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> The parasite classes win most of the struggles within every large society and ALL of the wars. It's hard to gather any lesson about this from ancient history

> The parasite classes win most of the struggles within every large society and ALL of the wars. It's hard to gather any lesson about this from ancient history, because parasitism was literally everywhere before the industrial age. It's only well into the 18th century that an overall elite class (as opposed to individual craftsmen or providers of specialized services) could emerge which would potentially be putting most of its efforts into actual wealth creation, rather than parasitism. > You can't set out to consciously reform society and get that result, at any sacrifice Again, probably true, back then (any social reform would amount to rearranging the chairs on the Titanic - there just was little or no ability for actual growth) but not today. The 1980s neoliberal reforms encompassed much of the Western and ultimately of the non-Western world, were highly successful, and are apparently here to stick. And they were very much the result of purposeful social reform! Even back then, the republican form of government was very much supported by conscious reflection about how it was supposed to work, and it arguably kept the Romans out of self-inflicted trouble for 500 years - which was probably as much as one could ask for, back then! (E.g. since you couldn't create much new wealth, the next best was to at least refrain from destroying what wealth and successful social organization you had!)

Nomentatus 8y ago
Again, I recommend Mike Duncan's book, "The Storm Before the Storm: The Beginning of the End of the Roman Republic." It details many, many cycles of the same phenomenon, and not just in Roman society. The truth is, it's hard NOT to make some rather firm generalizations from reading a lot of history (or anthropology.) There's lots of variation, but the themes that derive from Darwin's Spotlight: namely reproduction/sexual selection and survival, are extremely reliable. Re elite classes, Roman economic history shows that the Gini coefficient back then was remarkably high. In the book I mentioned just reading, a contemporary famously says that only 2,000 people in Roman society - at that moment in time - owned productive land. The elite were agrarian (their wealth was) until mid-nineteenth century Britain. But they funded education and public libraries (say, in the baths.) If you think today's elite are different because they are mostly creating wealth, that's just not what Wall Street does, and it's obvious from research that finance, while capturing immense riches, actually diminishes innovation. Elon gets a lot of press because he is the exception, not the rule. Neoliberal reforms - although I've been given that label at times (with considerable opprobrium), you'd have to specify what is sticking (or a reform.) If you mean global trade, the aforementioned book "How Asia Works" has convinced me the current reversal isn't a blip - it's impossible to police subsidization (he gives endless examples) so free trade isn't possible, much less sustainable. The tech gains in developing countries should persist, but the current system of trade is dissolving now. "kept out of trouble", no, the bloody revolutions (mostly attempted) tended to come every ten to twenty years. This was a cycle in which the Republic regularly went from "in name only, pretty much" to "partly or mostly true," and back again. I do get from your comment that we should probably be making a more conscious attempt to focus attention and acclaim on creators and funders of creation, particularly of technology and science. From the perspective of future generations, they will be "the elite that actually mattered."

Nomentatus 8y ago

Again, I recommend Mike Duncan's book, "The Storm Before the Storm: The Beginning of the End of the Roman Republic." It details many, many cycles of the same phenomenon, and not just in Roman society. The truth is, it's hard NOT to make some rather firm generalizations from reading a lot of history (or anthropology.) There's lots of variation, but the themes that derive from Darwin's Spotlight: namely reproduction/sexual selection and survival, are extremely reliable. Re elite classes, Roman economic history shows that the Gini coefficient back then was remarkably high. In the book I mentioned just reading, a contemporary famously says that only 2,000 people in Roman society - at that moment in time - owned productive land. The elite were agrarian (their wealth was) until mid-nineteenth century Britain. But they funded education and public libraries (say, in the baths.) If you think today's elite are different because they are mostly creating wealth, that's just not what Wall Street does, and it's obvious from research that finance, while capturing immense riches, actually diminishes innovation. Elon gets a lot of press because he is the exception, not the rule. Neoliberal reforms - although I've been given that label at times (with considerable opprobrium), you'd have to specify what is sticking (or a reform.) If you mean global trade, the aforementioned book "How Asia Works" has convinced me the current reversal isn't a blip - it's impossible to police subsidization (he gives endless examples) so free trade isn't possible, much less sustainable. The tech gains in developing countries should persist, but the current system of trade is dissolving now. "kept out of trouble", no, the bloody revolutions (mostly attempted) tended to come every ten to twenty years. This was a cycle in which the Republic regularly went from "in name only, pretty much" to "partly or mostly true," and back again. I do get from your comment that we should probably be making a more conscious attempt to focus attention and acclaim on creators and funders of creation, particularly of technology and science. From the perspective of future generations, they will be "the elite that actually mattered."