Historical Inevitability and United States History

Usually historical inevitability means the king is great, the empire will last forever and I want to keep my job. The counter story, Noah, Gilgamesh or Ur, is that when you live on a delta surrounded by mountains things may change, someone building a boat in the middle of a plain may not be ridiculous and you should be nice to the hill kids. The first to directly disagree with inevitability as permanence was Adam Smith. Smith liked explanations. Smith said empires inevitably fall because they are inefficient.  He attempted to convince England to abandon empire, particularly the American colonies. Wealth of Nations, Smith’s book, is not taught despite its central place in political and economic philosophy.

I think the fall of civilizations is more basic. I was in Cahokia, Illinois at the Native American trash heaps. The museum said that this town only lasted about two or three hundred years and they didn’t know why. Two or three hundred years is a decent run. How long can people stand to live with each other? Generation conflict in hierarchical social structures is destructive. Especially surrounded by trash heaps:

-Let’s put Roger on top of the trash heap.

-Why will he stay up there?

-We’ll tell him he’s in charge.

Karl Marx’s ponderous Capital is taught more frequently than Smith. Read Smith first. Don’t bother with Hegel: things don’t turn out as you expect big deal. Marx speaks to Smith and he expects you to have read the basic work.  Marx’s attack on Riccardo is confused with attacking Smith. Riccardo claims to be a Smith partisan. Riccardo is a turgid waste of time. The subtext of Riccardo is that Smith was right except for a few details, but we know what we are doing and our empire will survive. Marx conscientiously knocks down Riccardo’s arguments, implying that of course this empire will fall as all the others.  

Smith has a clever argument that feudalism was brought down by consumerism. Nobility preferred things over people, leading to Noble’s impoverishment. Marx hates this idea. He goes on about the Crofters who were self-sufficient with their own land and crafts. Manufacturers passed laws forcing Crofters off their land and into factories. Unfortunately Marx adds a comment about now being able to join unions which was used as an excuse for collectivization. Marx was describing an atrocity. Recent events in Soviet Russia and old Communist China confirm Smith’s observation. People want things.

Don’t be smug. The Freakonomics series of books provides examples using Smith’s systemic principles to analyze current events. The authors throw shade on global warming.  I think I understand. James Hansen argued that greenhouse gases would create a logarithmic global warming curve. This was a fairly optimistic prediction. Hansen didn’t appreciate the amount of organic material trapped in permafrost. All curves look similar at the origin. Hansen hates soot. His recommendations are predicated on snow cover. Now that the cover is gone, the recommendations should be reexamined. The Freakonomics chuckleheads said:

-I know curves. That’s Malthus. Heh heh.  

Malthus observed that populations increase exponentially whereas agricultural output had increased linearly. Recognizing the problem, science stepped up and agricultural output has exceeded population growth.

Medicine has also improved. Because antibiotics are fed to livestock, each new antibiotic becomes ineffective. Any scientist who comes up with another antibiotic should be taken out back and thoroughly slapped. They are digging wells in the Sahara. The advances of science lead us to global warming. Malthus was never disproven. The curves will still intersect. Freakonomics is saying that we don’t have to pay attention to scientists because science will save us.

The check on human population is prosperity. When people are prosperous they don’t have as many kids. If trends hold we will plateau around 10 billion. Foul ups mean increase in population. The other issue is footprint. I sneer, quite rightly, at my neighbor driving his F150 to the lake with his jet ski while I drive my government subsidized hybrid to Madison with my road bike for my meet up. But we both have footprint. Freakonomics is being ninnies because the only political philosophy that promises prosperity without consumption is communism.

Socialism is consumerism on steroids. There is nothing wrong with a socialist having a Ferrari.   We should all have Ferraris. Then we can race.

Just because Capitalism fails doesn’t make Communism inevitable.

Don’t pester scientists for solutions. The low cost immediate ameliorative for global warming is nuclear winter.

The search for inevitability leads to geography. Geography is destiny because it defines why we hate each other. In my grammar school, the teachers divided the playgrounds between boys and girls. Once we knew the sides, we fought. The people of the delta, the people of the mountains, the people of the plains, the people of the coast, the people of the woodlands, the people of the desert, we all hate each other.

