A Formalist History of the World
Over on Aretae and Foseti's blog we've been having a Libertarian versus Formalist Deathmatch. We recently struck a key point of contention.
To the libertarian, democracy is an unsatisfactory form of government that ultimately fails to solve the problem of bad government. At first democracy was an improvement over monarchy/aristocracy, but over time it decayed.
To the formalist, democracy was a giant step backwards from monarchy/aristocracy at the very moment mass elections were introduced. Democratic governments have continued to decay to a point where it threatens western civilization itself. Simply re-introducing aristocracy/monarchy/colonialism would be a huge improvement. But these governments had their problems too. So as long as we're making radical changes the Formalist wants to introduce a much improved form of elective monarchy/aristocracy.
There are two main points of evidence for the libertarian case:
a) Democratic countries tend to be much more properous than non-democracies.
b) As the world moved from aristocracy/monarchy to being more democratic, the world got much richer. The commoners under Louis XIV were really poor, the commoners under President Sarkozy are much better off.
The formalist has two counters to the above data points.
On point A) the formalist believes that democracy is poison. Only the richest countries with the strongest culture and institutions can survive party politics. Weaker polities succumb very quickly to tyranny or civil war, and thus are no longer democracies. And unforunately, the Wilsonian reformers of the 20th century did not think to leave a control group of Western countries that remained monarchical. Except perhaps for Lichenstein which is doing quite well for itself.
On point B) the formalist believes that democracy came to power just as technological growth was going exponential. Democracy did not make growth go any faster, and in many cases made it go slower.
The above points are about as opposite conventional wisdom as you can get. It opposes Libertarian, Conservative and Progressive history.
To really understand the formalist point, you need to understand the formalist (reactionary) version of history. So here is a very brief formalist history of the modern world:
a) The aristocratic and monarchical regimes that reigned in Europe and colonial areas usually provided a quality of government that ranged from poor (Tsarist Russia) to very good (Colonial Pennsylvania).
b) People were poor in France because the population was at Malthusian limits. The government of France was not great, but the France of Louis XVI was no more oppressive than the U.S. government of 2010.
c) The legal reforms and innovations of the feaudal, aristocratic and monarchical era set the stage for rapid industrial growth. From 1000 through the 1800's the west developed strong property rights, contract law, banking systems, joint stock corporations, stock markets, rule of law, and jury trials. English common law, the Napoleanic Code, the Austrian Code, Penn's Charter of Privileges, and Prussian Civil Code all established englightenment era rule of law. These laws enabled entrepreneurship, capital formation, and industrial growth.
d) Concurrently, innovations in firearms resulted in mass, peasant armies becoming the most unstoppable military force. As a result, either by choice or by force, rulers began acceding to democratic elections to build the legitmacy needed to rally mass conscript armies.
e) Universal suffrage elections acted as poison. In the country with the strongest polity (the U.S.) the poison has weakened us over time, but has not been fatal. The quality of U.S. government went from exceptional in the early aristocratic republic of 1800, to good, to its current state of mediocre or poor.
f) Mass elections selected for increasingly jingoistic politicians. This jingoism exploded into the great, total wars of democracy: the Wars of the French Revolution, the U.S. Civil War, World War I and World War II. The wars between monarchs (for instance the 1870 war between France and Germany) were usually fought by professional armies and were limited affairs. But in the democratic wars the entire nations were locked into an insane, bloodthirsty, jinoistic frenzy, and the mob refused to allow politicians to surrender at anything less than total victory or total defeat. The democratic wars only ended when the U.S. and the USSR conquered almost the entire world, and then deadlocked in nuclear stalemate. The victors installed education systems in Germany and Japan that indocrinated the citizens into a docile pacifism.
