My blog on the irrelevance of the New York Times appears on the Republican Liberty Caucus site:
Libertarians, The New York Times and Saul Alinsky
>The small but growing New York State chapter of the Republican Liberty Caucus recently had a spirited debate on our Yahoo! group site as to the best way to respond to the New York Times and its writers. My claim is that it is malevolent neglect. Don’t talk about them. Laugh when they are quoted. Several other New Yorkers argue that a rational response is necessary.
Those who favor free minds and free markets gravitate toward reason and tend to assume that it is through reasonable debate that minds are changed. Ayn Rand argued for reason as the cornerstone of morality and claimed that man is the “rational” as opposed to the “political” animal. But Aristotle considered both to be critical, and was concerned with the inculcation of moral as well as intellectual virtue in the minds of his students. Whether he was successful or not can be judged from the success of his most famous graduate: Alexander the Great.
Putting aside Oscar Wilde’s observation that “man is a rational animal who always loses his temper when called upon to act in accordance with the dictates of reason”, human rationality is a useful philosophical concept (and one on which the subject of economics thrives) but has limited practical use. In the long run the rational survive and prosper, but in the short run psychological, political and symbolic behavior prevail. The institutionalist economist Thorstein Veblen noted both conspicuous consumption and academic caps and gowns as symbolic phenomena that flourish in their respective arenas, even as we who are rational prefer to drive Hyundais and wear jeans.
The Federalist Papers and the debate about the Constitution reflected the highest degree of reason. But we too often forget that in the late eighteenth century only a propertied minority was allowed to vote. Even so, the Founding Fathers put little stock in the voter’s rationality. The Senate was to be elected by state legislatures and the President was to be elected by the Electoral College. Only Congress was to be directly elected.
There were three steps to the expansion of democracy. The first was the granting of universal white male suffrage in the Age of Jackson. The second was the Progressives’ institution of direct election of Senators and, in some states, referenda, recalls and initiatives, along with female suffrage. The third was the fulfillment of the 15th Amendment in the 1960s, giving African Americans more equal ballot access.
By the time of the second extension of democracy in the Progressive era, Progressives were noticing public opinion’s malleability. John Dewey argued that the public needed to be provided with simplified pictures of public issues and this was to be the responsibility of the press. Walter Lippmann, the most conservative of the three founders of the New Republic magazine (the other two were Herbert Croly and Walter Weyl), was pessimistic about the ability of the public to make rational decisions. Lippmann was critical of the press as well. By the 1950s, left wing sociologists like C. Wright Mill were arguing that the centralization of mass media enabled a power elite to dominate public opinion.
The history of Athens reminds us that public emotion and demagoguery threaten democracy. In part because the Founding Fathers were concerned with classical history, they favored republicanism as opposed to direct democracy. After a century of democratized republicanism, it is safe to say that the broad extension of democracy has dimmed the expression of public will. The majority is easily misled and manipulated, and finds itself supporting policies whose results are opposite of what it expects. The symbolism of the New Deal and the Great Society is sufficient to generate public support for these policies even as they have caused diminishing real hourly real wages since 1970.
Read the whole thing at:
http://www.rlc.org/2009/07/12/libertarians-the-new-york-times-and-saul-alinsky/
Tuesday, July 14, 2009
Sunday, July 5, 2009
Ebb and Flow of Civilization
There have been over 200 theories as to why Rome declined. Some scholars today argue that Rome did not decline but was transformed from Roman to barbarian rule. But archaeological evidence suggests a significant decline in economic welfare during and after the fifth century, from which western Europe did not recover until the 13th century, and maybe later. The extent of trade was diminished, the quality of pottery was significantly reduced, construction materials became more local and were softer. Thatched roofs instead of tiled roofs were used. Barbarian violence against Romans was common in the fifth century. The Barbarians treated Romans as second class citizens. For example, under Frankish rule, a Roman life was decreed to be worth one half of what an Frankish life was worth (see discussion in Bryan Ward-Perkins' Fall of Rome).
