Inequality of life during the pandemic today: a Dostoyevskian society!

This Easter there was media coverage in Chile about the quarantine of the Covid pandemic not being the same for everyone, with millionaires leaving high scale neighborhood Vitacura by helicopter for their summer mansions on the coast. A bit of what is also happening in other countries like the US, China, UK, France...

That Easter Friday’s afternoon, I was reading Dostoyevsky’s "White Nights". This short novel (about 60 pages) right on page 3 has a scene that looks like today’s image of inequality. The narrator is a middle-class young man in Saint Petersburg that enjoys strolling around the wealthy and beautiful mansions. An early spring weekend he realizes that all the wealthy left town for their country houses or the nearby islands. Then he describes quite well the exodus of the privileged: the men carry flowers next to their wives in an elegant carriage, while behind go servants with wagons full of things or even a second carriage with all the furniture and kitchen items. But the richest of all send their things by boat over the Neva river!

Therefore we live in a Dostoyevskian society! No Czars in power, but quite a few oligarchs enjoying their country mansions!

Roaring 20's and Great Depression novels: The Great Gatsby and its awkward opposite!

The characters in the Great Gatsby and Arturo Bandini novels are true opposites in wealth and sophistication. However, they share one trait: persisting in their romantic dreams until the end!

The Great Depression left a profound image on the memories of people. Until today, perhaps the strongest impression on people's minds is the contrast between great wealth and abject poverty from the mass unemployed living in big cities or wandering the countryside in search of work. It also captures the human spirit with irony by contrasting the golden years, peace and prosperity of the previous decade with the despair, misery and loneliness of the 1930s.

Los Angeles hill, a setting similar to Ask the Dust

One of the great literary pieces out of the Roaring Twenties is F. Scott Fitzgerald's The Great Gatsby, as popular (or more) today as in its first 1925 edition. It touches so many enduring emotions. For the American soldiers in WW2 it probably reminded them that their girlfriends may not be waiting at the end of the war. For the younger generations that did not live a military conflict, it reflects that romantic ambitions are not always fulfilled even if someones gives it all its effort. The novel's unrequited love story also tells us about class and family origins. Talent, effort and merit do not always get recognized. The main character Jay Gatsby is ashamed of his family to the point of abandoning his loving father and changing his name. Finally, the story teaches us that great wealth and luxury only feed snobbism and vanity. Noisy parties do not buy us friends. The pursuit of happiness is as elusive now as it was for the great Greek-Roman philosophers like Aristotle or the emperor Marcus Aurelius. The novel already has four amazing movie adaptations, of which I only saw the Robert Redford's and Di Caprio's versions. These movies, obviously are not exactly similar to the book, but are faithful enough to preserve all of its main motives and even lots of the same phrases and dialogues.

To me the greatest contrast comes from comparing the Great Gatsby in relation to the novels of the Great Depression such as John Steinbeck's. One such novel is Ask the Dust by John Fante, a story of sticking to one's own values and dreams in the face of adversity. It is purported to be a fictional version of some autobiographical events in the author's own life and rightfully so. Historians often say that any human persons enjoys to make up sublime versions of himself (or herself), heroic interpretations of ourselves. However, admitting to our own faults and humilliations is much more difficult! And yet the faults and humilliations are much truer to life. Fante's novel is full of humilliations inflicted upon its main character, Arturo Bandini.

If Jay Gatsby is elegant, sophisticated, wealthy, charming and a successful man, then Bandini is its very opposite. Arturo Bandini is a young and jobless writer in Los Angeles. The little money that he receives from his Mom is spent on oranges, the cheapest food he can afford, which he eats under a sorching heat while thinking that its sweet huices resembles liquid sunlight filling his empty belly. Gatsby has fame and money, but Bandini only gets a small check and his literary reputation only impresses a 14 year old neighbor and a divorced woman full of uneasy emotions. If Gatsby has the most expensive clothes, then Bandini uses the rope from cereal boxes as a belt and applies the box carton to repair his old shoes. Gatbsy throws money in luxurious parties, yet Bandini uses the little money he has to pay a steak to his neighbor. If Gatsby is the most admired person, then Bandini is utterly ignored and poor, something that he cruelly observes when he looks at the rich ladies arriving in limousines to LA's expensive hotels and then remarks that those beautiful women wear shoes that are more expensive than all the things he ever owned.

