00:00:00.000Hey everybody, how's it going? Thanks for joining me this afternoon. I've got a great
00:00:13.000stream with a great guest that I think you're really going to enjoy. We started a series
00:00:18.340reading John Glubb's essay about the fall of empires, the life cycles that they go through.
00:00:24.640we found last week in the first few sections a lot of really good insights that i think
00:00:31.600you know we don't agree with everything that glob predicts in this work but ultimately it is
00:00:36.660a work that has a lot of prescience to it something that helps us observe these cycles
00:00:42.160and hopefully at some level avoid them happening to the west if we can so we want to look at this
00:00:48.240you know the way that he dissects the development of these empires and see if there's anything that
00:00:52.920we can rescue for ourselves in order to better our situation. Joining me again to discuss this
00:00:58.420essay is Mr. News Fist. Thank you so much for coming on, man. Always a pleasure, Ron. Thanks
00:01:02.840for having me back, man. Absolutely. So this week we're focusing on the section about commerce and
00:01:09.820the expansion of empire. We already talked a little bit how empire is a natural development
00:01:15.700of most civilizations that are expanding and growing. And so this is something that we see
00:01:20.760a pattern repeated over and over again this natural desire to kind of exert influence beyond
00:01:26.280your natural borders spread your way of being spread your influence and glub is going to lead
00:01:31.700off today in section 10 with commercial expansion we're going to be talking a lot about the impact
00:01:37.800of wealth and money and how that changes civilizations over time in a very predictable
00:01:43.380way so that said let's dive right into number 10 commercial expansion the conquest of vast
00:01:50.220areas of land and their subject subjection to one government automatically acts as a stimulant
00:01:56.940to commerce both merchants and goods can be exchanged over considerable distances moreover
00:02:02.980if the empire be an expensive one extensive one it will include a great variety of climates
00:02:09.400producing extremely varied products which different areas will wish to exchange with one another
00:02:14.880the speed of modern methods of transportation tends to create in us the impression that far
00:02:19.800Loan commerce is a modern development, but this is not the case.
00:02:23.720Objects made in Ireland, Scandinavia, and China have been found in the graves and ruins
00:02:29.040in the Middle East, dating from a thousand years before Christ.
00:02:33.980The means of transport were slower, but when a great empire was in control, commerce was
00:02:40.640freed from the innumerable shackles imposed upon it today by passports, import permits,
00:02:46.560customs boycotts and political interference the roman empire extended from britain to syria and
00:02:53.120egypt a distance in a direct line of perhaps 2 700 miles a roman official transferred from britain
00:02:59.920to syria might spend six months on the journey yet throughout the whole distance he would be
00:03:05.120traveling in the same country with the same official language the same laws the same currency
00:03:09.360and the same administrative system today some uh some 20 independent countries separate britain
00:03:15.880from Syria, each with its own government, its own laws, politics, custom fees, transports,
00:03:22.220and currencies, making commercial cooperation almost impossible. And this process of0.84
00:03:27.000disintegration is still continuing. Even within the small areas of the modern European nations,
00:03:32.660provincial movements, expanded secession, or devolution tend further to splinter the continent.
00:03:40.820the present fashion for independence has produced a greater number of tiny states in the world
00:03:46.700some of them consist of only one city or one small island this system is an insuperable obstacle to
00:03:53.500to trade and operation the the present european economic community is an attempt to secure
00:04:01.140commercial cooperation among small independent states over large areas but the plan meets with
00:04:06.240many difficulties due to the mutual jealousies of so many nations. Even savage and militaristic
00:04:12.880empires promote commerce, whether or not they intend to do so. The Mongols were some of the0.97
00:04:18.360most brutal military conquerors in history, massacring the entire population of cities.0.92
00:04:24.160Yet in the 13th century, when their empire extended from Peking to Hungary, the caravan
00:04:30.500traded between China and Europe achieved a remarkable degree of prosperity. The whole
00:04:35.440country was in the territory of one government. In the 8th and 9th century, the caliphs of Baghdad
00:04:41.580achieved fabulous wealth owing to the immense extent of their territories, which constituted
00:04:48.040a single trade bloc. The empire of the caliphs is now divided into some 25 separate nations.
00:04:55.020All right, so this touches a little bit on something that you mentioned in our last episode,
00:04:59.180which is the petrol dollar, this unified American empire being almost entirely commercial. Of course,
00:05:05.000glub is writing this before we have seen many of the commercial consolidations of the american
00:05:09.860empire so in a way he's kind of predicting uh what will come next and it's good to know that this is
00:05:15.280a cycle you know again as he says we tend to think of this trade as something that is extremely
00:05:20.240modern very unique to our time due to planes and e-commerce and all these things and don't get me
00:05:26.620wrong that does have a very serious impact on the level of integration we have today but it's more
00:05:32.800of a cycle that we go through. When we have empires, we have this freedom of markets. We
00:05:38.500have this one unified market across society that allows all the different supply chains. It allows
00:05:44.800the use of one currency, one language, these kind of things, all of which facilitate that trade.
