Crockham Hill June 2025 Newsletter - Flipbook - Page 33
How golden ages really start and end
Peak Human by Johan Norberg. £22 - From the Economist
Johan Norberg charts the rise and fall of golden ages around the world over
the past three millennia. He finds that the polities that outshone their
peers did so because they were more open: to trade, to strangers and to
ideas that discomfited the mighty. When they closed up again, they lost
their shine.
The Song dynasty in China had the rule of law. Peasants were granted
property rights, so farm output doubled, extra food supported larger cities.
Canals made domestic trade easier, international trade followed.
Merchants issued paper money six centuries before Europeans did.
Crowded cities resulted in an unparalleled exchange of ideas, goods and
services. The invention of movable type in the 1040s allowed the printing
of books. By 1200, Song China had the world9s richest economy.
Some of the golden ages Mr Norberg describes will be familiar. Athens was
not just the birthplace of democracy; it grew rich because it was liberal.
Tariffs were only 2%. Foreigners were welcome: an ex-slave became one
of its richest men. Ancient Athenians enjoyed more economic freedom
than citizens of any modern nation.
Rome grew strong by cultivating alliances and granting citizenship to
conquered peoples. It learned voraciously from those it vanquished. Greek
slaves taught logic, philosophy and drama to Roman children. One set of
laws governed a gigantic empire, markets were relatively free and
400,000km of roads sped goods from vessel to villa. Extra income from
hard work or innovation had a zero tax. Rome grew as rich as Britain and
France were 1,500 years later, and collapsed because plagues, barbarian
attacks, and debasement of the coinage caused inflation. Intellectual
freedom gave way to dogma.
Could a history book be timelier? Of all the golden ages, the greatest is here
and now. Of all the progress of the past 10,000 years in raising human living
standards, half has occurred since 1990. Openness went global after the
collapse of the Soviet Union, but now it is in rapid retreat as states burden
themselves with debt and taxes to fund income distribution while a
multilateral trade war looms and ever more states suppress free inquiry.
Previous golden ages all ended like Rome9s; some with bad luck but all with
bad leadership. Mr Norberg argues:
