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As Analogies Go


As analogies go, it's decent, but I don't think it's a snug fit:

What we’re getting instead is less a tragedy than a deadly farce. Instead of fraying under the strain of imperial overstretch, we’re paralyzed by procedure. Instead of re-enacting the decline and fall of Rome, we’re re-enacting the dissolution of 18th-century Poland.

A brief history lesson: In the 17th and 18th centuries, the Polish legislature, the Sejm, operated on the unanimity principle: any member could nullify legislation by shouting “I do not allow!” This made the nation largely ungovernable, and neighboring regimes began hacking off pieces of its territory. By 1795 Poland had disappeared, not to re-emerge for more than a century.

Actually, I think our situation is much more analogous to that of ancient Athens. But that's just me.


Sean Paul Kelley February 8, 2010 - 11:58am
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( categories: Miscellany )

Economically

More like the British Empire.

2 Expensive wars (WW I & WW II vs Vietnam, Afghanistan & Iraq). Aging infrastructure (Rail in the UK, Roads in the US). Insergencies in the colonies (India, Kenya, Malaya, Aden), Fincialization of the economy, Balance of Payments (Lack of Investment in Industry), change in the energy basis of the economy (from coal in the UK, from Oil in the US), and a huge class division between rich and poor.

And the first Labor Government in the UK had to threaten the House of Lords to get its legislation passed. In the US the House of Reps should threaten to reform or defund the Senate.

SP you are looking too far in the past.

Synoia February 8, 2010 - 12:43pm
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Krugman is also an

Krugman is also an economist. His politics seem naive, as though it's good-guys versus bad-guys. Things happen or don't happen in the Senate because that's what the people in charge want. The republicans never had a 60-40 vote majority, yet they got every single solitary thing they ever wanted with the exception of Social Security privatization. The Dems kept saying "we can't do anything about this war or this budget or these tax cuts for the rich or financial industry reform or health care or insurance reform until YOU send us enough MONEY, until YOU get enough people to vote for DEMOCRATS.

Well there was a groundswell, and we threw the Republican bums out. A new broom sweeps clean, right? Well . . . turns out, a lot of those Dems, who shall remain unnamed but whose initials begin with Landrieu, Nelson (x2), Baucus, Reid, Lieberman, Bayh, and a bunch of other MFs were really just Republicans with (D) s after their names, and by Republicans, I mean corporatist shills who refuse to stand up to the nominations of John Roberts or Samuel Alito as supreme court justices, terminating the Iraq war, punishing war criminals or really much of anything beyond agreeing that June should be National Pizza month. And that we should give them more campaign contributions.

Jonathryn February 8, 2010 - 2:02pm
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Athens?

Can you elaborate? Unless it involves mythology, I am unquestionably ignorant of Greek history. I thought they fell to the Romans?

zot23 February 8, 2010 - 4:26pm
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