00:05:50.540That's why English has become the language of trade across the world. And so it's interesting,
00:05:54.840most people think of our economic prosperity as being due to capitalism, that capitalism,
00:06:00.960that the ideology of capitalism is what actually creates this but another way to look at it is
00:06:06.640really what we call capitalism is the extension of the uh kind of pax americana across the world
00:06:13.400and so the system we're operating under is the american system as much as it is as it is big c
00:06:20.520capitalism and that's actually why we're seeing this explosive growth in wealth and uh the ability
00:06:27.420the velocity of money all these different things because they are tied up with kind of this
00:06:32.340homogenous economic existence rather than perhaps necessarily any one given economic theory
00:06:39.840well this is generally sort of one of the bonuses of empire um you can you can have a shop and you
00:06:46.680can go in and there's fruit from across the world and every season obviously they didn't have
00:06:50.660refrigerated trade but okay let's let's say earlier empire so you've got silks from china
00:06:55.020you've got ivory from india you've got all kinds of like great stuff um at least it's great if
00:07:00.880you're in in the core if you ever you know study political science particularly in the modern world
00:07:05.820they'll they'll talk about the the core versus the periphery always in this very very exploitative
00:07:10.760state are the the core the first world they get all the the good stuff and they take from the
00:07:17.500periphery but obviously you know this is an oversimplification because even if uh raw materials
00:07:22.080taken from the periphery and assembled in the core and then finished goods are shipped back
00:07:26.540out to the periphery, the periphery still gets goods and market access that they would not get
00:07:31.740otherwise. The problem that you tend to get is that with this flattening of trade regulation
00:07:38.220comes flattening of other kinds of governance. So the EU is a really, really good example of
00:07:43.560this. It started out as this way to trade more freely in Europe and now it's gone completely
00:07:49.300insane you know net zero has been attached to it and it's it's become far sort of beyond its remit
00:07:54.860so you could probably make an argument that this ease of commerce this harmonizing of laws uh across
00:08:01.180sort of different disparate territories uh leads sort of inevitably to an expansion of other kinds
00:08:08.080of governance that then sort of you know and also of course the movement of population and stuff
00:08:12.620like that but it just it starts to sort of flatten everything out and in you know in places like
00:08:17.560europe or i guess anywhere else in the world sort of independent cultures then become oppressed or
00:08:23.500suppressed you know in in sort of uh in favor of this large sort of all more globalized culture
00:08:29.000and then inevitably at the end of the cycle as you were talking about you get a resurgence of
00:08:33.640nationalism as those cultures are like listen you know it's great that we can buy silk from china
00:08:40.000and ivory from from india uh but everything that makes our country our country has also disappeared
00:08:45.820along with it. And sooner or later, you have to make the question, which do you want more? Do you
00:08:49.920want a national identity or do you want cheap strawberries? Yeah, it really is. Deleuze and
00:08:58.180Guattari called this the overcoat. And it's the way that the economic interaction inevitably leads
00:09:05.600to the overriding of the cultures themselves. It breaks down. Everyone has to become good at
00:09:13.120interacting with that hegemonic system as opposed to what you know the way their culture operated
00:09:19.100previously and so your elites reorient from kind of their local culture their the ability to serve
00:09:24.800that and you stop selecting for people who are best acting uh in the tradition of your people
00:09:29.840and in the way that you have done things instead you start selecting for people who are good at
00:09:33.820interacting with that hegemon interacting with those larger markets those systems those kind of
00:09:38.880things and so those change your uh you know your your political styles that changes your leadership
00:09:44.620the the uh makeup of your elites uh different different parts of your culture all of these
00:09:50.720things are impacted by this so it has great benefits as you say uh but it tends to homogenize
00:09:56.840and to be clear it's not just the homogenization of the subject peoples it also creates a
00:10:03.580homogenization of the empire this is one of the things that we'll see uh glove talk about
00:10:08.360But this, you know, everyone who interacts with the system becomes more like each other, including the people who made the system.
00:10:14.940They get further away from their traditions and where that came from, and they become more of this global cosmopolitan people because they are constantly interacting with peoples and products and ideas and everything else that's flowing in from overseas.
00:10:29.400And so this isn't something that's just visited upon the third world, as you say.
00:10:32.940This also flows back into the first world. And I think that's a lot of what we're seeing today, not just the cultural response, but even the literal physical people of the empire are fleeing their nations and flowing back in to these original hegemons because they ultimately have just seen themselves as becoming this one thing, or at least the people who are running the empire see themselves as one thing.0.51
00:10:56.100even if the new people flowing in are seeing this more as their opportunity for revenge against the
00:11:00.620hegemon rather than something they can integrate into you know this this makes me wonder whether
00:11:06.120um you know the whole sort of spreading of the idea of the blank slate the truly preposterous
00:11:12.240idea that everyone is the same everywhere was not sort of sort of foisted originally upon the back0.96
00:11:18.020of like homo economicus right like you know you oh you know there's those people in other countries0.89
00:11:22.840you know they want they want to wear a wear a grill they drink coca-cola just like us you know0.73
00:11:26.940they're like mcdonald's you know we like i mean if you take this from this this idea oh you know
00:11:32.980well look people in sudan they'll buy our products they must be exactly the same as us um it sort of
00:11:40.280leads i think maybe to this idea of just the complete flattening of all sort of humanity like
00:11:46.240with this idea that well you know everyone wants to make money don't they right like you know and
00:11:51.420And then you get the people in the core who are sort of their primary sort of motive is profit, beginning to delude themselves that everybody else's motive is to, you know, make profit above all things.
00:12:04.240And then this tension eventually becomes untenable because there are, at the end of the day, more important things than money.
00:12:12.220These things always exist in this sort of like weird tension.
00:12:15.660Okay, sure, people wish to make money.
00:12:17.780They wish to raise their development index.