There is debate as to whether there was economic decline in the third and fourth centuries that led to Rome's inability to defend itself in the fifth century. The claim that there were no economic and social changes in the third and fourth century seems incredible. The most powerful empire in western history that in the first through third centuries repeatedly conquered and defended itself against barbarian tribes fell to barbarian tribes in the fifth century. How could this be possible without some kind of failure of social organization, whether economic or social?
The construct of Rome's decline and fall may mask a more fundamental pattern, that Rome itself represented an eight century decline from Hellenic civilization, a decline that may have accelerated in the fourth and fifth centuries. In particular, Rome did not develop much beyond what the Hellenes had achieved. It did advance organizationally and in terms of civil engineering and law, but its technology was limited largely to what had been accomplished in Greece and the Hellenic colonies by the third century BC. Its economic methods reflected little or no progress over five centuries.
All large scale civilizations go through periods of innovation and imperialism. The periods of innovation are characteristic of times when the civilization is of smaller scale. The imperialism creates larger scale and so introduces homogeneity and consistency. Consistency limits experimentation, by definition, and so limits innovation. In Rome there was a degree of laissez faire, but a large portion of the economy was oriented toward state purposes. Taxes to support military and civil projects were significant. The Roman image of progress was largely one of conquest. Conquest involved imposing the Roman model, so that conquered countries became replicas of Rome. The larger scale was associated with homogeneity.
In the case of Athens, imperialism existed alongside experimentation. The Greek world was highly decentralized because it was organized along the lines of the polis or city state. There were radically different forms of organization of the polis. The two most important were Sparta, an oligarchy ruled by "ephors", and Athens, which evolved from oligarchy and aristocracy into democracy. There were also some tyrannies or monarchies. The experimentation of the Greek world led to Athenian democracy, which led to innovation. This was only possible because of decentralization.
Decentralization is a necessary but not a sufficient condition for innovation and progress. In the case of tribal societies, such as the Americas before 1492, other conditions for the evolution of progress are absent. However, if progress is to occur, a degree of experimentation would seem to be an important root. Without it the intelligence of a small group of central administrators would be the only potential source.
In China Chin Shi Huangdi, the first Chinese emperor who unified China under Chin rule, created a high degree of centralization early in its history, in 221 BC. He and his adviser Li Si passed perhaps the earliest version of totalitarian legal and social reform; built large projects such as the Great Wall of China and a national road system; and killed many people. Li oversaw a massive book burning, illegalizing all intellectual activity. Scholars who resisted were buried alive. In this case the centralization may have preceded economic advance. Economic decline followed immediately upon the centralizing, totalitarian measures. But China's history is characterized by repeated overthrows of the central administrations. Advances may have occurred during disruptions to centralized authority. Alternatively, the Civil Service system may have facilitated a degree of innovation centrally. It will be interesting to trace the extent to which innovation did or did not occur during the centralizing periods. This intellectual elite likely produced considerable advances. But to what extent were the advances made available to the widespread peasantry and to what extent did they translate into improved well being?
It seems that scholars have been excessively impressed with the glories of scale. Rome was impressive, but its substance represented a small improvement of organization over the gains that the Greeks had already made. In terms of the fundamental driver of progress, innovation and experimentation, Rome represented a decline from the Hellenic world, especially in the Periclean era before Athens itself began to increase its scale and become an imperialist power. The obsession with empire, with the trappings of power and external grandeur mask the essential process that drives wealth: experimentation and creativity. These died with the fall of the Hellenes to Rome.
There is debate as to whether there was economic decline in the third and fourth centuries that led to Rome's inability to defend itself in the fifth century. The claim that there were no economic and social changes in the third and fourth century seems incredible. The most powerful empire in western history that in the first through third centuries repeatedly conquered and defended itself against barbarian tribes fell to barbarian tribes in the fifth century. How could this be possible without some kind of failure of social organization, whether economic or social?
The construct of Rome's decline and fall may mask a more fundamental pattern, that Rome itself represented an eight century decline from Hellenic civilization, a decline that may have accelerated in the fourth and fifth centuries. In particular, Rome did not develop much beyond what the Hellenes had achieved. It did advance organizationally and in terms of civil engineering and law, but its technology was limited largely to what had been accomplished in Greece and the Hellenic colonies by the third century BC. Its economic methods reflected little or no progress over five centuries.
All large scale civilizations go through periods of innovation and imperialism. The periods of innovation are characteristic of times when the civilization is of smaller scale. The imperialism creates larger scale and so introduces homogeneity and consistency. Consistency limits experimentation, by definition, and so limits innovation. In Rome there was a degree of laissez faire, but a large portion of the economy was oriented toward state purposes. Taxes to support military and civil projects were significant. The Roman image of progress was largely one of conquest. Conquest involved imposing the Roman model, so that conquered countries became replicas of Rome. The larger scale was associated with homogeneity.
In the case of Athens, imperialism existed alongside experimentation. The Greek world was highly decentralized because it was organized along the lines of the polis or city state. There were radically different forms of organization of the polis. The two most important were Sparta, an oligarchy ruled by "ephors", and Athens, which evolved from oligarchy and aristocracy into democracy. There were also some tyrannies or monarchies. The experimentation of the Greek world led to Athenian democracy, which led to innovation. This was only possible because of decentralization.
Decentralization is a necessary but not a sufficient condition for innovation and progress. In the case of tribal societies, such as the Americas before 1492, other conditions for the evolution of progress are absent. However, if progress is to occur, a degree of experimentation would seem to be an important root. Without it the intelligence of a small group of central administrators would be the only potential source.
In China Chin Shi Huangdi, the first Chinese emperor who unified China under Chin rule, created a high degree of centralization early in its history, in 221 BC. He and his adviser Li Si passed perhaps the earliest version of totalitarian legal and social reform; built large projects such as the Great Wall of China and a national road system; and killed many people. Li oversaw a massive book burning, illegalizing all intellectual activity. Scholars who resisted were buried alive. In this case the centralization may have preceded economic advance. Economic decline followed immediately upon the centralizing, totalitarian measures. But China's history is characterized by repeated overthrows of the central administrations. Advances may have occurred during disruptions to centralized authority. Alternatively, the Civil Service system may have facilitated a degree of innovation centrally. It will be interesting to trace the extent to which innovation did or did not occur during the centralizing periods. This intellectual elite likely produced considerable advances. But to what extent were the advances made available to the widespread peasantry and to what extent did they translate into improved well being?
It seems that scholars have been excessively impressed with the glories of scale. Rome was impressive, but its substance represented a small improvement of organization over the gains that the Greeks had already made. In terms of the fundamental driver of progress, innovation and experimentation, Rome represented a decline from the Hellenic world, especially in the Periclean era before Athens itself began to increase its scale and become an imperialist power. The obsession with empire, with the trappings of power and external grandeur mask the essential process that drives wealth: experimentation and creativity. These died with the fall of the Hellenes to Rome.
Saturday, July 4, 2009
It is Time for Republicans to Drop the New York Times
Sharad Karkhanis, Professor Emeritus of Kingsborough Community College, has forwarded the above link.
I have just been on the Yahoo! Group of the Republican Liberty Caucus of New York State (membership group at http://groups.yahoo.com/group/RLCNY), and I have been debating with someone who aimed to refute Paul Krguman and the New York Times.
There is a link between what the former KGB agent is saying in the above video and the discussion whether or not to pay attention to the New York Times. As the former KGB agent points out, American liberalism is not a rational or pragmatic belief system but rather a programmed ideology. Because it is not reasonable, it is pointless to attempt to argue rationally with the Times or its ideological acolytes, whether academics who advocate socialism after socialism's repeated dismal failures; Keynesianism; or other forms of state-activist liberalism. As the former KGB agent points out, brainwashed ideologues cannot be convinced through evidence or rational argument.
