I think you are experiencing, either knowingly or unknowingly, the problem that a dialectical system of history is that it experiences holes of information that could leave out important events which have a profound effect on other events. The article makes no mention of the Greeks, though I find it interesting you start with Mesopotamia.
My article focuses on transitions between eras of ascendent and languishing political freedom. I believe the advent of classical Hellenic culture does not qualify as such a transition. If political freedom is truly ascendent, it will make its mark in a dramatic increase in general human welfare, as it did in the high middle ages, and in the industrial revolution. The Greeks accomplished much in the purely intellectual realm. But Democritus’s atomic theory didn’t free any helots. And Aristotle’s metaphysics didn’t do squat for infant mortality. And I’m no fan of democracy, so no points there.
How so?
Well I would take a position much like Mises and Rothbard in the sense that ideas are the beginning stages of either increase or decreases in human welfare. Thus the ideas of the Greeks helped establish a basic framework of the arguments towards / against certain political ideas such as liberty, freedom, property. The ideas of Aristotle, Plato, Xeno and the Stotics, these have force behind how politics develops. You seem to be taking more of a materialistic point of view concerning institutions as a factor in human welfare.
Well Mespotamia is an eastern civilization. It is generally concluded that western civilization really didn’t start until the Greeks themselves. I do not mean to say that ideas and norms were not traded between west and east, so that is why I find it interesting that you start off with an eastern civilization in explaining freedom which largely deals with western culture.
To a certain degree, yes. But I think it’s not to as high of a degree as Rothbard made it out to be. There were no pro-weak-state philosophers that paved the way for the High Middle Ages. It was the result of a historical accident: a bizarre equilibrium of Throne and Altar as opposing forces.
And the limited monarchy that came out of 17th century England, which was responsible for the Industrial Revolution there, did not spring out of the head of John Locke, or any other political philosopher. Again it was a matter of equilibrium. The nobility wasn’t strong enough to keep the people under their thumb any longer. But the people weren’t strong enough (yet) to impose all the maladies of populist democracy. So they, for a time, met in the liberal middle.
As I’ve said, I don’t think propertarian liberalism is an idea that needs to be formulated by philosophers. I think it’s an inherent part of man’s moral psyche.
I discuss Mesopotamia because it is a cultural ancestor of the west. To understand what the west is, we need to understand what it evolved from.
And greece is not ?
Again, the article is about transitions. Mesopotamia is an ancestor of the west AND the locale of a transition from an era of ascendant political freedom to an era of languishing political freedom. Greece is an ancestor of the west, but not a locale of a significant transition toward or away from ascendant political freedom.
Saint Thomas Aquinas? Isn’t the name of your blog “Summa Anthropica” a play of words on Aquinas’ Summa Theologica? Or is that a coincidence?
The throne and alter were not actual opposing forces. The alter was usually the legitimizers of the throne and vice versa.
I think Mises covers this in the introduction of Human Action in which he states that the Industrial revolution was a result of the ideas of the economists. Again the power of ideas, so while it did not necessarily come from the head of one individual it came as a series of progressions from various sources in which the culmination was the revolution itself.
Don’t take this as a personal attack but what you are saying is closely akin to a Marxist interpretation of history.
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Matter of equilibrium [ Negation of the Negation ]
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Nobility oppressing the people [ Class oppression, though you could say this is a libertarian class anaylsis of rulers and ruled and not necessarily nobility vs worker, so I guess you would have to further define what you mean ]
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People were not strong enough to impose populist democracy [ Class consciousness concerning the next transcended epoch of political development and the realization of moving towards it as a class ]
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Plus with all this emphasis on the institutions and the mild treatment of ideas as benign.
I think a really good book for you, I noticed at the beginning you said you were an amateur historian, would be Mises Theory and History. It looks at how history in interpreted and deals with historical materialism [ a Marxist philosophy of history which I think you are just partly skimming ]. I think it is without a doubt one of Mises’ most underrated books. So if catch the ‘historian’s bug’ like I have and so many other historians have [ especially at the LvMi. There are a few actual degree holding historians here but so many people engage in historical topics that it is really quite grand ] then a book explaining the philosophical implications of history would be a good stepping stone.
Well I think that there is a concept of just property in the minds of men but perhaps not a fully realized system of how to best propound it. I think that is why we continue to have property rights discussions with minarchists, conservatives, socialists etc. I agree with the Rothbardian/Nockian view of social power and political power, we see in history the attempt to propound ideas as to how best function as a people.
Do you deem the concept of natural rights as not a significant transition towards political freedom? A theory of what the government cannot do in accordance with the individual man? I think that such a theory is paramount to the exposition of political liberty. The theory was a product of Aristotle and the Stotics.