Even their personalities contrast, Gatsby being brave and noble, while Bandini is often rude and cowardly. Bandini flees from a prostitute after paying her because he feels the abject act would degrade his Christian faith. Bandini flees during the 1933 earthquake and afterwards feels so ashamed that he invents tales of brave acts and having rushed to save others, tall tales that lack such realism that none of his neighbors believe and just reveal his lack of courage more glaringly.

Yet Bandini's flaws always shine with the sincerity and simplicity of those who are poor, young, but with big dreams and loving intentions. Bandini is awkward and unable to play the seductor to his love interest, Camilla Lopez. Camilla is a waitress and a down to earth character, not at all like the attractive and dreamy socialite Daisy that is pursued by Gatsby. But Bandini shows great character and nobleness even in the most despairing situations. In fact, perhaps Bandini's lowest point is reached when Camilla reveals that she loves Sam, a waiter suffering badly from tuberculosis and a failed writer of western novels. Sam is rude, violent, and even poorer than Bandini is, yet he manages to capture Camilla's passion. Camilla tramples on Bandini's love with her feet, but Bandini is noble enough to ignore his own feelings and to be concerned for her situation. Bandini gives confort to the dying Sam, then searches the desert for Camilla and just leaves his new novel in the sand when the scorching heat forces him to give up hope.

Cuentos de desigualdad: Chile hoy y la Rusia de Dostoyevski

Esta Pascua hubo una cobertura mediática en Chile al respecto de que la cuarentena de la pandemia Covid no eres igual para todos, tal como todo en la vida, con millonarios saliendo de Vitacura en helicóptero hacía sus mansiones de veraneo en la costa.

Bueno, en la tarde de ese viernes de Pascua estaba a leer Dostoyevski “Noches blancas”. La novela (corta, solo unas 60 páginas) justo en la página 3 tiene una escena que se parece a la imagen de desigualdad de los helicópteros de Chile hoy. El narrador es un joven de clase media en San Petersburgo y le gusta pasear a ver las mansiones de los ricos. Un día al inicio de la primavera se da cuenta que en el fin de semana todos los ricos se fueron de la ciudad para sus casas de campo o en las islas cercanas. Ahí describe muy bien el espectacular éxodo de los acaudalados: los hombres van con flores junto a sus esposas en un coche elegante, pero detrás de ellos van sirvientes con carromatos llenos de cosas o a veces un coche mayor donde la cocinera o sirvienta mayor de la casa va sola con los muebles, utensilios domésticos, sofás y hasta las ollas de cocina. Pero los más ricos, ricos de todos, envían sus muebles y cosas por barco en el río Neva!!!!

Así que vivimos en una sociedad Dostoyevskiana! Sin Czares en el poder, pero con oligarcas en mansiones de campo!!!

Political economy and old calamities: the will to ignore the cost of life in wars, famines and epidemies

Now that we are facing the global Covid pandemic, perhaps the most mortal event involving multiple nations since the World War II, I remembered some books that I had read on the political economy and its relationship to ignore the distribution costs of mankind's biggest calamities.

One such book is Amartya Sen's "Development as Freedom" (1999). Amartya Sen develops his framework that human rights are important both as an end result (developed nations have higher levels of human development), but also as part of the process (human societies gain welfare from deciding their projects collectively in peace, reason and in democracy, giving every individual and group the right to participate). Sen also summarizes his research on famines as a tragedy of political will. His analysis finds that in modern times no democratic country (no matter how poor) ever suffered a large loss of human life as a result of an agricultural disaster or a famine, because democratic countries always find a way to import some food resources from abroad and redistribute such resources in a way to prevent a large fatality from famine. However, dictatorships and countries riddled by ethnic conflicts often show a lack of compassion towards the poor and the groups affected by famine, therefore allowing the disaster to take its full toll due to a lack of political will. I remember well reading this book when I was 19. Freedom and human rights must be seen as a process of expanding the opportunities and possibilities of individual and collective lives.

Of course, the most clear example of politicians' will to let a large loss of human life happen is their willingness to go to start large military conflicts. This was more common in agricultural societies fighting for limited soil. The Punic Wars between Rome and Carthage represented a conflict with such a large number of military and civillian casualties that it probably surpassed the impact of World War I and II in terms of the population of the time. The leaders of those ancient societies were quite willing to risk everything and fight until the end to win the conflict.

An example of such a disaster was World War II. Just a few years ago, I read Richard Evans' "The Third Reich at War" (2008). The book has a large amount of detail about the military operations in World War II and their cost for the economy. I was surprised to see in the book a lot of evidence that German strategists always knew that the outcome of the war would probably be an astounding defeat for Germany. Germany's war was pushing a great deal more of sacrifice on its population that the suffering in the UK and USA. Several military commanders warned Hitler that the industrial might of the UK and its Empire was much larger than Germany's and they would lose the war over time once the UK and its Allies would transform their manufacturing from peacetime civillian needs to war purposes. Germany had a head start because they specialized in the war economy a few years earlier, but that head start would be lost after 3 years and then the UK - even without the USA as an ally - would slowly win the conflict out of sheer manufacturing power. The same could be said of the Soviet Union. The Soviet Union started the war with worse technology and organization leadership, in great part due to the incompetence of Stalin, but it could override Germany in a prolongued war, due to its greater resources and industrial capacity, especially once Hitler's forces were unable to reach and control the Caucasus' oil reserves.

I was even more surprised that this evidence was so obvious that it was behind the lack of international support for Germany from some of its "ideological" allies, such as fascist Spain. Phone tapes' evidence reveals that fascist dictator Franco resolutely communicated to Hitler that he was unwilling to declare war on the UK. His reasoning was that the UK was far from being defeated and would eventually win the war, even after the German successes in France and the Soviet Union, due to the UK's larger industrial capacity. Franco was even farsighted enough to tell Hitler and his strategists that they would lose the conflict, even if they managed to invade the British Isles, since the UK would simply persist on the war using Canada as a base. These were conversations between Spain and Germany before the USA joined the war and revealed that even for a fascist ally the war was seen as a losing project.

Fortunately, the current democracies and even some authoritarian regimes are reacting more positively towards the loss of life implied by the Covid pandemic. Several commentators have observed that countries with a female leader as president or chancellor/prime minister, such as Finland, New Zealand, Taiwan or Germany, reacted earlier and with more respect towards the loss of life from the pandemic. Again, as observed in Amartya Sen but also in other thinkers such as Harvard's psychologist Steven Pinker, this leads us to the great value induced by mutigroup, multiethnic plus female participation in society and leadership, since female and multigroup participation in decisions leads to more conservative positions and life preserving outcomes.

It is still a sanitary war going on... And perhaps, due to the rise of China as a second world power, there is also the menace of the "Thucydides' Trap" in which a change in the roles of the first and second world powers can lead to conflict. I am confident, however, that the 21st century's multinational institutions can avoid this disastrous outcome.

Inflation and Unpaid Wages destroyed the Roman Empire

Historians still debate the decline and end of the Roman Empire, a subject which inspired Edward Gibbon’s masterpiece, perhaps the most widely read history books ever. This blog will just add my personal views on a topic that has been covered many times by other authors. Many hypothesis have been proposed for the Roman decline. Some point to Christianity as a source of imperial Rome's weakness. However, the Eastern Empire was also Christian and remained a strong power until the 12th century at least. Others point out that too much lead in the water supplies was slowly poisoning the Roman population. However, it feels to me that the barbarians that penetrated the Roman empire, such as the Vandals and Visigoths, were also getting water from the same sources as the Romans, therefore I feel this to be a weak explanation.

The Roman Empire started a slow decline after the Antonine plague, which some estimate killed five million people or more than 10% of the empire’s population. The plague ended the period of greatest economic prosperity of the Roman Empire. It happened just at the climax of the greatest political and military influence of the Empire, since their major rivals, the Parthians, had been repeatedly defeated by the Romans. However, a plague does not always imply the decline of a civilization. In the late middle ages the Black Plague killed a substantial part of the European population and some economic historians say that this disease increased the wages of workers (since now there were fewer people than land) and this increase in wages may have given impulse to new industries and the long term development of Europe.

The reason why the Roman Empire may have declined and eventually disintegrated is therefore probably not due to a plague nor due to military defeats. Urban populations after a plague can employ new workers at higher wages and find new arts and industries in order to recover their wealth and splendor. Also, the Roman Empire had suffered defeats far worse than the famous disaster of Adrianopole in the late 4^th century. In particular, it is easy to argue that the military defeats against Hannibal during the Punic wars, the disasters against the Teutons around 105 BC, or the rebellion of the Italian provinces during the Social War of 88 BC, were far bigger than the battle of Adrianopole. The long lasting nature of the Romans was not that their armies were always invincible, but their ability to persuade their citizens to form a new army even after suffering major defeats. Presumably, persuading your citizens to join the military effort was easier in an oligarchy or autocracy that had some respect for citizen rights. However, after the 2^nd century the Romans became a military regime in which only the generals and their troops counted for something, a bit like the Soviet Union which had the largest army in the world and yet was unable to produce decent products such as toilet paper or bread. In such a military regime probably the citizens were afraid of their Roman oppressors as much as of their barbarian invaders. After a military defeat in the 4^th or 5^th century few Romans would cooperate with their generals and authorities, because Roman generals feared that their fellow citizens could be rivals in the competition for power and therefore even if the new generals were successful these could be murdered afterward when they were no longer convenient. This meant that the late Roman authorities would find few allies and would lose power easily after military defeats.

In my view perhaps a decisive moment in Roman history were the budget and monetary policies adopted by a very successful emperor Septimius Severus. Severus is one of the few generals in history who won large battles in three continents: Europe, Asia and Africa. Some historians believe that the battle of Lugdunum in which Severus confirmed his power was the bloodiest battle in all of roman history. Severus then enlarged the army in order to make further wars in Asia, Africa and Britain. He also increased the wage of each soldier by 30% in order to guarantee their loyalty. Above I show a picture of me and my twin brother – I am the one with longer hair – on top of the Roman wall in the city of York, England, which was where Severus died in sickness while planning to conquer Scotland. Below I show a picture of the roman theater in the African home town of Severus, Leptis Magna.

In order to pay for this large army expenses, Severus debased the coins and started an inflationary period from which Rome never recovered. As economists know, debasing the currency and creating rampant inflation is the worst possible way for a government to make revenues. It is much better to raise taxes, since the more inflation you make to pay something then you need even more inflation in the future to pay for the same things. The inflation process can go out of control and the government is unable to use money anymore. Also, ordinary business men and people stop using money and lose their confidence in the government. Inflation was already understood as a bad decision even in ancient times. Severus only adopted this bad measure because he came to power as a military dictator and only valued his soldiers. In fact Severus famous last words to his sons in York were: "Be harmonious, enrich the soldiers, and scorn all other men". Being unable to persuade the Senate to cooperate, Severus was limited to the worst policy option to finance his wars, which was inflation.

During the  3^rd and 4^th centuries it was clear that inflation was damaging the roman economy and their government system. Laws were passed authorizing generals to directly seize products and valuables for use of the army, therefore ordinary taxes paid in money fell out of use. Also, since workers and business men did not want to work in industries that were more easily “taxable” or “seized”, the Roman authorities ended up passing laws obliging people to stay in the area where they had been born and to work in the same occupation as their parents. Feudalism had started. The free and vibrant economy had been replaced by a planned and rigid system.

The Roman army was never actually defeated by the barbarian invaders. Even after losses such as Adrianopole the Roman leaders were able to persuade the “winners” to become cheap mercenaries for them. Therefore the barbarians could be described as a form of cheap labor in the official Roman army. Some historians, such as Peter Heather, even argue that these cheap Barbarian soldiers were actually what kept the Roman Empire running well and efficiently during the 5^th century. However, the Western Roman Empire was dependent on revenues from the large olive oil fields and other agricultural farms in modern day Tunisia. When a corrupt province governor and a group of barbarians, the Vandals, managed to occupy Tunisia, then Roman emperors lost a major source of revenue. After a few decades and an exhaustive war with the Huns, the Western Roman Empire was out of revenue and the Barbarian soldiers employed by the Emperor decided to rebel and simply run Italy as a kingdom for themselves. Therefore one could say that mismanagement in the form of inflation to pay for a military dictatorship and a lack of money to pay the wages of soldiers was the end of the Roman Empire. The Eastern Roman Empire was much more urbanized, had a stronger economy, and was therefore able to resist invasions from the Balkans, the Middle East and from Central Asia for several centuries more.

Socialism versus Capitalism in Ancient Rome: finding an old Allende and Pinochet

Some days ago I watched the news about the Chilean government demanding a monetary restitution from the widow of the deceased dictator Augusto Pinochet. In 1973 Chile was divided in a brutal conflict between a popular left party seeking wealth redistribution and an elitist conservative group that made a coup and gained power. The left wing leader Salvador Allende had actually been responsible for a big career boost of Augusto Pinochet, the right wing general who led the coup, since Allende had no idea of the true political views of his appointed general. The picture on the right shows Allende and Pinochet together in the presidential palace in Chile. Now and in old times no friendship survives a political conflict. Historian Plutarch and the novels of Aussie writer Colleen McCullough portray a real historical conflict that mirrors the class struggles in the 20^th century and how old friendships are broken for the sake of power.

Santayana said those who forget history are doomed to repeat it. In my view there are at least two aspect in which the Chilean 70’s conflict parallels the Roman Republic of 100 BC. One, ancient Rome had a sharp conflict between the Optimates (the party of those who defended the old traditions and privileges of the rich) and the Populares (those who defended the redistribution of agrarian lands and the extension of political votes to the masses). There were several strands in each group, with moderate Populares and also more radical branches that defended a real dictatorship based on popular acclaim. The political rivalry between Optimates (right wing) and Populares (left wing) explains much of roman history between 133 BC and 44 BC, when Julius Caesar, a general who capitalized the anger of the Populares to gain absolute military and political power, was assassinated by members of the Optimates.

Two, just like in Chile where President Allende believed – until it was too late – that general Pinochet would be a possible ally, the Roman left wing between 110 BC and 88 BC had a charismatic leader, Gaius Marius (left pic above), who unwittingly promoted the career of his friend, Lucius Cornelius Sulla (right pic above), who would become the Optimates leader and his most fierce enemy! These two former allies fired up all the class struggles in Rome and neither gave up until the former friend and all of his supporters were brutally killed.

Gaius Marius was a Roman general and politician who won two wars between 108 and 101 BC. The first war was in North Africa around 108 BC in the area of modern Argelia. The second war between 103 and 101 BC was against teutonic peoples who migrated from Germany to invade north Italy. This Teutonic invasion was one of the worst crisis in Roman history and there was a generalized fear in the Italian population that their civilization would be beaten and destroyed. To win this war Marius decided to recruit poo men for the Roman army, something unthinkable until then! This decision broke the political power that the wealthy had over the army and in the future decades armies were more loyal to their generals than to the political institutions. Over the short term the decision saved Rome. Over the long term this measure created endless revolutions in which generals used their armies to become new dictators!

Marius also introduces many innovations in terms of the organization and equipment of the legions and turns the legionnaire into professionally trained soldiers. The classic image of a professional and extremely organized Roman army that we see in Hollywood movies was only made real by Gaius Marius! Above I show a painting of Marius leading his newly trained armies to fight a much larger Teutonic army in the forests of northern Italy.