00:12:21.420do you want to jump in and read the next one here pros and cons of empires sure uh 11 the pros and
00:12:28.000cons of empires in discussing the life story of the typical empire we have digressed into a
00:12:34.240discussion of whether empires are useful or injurious to mankind we seem to have discovered
00:12:39.240that empires have certain advantages particularly in the field of commerce and in the establishment
00:12:43.780of peace and security in vast areas of the globe perhaps we should also include the spread of
00:12:48.740varied cultures to many races the present infatuation for independence for ever smaller
00:12:54.000and smaller units will eventually doubtless be seceded by new international empires i think
00:12:59.200glob is right here it's a cycle right the present attempts to create a european community may be
00:13:04.260regarded as a practical endeavor to constitute a new superpower in spite of the fragmentation
00:13:09.580resulting from the craze for independence if it succeeds some of the local independencies will
00:13:15.020have to be sacrificed if it fails the same result may be attained by military conquest
00:13:19.980or by the partition of europe between rival superpowers the inescapable conclusion seems
00:13:25.540however to be that larger territorial units are a benefit to commerce and to public stability
00:13:30.660whether the broader territory be achieved by voluntary association or by military action
00:13:35.940so as you're saying yeah this is very accurate predictions right he's he's predicting the
00:13:42.680european union uh more or less here as it's trying to forge a single economic zone uh we're seeing
00:13:49.220that the uh kind of post-world war one uh nationalism uh kind of rush is reconstituting
00:13:57.140itself back into uh kind of these zones of control now that we've freed ourselves from kind of the
00:14:02.960bipolar u.s versus soviet union distinction i was interesting i was just on the charlie kirk show0.99
00:14:08.580talking to them about alexander dugan uh who gets a lot of things wrong it says a lot of stupid
00:14:12.880things but is right about the fact that empires are actually the more natural kind of stable blocks
00:14:21.400of civilization and taking that kind of samuel huntington clash of civilizations thesis it's
00:14:27.300it's really empire or civilizational blocks that are able to push back against each other
00:14:33.380The idea of truly small and independent nations that are completely sovereign, that idea has always waxing and waning, but we're currently seeing that that is not functioning well in the real world at the moment.
00:14:49.040And this is why everyone is kind of falling back into these spheres of influence that they can create around not just their country, but their civilization or their empire in general.0.67
00:14:59.700i don't think the the eu quite frankly has the balls if you'll pardon my french to be a proper
00:15:07.860empire say what you want about the american empire it has two crucial things that make for0.94
00:15:13.960a good empire a very very well no a very very strong national identity that other people can
00:15:21.200join right and military power where the as the eu has really sort of neither right like what is
00:15:28.040the eu identity if if eu if the eu had a you know their equivalent of the 4th of july what would
00:15:34.460they be celebrating like we're so happy about gay rights like there's there's no unlike the
00:15:41.340americans the europeans don't really have a sort of cohesive identity and they also i don't know
00:15:47.840they they seem to be allergic to using military force probably because they were disarmed after
00:15:52.560world war ii i think without those two sort of crucial things you can't even really have an
00:15:56.660empire which i think is one big reason why the eu is making such a hacky job of it um well it's
00:16:04.320kind of interesting because trump has been encouraging of course nato members to start
00:16:08.800rearming right to start uh to start militarizing hey we want you to pull your weight we're tired
00:16:13.720of being a deadbeat and i think a lot of people myself included you know recognize that as as true
00:16:18.760and healthy but at the same time that's also a mission of we're going to stop being an empire
00:16:23.440that more or less you know makes you a satrapy of our uh defense network right like you you guys
00:16:29.560actually have to have some sovereignty you're not just going to be able to rely entirely on us
00:16:33.980having a military umbrella that stretches over europe uh which you know given what's happening
00:16:38.540with iran and the gulf states right now people are questioning the wisdom of relying entirely
00:16:43.040on the military umbrella of america uh to be your your kind of defense mechanism anyway but
00:16:47.920You know, it's weird to consider that from a certain angle, the EU is like a suzerain that got its own aspirations of empire.
00:16:58.220They're like, you know, not really willing to sort of acknowledge, despite the fact that it's true, that all of their sort of security provision came from the United States.
00:17:05.960Because I guess from the EU perspective, we are so much better than the Americans, don't you know?
00:17:11.240We have banned guns, you know, all that like stuff.
00:17:13.640they it's it's like they started having their own pretensions of empire whilst still a suzerain
00:17:19.000of america very very weird situation i'm not sure i wonder if that's happened before in history
00:17:23.300it's a good question and you know i think it's because once again america does not formalize
00:17:28.940these relationships right and in previous empires it was very clear oh no that military dominates
00:17:34.800us and tells us what to do and dictates all these things about us because america's uh empire is at
00:17:40.360some level one of soft power we never call ourselves an empire we never go out there and
00:17:45.300make explicit imperial demands even though we're very often making very implicit imperial demands
00:17:51.560well what i mean by that is oh no no one in you know no president comes and says we are increasing
00:17:58.840the the tax on uh all of our foreign satrapies by 20 for the glory of the american empire uh but
00:18:06.020obviously uh but uh they you know we do we do say things like uh you know if you don't trade
00:18:11.940in exactly this way you're going to get sanctioned until you're basically bankrupt so again that's
00:18:17.440why i'm saying there's there are there are somewhat explicit demands but they're always
00:18:21.300couched in kind of this neutral economic state actor uh you know well we're all rational actors
00:18:27.780here and we're just acting you to play by the international rules rather than saying well we
00:18:32.420dictate the international rules because you know we own you yeah like they're they don't they don't