The High Middle Ages were roughly the 11th through the 13th centuries. St. Thomas Aquinas lived from 1225-1274. He couldn’t have paved the way for the High Middle Ages when he lived at the tail end of them. He was called the “Angelic Doctor”, but he wasn’t so angelic that he could time travel.
It’s no coincidence.
You seem to have missed a key thesis in my article. I contend that what makes Catholic Europe so different is that, for the first time in history, throne and altar WERE consistently opposing forces.
I wouldn’t say he “covers” it. He asserts it, but doesn’t marshall any evidence to support it (which is totally understandable, since historical analysis wasn’t the aim of the book).
Why should anyone consider such a statement an attack? It’s not a priori certain that Marx was wrong about everything he wrote.
You have a tendency of seeing ideological kinship in the mere coincident use of common English words.
A nobility is, by the most commonly used definition in political philosophy, a privileged caste, not simply an economic class. Not every landowner was a nobleman. I didn’t say “landowners oppressing the people”, which would have been a class analysis.
Throughout the 19th century, there was indeed a sense, even within the British Conservative Party, that ever-increasing people power was the wave of the future.
Sure, I see a similarity there. Doesn’t bother me a bit.
The High Middle Ages were roughly the 11th through the 13th centuries. St. Thomas Aquinas lived from 1225-1274. He couldn’t have paved the way for the High Middle Ages when he lived at the tail end of them. He was called the “Angelic Doctor”, but he wasn’t so angelic that he could time travel.
It’s no coincidence.
You seem to have missed a key thesis in my article. I contend that what makes Catholic Europe so different is that, for the first time in history, throne and altar WERE consistently opposing forces.
I wouldn’t say he “covers” it. He asserts it, but doesn’t marshall any evidence to support it (which is totally understandable, since historical analysis wasn’t the aim of the book).
Why should anyone consider such a statement an attack? It’s not a priori certain that Marx was wrong about everything he wrote.
You have a tendency of seeing ideological kinship in the mere coincident use of common English words.
A nobility is, by the most commonly used definition in political philosophy, a privileged caste, not simply an economic class. Not every landowner was a nobleman. I didn’t say “landowners oppressing the people”, which would have been a class analysis.
Throughout the 19th century, there was indeed a sense, even within the British Conservative Party, that ever-increasing people power was the wave of the future.
Sure, I see a similarity there. Doesn’t bother me a bit.
I care more about the development of political liberty than the theoretical exposition of it.
Again, the intrinsic sense of right and wrong is infinitely more important than sophisticated theories, which are often just rationalizations, either of what will benefit the theorizer, or of what they feel is right in their heart.
For example, I don’t think it’s a coincidence that Hobbes travelled in royalist social circles (he tutored the Prince of Wales) and Locke was in liberal social circles (his patron was the liberal Lord Shaftesbury). Each man knew which side his bread was buttered on. So, Hobbes concocted incoherent theories that validated the venality of his royalist buddies, and Locke concocted incoherent theories that provided (superfluous) validation to the fundamental decency and goodwill of his patron, Shaftesbury.
Lilburne,
I remember a post of yours in which you said something like “At that time I was an atheist and I made a silly comment on X” - or something along those lines. What struck me was the part “I was an atheist” which seemed to suggest that you are not an atheist anymore.
If it’s not too personal might I ask what [revealed?] religion do you subscribe to now ?
It’s not too personal, and I will answer. But first, I’m curious, why do you ask?
I imagine my mental processes are not too sophisticated…The thing is, your historical revisionism seems to be presenting the [Catholic] church as opposing political power and thus advancing freedom. So I wondered…
I’m not a Catholic, but I share the same view. You don’t even have to believe that the Catholic Church was a counterweight to political power to buy into the hypothesis that it helped to advance freedom. Even if it was simply a distinct political power in addition to other political powers it could have the same effect. Greater competition in the political realm kept other states from achieving greater monopoly power and thus weakened them relative to a world with less competition from the Catholic Church.
If there is more competition in the political realm, then freedom is advanced to a higher degree (relative to less competition).
The existence of the Catholic Church caused greater competition in the political realm.
Thus, the Catholic Church caused freedom to advance to a higher degree (relative to no Catholic Church).
I’m tired as hell, I hope that made sense.
Oh you are talking about people before the high Middle Ages. OK I though your comment was concerning it. Well isn’t the Dark Ages before the High Middle Ages? If so then what we saw during the Middle Ages was the rediscovery of ancient literature such as Aristotle and Plato. I think that would be a ‘road paver’ so to speak for what transpired during the high Middle Ages, the rediscovery of lost knowledge before their time.
