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Musings Report 2020-50 12-12-20 Great Reset Roman Style
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Great Reset Roman Style
Great Resets are in the news these days as a result of the World Economic Forum's detailed plan that promotes a carefully crafted "positive future" of the 4th Industrial Revolution (AI and robotics), climate amelioration and more global surveillance--oops I mean governance--as the "solution" to whatever ails the global economy.
As I pointed out in my book Will You Be Richer or Poorer?, the key issue isn't what work AI and robots perform, it's who owns and controls the AI and robots, i.e. the productive capital.
The WEF's Great Reset leaves ownership of the wealth and power firmly in the few hands that already own the capital and power. As a result, the WEF's Great Reset leaves the world's primary problem--the concentration of wealth and power in the hands of the few at the expense of the many--completely untouched. The WEF Great Reset is thus already a failure.
One way to understand the origination, purpose and success or failure of Great Resets throughout history is that every Reset is an attempt to solve the pressing structural problems destabilizing the society's social, political and economic orders.
Just as with the WEF's proposed Great Reset, the implicit goal of any Reset is to maintain the position of the existing elite atop the wealth-power pyramid.
But one of the roles of effective leadership is to recognize when imbalances in wealth and power threaten the entire system and act to rectify the destabilizing asymmetries, over the inevitable protests of elites.
In other cases, the Reset is an attempt to reduce complexity, friction and corruption, all of which reduce the efficiencies required to keep the state/empire functioning.
Any addition of complexity/bureaucracy must increase revenues and resources above and beyond the additional costs of the added complexity. One example that comes to mind is the sweeping tax reform in the Byzantine (Eastern Roman) empire which raised the revenues needed to defend the borders and did so by broadening the tax base in a fair manner.
In other circumstances, the existing system simply doesn't have what it takes to respond to a sudden crisis (for example, a pandemic or an invasion), and the Reset is necessary to stave off collapse or defeat.
After our podcast on the parallels between the present and Imperial Rome's response to the Great Fire that devastated Rome in 64 AD (link below), Richard Bonugli and I briefly discussed what might qualify as Great Resets in the 507-year history of the Roman Empire.
In my view, the Imperial response to the Great Fire did not qualify as a Great Reset, as the empire was still at its peak and the fire did not threaten the empire with collapse, as did later crises.
Here are four transitions that qualify as Great Resets in my view:
1. The move from republic to empire with Augustus Caesar in 31 BCE. One way to interpret this: the empire had expanded to the point that it was unwieldy to govern with the republic's Senate, and the consolidation of Imperial power was a Reset to manage a much larger enterprise. In effect, the Roman "enterprise" needed a CEO.
2. Marcus Aurelius managed a Great Reset when the Antonine Plague devastated the world in 165-180 AD. The deadly pandemic hollowed out the Roman army and economy, weakening the Empire's defenses. This was a global pandemic and other empires collapsed in Iran (Parthian Empire) and in China. Marcus emptied the Imperial treasury to pay the army and instituted strict reforms to streamline governance and raise the funds needed to stave off the collapse of the Empire's defenses.
Trade never recovered to its previous level and that decline reduced Imperial revenues. Marcus's Reset couldn't fully restore Roman revenues and power, but without his Reset, the empire would surely have collapsed.
3. When Diocletian divided the empire in 285 AD, this Reset enabled more effective governance and military defense of each half, though it also established a 'frenemies' competition that weakened the Empire as a whole.
That ultimately led to the fall of Western Rome but the survival of the Eastern Empire, Byzantium, until 1453 AD.
4. Constantine embracing Christianity and becoming sole emperor in 315-330 was a Great Reset, as he made Christianity the de facto state religion. This Reset established institutions (the Catholic Church in the west and the Orthodox Church in the east) which survived the collapse of the secular western empire and went on to dominate Western and Eastern Europe until the Reformation in the 1500s.
