The Z-man has an interesting piece comparing the empires of old with today's American empire. He says, rightly, that the old empires collapsed when the cost of maintaining the empire exceeded the loot and tribute. But at least the rulers had the long term interests of the empire at heart. The empire might start out with armed loot and plunder, but it would soften into a more civilized centre surrounded by tributary and vassal states. And the emperor was the "owner;" he had an equity interest in the long-term success of the empire.
Today's ruling class has more of a short-term view. Its members have to pile up the loot while they are in office, and can't take the long view.
"The next election could find them back in the dreaded private sector. In order to hedge against that eventuality, they must convert as much private property into public property, in order to distribute it to friends of government."
That is Z-man's line.
But I am not sure that I see the difference. Rulers of the old empires were as short-sighted as any damn modern politician. For instance the Mughal emperor that built the Taj Mahal here in Agra spent about $2 billion in today's money on a personal his personal grief at the death of his favorites wife. Not good for the long-term health of the Mughal Empire that represented about a quarter of global GDP at the time. His sons thought it was such a dumb idea that they confined him to barracks in a corner of his palace.
Then there was the Roman Empire. In my view, the Roman Empire ran on the loot and plunder from the conquests of the Roman army. But there came a time when the empire stopped expanding, probably because the emperors were too busy playing short-term politics in Rome, or because it was just to hard to direct military operations on the far-away border. That's when the financial problems started. And the Roman emperors were made and unmade by the Praetorian guard: no longue durée for them.
Now I think that the basic difference between yesterday and today is that loot and plunder no longer works. Hello Soviet Union and Venezuela. Take Venezuela. Chávez treated the state oil company as a piggy bank, replacing its managers with his political cronies and using its revenues to buy the support of the poor. Ok, so his daughter is worth billions, but Venezuela is toast because the national oil company does not deliver the goods anymore. The cronies are incompetent, and the petroleum engineers have all moved to Columbia.
The way to be a powerful ruler that struts upon the world stage is to have a strong economy. That is what the Reagan years and supply-side economics taught us. But to make that work you have to lay off the plundering enough to let the private sector flourish: hello the mess of Obamacare. It's a delicate balance and I dare say that many politicians and activists aren't up to the job. (The activists are definitely not up to the job.) In fact if you go read La Wik, they are determined not to learn the lesson of the 1980s.
Now, I am not saying that politicians have given up on loot and plunder; I am just saying that they just have to be more discrete about it. And they have to flat out lie about things, like President Obama lied about Obamacare. Anyway, if you look at total US government spending as a percent of GDP, it has basically been constant at about 35 percent of GDP since 1980.
Then there is President Trump. His schtick is to tell ordinary Americans that he cares about people like them, and will Make America Great Again. Then he cutd taxes, cuts regulations, appoints conservative judges, and brings the troops home. It looks like, for now, he can do this because his supporters trust him.
Another thing. Our politicians don't face ruin if they lose their seats. They just get reborn as lobbyists, and make more money than they did as politicians. And really there is not much power for anyone in our system, except maybe for the president. Our politicians have to be very circumspect about their power projects. So many special interests have to be squared away that glorious new spending give-aways are hardly worth it. Obamacare was supposed to help folks that couldn't afford full health insurance. But by the time the Obama administration had bought off the insurance companies and the healthcare providers and the activist community there was no money left for the uninsured.
So I am not as pessimistic as the Z-man. I think that the modern economy that has grown 3,000 percent per capita in the last two centuries makes up for a lot of political stupidity. In the old days of loot and plunder the plundered starved and died, or were sold into slavery if they were lucky. Today we seem to get a new technological revolution about once per generation that redeems the follies of the ruling class.
Still I grant that there is no accounting for the depth of human folly.
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