g) In states with weaker polities the poison of elections wreaked massive damage. Russia's republic lasted all of eight months. The quality of government went from mediocre/poor under the Tsar's to disastrous under the Bolsheviks. German government went from pretty good under Meternich to poor under the Weimar Republic to catastrophic under Hitler. Mexico went from being ahead of the U.S. in learning and the arts to being a violent, anarchic, and impoverished mess. Bourbon Naples went from being one of the most glorious cities in the world to the most trashy. Italy went from elegant to fascist. Spain went from sleepy to civil war. The Congo went from one of the fastest growing countries in the world to the world's worst basket case.
h) In the Western countries, the introduction of universal suffrage lowered the trajectory of growth, but usually it did not impede the natural progression of technology.
i) Technology has a natural exponential curve to it. Once you discover a new energy source like oil, it makes a gazillion other technologies possible (mass scale fertilizers, automobiles, etc). And once you free up agriculture labor to become engineers and machinists, you get far more inventions.
j) As a result, technology growth accelerated, even as the legal structures which enabled technology growth decayed due to the democratic influence. The technology growth exceeded the decay in western countries.
k) Of course in other countries the decay exceeded technological growth. The introduction of the electoral poison in the Congo, Liberia, Rhodesia, etc, brought instant ruin.
l) The poison of democracy is running so deep now, that even the western countries will not survive the century unless the poison can be expelled. California turns into Brazil, Brazil turns into South Africa, South Africa turns into the Congo, and the Congo continues to be hell on Earth. Detroit remains in ruins. The industries are artrophy as the U.S. survives like late imperial Spain, by exporting its own currency. An ever increasing regulatory state is choking off economic growth. And the progressive elites of the western are actively pursuing a program of population replacement, by importing millions culturally alien people who will vote the correct, left-wing way.
m) Simply restoring the Belle-Epoque era aristocracies, monarchies, and colonial governments would ignite a massive rebirth of good government. Putting Evelyn Baring in charge of the middle east, Petillon in charge of the Congo, Peter Romanov in charge of Russia, Peel in charge of England, Louis XIV in charge of France, Frederick the Great in charge of Germany, United Fruit in charge of Guatemala, Porfirio Diaz in charge of Mexico, Washington in charge of the U.S., etc, etc, would lead to a massive and glorious restoration. The whole world would feel like it was waking up from a long nightmare. The gangsters waging war across Mexico would be brought to heel, the 50's style brutalist buildings that scar Germany would be torn down and replaced, the Congo would return to its status as one of the fastest growing countries in the world, the third world as a whole would disappear into a bad memory.
n) The first goal of the formalist is to convince people that democracy is the problem. Despite the devastating impact democracy has had on every country of the world, the elite still believe it is the best (least worst) form of government. They keep inflicting it on countries like Palestine, South Africa, Iraq, and Afghanistan, with disastrous results. Simply putting a general or king in charge of Iraq would be a massive improvement.
o) The second goal is to design a better system of government for the modern world. The monarchies cannot be restored. And for all their good elements, monarchies also had a lot of bad parts. So the formalist learns from history and learns what worked and what failed. The formalist takes lessons from the structure of modern corporations. Finally, the formalist pays attention to local situation, history, and culture. From these elements the formalist tries to work on the design for a government that could be as far ahead of monarch, as monarchy is ahead of democracy.
p) The third goal is to figure out how the hell to actually establish the new, reformed government. We are still many years away from working on that problem. But we cannot wait too long, the hour grows late.
