France and Imperial Rome

Brian Chapin over at American RealPolitik has made an interesting and accurate observation of the on-going decline in nations like France, Germany, and Belgium. He has essentially made the connection between an expansion of leisure and a decline in the host civilization.

As we look back through history, in the Western civilizations we really have two clear examples of leisure undermining the nation-state: Greece and Rome.

The great cities of ancient Greece established themselves first of great military powers. Their militaries were built up by a cooperative effort on the part of the population. During the Golden Age of Greek power, everyone was contributing to the success of the nation-state.

But after each city established its dominance over an area, certain elements of the population turned to leisure activities. The writing of plays and philosophizing went from being simply an important contribution in the quest for civilization to being the primary purpose of people's lives. To expand their leisure time the citizens would turn over the responsibilities of basic life to others - people who did not have the same stake in the city as the citizens. As a result the quality of the economy went down as the quality of life for the citizens rose. As time went on, the economy could no longer support the leisure and the city-states of Greece fell into a decline from which they never fully recovered.

Rome, the great adapting nation, conquered the Greeks and discovered many excellent ideas in the process. They learned of philosophy and education. They also learned of architecture and art. But with the multitudes of wonderful and good ideas, the Romans also learned the seeds of their decline (in the Western portion of the Empire, at least).

The leisure problems the Greeks had perfected on a city scale, the Romans took to an imperial scale. The cause of Rome's greatness was the integration of the aristocracy into the government of the nation during the first and second centuries. But as Rome's influence expanded and more non-Latins began to hold positions of power, the landed aristocracy of Italy began to seek out leisure at the expense of work. As the years went on, Rome found itself facing many of the same problems in the Western Empire as the Greeks had faced. And eventually the Western Empire fell to the barbarians because the people didn't care to fight - after all it wasn't their land.

Interestingly enough, the city of Rome also became the first proof that communism could lead to decline by encouraging sloth among the people. Remember, in the city of Rome the residents were provided with "bread and circus" to keep them happy - regardless of the work they did. By providing them with free food and entertainment many of the city's residents never worked. As a result the city never really developed a commercial class and therefore was not able to cope very well with any economic blips.

So how does this affect modern day France and Co.? Well, remember these are the homes of the ultra-militant labor unions and the 35-hour work week (maybe going to be less soon). Labor and command economies (to an extent, but not completely) have lead to a stagnation of ambition of the last 50 years. As a result, the people are turning more to a life of leisure instead of putting in a solid week's worth of work. Couple that with an aging population and it's hard to fathom how these nations are still economically afloat.

It's also interesting to note that in these countries, the commercial class is frowned upon. I wish I could find the study to link to, but I remember seeing a German study in which a very high percentage (maybe 70%+) of German high school kids thought that being a businessperson was a terrible idea. In these nations there is absolutely no respect for the shopkeepers and as a result, you see the nations starting to head down the same road as Imperial Rome.

It's a shame to see former great powers reduced to hollow shells of their once vibrant selves. Mr. Chapin is correct in his assertion that these nations in decline will slowly, but surely move further and further away from us as our economies become more and more divergent. How long will the decline take? I have no idea, but hopefully their fall from grace won't turn violent.