By attempting to refute the New York Times, we give it credence. Yet it does not deserve credence. I start with my concluding comment and work backward.
Mitchell Langbert: The influence of economists is not so great...The main reason Krugman is well known is the New York Times itself. It is a circular process, so you empower him and it by paying attention. Moverover, the only reason that the New York Times has influence is that Republicans continue to read it and pay attention to what it says. If they stopped, then the Times would become just another partisan voice.
There are lots of economists who publish many articles of whom no one has ever heard. Krugman may have some influence with students, but so did many other economists whose ideas have been forgotten or ignored and whose students forgot them when faced with the realities of the job market and economic events. The repeated failure of the ideas of most (statist) academics has not stopped the current crop from making the same old (failed) arguments. Their chief motivator is power. If the public shows boredom with the Times, et al., and does not pay attention to the nonsensical statist approach that has made inroads this year, the Times will die or change.
Within the past few years there was a takeover attempt by financial interests, but the Ochs Sulzbergers were able to ward them off. The precipitous decline in the newspaper's stock price can be pushed further, and possibly the Times into bankruptcy, which would be a major victory for freedom. Within the past few months the Times has had to obtain a 200 million dollar emergency loan from the Mexican billionaire Carlos Slim. They can be pushed over the edge. This is not your father's world. The Times can be killed.
I would wager that about 1/4 or more of the Times's readers are from the conservative/small government side. Even if it's only 1/8th, including yourself, a drop in readership from roughly one million to 875 thousand would have a devastating impact on the Times. If conservatives stopped taking them seriously and if Republicans stopped referring to them at all, their influence would be reduced. Partisan sources are not influential. Equally important, they might be subject to a takeover by interests with a different perspective. Even a more moderate perspective would be a major improvement.
The Times is a partisan source, but somehow conservatives and libertarians have been convinced to pay attention to them. There may have been a time when their quality was good enough to warrant the attention, but that time is long past. With the advent of the Internet, the Times is facing a major extinction event that conservatives delay by paying attention to them.
The Times has enjoyed a faux reputation as an accurate newspaper and a representative of mainstream views. It is neither. If a large segment drops it, then its claim to objectivity and to being an influence on mainstream opinion is less credible. And if Republicans scorn it or ignore it, not argue with it as though it has a voice of importance and integrity, but scorn it as the fraud that it is, then its influence will end. Which it, as a fringe voice, deserves.
Let's reverse the situation. Do big government types read each issue of "National Review" or the von Mises website and argue with them? Does the New York Times regularly present the Cato Institute's arguments and dispute them? I don't think so. They simply do not pay attention. They characterize the American liberal view as fringe. They win victory by not acknowledging the alternative views and arguing with them, but disparaging them. That is how the two party system has become two versions of state-activist "liberalism": the Times has defined conservatism as the Rockefeller-T Roosevelt-Straussian view, and "liberalism" as the FDR-Obama view, and has ignored the American view. If the Times ignores us, why should we pay attention to them?
There are thousands of economists who disagree with Krugman yet do not get any coverage. The coverage is what gives him influence. And by paying attention to the coverage, conservatives make the coverage possible. If the conservatives laugh at the Times, it will no longer have authority.
Ultimately social science is a smoke and mirrors scheme. There is no interest in what works, only what increases the power of the ruling group, the military industrial complex and the special interests that the Times and Krugman represent. Their arguments need not be taken seriously. They are ideology and can be safely ignored, with no loss in intellectual rigor. So why bother arguing with frauds?
Brian:
I should not have limited my last post to the NY Times. The main issue at hand is not the considerable damage that rag has done to our nation, though if anything that is all the more reason to refute rather than ignore it. My father knew in the late 1950’s who the real Castro was from reading Robert Welch; rather than ignore the NY Times as they praised Castro, he was able to point out to friends the stark contrast between the truth and the lies on its pages. By doing so, he did his part to erode its influence.
The main issue is not the exact number of millions of readers the print edition of the NY Times reaches either; the circulation of its print version hardly defines its influence. I skim its headlines daily online, as I am sure millions more do, and as the ideas are digested and influence the thinking of those millions, the effects ripple outward through myriad channels.
The main issue is the original contention that we should not concern ourselves with Paul Krugman. Lets’ assume, merely for arguments sake, that the NY Times is “fringe” and inconsequential. Krugman’s influence is hardly limited to readers of the Times. He is a major economist and perhaps one of our most influential intellectual foes.
Krugman is one of the most widely read and influential economists in the world today. He has written many widely read books and edited even more than he has written. He has written hundreds of papers and articles that are published all over the world. He has written for Fortune, Slate, The Harvard Business Review, Foreign Policy, The Economist, Harper's, and Washington Monthly and had his articles and ideas published, reprinted, or otherwise disseminated in countless others, from the Huffington Post and USA today to Newsweek . And that’s just print media CNN, MSNBC
Students have been infected with Krugman’s economic virus in his classes at MIT, Yale, Princeton, Stanford, and the London School of Economics. He won the Nobel Prize for Economics. He is a Fellow or Associate or prominent member of a variety of groups and organizations. He has advised the Federal Reserve. If this thumbnail sketch isn’t enough to deem him worthy of refutation, consider that his influence hardly stops at our borders. He has the ear of the World Bank, the IMF, and the UN, as well as other nations. The Asia Times and The Economist have both noted his influence, and the King of Spain gave him an award. (Speaking of awards, how many has he won, including the Nobel Peace Prize?)
Krugman is a dangerous enemy and, as such, we must keep a close eye on him; he must be met head to head, toe to toe, issue by issue, point-by-point.
Last thought: I don’t consider the Libertarian Party “fringe” because of its tiny influence in elections. Our ideas are exponentially more influential than our total votes. While we may only garner a few precious percent nationally, look at the major strides we made in this last election with Ron Paul carrying the ball. Without that effort, we would never have been able to garner support for auditing the Federal Reserve. We are at war. We must renew our spirits and redouble our efforts now, while words can me our most effective weapon. Fight on compatriots!
Mitchell Langbert
Why bother concerning ourselves about Paul Krugman? We're at a point where attention paid to the Times and its writers merely serves to empower them. They don't need to be debunked any more than a writer for the ACORN or AFL-CIO newsletters, or any other partisan group. The best policy toward the Times is to forget its existence and to regard anyone who refers to it as a crank or a flake.
Brian:
1) Krugman's Intellectual Waterloo
Mises Daily
http://mises.org/story/3530#
2) Related resources:
One of the links in the von Mises article is to an excellent list of Krugman quotes arguing for the Fed to inflate a housing bubble: Krugman Did Cause the Housing Bubble (url:http://blog.mises.org/archives/010153.asp).
One of the comments under that blog adds another example of Krugman Gnawing on His Foot (NY Times 8/2/02) (url: http://www.nytimes.com/2002/08/02/opinion/dubya-s-double-dip.html): "To fight this recession the Fed needs more than a snapback; it needs soaring household spending to offset moribund business investment. And to do that, as Paul McCulley of Pimco put it, Alan Greenspan needs to create a housing bubble to replace the Nasdaq bubble.
Another comments links to: Reason Magazine: "Dr. Krugman: This Patient Needs More Blood-letting" - Comment by "Ben" (url: http://www.reason.com/blog/show/134131.html#1305886), which is worth the read just for this Vintage Inflation Propaganda Clip (10:00 min) and the comments under it.
Richard:
While I can't stand Krugman, he is an actual economist and not a journalist. He
won a Nobel prize for something that was sensible on location factors in trade,
not nonsense. As he is influential, it pays to be aware of what he says. He is
not a fringe, marginal figure.
I made a narrow escape from Krugman. I dated his sister-in-law years ago.
Imagine if things had developed and I would have to talk to him.
