A reader kindly passed on to me a paper written by a British gentleman named Sir John Glubb and titled The Fate of Empires. In it Mr. Glubb sets out his theory that “empires” or the “top” nation at any particular time, only last in that status for about 250 years. He gives his rationale for why this may be. I tend to disagree with the 250 year thing, his own examples don’t really fit neatly into that, and there are other examples that were longer-lived and shorter lived. His orientation was pretty Europe and mid-East centric. Asian dynasties tended to last longer and have gone through multiple cycles of being up and down. But his explanation is more interesting. And his description of phases in the history of a dominant nation has some utility.
While his reasons tend to have a moral or religious dimension, even stripping that away, they seem reasonable on the whole. A couple I would discard, like when women advance it is linked to a nation’s decline. I don’t think there is evidence to support that. And while he refers to a weakening of religiousity, I would be less concerned about a decline in organized religion and more concerned about a degrading of common moral values, a sense of right and wrong, a sense of values that enable progress, like hard work and personal responsibility.
I also would quibble with the blanket statement that an influx of foreigners is a contributing factor. The US was build on successive waves of “foreigners” in very large numbers. It isn’t immigrants or even where they come from; it is what values they bring with them and willingness to adapt to the existing values in the country they immigrate to. Minnesota is a good example. Hmongs came here in large numbers and assimilated rapidly and were a very constructive force in the state. The huge Somali population here, is similarly close knit and family-oriented, but corrupt as hell, because they came from a failed nation where looking out for yourself and stealing from the government was a virtue. So they do the same thing here, even though they have a good work ethic, unfortunately they work hard at stealing. They also do not assimilate quickly or extensively, which may be partly driven by their Muslim religion.
Where I do completely agree with him is that affluence leads to a decline in work ethic and innovation and an increase in what he refers to as decadence and frivolity. This is accompanied by extensive government handouts as a way of retaining power and facilitating the decadence and frivolity. We see this in the US. We have huge groups of people who make no effort to work and huge groups who use drugs and alcohol, gamble irresponsibly and engage in lunatic sexual behaviors. Think the rise of the transgender delusion would have happened during the second World War? Anyway, I always find it interesting to read about the rise and fall of nations, so it is worth a read, not long. (Glubb Paper)