00:18:37.000use that kind of language yeah it's it's the the americans uh love to use this this idea of freedom
00:18:43.260of association and a moral high ground all this kind of other stuff which kind of language which
00:18:47.400the the eu has has tried to to copy but you know when the rubber hits the when the rubber hits the
00:18:52.500road when the pointy stick meets the the soft flesh there is always like a an actual demand
00:18:58.260in there makes it makes you kind of like wonder whether um it would actually just be better for
00:19:05.200the u.s to just come out and say uh actually we're an empire now uh we're just we're gonna do what we
00:19:10.780want uh you better you're a satrapy uh you're gonna like it and if you complain i i honestly
00:19:17.640i don't know it would certainly be a change no i actually if you know if we're going to do the
00:19:24.580empire thing i am 100 behind the formalism right like let's just formalize it make it clear what
00:19:29.660the relationship is that way americans aren't because because we lie to ourselves as americans
00:19:34.200as much about this as we lie to other nations about it right like america is in a deep deep
00:19:39.860denial the average american is in deep deep denial about the the possession of of an empire and it
00:19:45.720would just be healthier if we could operate it explicitly for our interests rather than the
00:19:50.540the thing that happens right now is because we're not required to operate the american empire
00:19:54.760directly for our interests a lot of times it just ends up benefiting our elites they just end up
00:19:59.360you know manipulating it only for their benefit because the people don't expect any benefit from
00:20:05.420it uh not that we don't receive benefits but you understand what i'm saying like because we don't
00:20:10.080have that explicit relationship uh we don't we don't expect you know at least when caesar went
00:20:14.420on campaign people expected him to come back with you know with gold with you know with money with
00:20:20.720with wealth opulence like they they expected something to happen after the conquest that
00:20:25.200benefited them the empire was for them and not just uh for the elites alone i i think it's
00:20:31.900actually core to the american experience the whole idea of democracy and ruling by consent and all
00:20:36.360this kind of other stuff it gives americans like a bad taste to sort of think that they just
00:20:40.240go into places and you know and break stuff up for resource extraction but it's it's nonetheless
00:20:45.380true sorry i mean we we are a we are a country that's literally founded on the idea that we
00:20:51.960were breaking away from a global empire so it's a little hard to square that circle it really is
00:20:57.140with the american identity um but yeah i think that's that's a lot of that's why we end up being
00:21:02.700so schizophrenic in our approach i think to global governance uh which is unhealthy looking for more
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00:21:38.080so sea power number 12 one of the more benevolent ways in which a superpower can promote both
00:21:43.500peace and commerce is by command of the sea from waterloo to 1914 the british navy commanded the
00:21:50.480seas of the world britain grew rich but she also made the seas safe for commerce of all nations
00:21:55.360and prevented major wars for a thousand years curiously enough the question of sea power has
00:22:00.420never uh clearly uh was never clearly distinguished in british politics during the last 50 years from
00:22:06.620the question of imperial rule over other countries in fact the two subjects were entirely distinct
00:22:11.900sea power does not offend small countries as does military occupation if britain had maintained her
00:22:18.160navy with a few naval bases overseas in isolated islands and she'd had independence and had given
00:22:24.200independence to colonies which had asked for it the world might well be more stable place today
00:22:29.520In fact, however, the Navy has swept away, was swept away in popular, in the popular outcry against imperialism.
00:22:38.400So this is obviously true, or at least the first part is obviously true about the control of the seas and empire.
00:22:46.600Obviously, you have states like Portugal, which created trading empires more than they created these kind of colonies.
00:22:54.420And there's vast wealth that can be harnessed by controlling the seas.
00:22:58.120It's of great benefit. Obviously, now air travel also a very important node in this kind of understanding of these networks.
00:23:06.860But clearly what we're seeing in the Strait of Hormuz obviously shows us how important having dominance of your Navy is to maintain trade.
00:23:15.660if you've built your empire as the americans have on kind of this just-in-time delivery system this
00:23:21.220extraction of resources system these global markets uh then even uh nations that would
00:23:27.160otherwise never have uh the ability to impose their will militarily on you can instead attack
00:23:33.400your economy you know the the target of iran's attacks is not the american military it's the
00:23:39.260american economy and that's the only way that they can win and they know it and in many ways it's
00:23:44.200working uh so we can see that the truth of that the the second part is interesting uh the idea
00:23:49.560that the domination of the seas is not as offensive to people as a direct colonization
00:23:54.780direct occupation so you can project a lot of power without uh gaining the ire of average people
00:24:00.560you can even be seen as a peacemaker who facilitates trade at some level as long as you
00:24:06.560don't move in and dominate these areas i think there's some truth to that um uh but uh you know
00:24:12.180This is certainly the idea that many of the American founding fathers talked about.
00:24:15.940This is the Hamilton's kind of mercantile seagoing empire was certainly, I think, the first iteration of this.
00:24:23.460They were not looking to dominate and control land at that time.
00:24:27.120But obviously, I think these are outgrowths of each other.
00:24:30.120So I don't know if they can be as neatly separated as he wants them to be.
00:24:33.680The question really is how fair is the international rules-based order that winds up sort of being instantiated.
00:24:41.960So the idea of a hegemon imposing freedom of navigation on the world so that trade can pursue is fundamentally a good idea.
00:24:54.620The problem is that the temptation is for the hegemon to begin slanting that system in their favor.
00:25:01.740And, you know, and we wind up with this situation that we have today, you know, Bretton Woods and the United Nations and all of these institutions that were established, you know, under the idea that the rules would apply to every country equally.
00:25:18.200That's how they got everyone to sign on.
00:25:20.100But in fact, of course, that's not that's not how it works.
00:25:22.880so i don't know i mean you you could probably say something about uh the temptation of uh any empire
00:25:30.140that starts with you know um humanitarian goals to have those goals begin to like you know stretch
00:25:38.920to be more and more and more and more and more self-serving until uh you know it's it's basically
00:25:43.000our way or the highway where the or to put another way we're the only rules-based order uh in the
00:25:49.020house where else are you gonna go huh yeah that's exactly right yeah and this is always the the
00:25:55.540problem with neutrality right is that it never really exists the temptation as you say to slowly
00:26:00.700but surely uh kind of warp yourself uh warp the order around your advantages is always going to
00:26:05.900be there and so why people might initially be very grateful for the peace that you bring and
00:26:10.560the prosperity and the ability of free markets and commerce that you provide uh as the as the
00:26:16.060thumb on the scale gets heavier and heavier they're less and less willing to pay that price
00:26:20.160and that's why we're seeing places you know bricks and these other efforts to kind of leverage away
00:26:24.720from the american economic uh hegemon uh because there's too too many advantages i i said this many
00:26:31.520times especially when when biden did it with ukraine uh you know when he attempted to defeat
00:26:36.760russia through sanctions thinking that he just was going to win the ukrainian war through
00:26:40.560economic means uh you you immediately created an incentive where all of these countries said oh
00:26:45.680well if you're just going to freeze every russian asset there's no reason to be connected to the
00:26:49.960american uh financial system because the cost of that is far too high like the fact that you can
00:26:55.060just switch this off at any moment and so you're actually destroying your advantage by overreaching
00:27:00.440uh and trying to leverage it to win a war as opposed to simply you know glean a little bit
00:27:06.000off the top of uh you know any given uh commercial interaction well economic war is is seen as
00:27:11.600a war sort of without cost for the the hegemon i think this is what drives like a lot of it right
00:27:18.040if you're if you're talking like america with this massive gdp and say they want to screw over
00:27:24.240oh i don't know south sudan or some small african country okay by simply blocking locking them out
00:27:30.140of swift they have declared war on them but it's zero cost really to the the hegemon right like
00:27:36.780you know you know what how much i mean if if raw resources have to be taken from that country
00:27:41.220uh they can just have a narrow exception oh yes you know you can still export cobalt from you know
00:27:47.060that one that one tiny territory but the the rest of the the you know trade is is cut off as opposed
00:27:53.900to actual military intervention i think this is a temptation that leads um countries like america to
00:27:59.880do this over and over and over because when it works they have essentially managed to find to
00:28:05.140get to the goals that would normally be achieved with military action without putting boots on the
00:28:10.000ground or really sort of much trouble at all uh do you want me to read the next bit or you want to
00:28:14.380yes please okay um 13 the age of commerce let us now however return to the life story of our
00:28:21.560typical empire we have already considered the age of outburst when a little regarded people
00:28:26.980suddenly bursts onto the world stage with a wild courage and energy let us call it the age of the
00:28:33.120pioneers then we saw that these new conquerors acquired the sophisticated weapons of the old
00:28:38.320empires and adopted their regular systems of military organization and training a great period
00:28:44.040of military expansion ensued which we may call the age of conquests the conquest resulted in
00:28:49.920the acquisition of vast territories under one government thereby automatically giving rise to
00:28:55.060commercial prosperity we may call this the age of commerce the age of conquests of course overlaps
00:29:01.640with the age of commerce the proud military traditions still hold sway and the great armies
00:29:06.920guard the frontiers but gradually the desire to make money seems to gain hold of the public
00:29:11.720during the military period glory and honor were the principal objects of ambition to the merchant
00:29:17.520such ideas are but empty words which add nothing to the bank balance so we can of course see this
00:29:25.360in the roman empire the classic example right uh rome starts with a military that's voluntary
00:29:31.040in fact being in the military is really your only way to obtain
00:29:34.880honor and so many people have to spend their own money
00:29:39.160to buy the equipment serving the military is the only
00:29:43.220way to advance socially because that honor culture that idea
00:29:47.340of physical prowess is the only way to gain glory it's what
00:29:51.160you know people are fixated on that's where all the great stories are told
00:29:54.980but then you get the Marian reforms you get the shift in creating
00:29:59.160a permanent and professional military that's now being paid by the state that's being outfitted
00:30:04.340by the state uh that desire of a professionalized force is to constantly be used and so you see it
00:30:10.740out in the field all the time when you have professional troops they need to be deployed
00:30:14.280they can't just be sitting around that causes problems so you're out there constantly trying
00:30:18.040to expand territory win uh glory that way uh but you in the process uh kind of remove the average
00:30:24.420person from military service it's no longer expected that every person will involve themselves
00:30:29.780and this creates a large amount of money uh you know wealth as the territory expands you know
00:30:34.640obviously uh the the first emperor of rome uh augustus octavian uh famously said that he found
00:30:42.820rome a city of uh what was a city of clay and and turned into a city of marble or something
00:30:48.860it's along those lines i forget the the first one the city of stone and turned into a city of marble
00:30:53.180something like that uh but rome became far more opulent under uh his rule and of course there
00:30:58.880are a lot of glorious times in the roman empire as well but you can definitely see the shift
00:31:03.700of the average roman being this kind of yeoman farmer and warrior uh who is more about austerity
00:31:09.640uh more about the the glory of uh of physical victory in the field and then they shift to a0.58
00:31:15.920moment where they're importing a bunch of slaves they're making a bunch of money uh the the the
00:31:20.140military service is now professional and not something that every nobleman needs to volunteer
00:31:24.420for. And of course, America is also seeing this. You see wide-scale efforts to have drafts in World
00:31:31.780War II or World War I. Everyone went to war. You couldn't become elected if you didn't have some
00:31:36.700kind of military service. Then you saw Vietnam, where trying to run a draft was incredibly
00:31:41.820resisted. The average person didn't want to go into the military. They didn't see this as a
00:31:45.420service and today america's military is almost entirely a tiny hereditary class very few people