Friday, June 26, 2009
Progressivism and the Roman Model
Progressivism, the paradigm for what later came to be called state-activist liberalism, was a variant of a twenty-centuries old model of economic development that the Romans conceptualized. Most models of economic development are variants of Roman policy. But the approach to economic development that was most successful, individualist laissez-faire capitalism, was in concept of more recent vintage even though elements of it existed in Hellenic times. The Greeks and the Hellenic states did not develop a method of analysis capable of identifying the elements of laissez-faire capitalism that facilitated development. The first to do so were the Physiocrats and Adam Smith in the 18th century.
Roman culture was based on the economic and technological advances of the Greek states. It is true that there was some innovation and dynamic business practice in the Roman world, but the Romans' statist model inhibited technological development and industrialization. Rather, the Romans conceived of progress as replication of the Greek polis and capitalist agricultural economy that the Hellenic states had innovated. This picture of cultural development drove the Roman concept of progress. Of course, Rome was unabashedly self interested and its chief concern was plunder and extraction of taxes from conquered territories. But eventually it did so through a developmental process. It assumed that the Hellenic/Roman model would maximize the productive output of the conquered territories so that imposition of the Roman model of social organization on the conquered territories would optimally increase its wealth. Therefore, progress meant that the rest of the world, which was barbaric, should adopt the Roman model.
The Roman notion of optimality was, therefore, static and did not conceptualize that technology or industrialization could radically increase and transform a nation's productive output. Moreover, it saw conquest and compulsion as essential to development. Thus, it rested on barbaric assumptions that are still reflected today in Marxist and other left wing ideology.
If productive output among primitive tribes is to be maximized, it is very likely that force is compatible with the optimality. The history of the idea of optimality might run something like this. Primitive tribes were traditionalist and saw their own way of life as optimal. Other tribes were not equal. Conquering tribes saw the optimal, profit maximizing approach as killing the other tribes and stealing their wealth. At some point tribal conquerors realized that enslavement could be more profitable than murder (a base realization that was forgotten in the twentieth century by the totalitarians following Marx and Hitler). Egyptian, Greek and to a lesser degree Roman culture were based on slavery. Ancient civilization would have been impossible without the innovation of slavery, which was actually more humanistic than the alternative to which Europe and China reverted in the twentieth century--mass murder.
The Greeks realized that trade could produce benefits that exceeded enslavement. Their colonies in Asia Minor and Arabia briefly realized that technology and enterprise could produce more wealth, but the realization was not firm and they did not develop a philosophical foundation for it. Moreover, the Greek and Hellenic states engaged in a considerable degree of class resentment and internecine warfare, which in turn limited their focus on the technological advances they were making.
The Romans saw adoption of the Hellenic model as optimal and ultimately their idea of optimal economic strategy was to impose the Hellenic model on the uncivilized.
Rome too became wracked with class conflict, notably the conflicts between upper and lower classes in Rome at the time of Julius Caesar and the resentments of the peasant army at the time of Septimius Severus and thereafter, leading to frequent murder and virtual enslavement of the Antonine-era upper class as well increasing statism and government control. The elements of what became medieval serfdom and the medieval economy were introduced in the time of Diocletian and Constantine. The Middle Ages were a continuation of Roman society in a barbarized form. The peoples whom Rome conquered did not understand the Roman concepts of government and the manorial system that existed under feudalism was a degeneration of the Roman model.
De Jouvenal traces how what he terms "Power", the centralizing force of kings over local fiefs, was a constant theme throughout the Middle Ages. This had in fact begun with Diocletian and really with Augustus, the creator of the Roman model of progress. This centralizing effort over many centuries was merely a reassertion of the Roman model. Part of the reason that the notions of liberty and decentralization were able to take hold were the barbaric feudalism that was an assertion against the Roman model. The assertion of the liberties of the aristocracy was not a continuation of the Roman model but a barbarian assertion of power by co-conquering barbarians.
The question is, though, how the decentralizing model of Locke, Montesquieu, Trenachard and Gordon, Adam Smith, the American Anti-Federalists and Jefferson evolved. The Reformation unquestionably played a role. The emphasis on individual conscience, direct reading of the bible, predestination and a direct relationship with God are powerful inducements to individualism.
