A few blogs back I considered the possibility that the great 150 year era of modern commerce is coming to an end as the world and the U.S. succumb to Lefty anti-commerce ideology.
Here I want to consider the resilience of modern commerce and the possibility the the era may have a greater lifespan.
I have to use nations as my test cases.
The first example is Holland. Holland became the first truly modern commercial society. In a short span of 70 years from 1620 to 1690 Holland created nearly all the modern financial instruments from a bond market to worldwide insurance. Holland created the Hanseatic trading area in which all the North Sea countries began thriving. That ended when Holland conquered England in 1688 and England became the overwhelming ‘big brother’ and global suzerain. Holland lost its vigor, its expansionist dynamic and its central role in European intellect. Probably due to the transfer of its genius to a larger population.
The second and most horrible example is England and Northern Europe. This area had extraordinary dynamic commercial growth and innovation from the 1830’s in England and the 1870’s in Northern Europe until the onset of WWI. There was some vitality in the interwar era in this area. It was gone entirely after WWII as anti-commerce socialism became triumphant in every European satrapy including England. Europe has been dead to commerce and innovation ever since. With the Islamic invasion of Europe the moribund states have become a cluster of zombies.
The third example is the brief 40 year flowering of Japan from 1950 to 1990. Postwar Japan enjoyed the presence of the American Armed Forces and the explosive modern commercial growth that came with the weakening of the traditional 2,000 year old Japanese hierarchy.
The traditional hierarchy regained control of the society with the Real Estate bubble bust in 1991 and the end of an expanding population. Commerce in Japan has lost its vitality without succumbing to socialism. Simply the re-institution of a traditional society.
We have too few examples to tell us conclusively that the vitality of modern American commerce is nearing its end.
My guess is that we are in an extended period where the vitality of American individualism is in a prolonged battle with anti-commerce Leftism that controls academia, the media and government at the national level and in the major cities. Which way this battle will move is not clear to me. The world outside the U.S. is an anti-commerce swamp that resembles seaweed and kudzu covering everything and creeping ever outwards.
The battle for the survival of the modern commercial world will only be fought in the United States under the umbrella of a Pax Americana.