00:31:52.740serve in the military very few people even know someone who serves in the military uh and obviously
00:31:57.580we have all of the uh kind of material benefits that have come from that expansion but it has
00:32:02.760very much shifted us from a a nation that recognized the glory of military service and
00:32:08.080acts of valor and now one that is almost entirely focused on financialization making money these
00:32:13.640kind of things i think there might be a very seductive idea lurking at the heart of this
00:32:18.880um that you to reference my earlier point that you can wage war or social terraforming through0.59
00:32:26.300economics right um i say uh you know it's a road bottom why are the natives like so up in arms0.98
00:32:32.200well you know they're very very poor are they mostly are dirt farmers uh you know well what1.00
00:32:37.280if we gave them all you know washing machines and mobile phones and no no no perhaps then they could
00:32:43.280join civilization now i think there's something quite self-serving about this as well because
00:32:48.960you you can reduce the power of the army you can increase the power of the bureaucracy
00:32:52.380you can increase the power of the banks of the you know the merchants um and this this would be a
00:32:58.580sort of a very very a very tantalizing idea because no no no one really enjoys like eternal
00:33:05.000war i i know some people sort of say that they do but i think war fatigue is a a highly
00:33:10.700underappreciated part of societies i think for example the us is going through a very very major
00:33:15.580period of war fatigue at the moment you just cannot sustain war indefinitely and once it gets
00:33:22.620to a certain point i think arguments like this well you know instead of going to war uh with0.62
00:33:27.180the natives you know why don't we air drop them you know washing machines and digital watches and0.97
00:33:31.980you know coca-cola um you know they seem to like that you know they like coca-cola everybody likes1.00
00:33:36.780coca-cola right like what's wrong with you you don't like coca-cola um but it's only really just
00:33:41.540it's the whole social and economic circumstances argument uh unironically that you could just you
00:33:47.920know um you see it a lot from the un that you could just uplift all of these countries uh around
00:33:53.040the world and once they had the equivalent of western living standards everything would be
00:33:57.620fine you know they would they would champion lgbtq rights and they would you know be for democracy and
00:34:02.860all this kind of other stuff um i think it's just seductive in its universe universality but it's
00:34:08.640it's just not true yeah the the people of africa it's not that they can't maintain civilizations
00:34:13.520it's just that they don't have laptop computers and once they have computers africa will be fixed
00:34:18.080right precisely but from a commercial perspective if you keep sending them laptop computers and they
00:34:23.820keep setting them on fire and dancing around them in funny headdresses or you know whatever okay um0.98
00:34:29.720if you have a stupid enough ngo you could always just sell them more laptops to send over to africa1.00
00:34:34.960to be destroyed and then again and again and again so from the point of view of the profit motive of1.00
00:34:40.680the people who are actually selling the laptop computers is a fabulous idea but it's not going to
00:34:44.580get you any kind of like actual stability through um commercialization right there's uh this is the
00:34:52.100gdp as a measure problem right like ultimately it does not reveal the actual production it just
00:34:56.960shows you that the number goes up and if the line goes up then you know there there is always as you
00:35:01.380say uh an infinite market at some level as long as things stay opulent uh for these ngos or other0.99
00:35:07.500organizations to to drive those numbers up doing the same uh thing even if it's absolutely a stupid0.88
00:35:12.260failure all right uh number 14 here art and luxury the wealth which seems almost without effort to0.84
00:35:19.340pour into the country enables the commercial class to grow immensely rich how to spend all this money
00:35:24.500becomes a problem to the wealthy business
00:35:54.500peculiarly splendid the ancient virtues of courage patriotism and devotion to duty
00:36:00.680are still in evidence the nation is proud united and full of self-confidence boys are required
00:36:06.280first of all to be manly to ride to shoot straight and tell the truth is remarkable
00:36:11.980what emphasis placed on this stage about the manly virtues of truthfulness for lying as cowardice
00:36:17.720the fear of facing up to the situation boy schools are intentionally rough frugal eating hard living
00:36:24.480breaking the ice to have a bath and similar customs are aimed at producing a strong hard
00:36:29.340hardy and fearless breed of men duty is the word consistently drummed into the heads of young men
00:36:35.500the age of commerce is also marked by the great enterprise in the exploration for new forms of
00:36:42.760wealth daring initiative is shown in the search for profitable enterprises in far corners of the
00:36:48.000earth perpetuating to some the degrees of adventurous courage of the age of conquest
00:36:53.540So again, this makes a lot of sense because the initial beginning of age of commerce is still coming out of that warrior society, right? You created this powerful, vigorous society. And even though you've moved into this moment where making money matters more, you're building this infrastructure, you're building these things, it's still about virtue.
00:37:13.720You still have those warrior virtues. They are kind of transferred in to this new age of commerce, but you still have enough social momentum, the institutions, the beliefs, the traditions to make sure that young boys are still rigorous, hardy, going after things, seeking glory, strength, these kind of things.
00:37:31.620over time obviously that spirit fades that the the you've gotten so far away from the warrior
00:37:38.440culture that the tradition cannot carry those aspects to it but we can see this again in
00:37:44.040america if you look as america's uh kind of economic futures expanded from world war one
00:37:51.400to world war two uh you still had a very intense uh understanding of uh kind of honor uh the guys
00:37:58.500going into world war ii the silent generation uh those coming back from the war were still people
00:38:04.520who are focused very much on this idea that you need to have uh you know these virtues however
00:38:09.820this the longer things went with that opulence the softer each succeeding generation got the less
00:38:16.600these schools were allowed to be rigorous now in america if you in any way try to inculcate any
00:38:21.460masculine virtue uh you're some kind of heretic who has to be destroyed by the civil rights act
00:38:26.200uh but you you so you can see how over time that fades even though it is very strong at the
00:38:31.100beginning of the age of commerce yes it's also interesting the point that glob makes about um
00:38:36.240the value of of truth and the acceptance of of lies um in in modern society the the i the idea
00:38:44.260that you should be truthful is is almost like anathema it has spread so far it's become
00:38:49.000sort of the default form of governance uh in in many places it's not about being truthful to the