The Romans might have been right about the development of much of the world, but not completely so, for the Persians and other oriental cultures had reached levels of development comparable to Rome's. Few today would argue that one civilization has the right to interfere with another. Today's critics of globalization argue that globalization interferes with local cultures. Yet, the same critics argue for centralization in their home countries, which involve greater degrees of compulsion and are less defensible on humanitarian grounds. A firm that builds a factory in a Third World nation compels no one to work there. Economic development leads to objectively better outcomes such as improved access to health care. The same advocates who would compel all Americans to participate in the same health plan would deny any access whatsoever to health care by the population of undeveloped countries.
In response to the individualist philosophy that appeared in England around the time of the Reformation, some began to argue for a divergent approach to progress that deviated from the Roman and hearkend back to the insight of the Hellenic states: businessmen experiment with alternative production methods and technologies, and so profit from their good ideas and suffer losses from the bad ones. This approach was relatively untried, yet it was productive of far greater economic progress than the Roman model.
The individualist model limits state power. But there are always moral issues in life that are difficult to settle voluntarily. These include how much to give to charity; whether bosses ought to be mean or kind to their employees; and the degree of compulsion the state ought to use in assessing taxes. Individualism did not permit a wide degree of choice with respect to the resolution of moral conflict. Henry David Thoreau's response to the ills of the liberal state were to reject the state altogether. But this would not have solved the moral problem with which he was most concerned: slavery.
Many will argue that the Civil War was about states' rights and the conflict between two economic systems, but historically its most important outcome (besides being the first example of what Thomas X. Hammes has called second generation warfare--and the killing of 600,000 human beings) was the abolition of slavery. This is a moral end, but to achieve it Roman means were necessary. The model of civilization and economy of the industrial north had to be imposed on the agrarian south. Thus, laissez-faire capitalism adopted the Roman approach to modernization in enforcing its economic model. Slavery and the kind of agrarian capitalism that the south practiced were themselves remnants of the manorial agricultural capitalism that was the basis of the Roman Empire.
Progressivism in turn was an amplification of the Roman approach to imposition of moral and developmental solutions as a form of development.
Roman culture was based on the economic and technological advances of the Greek states. It is true that there was some innovation and dynamic business practice in the Roman world, but the Romans' statist model inhibited technological development and industrialization. Rather, the Romans conceived of progress as replication of the Greek polis and capitalist agricultural economy that the Hellenic states had innovated. This picture of cultural development drove the Roman concept of progress. Of course, Rome was unabashedly self interested and its chief concern was plunder and extraction of taxes from conquered territories. But eventually it did so through a developmental process. It assumed that the Hellenic/Roman model would maximize the productive output of the conquered territories so that imposition of the Roman model of social organization on the conquered territories would optimally increase its wealth. Therefore, progress meant that the rest of the world, which was barbaric, should adopt the Roman model.
The Roman notion of optimality was, therefore, static and did not conceptualize that technology or industrialization could radically increase and transform a nation's productive output. Moreover, it saw conquest and compulsion as essential to development. Thus, it rested on barbaric assumptions that are still reflected today in Marxist and other left wing ideology.
If productive output among primitive tribes is to be maximized, it is very likely that force is compatible with the optimality. The history of the idea of optimality might run something like this. Primitive tribes were traditionalist and saw their own way of life as optimal. Other tribes were not equal. Conquering tribes saw the optimal, profit maximizing approach as killing the other tribes and stealing their wealth. At some point tribal conquerors realized that enslavement could be more profitable than murder (a base realization that was forgotten in the twentieth century by the totalitarians following Marx and Hitler). Egyptian, Greek and to a lesser degree Roman culture were based on slavery. Ancient civilization would have been impossible without the innovation of slavery, which was actually more humanistic than the alternative to which Europe and China reverted in the twentieth century--mass murder.