But they essentially weren’t. The throne was not the altar like in Eastern civilizations but the throne did work with the altar. Granted one party would of been happy to been the overlord of the other which makes it seem as they they were constantly fighting, but this is like the premise that government intervention is always anti-business. Quite the opposite, big business has always been in kahoots with the government in order to expand its power.
So you propound that the industrial revolution was an inevitability? That it could of happened without economic theoreticians?
Well it has been thoroughly refuted by Mises & Rothbard and even the mainstream historical community.
Well am I wrong? You have just said that not everything Marx wrote was wrong. I did say perhaps knowingly or unknowingly you are saying things that are very much akin to Marxist historical philosophy. You openly declare you are a amateur historian [ not that there is anything wrong with that ]. Perhaps I am over-analyzing but perhaps I am not. I mean history is my subject, especially Marxism and some other things. I’d be more willing to admit a lack of knowledge concerning economics or philosophy rather then historical interpretations and events.
Well historical materialism has used multiple labels concerning what progresses the events of human development. To put it simply, there is the ruled and the rulers who are always in conflict. This is very close to libertarian class analysis which came before Marx and that is why I made that comment about how you should expand more in order to have your readers not confuse the two.
Do you mean to say the Tories?
Well you cannot separate practice and theory because it then seems like practices merely happen without cause out of the blue. Like mana being dropped from heaven.
Well it sounds like you are taking an emotivist viewpoint of history. Going by what feels right and wrong.
Like: Black plague…yuck.
Instead of: The Black plague happened on X, Y is why the Black plague happened, Z is the result of the Black plague.
Well what circles they traveled in is irrelevant. There ideas, their theories whether they are right or wrong, that is what is relevant.
You must have missed this…
One should not read religious bias in this historical interpretation. Suffice it to say that this author is not himself Catholic.
Aristotle’s work was rediscovered throughout the High Middle Ages, not before (except the Organon, which was never really lost, because Boethius translated them into Latin before the complete collapse of the Roman west). And Plato’s work (except the Timaeus, which also was never lost) wasn’t rediscovered until the Renaissance.
I said “consistently”, not “constantly.” Yes, the Church sometimes aided certain princes. But on the whole, it was a check on state power. By the way, both Rothbard and Ralph Raico saw the Church as an hugely important check on state power in the High Middle Ages.
From Rothbard’s lecture “Ideology and Theories of History”…
“…the Catholic Church was a transnational check on state rule. I think it’s the only case in history in which Church and State were not the same. In other words, in most civilizations, church and state were fused together, in a mighty alliance of throne and altar, as the conservatives like to put it. In other words you have the king, and the king is taxing people, etc, and then you have the church, and the church is telling people to obey the king, and of course getting part of the loop: getting a good chunk of the loot. You have state and church oppressing the public: taxing and controlling, etc, etc. I think this is the only period in history in which Church and State were separate: in other words, the Catholic Church, which was transnational, and therefore kept a severe limit on the power of each king. As a matter of fact, particularly, and by the way I recommend a marvelous book by Jean Beckler, a French economic historian, called “The Origins of Capitalism”. Why did capitalism only arise in western Europe? Obviously there’s been trade in every civilization, but real capitalism (…) really comes in only in western Europe. And what is it that made it so? And he essentially pinpoints the fact that power is decentralized, instead of being in a central empire, a central despotism. Each power is limited, you have independent principalities, you have villages which have autonomous power in many senses, and feudal landlords have autonomous power, and you have the transnational church to check individual states. You have very little state power either externally or internally as a result of these checks which allowed the market to flourish.(…) It’s no coincidence, according to Beckler, that the real expansion of capitalism comes in the 11th century, the so-called Renaissance of the 11th century, which coincides with (Pope) Gregory VII’s magnificent smashing of the power of the state in investiture, the power of the king.”
It did happen largely without the influence of economic theoreticians. I don’t believe the English were limiting the crown in order to be in accordance with Scholastic economic theory. And the significant acceptance of the laissez-faire prescriptions of political economists didn’t occur until after the Industrial Revolution was already underway in England.
The Tories changed their official name to the “Conservative Party” after the Reform Bill of 1832.
Weren’t you asking what brought about the road to the high middle ages literature?
In the sense that it did not allow for the complete rule of the state, but the church itself would of been happy to allow its complete rule. Like I said, each would be happy to be the overlord of the other which makes it seem like they were in constant conflict, however, a premise of ‘kings are rulers of the earth and church heads are leaders of the heavens’ developed. Think of it like two monopolies who agreed not to get involved in the others business.
Do you have any proof of this assertion?