Japan and Korea hate each other. Looking at the globe, this is easy to understand. Japan’s isolation exacerbated the problem. Every foreign contact was a typhus outbreak. When the United States busted open Japan and demanded trade, Japan reacted by mimicking our worst features. They chose a state religion and conquered parts of Russia, China and Korea. My greatest fear of North Korea is that they will provoke Japan. You would think they’d know better.

China and Vietnam hate each other. Vietnam is gorgeous, one long nonstop beach, mountains, delta, farms, jungle, forest.  Say Vietnam was adjacent to the United States and despite our best efforts was still an independent nation that spoke Vietnamese. Everything the Chinese do is with the objective of someday being successful enough to take Vietnam. Vietnam knows this.

England, France and Germany hate each other. Newton stole Calculus from Leibniz. Leibniz was dependent on patronage and eviscerated by Candide.

In the United States, North and South hate each other. The North is right.

Recently agriculture has been held responsible for warfare. A male genetic bottleneck was discovered about 8000 years ago around the start of farming. This corresponds to finding ritually slaughtered groups of people. I think sedentary populations activated the human lekking reflex. Women selected the same father for their children. This would have aggravated the spread of venereal disease. The slaughters were response to epidemic. Dementia, particularly venereal dementia, is often characterized by a demeanor that can be both terrifying and infuriating.

War is excused as sharpening technological development. We are discussing inevitability. What matters is more difficult. Competition for sales leads to human development. But competition leads to collusion. War is seen as an antidote to human stasis. But war itself competes for capital investment. Marx spent an entire volume pounding in excruciating detail the difference between capital and money. The reason that stocks do well in inflation is that money and capital are different. War is a reaction to human progress and the, may I say it, inevitable social development described by Marx. It may not be communism, but it is change. Does it matter? Yo Helot.

Military industry has gained prominence as a cause for war. Since military industry competes in the capital markets it has retarded consumer industry. Because of the concentration of military consumers, military capital investment employs less people making it inflationary.  It is argued that military research is more productive. I will concede that government research is more productive.

The major cause of war is atrocity.  Different peoples favor different atrocities. Starvation is favored by the Russians and the British. Part of Adam Smith’s disrepute is that the British used market forces as their all-purpose explanation for atrocities.  If you see a smaller vulnerable group provoked to hopeless conflict, the British are egging them on:  Kurds, Baltics, etc. the Lawrence of Arabia syndrome.  The Japanese renounced war when they realized they could no longer see their enemies eyes as they were killed. USA is known for bombing and military aid.

Military aid is particularly disgusting. Living under a dictatorship is bad but it doesn’t have to be impossible. Eventually even the dumbest colonel notices that if people can go to work in the morning and return to their families in the evening the colonel will get a bigger take and may even be allowed to escape and enjoy their Delaware bank account.  Unless someone gives the colonel a few billion and tells them to kill the terrorists or whatever:

-Sure them too.

We have opened the gates of hell throughout the world.

I’m tempted to say materialist, let us take a systemic view of American colonial trade:

Imports	Exports
slaves	gold
indentured servants	silver
manufactured goods	land
earthworms	sugar
Honey Bees	cotton
Small Pox	tobacco
horses	peppers
Measles	chocolate
malaria	syphilis
apples	beaver
tea	potatoes

There are better lists, see Colombian Exchange. By land I do not mean that soil was dragged to Europe but rather the concept of land. Land rights and sovereignty over land are precious.

The forests we see today are far different than pre-colonial forests because of the European earthworms.

Smith derides the Spanish obsession with gold and silver, just creating holes in the ground. Keynes makes an allusion to burying money so people can dig it back up.

If you were to approach anyone throughout the world at the time of the American Revolution and ask for the news, they probably would not mention us. The issue of the time was whether France or England would rule the world.

The American English colonial population was around two and a half million including slaves, excluding Native Americans.  The population of England was less sure, say eight million. Britain’s anthems avow that they are a monarchy, they are not slaves, they are lucky and they run it. Britain’s opposition to slavery is due to their experience with the Barbary pirates.

George Washington was Virginian. Virginia’s principal export was tobacco. Prosperity was a consequence of how large your tobacco plantation was. This led to fierce inbreeding which led to an intense lekking environment governed by ostentatious display. Washington was a poor relation somewhere in the hierarchy to a good marriage to a plantation owner. Having a small estate, Washington was smart enough to earn money and land as a surveyor. The irony of surveying large tracts of wilderness while owning small holdings must have been obvious. His gentleman’s status entitled him to a paying military commission in the colonial forces. The French and British were engaged in a little bump and shove. The real point was to get Native American tribes to fight each other. Surrounded by the forests of Pennsylvania, Washington went mad and murdered a French officer.   

