For today’s progressive left and its corporate backers, the past increasingly determines the future. At home and abroad, they seek to remedy historical guilt. So, in recent months, progressive elites have embraced affirmative action and reparations for anyone whose ancestors have ever been poorly treated by those dastardly people of European descent.

America’s regime of preferential treatment for particular racial groups is deeply entrenched in its political class. Yet a fight is brewing. Next spring, the US Supreme Court is expected to rule that race-based admissions policies at universities like Harvard and the University of North Carolina are unconstitutional. This ruling could have far-reaching ramifications in education and beyond.

The use of policy to address past wrongs was also a theme at the recent COP27 climate summit. Rather than seeking to modernise developing countries, global grandees have opted for what they call ‘climate justice’ – that is, the idea that industrialised countries’ carbon emissions to date are a historical injustice for which they must now repent.