Comments
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1 point by Genius Jun 15Bravo! Would you be willing to edit for Moldbug? I'd contribute some shekels if someone would pass around a hat to make it worthwhile. |
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1 point by GFran Jun 15Who is John Galt? |
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1 point by Devin Finbarr Jun 17Thanks for the kind words, aretae and genius. Genius - I had thought about compiling some of Moldbug's best posts into a pdf that I could print as a book and give to friends. But I haven't gotten around to it, more laziness than anything else. |
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1 point by TGGP Jun 22"To the formalist, democracy was a giant step backwards from monarchy/aristocracy at the very moment mass elections were introduced" I'm not as familiar with your perspective, but Mencius considers any democracy at all, or even deviation from absolute personal authority, to be a step backwards. He doesn't want to return to the timocracy of America's founding, nor does he have any affection for the Magna Carta. He once claimed to be in favor of the Glorious Revolution, but changed his mind and became a Jacobite. "The aristocratic and monarchical regimes that reigned in Europe and colonial areas usually provided a quality of government that ranged from poor (Tsarist Russia) to very good (Colonial Pennsylvania)." Russia was long regarded as the most reactionary regime in Europe (if one chose not to deem it a "Oriental despotism". Pennsylvania was founded by a Quaker, whom Mencius holds to be the <a href="http://unqualified-reservations.blogspot.com/search?q=quaker""To the formalist, democracy was a giant step backwards from monarchy/aristocracy at the very moment mass elections were introduced" I'm not as familiar with your perspective, but Mencius considers any democracy at all, or even deviation from absolute personal authority, to be a step backwards. He doesn't want to return to the timocracy of America's founding, nor does he have any affection for the Magna Carta. He once claimed to be in favor of the Glorious Revolution, but changed his mind and became a Jacobite. "The aristocratic and monarchical regimes that reigned in Europe and colonial areas usually provided a quality of government that ranged from poor (Tsarist Russia) to very good (Colonial Pennsylvania)." Russia was long regarded as the most reactionary regime in Europe (if one chose not to deem it a "Oriental despotism". Pennsylvania was founded by a Quaker, whom Mencius holds to be the <a href="http://unqualified-reservations.blogspot.com/search?q=quaker">epitomy of all evil</a>. Addtionally, Penn didn't even have real control over the place. It was basically in a state of <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anarchy_in_the_United_States#Pennsylvania">anarchy</a> (heaven for a Rothbardian, hell for a Carlylean) for a good while. Despite that it became the most populous & prosperous of the thirteen colonies. This is a serious embarassment for the formalist credo that you can never have too much authority. "The legal reforms and innovations of the feaudal, aristocratic and monarchical era set the stage for rapid industrial growth" Throughout most of history there was ZERO long-run economic growth. That didn't change until the Industrial Revolution in England, which was the most democratic country aside from Switzerland. Read Greg Clark on the Malthusian era preceding the I.R and Douglass North on the political change from the "natural state" to the open-access order characteristic of capitalism. Looking from the long-arc of history, war has decreased. It is only the productivity of capitalism that made modern wars so impressive. Sailer's "dirt theory" is a good explanation of why that happened. "catastrophic under Hitler" Mencius seems to regard basic governance under Hitler as superior to Weimar. So it was sensible for the populace to prefer him to the past. "Mexico went from being ahead of the U.S. in learning and the arts" I was unaware of that. Shows my Anglo prejudice I suppose. "The Congo" You can't just skip over Leopold's Free State. It was one of the closest things to an approximation of Mencius' ideal: ownership of a country by a single person with absolute & undisputed authority. Yet it turned out a hell of a lot worse than the constitutional monarchy Leopold was forced to put up with back home. Bruce Bueno de Mesquita explains <a href="http://www.econtalk.org/archives/2006/08/the_political_e.html">here</a>. "The industries are artrophy as the U.S" <a href="http://cafehayek.com/2006/02/we_dont_make_an.html">Wrong</a>. "Peter Romanov in charge of Russia" Mencius seems to regard Putin as a return to the good old days, and gives Russia (and China) as examples of some of the few truly independent countries. "Frederick the Great in charge of Germany" <a href="http://unqualified-reservations.blogspot.com/2010/02/from-mises-to-carlyle-my-sick-journey.html#4038049449867050094">He's gotten his Fredericks confused before</a>. >epitomy of all evil</a>. Addtionally, Penn didn't even have real control over the place. It was basically in a state of <a href=" |
