|
|
Musings Report 2019-14 4-6-19 The Self-Destructive Trajectory of Overly Successful Empires
You are receiving this email because you are one of the 500+ subscribers/major contributors to www.oftwominds.com.
For those who are new to the Musings reports: they are basically a glimpse into my notebook, the unfiltered swamp where I organize future themes, sort through the dozens of stories and links submitted by readers, refine my own research and start connecting dots which appear later in the blog or in my books. As always, I hope the Musings spark new appraisals and insights. Thank you for supporting the site and for inviting me into your circle of correspondents.
Thank You, Contributors and Patrons!
Thank you, Robert M. and David Y. for renewing your generous support of my work, and welcome new subscribers-patron Tim B.
The Self-Destructive Trajectory of Overly Successful Empires
A comment by my friend and colleague Davefairtex on the Roman Empire's self-destructive civil wars--wars that precipitated the Western Empire's decline and fall--made me rethink what I've learned about the Roman Empire in the past few years of reading.
Dave's comment (my paraphrase) described the amazement of neighboring nations that Rome would squander its strength on needless, inconclusive, completely self-inflicted civil wars to settle who would become the next emperor.
It was a sea change in Roman history. Before the age of endless political in-fighting, it was incomprehensible that Roman armies would be mustered to fight other Roman armies over Imperial politics. The waste of Roman strength, purpose, unity and resources was monumental. Not even Rome could sustain the enormous drain of civil wars and maintain widespread prosperity and enough military power to suppress military incursions by neighbors.
I now see a very obvious trajectory that I think applies to all empires that have been too successful, that is, empires which have defeated all rivals or have reached such dominance they have no real competitors.
Once there are no truly dangerous rivals to threaten the Imperial hegemony and prosperity, the ambitions of insiders turn from glory gained on the battlefield by defeating fearsome rivals to gaining an equivalently undisputed power over the imperial political system.
The empire's very success in eliminating threats and rivals dissolves the primary source of political unity: with no credible external threat, insiders are suddenly free to devote their energies and resources to destroying political rivals.
It's difficult not to see signs of this same trajectory in the U.S. since the fall of the Soviet Empire in 1990.
With the primary source of national unity gone, politics became more divisive. After 9/11, new wars of choice were pursued, but the claims of a mortal threat to the nation never really caught on. As a result, the unity that followed 9/11 quickly dissipated.
I have long held that America's Deep State--the permanent, un-elected government and its many proxies and public-private partnerships--is riven by warring elites. There is no purpose in making the conflict public, so the battles are waged in private, behind closed doors.
Competing nations must be just as amazed as Rome's neighbors at America's seemingly unquenchable drive to self-destruct via the in-fighting of entrenched elites and the battle for supremacy between various parasitic elites who have the power and privilege to squander the nation's resources on needless self-destructive wars of choice and on domestic in-fighting.
I suspect this trajectory of great success leading to self-destructive waste of resources is scale-invariant, meaning it works the same on individuals, families, communities, enterprises, cities, states, nations and empires. It reminds me of Intel CEO Andy Grove's famous summary of this dynamic: "Success breeds complacency. Complacency breeds failure. Only the paranoid survive."
Highlights of the Blog This Past Week
Here's What It's Like To Be a Bear in a Rigged Market 4/6/19
The Japanification of the World 4/5/19
Dear Stock Market: You Can't Have It Both Ways 4/3/19
The Fed Guarantees No Recession for 10 Years, Permanent Uptrend for Stocks and Housing 4/1/19
Best Thing That Happened To Me This Week
I received a persuasive suggestion to turn a Musings Report into a book from my longtime friend and colleague Richard Metzger.
Musings on the Economy: Will the Magazine Cover Curse Play Out?
One of the most durable curses in the investment / financial world is the Magazine Cover Curse (also called the magazine cover indicator): as soon as a leading magazine declares the housing or stock market is on a permanent trend, that seems to mark the top or bottom.
Famous examples of the magazine cover indicator include Business Week's "Death of Equities" cover in August of 1979 that marked the end of a 16-year bear market, and the "Home Sweet Home" cover of Time Magazine at the peak of the housing boom in 2005.
https://gallery.mailchimp.com/d7ee5db74404cedc5e4bba858/images/2905493d-e39f-4915-8058-6b39ba3eb849.png
So it's more than interesting that Barron's cover for April 8 declares, "This Bull Market Has No Expiration Date."
U.S. stocks have logged one of the most euphoric rallies ever since January 3, 2019: 14 straight weeks of gains, completely retracing the decline of December and putting new all-time highs within easy reach.
Even Perma-Bears have resigned themselves to new all-time highs this coming week. It all seems so easy and almost ordained, as if nothing could possibly stop the giddy advance to new highs.
If there was ever a perfect set-up for a surprise drop, this is it: complacency, confidence and euphoria are off the charts.
From Left Field
Socialism and Milwaukee's Amnesia (via LaserLefty)
The Battle for the Last Unconquered Screen—The One in Your Car: Auto makers and Silicon Valley are locked in a fight to control the dashboard display... this is the endgame for "growth"....
The bizarre story of the L.A. dad who exposed the college admissions scandal-- fraud begets fraud....
Keiser Report: Central Banks Are Failing, Will UBI Work?
Remember Peak Oil? It's back!
After the Academy: we talk to eight working-class scholars about loving, leaving, and being left behind by academia.
Book review of "The Soul of an Octopus"
Mercedes Used Murals In Their Ads, Then Sued The Artists Who Made Them-- gotta love the thought processes here....
Old, Online, And Fed On Lies: How An Aging Population Will Reshape The Internet (via GFB)
Hold Your Nerve, Brexiteers
The World Economy Is A Pyramid Scheme, Steven Chu Says
Suing Google: Censoring Reports on the Silencing of Whistleblowers and Trillions of Unaccounted For Tax Dollars at the Pentagon.
"A basic principle of modern state capitalism is that costs and risks are socialized to the extent possible, while profit is privatized." Noam Chomsky (via LaserLefty)
Thanks for reading--
charles |
|
|
|
|
|
