Economy problems - Solutions can come by looking to the Past

To peer into the future the only guide is to take the help of history and look back and try to learn from the lessons learnt by other great powers in yester years. This is especially more relevant at a time when the great American Titan seems to be tottering under “the too vast orb of its fate” (Matthew Arnold).

This phrase was borrowed by Joseph Chamberlain (British politician) to describe the condition of Britain in 1902. Britain had suffered reverses in its war with South Africa and its world supremacy was being threatened by USA and Germany. But at that time Great Britain was at the peak of its greatness.

It is a paradox that the larger the mega powers swell the more are they worried about their exposure. Curtains were drawn on the British Empire when in 1997 it relinquished Hong Kong. Great Britain slipped into history and USA became the heirs to the Roman throne.

It is dangerous to compare the future of USA with the fate of Rome and Britain. Gibbon had warned about the dangers of comparing epochs that were far removed from each other. But the temptation cannot be resisted. Both Rome and America overstretched themselves. Rome struggled to guard its frontiers stretching up to the Tigris, the Danube and Rhine while the informal empire of USA is controlled with diplomacy, commerce and military might right across the globe.

But here the similarities end. Rome depended on agriculture while USA has a mega industrial base producing nearly a fourth of the world’s manufactured stuff. It also dominates the field of new inventions in the service economy.

Rome battled with inner wars but America is stable constitutionally. Rome was surrounded by barbarians but the superior military might of America would not even dream of challenging its strength. There may be stray terrorist attacks but nothing to the scale Rome was subjected to by the Vandals, Goths and Huns.

Great Britain too was weak with its temporary power resting on 1,250 civil servants in India and thousands of police personnel in the African colonies. World War I destroyed and entire generation of empire builders while World War II left it bankrupt. USA bailed it out. Today its ghost lives on as the Commonwealth.

If Britain was an oak in a plant pot America was rooted on a rich entire continent. But if both were and are trees it can be said that all living things will ultimately die. Death comes first with symptoms and can foreclosures and unemployment together with recession be taken to be the death throes?

Original Post: Economy problems - Solutions can come by looking to the Past