{"id":67057,"date":"2013-03-05T09:12:22","date_gmt":"2013-03-05T07:12:22","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/?p=67057"},"modified":"2023-04-04T08:44:05","modified_gmt":"2023-04-04T05:44:05","slug":"in-istanbul-the-rise-fall-of-society","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/2013\/03\/05\/in-istanbul-the-rise-fall-of-society\/","title":{"rendered":"In Istanbul: The Rise & Fall of Society"},"content":{"rendered":"
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By\u00a0<\/span>Chris Mayer<\/span>\u00a0| 03\/04\/13<\/span><\/h1>\n<\/div>\n

It\u2019s Istanbul, not Constantinople, as the song goes. In this history is an omen for any powerful state (read: the U.S.). A somewhat obscure essayist knew all about it back in 1959. His little book deserves wider circulation. Below, we\u2019ll take a look.<\/p>\n

Constantinople was once the seat of a vast, rich empire. The successor to Rome, it ruled over a land that stretched from the Caucasus to the Adriatic, from the Danube to the Sahara. The Dark Ages were dark only if you ignore the flourishing civilization on the Bosporus.<\/p>\n

Historian Merle Severy writes: \u201cMedieval visitors from the rural West, where Rome had shrunk to a cow town, were struck dumb by this resplendent metropolis.\u201d There were half a million people here. Its harbors full of ships, \u201cits markets filled with silks, spices, furs, precious stones, perfumed woods, carved ivory, gold and silver and enameled jewelry.\u201d<\/p>\n

This civilization lasted for a thousand years.<\/p>\n

Actually, it lasted for 1,123 years and 18 days after Constantine the Great made the city his new Christian Rome. On May 29, 1453, Constantinople fell to the Turks.<\/p>\n

The Hagia Sophia \u2014 once a cathedral, then a mosque,\u00a0now a museum \u2014 the bones of a dead civilization.<\/em><\/p>\n

Renamed Istanbul, the city would serve as the seat of yet another great empire, the Ottoman. And this one would last nearly five centuries. In the 16th and 17th centuries, the Ottoman Empire was perhaps the most powerful state on Earth. It was on one heck of a roll. After Constantinople, the Ottomans took Athens in 1458. Then it was on to Tabriz (1514), Damascus (1516), Cairo (1517), Belgrade (1521), Rhodes (1522), Baghdad (1534), Buda (1541), Tripoli (1551) and Cyprus (1571).<\/p>\n

They almost took Vienna. The powers of Western Europe drew the line in the sand there. Interesting to think what would\u2019ve happened if the Turks took Vienna. All of Western Europe would be at their feet. If they had succeeded, perhaps the majority of Europeans would be answering the call to prayer, echoing from the minarets of cathedrals-turned-mosques\u2026<\/p>\n

Your editor inside the courtyard of the famed Blue Mosque\u2026<\/em><\/p>\n

Yet the Ottoman Empire, too, would crumble. It was constantly at war. By one historian\u2019s reckoning, the longest period of peace was just 24 years in nearly six centuries of reign.<\/p>\n

In 1923, with the founding of the Republic of Turkey, Ankara became the seat of government. As historian John Freely notes: \u201cFor the first time in 16 centuries, the ancient city on the Golden Horn was no longer reigning over a world empire with only the presence of the monuments to remind one of its imperial past.\u201d<\/p>\n

It is not hard to think of the U.S. in the context of these great powers.<\/p>\n

*** Enter Chodorov<\/strong><\/p>\n

One of the books I had tucked in my bag that I read while in Turkey was Frank Chodorov\u2019s\u00a0The Rise & Fall of Society.<\/em>\u00a0This is a slender 168-page book by a great, if somewhat forgotten, essayist and editor. It gives a tightly reasoned answer to the question \u201cWhy do societies rise and fall?\u201d<\/p>\n

Chodorov\u2019s thesis is that \u201cevery collapse of which we have sufficient evidence was preceded by the same course of events.\u201d<\/p>\n

The course of events goes like this: \u201cThe State, in its insatiable lust for power, increasingly intensified its encroachments on the economy of the nation\u2026\u201d and finally gets to the point where the economy can no longer support the state at the level it is accustomed to. Society can\u2019t meet the strain, so \u201csociety collapsed and drew the State down with it.\u201d<\/p>\n

The pattern is always the same, regardless of size or ideology. The state can grow only by taking. \u201cSince the State thrives on what it expropriates,\u201d Chodorov writes, \u201cthe general decline in production which it induces by its avarice foretells its own doom.\u201d<\/p>\n

Chodorov bases much of his thesis on what he calls \u201cthe law of parsimony.\u201d In essence, it is simply that people try to get the most satisfaction with the least amount of effort. It is a natural law of human behavior.<\/p>\n

The law does not say they always achieve this goal, of course. It simply says it is what people try to do. Cooperation with others enhances the ability to satisfy. \u201cSociability thrives on the mutual profits of cooperation,\u201d Chodorov writes, \u201cand when we observe how an acquaintance ripens into friendship as the mutually created wage level rises, it is hard to tell which is cause and which is effect.\u201d The marketplace is the binding of society and coexistent with it. No marketplace, no society. No society, no marketplace.<\/p>\n