00:38:54.900people at all the the basic sort of uh equation is you figure out what you want the people to do
00:39:00.260and then you figure out the most effective way to lie to them to get them to do it um
00:39:05.040yes it's it's not a good development in my opinion um but i think it's the age of affluence
00:39:12.380that that really sort of does it in right this this is i think the part of empire that a lot
00:39:17.880of people see uh 15 the age of affluence there does not appear to be any doubt that money is
00:39:24.340the agent which causes the decline of this strong brave and self-confident people the decline in
00:39:30.220courage enterprise and a sense of duty is however gradual the first direction in which wealth
00:39:35.720injures the nation is a sorry is a moral one money replaces honor and adventure as the objective of
00:39:42.140the best young men moreover men do not normally seek to make money for their country or their
00:39:47.380community but for themselves gradually and almost imperceptibly the age of affluence silences
00:39:54.240the voice of duty the object of the of the young and the ambitious is no longer fame honor or
00:39:59.760service but cash education undergoes the same gradual transformation no longer do schools aim
00:40:06.260at producing brave brave patriots ready to excuse me ready to serve their country parents and
00:40:12.560students alike seek the educational qualifications which will command the highest salaries the arab
00:40:18.540moralist uh ghazali complains in these very same words of the lowering of objectives in the
00:40:24.740declining arab world of his time students he says no longer attend college to acquire learning and
00:40:30.200virtue but to obtain those qualifications which will enable them to grow rich the same situation0.67
00:40:35.600is everywhere evident amongst us in the west today and man i mean we could not have a better
00:40:42.140encapsulation of exactly the illness that has infected uh the united states and the wider
00:40:47.720western world right like people don't even the idea of going to school to university to any of
00:40:53.960these places to become patriots who would sacrifice on behalf of the country almost sounds insane
00:41:00.140right it sounds like something out of a captain america comic book from the 1940s uh the idea
00:41:05.660that you go to university for anything other than gaining a credential that makes you the most money
00:41:11.560is entirely bizarre no one goes to college to learn anything you don't even learn anything
00:41:16.860in many colleges today they go because the piece of paper gives them access to career opportunities
00:41:22.720they don't care that the idea that they're going to go fight in a war and gain glory is insane i
00:41:27.920remember and of course a lot of tragedy around this ultimately due to what happened to pat tillman
00:41:33.560but he left a affluent career in the national football league in the united states in order
00:41:40.140to go fight in the war on terror uh and they that idea was considered so bizarre to people that you
00:41:46.360would feel a duty to abandon making money and fame so you could go end up fighting and dying
00:41:53.400sadly in his case in the middle east is ridiculous no no one will ever elevate him as much for his
00:42:03.840death in the military as they would have if he had just continued to be a star football player0.54
00:42:09.640and that tells you something very dangerous about your society when whatever the endeavor is it's
00:42:15.480always just making money at the end of the day as is seen as the highest goal why is donald trump
00:42:19.980uh why is donald trump qualified to be president because he makes money why is elon musk one of
00:42:26.040the most important people in the world because he's the richest guy in the world you know not
00:42:28.720because they fought personal battles not because they were known for standing against 30 guys and
00:42:34.060some kind of uh incredible military uh you know uh incursion but just because they have money
00:42:40.100that's really it yeah well what what has basically happened is a re-engineering of status so in the
00:42:47.780in the early part of the empire status is gained from martial strength uh i mean just just the
00:42:54.140idea of of glory itself in the modern west has completely sort of passed by the idea you know
00:43:00.820if you stood up and you're like yeah well i went into a wreck and i you know killed like a hundred1.00
00:43:05.460to them hadjis and right like many people would be like oh my god that's like horrible like how1.00
00:43:10.640could you whereas like you know back in the dawning of the empire this would be seen as as as
00:43:14.860glory right like martial prowess so what has happened is that status has transitioned from
00:43:20.360being about martial strength or any kind of like strength really simply to money and then later
00:43:27.040credentialism and i mean you can you can kind of see how this happens right um once the periphery
00:43:33.820of the empire stabilizes once there's enough you know i guess laban's realm or you know whatever
00:43:39.580you want to like call it okay um and the empire begins sort of adopting a sort of defensive
00:43:44.740posture the main things that uh generate status would be sort of you know greater scientific
00:43:50.680discovery uh you know more doodads like you know a new way to like wash your curtains or
00:43:55.540or whatever and the importance of constantly pushing the empire out uh and thus the glory
00:44:01.780that would be gained by you know taking out of the province or whatever begins to decline because
00:44:06.880it it sort of reaches its its natural limit i this is one of the things i've i've thought for
00:44:11.880a while that uh and orwell made this point that you're never going to have a world-spanning empire
00:44:16.560like it's just it's just impossible no matter how many doodads you invent no matter how many
00:44:20.880force multipliers and ai and everything like that the world is just too large for one uh group to
00:44:28.040manage and as as it gets larger and larger the the complications exponentially multiply and then
00:44:33.820become its downfall i mean i i might be wrong i guess we're going to see aren't we
00:44:37.440so uh number 16 here high noon that which we may call the high noon of the nation covers the period
00:44:45.960of transition from the age of conquest to the age of affluence the age of augustus in rome the
00:44:51.280uh haram uh rashid in baghdad or suleman the magnificent in the ottoman empire or queen
00:44:58.260victoria in britain perhaps we might add the age of woodrow wilson in the united states
00:45:03.760all these periods reveal the same characteristic the immense wealth accumulated in the nation
00:45:11.920dazzles the onlookers enough of the ancient virtues of courage energy and patriotism survive
00:45:16.840to enable the state successfully to defend its frontiers.
00:45:20.020But beneath the surface, greed for money is gradually replacing duty and public service.
00:45:25.580Indeed, the change might be summarized as being from service to selfishness.
00:45:31.840So again, this is a really interesting transition because you think of the World War II generation,
00:45:37.400you think of the silent generation in the United States, still had that martial prowess,
00:45:41.320still had enough vigor to kind of keep the empire going.
