the rules and methods within which the world operates. Those rules and methods are not likely to change because they have proved, through a process of elimination, that they work best for the modern world. The world’s needs and aspirations cannot be met without democracy and capitalism.

DAVID AIRTH

Toronto

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Ferguson seems to have confirmed Alexis de Tocqueville’s forecast about the survival of democracy in America. I believe that both of them are saying that if the English-speaking creators of democracy in America and in the “Anglosphere” die out, then their democracy will die with them. So, I say sadly, let us “take a cup o’ kindness yet for auld lang syne.” As Ferguson says, the best is past.

CURT THIELE DE LEON

Pacific Palisades