The Greeks realized that trade could produce benefits that exceeded enslavement. Their colonies in Asia Minor and Arabia briefly realized that technology and enterprise could produce more wealth, but the realization was not firm and they did not develop a philosophical foundation for it. Moreover, the Greek and Hellenic states engaged in a considerable degree of class resentment and internecine warfare, which in turn limited their focus on the technological advances they were making.
The Romans saw adoption of the Hellenic model as optimal and ultimately their idea of optimal economic strategy was to impose the Hellenic model on the uncivilized.
Rome too became wracked with class conflict, notably the conflicts between upper and lower classes in Rome at the time of Julius Caesar and the resentments of the peasant army at the time of Septimius Severus and thereafter, leading to frequent murder and virtual enslavement of the Antonine-era upper class as well increasing statism and government control. The elements of what became medieval serfdom and the medieval economy were introduced in the time of Diocletian and Constantine. The Middle Ages were a continuation of Roman society in a barbarized form. The peoples whom Rome conquered did not understand the Roman concepts of government and the manorial system that existed under feudalism was a degeneration of the Roman model.
De Jouvenal traces how what he terms "Power", the centralizing force of kings over local fiefs, was a constant theme throughout the Middle Ages. This had in fact begun with Diocletian and really with Augustus, the creator of the Roman model of progress. This centralizing effort over many centuries was merely a reassertion of the Roman model. Part of the reason that the notions of liberty and decentralization were able to take hold were the barbaric feudalism that was an assertion against the Roman model. The assertion of the liberties of the aristocracy was not a continuation of the Roman model but a barbarian assertion of power by co-conquering barbarians.
The question is, though, how the decentralizing model of Locke, Montesquieu, Trenachard and Gordon, Adam Smith, the American Anti-Federalists and Jefferson evolved. The Reformation unquestionably played a role. The emphasis on individual conscience, direct reading of the bible, predestination and a direct relationship with God are powerful inducements to individualism.
The Romans might have been right about the development of much of the world, but not completely so, for the Persians and other oriental cultures had reached levels of development comparable to Rome's. Few today would argue that one civilization has the right to interfere with another. Today's critics of globalization argue that globalization interferes with local cultures. Yet, the same critics argue for centralization in their home countries, which involve greater degrees of compulsion and are less defensible on humanitarian grounds. A firm that builds a factory in a Third World nation compels no one to work there. Economic development leads to objectively better outcomes such as improved access to health care. The same advocates who would compel all Americans to participate in the same health plan would deny any access whatsoever to health care by the population of undeveloped countries.
In response to the individualist philosophy that appeared in England around the time of the Reformation, some began to argue for a divergent approach to progress that deviated from the Roman and hearkend back to the insight of the Hellenic states: businessmen experiment with alternative production methods and technologies, and so profit from their good ideas and suffer losses from the bad ones. This approach was relatively untried, yet it was productive of far greater economic progress than the Roman model.
The individualist model limits state power. But there are always moral issues in life that are difficult to settle voluntarily. These include how much to give to charity; whether bosses ought to be mean or kind to their employees; and the degree of compulsion the state ought to use in assessing taxes. Individualism did not permit a wide degree of choice with respect to the resolution of moral conflict. Henry David Thoreau's response to the ills of the liberal state were to reject the state altogether. But this would not have solved the moral problem with which he was most concerned: slavery.
Many will argue that the Civil War was about states' rights and the conflict between two economic systems, but historically its most important outcome (besides being the first example of what Thomas X. Hammes has called second generation warfare--and the killing of 600,000 human beings) was the abolition of slavery. This is a moral end, but to achieve it Roman means were necessary. The model of civilization and economy of the industrial north had to be imposed on the agrarian south. Thus, laissez-faire capitalism adopted the Roman approach to modernization in enforcing its economic model. Slavery and the kind of agrarian capitalism that the south practiced were themselves remnants of the manorial agricultural capitalism that was the basis of the Roman Empire.
Progressivism in turn was an amplification of the Roman approach to imposition of moral and developmental solutions as a form of development.
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