The endurance of medieval forms of constitutional government and the revolution of early modern warfare, which required state centralization of resources, accounted for the democratic trajectory of western and central European countries. After reviewing forms of late medieval government and warfare, the author uses a comparative framework to evaluate Prussia and France as absolutist cases and England, Sweden, and the Netherlands as republican exemplars. The work is a useful riposte to class and economic determinism, but lacks truly original expression, the text being heavily footnoted with citations of generally accepted historiography. It is also written as if for a graduate seminar: impossible not to learn, but better off with Fukuyama.
Month: December 2022
On corruption at the core of American government
America’s unresolved tension between Hamiltonian pursuit of political development and Madisonian balance of interests is corruption: ‘maldistribution of federal resources to vested interests’. Hamilton, seeking to address the young country’s evident political needs, sought to tap economic resources by appealing to elite self-interest. Madison wrote (in Federalist 10?) that ‘a power independent of the society may as well espouse the unjust views of the major, as the rightful interests of the minor party, and may possibly be turned against both parties’. Madison thought of government as a referee among domestic citizenry, Hamilton as a coach facing rival nations.
America is Hamiltonian, in part because Madison and Jefferson never development an alternate dynamic. The trouble is politics remains Madisonian: national powers are inherently weak, and parochial interests must be mollified. To compound, economic ends have been supplemented by sociopolitical goals (e.g., environmentalism, egalitarianism) which add another layer of faction.
25. Menzies, Afternoon Light (10 Dec 2022)
Essays in postwar government by Australia’s longest-serving prime minister, showing a pragmatic, legalistic bent. The politician ought neither trust in emotion nor be a cynic, but demonstrate pragmatism. Menzies sketches leading contemporaries, notably Churchill and Queen Elizabeth as well as his predecessors. In portraying diplomatic efforts to persuade Nasser to negotiate over the Suez Canal, the author asserts Eisenhower undermined efforts. The Australian and American constitutions are compared, the latter charter being more subject to political considerations, and the relationship of Australian government to the British metropole considered. Menzies criticizes the Commonwealth’s automatic admission of newly formed republics as well as treatment of South Africa and Rhodesia. The object of Commonwealth meetings is not to issue resolutions but to exchange ideas.
4. Pangle, Ennobling of Democracy (2 Feb 2015)
A Straussian (i.e., Socratic) argument for resurrecting Classical republican approaches to citizenship and education in America circa 1990. Postmodernist thought is insufficient to the task of civic education because it considers itself in search of a successor to modern rationalism, and so cannot present youth with a certain basis of inquiry and evaluation. (This school of thought, a dying spasm of Marxism exemplified by Jean-Francois Leotard, is indeed likely to never emerge because it corrupts Nietzsche and Heidegger.) The book then turns to an extensive, fast-moving comparison of modern and ancient conceptions of the republic and democracy, finding the dialectic method is necessary to restore American civic mindedness and also the US university; however, Pangle is careful to underline that the dialectic is dangerous for the under-prepared.
5. Blainey, A Shorter History of Australia (10 Feb 2015)
Geography and economics have been more important to Australian history than politics. The ‘tyranny of distance’ shows itself in Aboriginal culture, Western settlement and economic development, foreign relations, and so on. They have often been interrelated, as in the development of export products (notably wool and mining) or the influence of drought. Owing to scarcity of labor, working conditions and labor law have been advanced, leading to egalitarianism (equality of outcomes) and also devotion to sport (as outside leisure). Black-white relations, obviously one-sided and sometimes fraught, are not more significant than the latter 20th-century influx of Asian peoples, which supplemented steadily decreasing European migration. Crisply written.
6. Moe, Finding the Next Starbucks (2 Mar 2015)
Describes the author’s approach to investing in micro- and small-cap companies: consistent earnings growth drives the stock price over the long term. As a rule of thumb for estimating time to double an investment, divide the growth rate into 72 (e.g., 72 / 8 pct per annum). Moe looks for ‘megatrends’ to fuel top-down (tailwind) help and the ‘4 Ps’ (people, product, potential, predictability) for bottom-up analysis. Something of a contrarian, he is willing to pay a high P/E rate — if earnings growth is consistent — and shuns diversification for its own sake. Chapter 7 (and an appendix) on valuation usefully covers DCF, PEG, and price/sales ratio.
7. Sen, The Argumentative Indian (6 Mar 2015)
Essays by the noted political economist collectively arguing for the importance of Indian heterogeneity, particularly as regards history and religion. The author considers Indian views of themselves and others, ways of reasoning, and such ‘real world’ issues as poverty, class and sex, nuclear weaponry, etc. The title refers to the subcontinent’s pluralistic sociocultural traditions. However, the book fails to grapple with the violence of partition: why should it be ascribed to the British? Rabindranath Tagore figures prominently, and appears worthy of future exploration. At times self-referential and repetitive, the book is nonetheless a useful introduction to Indian sociopolitical thought.