Marius became the most powerful politician of his time and certainly one the most relevant in the entire history of Rome. The most important political office of the Republic was consul and Marius was elected consul seven times, while before him none had been consul more than three times.

Sulla was possibly an in-law of Marius and started his career as Marius' trusted second in command. However, during a brief mission in Asia, Sulla consulted a fortune seer who foretold his death would come at the peak of his fame and glory. Sulla returns to Rome and becomes one of the generals fighting the Social War, a large conflict in which Rome fought rebellions in many Italian regions. In this war Sulla won the Grass Crown, the most important prize of valor given in Ancient Rome. In all of Roman history only eight men won the grass crown, since this trophy was only given to a man that by his courage had saved an entire army!

Sulla was then elected consul and nominated general for the war against Mithridates of Pontus, a western nation in northern Turkey which was threatening the roman territories of Greece and west Asia. Sulla's success triggered a conflict with his former friend Gaius Marius. Marius, then an old man, remained popular with the crowds and dreamed of being the commander in the new war. Marius used his prestige and wealth to finance popular mutinies and rebellions against his former friend. Sulla is persecuted by fanatics through the streets of Rome and saves his life by seeking refuge in Marius’ home. Marius agrees to save Sulla’s life from the raging crowd, but only if he promises to support Marius’ party and his nomination for the war. Sulla pretends to agree, escapes from Rome and then returns with his loyal army. Sulla does the unthinkable by marching upon Rome, something that was forbidden by the sacred laws of Rome. In Rome’s previous six centuries of history no one had broken this rule. Sulla enters Rome and his army kills several of the Populares and Marius’ supporters. Afterwards, he leaves for Asia and wins surprising battles against the greek-asian enemies of Rome. Sulla becomes famous among his followers as a mad genius, one who makes elaborate plans that always work. Sulla destroys the forests around Athens to build catapults and siege engines to destroy the city. Then he wins two battles against much bigger armies. In the first battle he orders the building of trenches and palisades which rumble his enemy's organization. In the second battle, Sulla orders the building of water dams and then floods the plain in front of the opposing army. His opponents are stranded with horses and men in the mud and unable to move are slaughtered. Sulla gains a reputation of invincibility against all odds and becomes one of the most famous generals in world history.

While Sulla stayed in Asia, Marius returned to Rome and then orders the murder of many of Sulla’s supporters. The Populares take control of Rome and send several armies against Sulla. But all of the armies sent by the Populares are useless, because Sulla had gained the fame of an invincible commander. No army wants to fight Sulla and his adversaries end up surrendering and joining him. Marius dies sick in Rome just 17 days after he became consul for a 7^th and last time. Plutarch relates that Marius was by then a deluded old man, bragging to people about his accomplishments and then behaving crazy as if he was in charge of battles in Asia.

Sulla returns to Rome in 83 BC and publishes a long list of his enemies, whom he convicts to death without a trial. Sulla promises to pardon the people who cooperate with his executions. Some men are executed by their own wives and children who are then allowed to keep the family estate. Sulla rewards his friends and punishes his enemies. The young Julius Caesar is included in the death lists of Sulla, since Caesar was related by marriage to Marius. Sulla lets the young Caesar live, but warns that he sees in the young man “the ambition of many Marius”.

Sulla was Dictator (then a real office which gave its holder the power to decree martial law and act as he pleased for a limited period) of Rome for two years of political terror. At the end of his dictatorship, Sulla leaves Rome for his countryside villa to write his memoirs. Sulla lives a dissipated life with a young wife and a male actor called Metrobius who had become his lover a long time ago. He still intervenes with politics, but remains open to discuss his policies with any man who approaches him. Sulla dies of old age, a mysterious man for all who knew him. It was said he could drink and party with the poorest and simplest persons, celebrating with great joy, but then would change to be a tyrant ordering deaths with no cause at all. It is estimated that around 1000 persons died from Sulla’s political persecutions. I wonder what the ancient Romans would have thought of the 20^th century dictators who murdered far more people.