Nothing comes from nowhere. If Washington had not killed Jumonville we would still be part of the commonwealth. The subsequent French response made it clear that Native Americans, settlers, and soldiers died, not gentlemen. Washington’s force was subdued and Washington signed a confession. This started the Seven Years’ War, a global conflict involving all the colonial powers. As usual, burgeoning population threatened the existing social order. Jumonville perfectly crystallized the threat felt by the nobility and gentility.  In continental America the French were primarily fur traders, with few coastal harbors. So the British won. The French were depending on their strong European continental presence to win sufficient victories to bargain for their lost colonies, didn’t happen. The British navy and continental treachery frustrated the French. The British had expended men and fortune holding their colonies. Now was the time to balance the books. Faced with paying for their war, Britain’s opposition to slavery, and squeezed by the British loans and controlled prices, the colonies chose treason.

Robert Morris financed the rebellion. He knew that even with his great wealth, he would be squeezed next.

Tories, loyal subjects of the king who believed in paying their debts and opposing slavery were tortured in front of their family and neighbors and robbed of their land and possessions.

Washington’s military career was not as prosperous as he had hoped. The British were unhappy about Jumonville and a few excesses. But he had enough success to marry well, which was the point. His eventual commission as head of the Continental army was due more to his social prestige and position than his military background. The miracle was that ex slaves, farmers, and rabble followed the foppish Virginia plantation owner. They must have shared his avarice. He had learned to keep his mouth shut.

America sent our best man, Benjamin Franklin, to the fecal encrusted palace of Versailles. The French obliged with a few mercenaries, adventurers, funds and gunpowder. Washington skimmed the French funds for his plantations and land acquisition. Eisenhower was a genius, Butler won the civil war, but Washington, for all his faults, was the last American general who understood attrition. Washington must avoid a victory that only changes British command structure and strategy. He wants the British generals he has, thank you very much. Another constraint was the gunpowder drought. The English had gunpowder and the colonials didn’t. If France had stayed out of the conflict the colonials and British would have bled each other white and France might have both continents. By another miracle Franklin danced his silly dance, wore his silly hat, and dragged France into the rebellion. 

France sent General Rochambeau and Admiral de Grasse. Trained from early youth to their professions they fought a coordinated land sea battle that defeated the British at Yorktown.

Washington didn’t want to go anywhere south. He rightly feared slave insurrection. The South’s failure in all its conflicts is due, in part, to the necessity of maintaining garrison to forestall such rebellions. The British, as they do, were stirring up the indentured servants and slaves. They enlisted a few, but if they had armed the slaves the British might have won. Washington was dragged to Yorktown with Robert Morris footing the bill. 

With the war won, Washington made his worst mistake. Franklin was exhausted. Washington sent Jefferson to replace him as ambassador to France. Thomas Jefferson was a master of disingenuous sanctimony. When they had to perfume the pig: defend treason, bankruptcy, and slavery, Jefferson was the guy.  Washington just wanted to get Jefferson as far away as possible.

It was time to settle accounts. The French King would get the tobacco concession. Everyone was in hock, but with trade moving it was possible they could pull it off. The Virginia planters including Jefferson, American excises, Robert Morris, Haym Salomon, and the French monarchy would all be put square, or at least able to front. Then Jefferson and his best friend Lafayette, American war hero and French minister of trade, pissed on the deal. Why? Why would Jefferson do that? The Virginia planters were ruined. Jefferson was ruined. There were no tobacco excises. Robert Morris, Hyam Salomon, and the French monarchy were ruined. Why would anyone trade with this new country that couldn’t even do the tobacco deal?  From Jefferson’s point of view within the Virginia hierarchy if everyone is bust then he is equal.

-Not with my Tabachy.

With little excise coming in, Morse and Hamilton decided to tax whiskey. They didn’t want their loans defaulted on. If you were a subsistence farmer in the middle of nowhere the only good worth dragging over the mountains to market was whiskey.  The large distilleries didn’t appreciate the competition, so the tax was to their benefit. The farmers resented a tax on the poorest that cut their one source of tools and supplies. Some of the farmers were Washington’s tenants but they had long since realized that he couldn’t come out and collect the rent. So Washington didn’t mind enforcing the tax.