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1 point by TGGP Jun 22Hmm, my comment seems to have gotten mangled. It was supposed to have started with this: "To the formalist, democracy was a giant step backwards from monarchy/aristocracy at the very moment mass elections were introduced" I'm not as familiar with your perspective, but Mencius considers any democracy at all, or even deviation from absolute personal authority, to be a step backwards. He doesn't want to return to the timocracy of America's founding, nor does he have any affection for the Magna Carta. He once claimed to be in favor of the Glorious Revolution, but changed his mind and became a Jacobite. |
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1 point by Devin Finbarr Jun 26TGGP Apologies for the mangled comments, this is what I get for writing my own blogging software. Moldbug's own writings are filled with contradictions, and contain a heavy dose of hyperbole that's meant to entertain. You can never be completely sure what he believes, and so I'm going to get into arguments based on Moldbug's beliefs. I'd have to read more about colonial Pennsylvania to see if it meets my definition of anarchy, or really was anti-formalist. During the bulk of it's colonial years, when it was doing very nicely, it was pretty clearly not anarchy, and not under a democracy. "Throughout most of history there was ZERO long-run economic growth. That didn't change until the Industrial Revolution in England" I cannot tell if you are disagreeing with me or not. I'm saying the legal developments from the 12th century to 18th enabled the industrial revolution. I don't buy Gregory Clark's argument that genetic changes enabled the industrial revolution. From what I've read of Douglas North, I don't think his views counter mine. "You can't just skip over Leopold's Free State. It was one of the closest things to an approximation of Mencius' ideal: ownership of a country by a single person with absolute & undisputed authority." I'm a lot less enthusiastic about power without accountability than Moldbug is. I am in favor constitutions/bill of rights that reinforce the state acting out of long term, enlightened self-interest, rather than short term tax farming. "The industries are artrophy as the U.S" Wrong'" What reason do you have for believing that fisher indexes put out by the government bureaucracies accurately represent what's really going on with the industrial base? And Fisher index has so much fudge in it that the number is completely worthless. If you want to dispute my claim show me numbers for how much steel, or car parts, or tv's the U.S. has produced overtime. Show me some number where the units is actually a measure of output, not a ball of fudge.
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1 point by Devin Finbarr Jun 26Correction: " so I'm not going to get into arguments based on Moldbug's beliefs." |
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1 point by TGGP Jun 27Some quick googling turned up this for steel production. It's just for the 90s, but it shows an increase in raw steel production: http://www.bis.doc.gov/defenseindustrialbaseprograms/osies/2-3-2-reports/ironnsteeldefault.htm William Penn created a frame of government which had a very empowered legislature serving three year terms and with staggered elections every year. The Governor's powers were heavily restricted. When Pennsylvania replaced Penn's frames with a state constitution in 1776, it was deemed the most democratic in America. It had voting franchise for all tax-paying free men. It had a unicameral legislature whose members served one-year terms. It's President was elected by the legislature, as in a parliamentary system. |
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1 point by Devin Finbarr Jun 28TGGP- According to this power point and this article steel production declined from ~140 tons a year in the 70's to ~100 tons today. And that's in absolute terms - its even worse if you calculate the decline in per-capita terms, or as a percentage of steel consumption. "William Penn created a frame of government which had a very empowered legislature serving three year terms and with staggered elections every year. " The elections appear to have a substantial property requirement, which puts colonial Pennsylvania in the category of Timocracy. It may have become more democratic after 1776. But in general the quality of government sharply decline after the advent of post-independence democracy, which is my point. Timocracy is better than democracy.
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1 point by Koanic Jul 10Brilliant. You are well ahead of me. My own thoughts on this subject are at around 25% confidence. Which is why I leave them in comments, not blog posts. It would seem a new generation of aristocrats must sally forth and slay democratic leviathan. |
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1 point by Devin Finbarr Jul 11Thanks Koanic. I'm not actually 100% confidence on any of this. I just wanted to state the formalist/reactionary interpretation clearly and succinctly, so it can be compared to the standard interpretation. This post originally stared out as a comment that got too long. |
1 point by aretae Jun 15
Magnificent, as I expect of you. I'll try to actually respond tomorrow.