David's Supplementary Thoughts

I have some additional thoughts about the “most memorable” topic that I want to do here under a separate heading. I’ve started and edited this several times. It keeps getting too complicated, and seems like a philosophical dissertation. (I would not want to have a history professor grade this, because I know I am being free and loose with some of the details.) You may choose to skim or skip this posting.

Start with the big, big picture. The universe is 15 billion years old. Our sun (a second –generation star) and earth are about 5 billion years. We are “recycled” from a large first-generation star that died in a supernova explosion. (That’s the only way that you get elements heavier than iron.)

Humans have been around on the order of 100,000’s of years. We’ve only done a decent job of recording human history for the last 5,000 to 10,000 years. So, in terms of the history of our universe, everything that we know about the history of man has happened “just now.”

Kathleen and I visited about 50 ports during our cruise, so we probably saw 40-45 different countries. Often we saw many different countries on sequential days. We got serial exposure to many people within their own countries where we had chances to engage them in conversations. The collage of those conversations is one of the special memories I take from our cruise.

So I have thoughts about “people” and “social choices” from the various countries.

People. Simply put, we are mostly the same: biologically, beliefs, values, future hopes. We have some differences that mostly make for interesting variations on the same themes.

By “social choices” I mean those ways that various countries have deal with such issues as: who makes what choices (eg. government vs individuals through free enterprise), what forces have happened on very successful societies, how have the societies dealt with these forces and how have they been able to sustain or lose their successful situation?

Start with Egypt. They were amazingly successful 3000-4000 years ago. They built amazing pyramids and temples. Today, you cannot help but ask what happened because they are more of a “developing” rather than “developed” economy.

China has a history that spans 3000-5000 years. The vendors sold a “history of China” wall chart that was 6-ft tall that had small print to show all of the dynasties, sub periods, and external invasions. Yet, the locals talked about China’s current period of growth as having only begun about 20 years ago with a period of “new awakening.”

Cambodia was very advanced 700 years ago. Angkor Wat had a population of 1,000,000 people at a time when Paris and London each had fewer than 50,000 people. What happened? Cambodia 20-years ago looked about as bad as North Korea does today. There leaders emptied the capital city of about 3,000,000 people, and moved them to group farms using manual labor. They executed anyone who had an education.

The Roman Empire encircled the whole Mediterranean Sea and lasted about 1,000 years.

Three European countries that small today and do not get much attention—Portugal, Holland, and Denmark—all talked with pride about the global strength and influence that they have on the order of 300 years ago when countries with strong naval capabilities could exert their will on distant lands. Portugal still had control of Macau until as recently as 20 years ago when they gave it to China.

The British Empire circled the world 60-100 years ago. Most of it is “divested” today. The Arabs blame the British for screwing up the Middle East by the way that they set up the borders between countries and selected the clans or sheiks to be in charge.

Russia had been the center of the Soviet Union up to 20 years ago. At that time one dollar bought one rubble. Today the Soviet Union has broken apart, and one dollar buys 35 rubbles. The tour guide said that the social changes and the devaluation were devastating to elderly retired people in Russia. Think about your savings only being worth 3% of what they had been, and all of the social services that had been free now being items that you had to pay for.

Our Russian guide and a Ukrainian waitress (same devaluation happen in Ukraine as in Russia) both thought the loss of value of their currency was “some game played by the bankers.” I think it was an unavoidable development based upon the unwinding of the low productivity that was inherent in the communist approach to government and economy.

Estonia went from being a member of the Soviet Union, to a free country, to a member of the European Union in only 15 years. Today they look more like Finland than like Russia.

Singapore and Malaysia focused on encouraging personal initiative, and they have modernize quite well. Other countries in Southeast Asia focused on redistribution of wealth instead, and their economies have languished for a decade. Dubai is a phenomenon, with unprecedented modernization and construction. Typical infrastructure in Singapore, Malaysia (Kuala Lumpur) or Dubai has a good chance of seeming more modern than a typical infrastructure in the US.

So against this background, consider the US today. We have a very successful country, of which we can be proud. However, at only 233 years old, we are still an infant. Our position today strikes me as similar to that of the UK about 60 years ago. The UK lost the British Empire because it was not possible to sustain dominance over the colonies. The cost in cash and public opinion on the spending and military steps necessary to sustain dominance were too great to sustain. The US may not be doing it today with colonies, but we have assumed a role of “global cop” that does put financial strain on us that is not shared by other advanced countries.

The US also is entering into unprecedented spending on economic bailouts, and expects to do the same unprecedented spending on health care. We have social security and Medicare challenges that government continues to ignore.

I’m left wondering: when people look at the history of mankind 1,000 in the future, will the US make a list along with Egypt, Rome, China, and Cambodia as countries that have succeeded in sustaining a position of power for 500-1000 years, or will we flame out after only 250 or 300 years? Will we learn from the lessons of history, or, ignoring them, are we destined to repeat the problems that eventually conquered other successful powerful countries in the past? Are we going to continue to foster individual initiative and see growth, or are we going to move toward wealth redistribution and have our economy languish?