After putting down Shay’s Whiskey Rebellion the United States had enough income to borrow on. The British were amused:

-Didn’t pay us the last time.

Backstabbing Jefferson, having escaped the French revolution, told the French to hold off until Washington was out of office. The delegation came back from France claiming Talleyrand wanted his beak wet. Two-term Washington started as France’s man. Since he couldn’t get the loan, he should grab his hat and not let the door hit him on the way out. Washington forestalls Jefferson by getting his stooge, John Adams, in as president.

Washington died struggling to maintain his plantation. Under Washington we had begun to support England’s antislavery efforts. In part to oppose Barbary pirates. In part because it made domestic slaves more valuable and gave American pirates new opportunities.

Adams, having to choose from the French or the British, goes to the Dutch. At that point the Dutch are a two hundred year old republic. The Americans were kiting, or debt consolidation. The Dutch were pirates. Send a boat out, if it comes back they’re rich, what happens in between who knows? Dutch share the most popular religious belief, Calvinism, that the universe has an ethical plan. Gangsters like that you got what was coming to you. One of the many splits in Dutch society was between the adherents of Britain and France. The supporters of France also favored America. This division helped Adams get the loan.

Once Adams had the loan he scuttles back to the British for a trade deal. The French are already furious that after they saved America and lost their monarchy, Washington went neutral on them.  This left the French talking to Jefferson. To ensure passage of their treaty, the British buy Adams’ midterm congressional elections. With Adams obviously in England’s pocket, the French attack American shipping. America then has to raise its own navy and army, so much for neutral.

The Dutch were widely ridiculed for their factious society. Perhaps it was this example or Adams’ sensitivity to criticism that leads to the Alien and Sedition acts. Adams still saw himself as part of the British Empire.

The paranoia of Adams was justified. Daniel Boone was outraged that his Spanish land titles were not honored; Spain and America were not at war. Billy Caldwell, a British- Potawatomi fur trader in the Chicago area wound up running a Potawatomi tribe in Iowa. Whenever someone proclaims their good qualities: honesty, loyalty, courage, thrift, sobriety, virtue, modesty, or patriotism, consider why the subject was broached. Adams had no right to patriotism.

Adams’ repression elected Jefferson.  The United States population was over 5 million with slaves. France had almost 30 million. The French:

-Freedom for us and nobody else,

See The Marseilles, were now ruled by Napoleon. Because of Dutch factions, France had conquered Holland. At this point France was allied with Spain. Since France owned Holland, Napoleon forgave France’s Dutch debt. How can you be unjust to Calvinists? In the Louisiana Purchase Napoleon cancelled eighteen million francs of French debt. Some of this debt may have been owned by the citizens or monarchy of the Kingdom of France. Some may have been owed the citizens or government of earlier French republics. Some debt may have belonged to the citizens or government of the Dutch Republic. None of these lenders would have minded if the USA had stiffed Napoleon. It is difficult to collect debts without the support of a government. Debt default is one of the reasons for revolution and conquest.

As to the land, Louisiana, whose title had passed back and forth between Spain and France, USA was here and France was there. Haiti had just kicked Napoleon’s butt. Napoleon was a general, not an admiral; he wasn’t coming back. There may have been the occasional loyal French subject, whether colonial or Native American, but the issue would be far more immediate than a distant treaty, certainly not worth the expenditure. Everyone remarks how advantageous the Louisiana Purchase was to America and how Napoleon got the best he could, given his situation. Why do the deal at all?

The only accomplishment was funding Napoleon’s assault on Europe. Why would Jefferson do that? He did it because he was Jefferson. It wasn’t just payback to Adams.  The Louisiana Purchase was yet another example of American military aid.

The British, infuriated by the USA turning Napoleon loose and our support of slavery interdict trade leading to the war of 1812. It was generally recognized that the import of slaves subsidized piracy. We no longer had British protection against Barbary pirates and paid the pirates tribute.

The USA anthem says we are free and brave and we will survive and get those slaves and indentured servants.

The overseas Dutch carried on their financial affairs throughout the world, including the United States. If their money was good enough, they’re good enough.

Historical Inevitability: I give you Washington, Franklin, Adams and that sanctimonious shit, Jefferson.