00:45:45.140but over time the baby boomers are kind of the first generation to not have as much of this they
00:45:50.880do have the vietnam war but there's a large protest against it there's a large protest against
00:45:55.420the idea of being drafted or serving your nation because of it and so this is the first uh kind of
00:45:59.880crack in uh the armor uh when it comes to the american empire and its development here in the
00:46:05.340age of commerce the age of affluence now interestingly the thing you hear the most from
00:46:10.060boomers is well why don't you serve your country why are no uh you know why are none of these young0.74
00:46:14.840people civically minded why all they care about is money and the answer is well you train them
00:46:20.260that way right like you created this opulent society where you worship money you put making
00:46:26.040money before anything else um you're the generation that trained the subsequent generations to have
00:46:31.160this and you're just seeing kind of the third or fourth generation who has been raised on this idea
00:46:36.380that making money centering profit centering uh you know capital is the only thing that matters
00:46:42.460there are no other values really and so those values fade over time that that adherence to
00:46:47.840the old ways the traditions they were enough at the beginning to maintain the empire to drive it
00:46:51.980forward to protect its boundaries but over time with the focus on money there's just a natural
00:46:57.160spiritual decay that occurs and so it does beg the question here whether you know you should
00:47:04.700have some avoidance of wealth if there is at some point a limitation to how much wealth you should
00:47:10.060bring in the nation that's a very dangerous thing to go ahead and suggest in america you're going to
00:47:16.680be called a socialist or communist or whatever uh the minute you suggest it but it's hard to argue
00:47:21.580with gloves logic here ultimately we can see this pattern repeat over and over again now maybe it's
00:47:26.000true that you simply can't stop it maybe this is just inevitable and so that you're going to go
00:47:30.620through these cycles and trying to stop uh you know affluence because it will lead to decay
00:47:35.840is foolish right unless you're like the spartans over there uh ensuring that no one's get gets to
00:47:40.520own a nicer cup uh because it might put them ahead uh and create jealousy uh but unless you're0.76
00:47:46.160going to put that level of high communist style control maybe there simply is no way to stop this
00:47:51.220and a very and evidently from what we see from communist empires that didn't stop it either so
00:47:56.320perhaps there's there's that as well i mean glob doesn't uh mention this uh in this treatise but i
00:48:02.360I would say that after high noon is probably the point
00:48:05.600at which fiat money begins to enter into the picture.
00:48:09.840Financialization, usury becomes like commonplace,
00:48:27.000the first phase is expansion up until high noon
00:48:29.980and now we are into the you know the contraction uh the decline which starts with 17 defensiveness
00:48:37.820another outward change which invariably marks the transition from the age of conquests to the age
00:48:44.600of affluence is the spread of defensiveness the nation immensely rich is no longer interested in
00:48:50.940glory or duty but is only anxious to retain its wealth and its luxury it is a period of
00:48:57.400defensiveness, from the Great Wall of China to Hadrian's Wall on the Scottish border
00:49:01.220to the Maginot Line in France in 1939. Money being in better supply than courage,
00:49:08.520subsidies instead of weapons are employed to buy off enemies. To justify this departure from
00:49:14.760ancient tradition, the human mind easily devises its own justification. Military readiness or
00:49:21.100aggressiveness is denounced as primitive and immoral. Civilized people are too proud to fight.
00:49:28.320The conquest of one nation by another is declared to be immoral. Empires are wicked. This intellectual
00:49:34.520device enables us to suppress our feeling of inferiority when we read of the heroism of our
00:49:40.180ancestors and then ruefully contemplate our position today. It is not that we are afraid to
00:49:46.100fight we say but we should consider it immoral this even enables us to assume an attitude of
00:49:52.320moral superiority the weakness of pacifism is that there are still many peoples in the world
00:49:58.420who are aggressive nations who proclaim themselves unwilling to fight are liable to be conquered by
00:50:04.300people in the stage of militarism perhaps even to see themselves incorporated into some new empire
00:50:10.500with the status of mere provinces or colonies i feel like the uk is in that position alone
00:50:15.940when to be prepared to use force and when to give way is a perpetual human problem which can only
00:50:22.700be solved as best we can in each successive situation as it arises in fact however history
00:50:29.680seems to indicate that great nations do not normally disarm from motives of conscience
00:50:34.420but owing to the weakening of a sense of duty in its citizens and the increase in self selfishness
00:50:41.060and the desire for wealth and ease woof yeah so again we can see this echoed in sadly both
00:50:48.240of our countries uh obviously england more or less lost the will to maintain its empire
00:50:54.080after world war ii and yielded it to the americans saying well at least we can hand it off and
00:51:00.320someone will maintain what we have built uh they'll keep us safe they'll do the duty we're tired we're
00:51:05.520We're a tired people. We're a tired nation. We'll hand that off to our younger, more exuberant counterpart, and they'll kind of continue that forward. But in a very short time, America has also run this course. And we're seeing now, obviously, many people say that America needs to withdraw. America needs to pull back from its global commitments.
00:51:26.940on in you know ironically despite what's happening right now this is much of what trump ran on0.66
00:51:32.280the idea that we need to go ahead and get rid of nato we need to pull back from uh forever wars
00:51:37.360and constant military engagements and so this is a difficult moment because of course at some level
00:51:42.320we know this is true like we know that the pointless wars that america has fought in many
00:51:47.500situations the constant desire to kind of be the world police has uh exhausted us as we've lost the
00:51:53.820blood we've lost the treasure we've gained very little at the same time the calls to end that
00:51:59.480if you're familiar with history are also kind of calls to move into a very different age
00:52:03.980one in which also often signals imperial decline and this is what james burnham said in his book
00:52:10.360death of the west this is why he kind of still had those neocon tendencies because said look
00:52:15.180either you're expanding your dime either you're conquering the world or you're going to or or
00:52:20.040someone else is gonna be out there just because you decide to uh kind of recede from the world
00:52:24.740doesn't mean that all these other countries just give up on wanting to make their fortunes and once
00:52:30.280they realize you're weak once they realize that you don't have a hope of uh you know maintaining
00:52:34.940this you know you think of the the ottoman empire the you know the sick man of europe and the fact1.00
00:52:39.540that so many of its constituent parts were looking uh you know for their opportunity to break out and0.99
00:52:44.640kind of forge their own way i mean this is just a constant reality so we're caught in this uh