There are many levels to any Reset that's successful: it must resolve the conflicts and crises threatening the system with collapse, it must improve or restore state finances, it must lower the costs and barriers to effective governance and it must redistribute resources and capital to defend against external threats and to rebalance internal social and economic asymmetries.
Marcus Aurelius was faced with a fast-moving crisis that gutted the empire's finances, workforce and army. It required quick action and sustained leadership on the front lines to stave off collapse. Long-term planning and reform were luxuries he could not afford.
While Marcus Aurelius had a co-emperor (who died in the first wave of the plague), Diocletian's division of the empire a hundred years later formalized a solution to the unwieldy size of the empire that had been attempted with varying success for decades.
Constantine's conversion to and institutionalization of Christianity was neither a response to a crisis or a political adjustment; it was a re-ordering of the spiritual foundations of the Empire and the establishment of a centralized religious authority quite unlike the fragmented pagan religious orders which satisfied religious longings in the first centuries of Roman rule.
The point here is that successful Great Resets don't hew to one type or taxonomy. They must solve whatever pressing structural problems have arisen (ungovernable territories, external threats, extremes of wealth inequality, failing state finances) and restore social cohesion, the glue which binds the people of the polity together and gives them purpose, meaning and incentives to make the necessary sacrifices to hold the state/empire together in eras of crisis.
Resets can save the day, so to speak, but leave some problems festering, unresolved. In Rome's case, two problems were never resolved: the concentration of wealth and power in the hands of an increasingly parasitic elite, and the lack of an effective system for transferring power from one emperor to the next. The wastage of constant infighting and civil wars between various claimants to the throne drained the empire of resources, revenues and social cohesion / legitimacy.
On all these points, the WEF Great Reset is a failure, for its sole purpose is solidifying the ownership of wealth and power in the hands of the current owners. That's the problem, not the solution.
Highlights of the Blog
Podcasts:
The Parallels of the Great Fire of Rome 64 AD to Today (with host Richard Bonugli) (31:40)
AxisOfEasy Salon #34: Reclaiming Capital and Agency
Posts:
Dreaming of a Christmas Without Stuff Nobody Wants or Needs 12/11/20
Cycles, Systems and Seats in the Coliseum 12/10/20
Welcome to the U.S.S.A.'s Banquet of Consequences 12/8/20
Covid Is Toppling America's "Points of Failure" Dominoes 12/7/20
Best Thing That Happened To Me This Week
Two best things this week: my friend and colleague Mark Jeftovic released the audiobook of A Hacker's Teleology--thanks, Mark!
And we finally gathered up the energy to send (old-style) Christmas cards this year after a four-year hiatus due to burnout/being overwhelmed. Onward!
From Left Field
How the Other Half Learns: Reorienting an Education System That Fails Most Students
How To Defeat The Empire
Covid Survivors With Long-Term Symptoms Need Urgent Attention, Experts Say -- the future crisis nobody recognizes or discusses...
Stop Pushing College (via BrandonRox)
Which is the Real "Working Class Party" Now? -- is "neither" a third option?
Student Loan Horror Stories: Borrowed: $79,000. Paid: $190,000. Now Owes? $236,000 -- can we finally declare the student loan scam is criminal?
How 700 Epidemiologists Are Living Now, and What They Think Is Next
'95% Effective' May Not Mean What You Think It Means-- fun with statistics....
US Household Wealth Hits All-Time High As "Top 1%" Have Never Been Richer While Poor Drown In Debt
Here’s How That Annoying Fly Dodges Your Swatter
The Unbearable Lightness of Blogging: How to Save Your Posts from Catastrophe -- pay for your own server and back it up....
ONWARD BARBARIANS -- long, but the section on "non-movements" is interesting...
"I'm more than ever of the opinion that a decent human existence is possible today only on the fringes of society, where one then runs the risk of starving or being stoned to death. In these circumstances, a sense of humor is a great help." Hannah Arendt
Thanks for reading--
charles |
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