By Bob Hoye ——Bio and Archives--December 9, 2019
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That England should submit to essentially an unelected bureaucracy in Europe was endlessly promoted by The Economist. And the concept became so disquieting that I cancelled my subscription. That was in the 1990s and the loss of sovereignty has been appalling. On the plus side, who would miss the pretentious mag? In honouring her traditions of independence, Britain should Brexit.Well it was understandable that anyone who had grown up reading the adventures of Robin Hood and Ivanhoe under the Norman boot would be concerned. William the Conqueror enabled French opportunists and the Sherriff of Nottingham represented evil. On ending forced feudalism were the battles of the Hundred Years’ War whereby regular Brits became formidable against French knights. The simple longbow was deadly. At Agincourt in 1415, the good guys were seriously outnumbered. But with outstanding leadership, devasted a highly-trained and expensively horsed aristocracy. According to P. Turchin in 2003 , some 40 percent of French nobility fell to essentially the peasant-bowman.
Further adventures include the Horatio Hornblower novels. Featuring a strong character based upon real heroes who rose up in the Royal Navy during the Napoleonic Wars. Adam Smith liked “a nation whose government was influenced by shopkeepers”. This was in Wealth of Nations published in 1776 and much later Napoleon’s surgeon on St. Helena recorded that Napoleon, himself, used the term.
And the problem now facing England’s future is Europe’s past, which includes that with their authoritarian experiments, the governing classes eventually granted themselves the privilege of state murder. In the politically distressed Fourth Century, Rome became a murderous police state. In the equally distressing Sixteenth Century, ambitious bureaucrats corrupted the Church into a murderous and venal police state. Fortunately, unrelenting political intrusion has not been continuous as popular uprisings have been successful. Indeed, affordable government has been the default position.
Both experiments failed as earnings, wealth, freedom, and general prosperity disappeared. As the money ran out, Rome with almost half of its 800,000 citizens on the dole suffered serious depopulation The combination of military and welfare dictatorships destroyed the economy. Enclaves of relative freedom and wonderful prosperity developed city-states such as Florence (the word relates to “flourish”). Reduction of bureaucratic bullying was accomplished by individuals having had too-much of in-your-wallet and in-your-face government. Eventually, uprisings accomplished a great reformation.
Periods between the huge dislocations by control freaks are instructive. The usual condition of society has been government that can be tolerated and afforded. And if local princes became predatory, the response was leave, reform, or defenestration. Europe’s forests were cleared by hard-working individuals and settled. Towns were the focal point of freedom and trade.
Involuntary was also the case with the third great experiment in authoritarian government that began around 1900. At that time of limited government, can you imagine living in a nice neighborhood and a well-dressed stranger comes to your door? He demands that you pay him to own the house next door as well as pay for his membership at your club. It would have been rejected as absurd. Much the same at a family farm when some freeloader moves in and doesn’t help with the chores. This simplifies the result of today’s predatory state taking more than half of everyone’s earnings, and beyond that imposing tiresome regulation. The “Rules ‘R’ Us” rent-seekers have been extorting a living.
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It was an historical fluke, that the authoritarian Normans forced feudalism upon the mind-your-own-business Anglo-Saxons. But at that moment in 1066, freedom could not be defended.
However, by the 1300s, steps to individual freedom evolved with a way to end being a serf tied to a manor. If an individual had the skills and resolve to get to a town and make a living for a year, he became a free man. The opposite prevails today, as cities have become the demanding and angry foci of authoritarian compulsions. For more than a hundred years, these have been defined as either national socialism or international socialism. And with today’s globalism the latter still enjoys dangerously misplaced regard.
And in the US the “progressive” movement was launched by President Wilson in 1913, boosted by FDR, and carried to remarkable excess by President Obama. The latter’s blend of communism and fascism, which have been the banners of commonly destructive movements, has been ironical. What’s more, the Left can’t stand scholarly criticism. Anyone who dares is condemned as “Right Wing” or even “Nazi”. This error can be blown away by an old saying from physics about authoritarian systems: “Everything not forbidden is compulsory”, which covers every political ambition, from countries to school boards.
In 2013, the writer’s address to the CMRE was titled Revolution Without Intellectuals , which places the current political uprising in perspective.
Astonishingly, centralization has placed England, the former champion of individual freedom, under an essentially unelected bureaucracy. And, pardon the geography, in Moscow on the Maastricht, thankfully without the ultimate privilege.
Dismayingly, this is the England that expended huge blood and treasure in freeing Europe from Military Dictatorships in 1815, 1914, and in 1939. Essentially British and European freedoms were defended by village bowmen, shopkeepers, the “Tommy”, and sergeant pilots in Spitfires. Also, there has been the eternal struggle by non-intellectuals against Communism.
Then, with immense irony, England surrendered far too much sovereignty. This time, joining another of Europe’s authoritarian experiments – a Welfare Dictatorship. Fortunately, in seeking individual relief, a popular uprising has been building and now with Prime Minister Johnson it has an enlightened and motivated leader. Definitely time for another “Glorious Revolution” whereby Ruled Britannia could again become constructively unruly.
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Bob Hoye (BobHoye.com) has been researching investments for decades, which eventually included the history of financial and political markets. He considers now to be the most fascinating time for both since the Great Reformation of the 1600s. Bob casts a caustic eye on all promotions and, having a degree in geophysics, is severely critical of the audacity that a committee can “manage” not just the economy, but also the temperature of the nearest planet. He has had articles published in major financial journals and, as a speaker, has amused assemblies in a number of cities, from London to Zurich to Tokyo.