8. Monteiro, You’re My Favorite Client (19 Mar 2015)
Design, by which the author principally means interactive design, is a question of problem solving rather than aesthetics. The book author provides practical yardsticks for assessing, hiring, and managing designers and design projects. In a digitizing era, it might further have addressed design’s relationship to strategy. Moderately caustic and salty, as befits Monteiro.
9. Kagan, Thucydides (23 Mar 2015)
Critically reviews
- The History of the Peloponnesian War
to assess the validity of Thucydides’ account, with the broader goal of illuminating the Greek’s contribution to the discipline of history. Thucydides favored Pericles (as a worthy leader of Athens) and Nicias (as the general who tried to dissuade the hubristic public for invading Sicily), while scorning Cleon (as lucky at Sphacteria and for rejecting Sparta’s peace offer in 425). These views would have been contrary to popular understanding, therefore Thucydides is revisionist. Kagan also shows holes in Thucydides’ work, such as glossing the Megarian Decree. Thucydides fundamentally sought to get the story right, however, and in so doing established history as of men for men — eschewing divine intervention as explanatory — so that future generations would be able to learn from past affairs. Further, in focusing on politics, war, and statecraft, he narrowed Herodotus’ consideration of society and culture (seen today in Annalisme) and thus connected history to political philosophy, the pursuit of the best life for the whole of the citizenry. Superb conclusion.
23. Hill, Reformation to Industrial Revolution (18 Nov 2022)
Politics shaped England’s socioeconomic development over 1530-1780, as the island nation alone in Europe progressed from monarchy-and-aristocracy toward the proto-bourgeois, from agricultural toward commercial and early industrial.
In the Tudor era, the Commons gained influence; in the Reformation, absolutism was undermined by conscience and education of the gentry. London’s economic power acted to unify England (if not the soon-to-be United Kingdom). Domestic policy aimed at controlling the peasantry via justices of the peace. Foreign policy, which began in medieval thrall to Rome and Spain, grew to be independent (though the country remained a 2d-line power).
1640’s destruction of the Stuart bureaucracy was the most decisive event in British history. The dynasty’s unsustainable economics – spending more than it received – led to the Civil War (see also 18th-century France). But predictable causes do not guarantee predictable outcomes: nonconforming religion (e.g., Lollards) as well as the new urban culture evinced popular opposition. When the conflict came, richer peasants aligned not with the lumpen but the gentry, which had learned to lead in the schools.
During the Interregnum and Restoration, the abolition of northern and Welsh councils unified the legal system and the economic dominance of London gathered pace, acting to radiate Puritanism. But the Restoration’s key feature was anti-democratic. Aristocrats and bishops returned; nonconformists were excluded by the Clarendon Code; enclosure accelerated, promoting agricultural productivity. In this respect, Jacobitism was an outcome not a cause: unimproving, gentry and freeholders were liquidated; the ‘new men’ were ascendant before 1745. The Navigation Acts of 1651 and 1660 marked the transition to national monopoly (i.e., to colonial mercantilism from chartered companies) and the Dutch wars. Then joint stock companies deployed capital where previously it had been in limited supply. (Ireland, after African slaves, was the principal victim of this trend.) The Restoration did not halt labor migration but favored employers. Excise and land taxes acted to shift resources from peasants to landowners and the City. Following the Toleration Act, Quakers and others saw to it that favorable legislation was enforced across England, again promoting more uniform administration and tempering the influence of JPs. Intellectually, the Newtonian revolution as well as dispersion of ‘natural hierarchy’ undermined views of social organization: men no longer were united to each other.
After the Glorious Revolution and over the 18th century the colonies supplanted Europe as England’s biggest market; 1763’s Peace of Paris converted these markets from suppliers to buyers, until the American revolution and Irish revolt shook the system. Thus there were five periods of export trade: old draperies to 1600; new draperies to 1650; colonial monopoly – entrepot – re-export to 1700; manufactures to the colonies to 1780; and afterward the industrial revolution, enabled by modernized banks and credit, facilitated worldwide export. Bacon’s aspirations for society advanced by scientific approaches advanced dissent. Freeborn men thought to enter the factor was to surrender their birthright; laborers now sought protection for Elizabethan regulations (e.g., prices, standards, apprenticeships, etc.). By 1780, rural distress was evident, though grand landowners had regained ground.
Heavily focused on structural analysis, there is no discussion of even the Whig Ascendancy or George III’s new system. Event are Whiggishly inevitable. The neo-Marxist approach also surrenders credibility in such observations as Soviet collectivization costs ‘thousands’ of lives.