Now enter the state (whose origins Chodorov covers, but I will pass over here). The state is also made up of men. They, too, are subject to the law of parsimony. So they will make efforts to enlarge and better their position, which they can only do by confiscation (taxes, fines, etc.).<\/p>\n

\u201cRome had its make-work programs, its gratuities to the unemployed and its subsidies to industry,\u201d Chodorov writes. \u201cThese things are necessary to make confiscation palatable and possible.\u201d<\/p>\n

Another tourist hot spot, the Topkapi Palace, where the sultans lived decadently\u2026 at the expense of the taxpayers, of course.<\/p>\n

How, by various ways of obscurantism and promises, the state is able to grow ever larger and more powerful is the main narrative of the book. Chodorov\u2019s writing is honey smooth and his ideas reflect the learning and thought of a lifetime pondering such questions. (He was 72 at the time of publication.)<\/p>\n

Though the book is a slender, easy read, it is packed with ideas. Chodorov, long known as a great teacher, has a gift for stating ideas simply in well-turned phrases. (My copy has plenty of highlighted passages.) And his defense of the network of voluntary exchange that we call a marketplace is downright eloquent.<\/p>\n

One of my favorite chapters is \u201cThe Humanity of Trade.\u201d There he writes about how the markets make it possible that the fish of the sea reach the miner\u2019s table. Northerners enjoy tropical fruits because they can trade for them with goods and services that make life in the tropics easier.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt is by trade that the far-flung warehouses of nature are made accessible to all the peoples of the world,\u201d Chodorov writes, \u201cand life on this planet becomes that much more enjoyable.\u201d Trade not only improves our material wealth. Trade brings an influx of ideas, stories of interesting people and other cultures that in turn enrich our own literature, arts and \u2018operatic repertoire.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

Reading Chodorov, one can\u2019t help but marvel at the powers of voluntary social cooperation and exchange. Yet there is this never-ending cycle of the rise and collapse of societies. Can we break this depressing cycle?<\/p>\n

Chodorov gives an answer in the last chapter, titled \u201cOne Can Always Hope.\u201d He writes: \u201cNone has as yet been discovered. Nevertheless, the search for a formula for the \u2018good society\u2019 has never been abandoned, hope being what it is, and out of the laboratory of the human mind has come congeries of utopias.\u201d<\/p>\n

A bleak ending, perhaps. But Chodorov leaves out the possibility that in the U.S., at least, it may be possible to impede the state. Americans still have \u201ca folklore of freedom.\u201d This libertarian tradition may yet be revived. \u201cIt is worth a try,\u201d Chodorov writes. He ends his book with a sentence that captures the most critical idea of all: \u201cThe will for freedom comes before freedom.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Rise & Fall of Society<\/em>\u00a0is a little treasure of a book. Laissez Faire Club (of which I am a member) made it a selection of the month recently and prompted me to pick up a copy. I have all of Chodorov\u2019s books \u2014\u00a0The Income Tax: Root of All Evil<\/em>,\u00a0One Is a Crowd: Reflections of an Individualist<\/em>,\u00a0Out of Step: The Autobiography of an Individualist and the posthumous collection<\/em>,\u00a0Fugitive Essays<\/em>. Chodorov is among my favorite libertarian writers, a list that includes Murray Rothbard, H.L. Mencken, Albert Jay Nock and Lysander Spooner. For whatever reason, I had never read The Rise & Fall, but it is classic Chodorov and worth a read.<\/p>\n

You can pick up a copy\u00a0here.\u00a0(http:\/\/lfb.org\/shop\/economic-systems\/the-rise-and-fall-of-society\/)<\/p>\n

Istiklal Caddesi on a Tuesday afternoon, a bustling street of shops,\u00a0restaurants and plenty of people.<\/em><\/p>\n

As I walked around Istanbul, admiring the architecture \u2014 the bones of a lost civilization \u2014 I still managed to feel optimistic. Life in Istanbul is, in fact, far better for the typical person than it was at the height of any of the dead empires. In material wealth, people live longer and far healthier lives today. They are literate and technologically more advanced. They have greater leisure and access to a wealth of ideas unimaginable in the old days.<\/p>\n

This is despite the ugliness of states. And that, after all, is some consolation for the ideas of human progress and liberty.<\/p>\n

Sincerely,<\/p>\n

Chris Mayer<\/p>\n

Original article posted on\u00a0Laissez-Faire Today<\/em><\/p>\n

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Chris Mayer<\/h3>\n

Chris Mayer is managing editor of the\u00a0Capital and Crisis\u00a0<\/em>and\u00a0Mayer\u2019s Special Situations\u00a0<\/em>newsletters. Graduating magna cum laude with a degree in finance and an MBA from the University of Maryland, he began his business career as a corporate banker. Mayer left the banking industry after ten years and signed on with Agora Financial. His book,\u00a0Invest Like a Dealmaker, Secrets of a Former Banking Insider<\/em>, documents his ability to analyze macro issues and micro investment opportunities to produce an exceptional long-term track record of winning ideas. In April 2012 Chris will release his newest book\u00a0World Right Side Up: Investing Across Six Continents<\/em>.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

Read more:\u00a0In Istanbul:The Rise & Fall of Society\u00a0http:\/\/dailyreckoning.com\/in-istanbul-the-rise-fall-of-society\/#ixzz2MeAwNwey<\/p>\n

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