Stage three. The Age of Commerce

Image from Giphy.com

Following on the heels of the Age of Conquests covered in my last post, Sir John Glubb continues:

The Age of Conquests, of course, overlaps the Age of Commerce. The proud military traditions still hold sway and the great armies guard the frontiers, but gradually the desire to make money seems to gain hold of the public. During the military period, glory and honour were the principal objects of ambition. To the merchant, such ideas are but empty words, which add nothing to the bank balance.

It's becoming clear that these different ages aren't necessarily demarcated by any specific events nor do they have specific targets that indicate the transition. At some point, it can merely be "seen" that they've moved into the next one.

Being able to exert control over large territories makes you able to leverage trade to your advantage and create great wealth. And that brings its own set of issues to deal with.

The wealth which seems, almost without effort, to pour into the country enables the commercial classes to grow immensely rich. How to spend all this money becomes a problem to the wealthy business community. Art, architecture and luxury find rich patrons. Splendid municipal buildings and wide streets lend dignity and beauty to the wealthy areas of great cities. The rich merchants build themselves palaces, and money is invested in communications, highways, bridges, railways or hotels, according to the varied patterns of the ages.

Ahem, we like to call that "infrastructure" nowadays and in case you haven't noticed, there's been a lot of talk about how decayed Murica's infrastructure has become.

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The first half of the Age of Commerce appears to be peculiarly splendid. The ancient virtues of courage, patriotism and devotion to duty are still in evidence. The nation is proud, united and full of self confidence. Boys are still required, first of all, to be manly—to ride, to shoot straight and to tell the truth.

Like Goldilocks said, "This porridge is tooooo cold." (I think it's safe to say we passed through this age a while ago.)

Again, he makes a statement that reinforces the subtle nature of the changes from one Age to the next:

The Age of Commerce is also marked by great enterprise in the exploration for new forms of wealth. Daring initiative is shown in the search for profitable enterprises in far corners of the earth, perpetuating to some degree the adventurous courage of the Age of Conquests.

Rockefeller, Carnegie, Morgan, Ford and a whole list of great industrialists comes to mind.

Almost like a who's who from Jekyll Island.

And all this accumulated wealth leads to:

Stage four. The Age of Affluence

Glubb opens this section with a somewhat counter-intuitive statement:

There does not appear to be any doubt that money is the agent which causes the decline of this strong, brave and self-confident people. The decline in courage, enterprise and a sense of duty is, however, gradual.

What's that, Money Changes Everything?

Who knew Cindy Lauper was such a student of the history of Empires?

The first direction in which wealth injures the nation is a moral one. Money replaces honour and adventure as the objective of the best young men. Moreover, men do not normally seek to make money for their country or their community, but for themselves. Gradually, and almost imperceptibly, the Age of Affluence silences the voice of duty. The object of the young and the ambitious is no longer fame, honour or service, but cash.

Image from Giphy.com

And before you fall prey to the idea that "educated" people are our hope and salvation:

Education undergoes the same gradual transformation. No longer do schools aim at producing brave patriots ready to serve their country. Parents and students alike seek the educational qualifications which will command the highest salaries.

Hmm, like Investment Bankers, ANY kind of MBA holder without actual work experience to go along with it, etc.

You don't have to look very hard to find perfect examples of highly "educated" morons in management positions of once-great companies that, oddly enough are struggling.

Oh, what do I know, the economy is bad, that's the real reason, not mismanagement.

High Noon

That which we may call the High Noon of the nation covers the period of transition from the Age of Conquests to the Age of Affluence.

All these periods reveal the same characteristics. The immense wealth accumulated in the nation dazzles the onlookers. Enough of the ancient virtues of courage, energy and patriotism survive to enable the state successfully to defend its frontiers. But, beneath the surface, greed for money is gradually replacing duty and public service. Indeed the change might be summarised as being from service to selfishness.

Tick-tock, tick-tock. That 250 year clock keeps ticking away.

To preface this next quote, I want you to realize that Murica has been publicly engaged in preemptive wars for over 15 years now. i.e "We need to attack them before they can attack us." And let's not forget that Murica continues to sell billions of dollars worth of weapons to the people who funded 9/11.

Another outward change which invariably marks the transition from the Age of Conquests to the Age of Affluence is the spread of defensiveness. The nation, immensely rich, is no longer interested in glory or duty, but is only anxious to retain its wealth and its luxury. It is a period of defensiveness, from the Great Wall of China, to Hadrian’s Wall on the Scottish Border, to the Maginot Line in France in 1939.

The United States Department of War existed from 1789 until it was renamed The United States Department of Defense in 1949.

One could argue that Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya, and Syria are all "defensive" wars, these nations do not pose an immediate threat to the sovereignty of the United States, but they might some day.

And then there were the undeclared, covert wars ranging from Africa in the 1970's ( @gavvet is posting an excellent series about that) to the Balkans in the 1990's.

(I didn't include the Korean & Vietnam "conflicts" here simply because I'm not sure whether to define them as empire building or defensive in their nature.)

My opinion is that these have served as a substitute for motes, walls and fortifications.

Take the fight to them before they can attack.

Update I can't believe I've missed this, I'll blame it on having stopped watching the news a few months ago.

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To justify this departure from ancient tradition, the human mind easily devises its own justification. Military readiness, or aggressiveness, is denounced as primitive and immoral. Civilised peoples are too proud to fight. The conquest of one nation by another is declared to be immoral. Empires are wicked.

‘It is not that we are afraid to fight,’ we say, ‘but we should consider it immoral.’ This even enables us to assume an attitude of moral superiority.

American politicians fall all over themselves proclaiming that they are not engaged in "Empire Building". It's such a dirty term, but in fact, they're telling the truth. Because today's politicians inherited an empire they took no part in building and they've done a very fine job of squandering it.

I interpret the term "disarm" in the next section not meaning that they completely disband their military forces, but that they end their campaigns of conquest.

In fact, however, history seems to indicate that great nations do not normally disarm from motives of conscience, but owing to the weakening of a sense of duty in the citizens, and the increase in selfishness and the desire for wealth and ease.

The next post will begin with, Stage five. The Age of Intellect.

This link will take you to the beginning of the series, The Fate of Empires, An Overview (Part 1)