Friday Night: a feast for the real St Valentine

Who was the real St Valentine anyway? Legend says that he was a Christian citizen martyred at Rome on 14^th February 269 and buried among the tombs on the Via Flaminia. Trouble is, the evidence is shaky. For one thing, the Eastern churches celebrate his day on 6^th July: so what was the real date? He doesn’t even get a mention in lists of saints, compiled in the Fourth century: and even his earliest appearances occur in somewhat shaky sources [1] And the Emperor then reigning Claudius II Gothicus (not the bloke from Robert Graves) has no record as a persecutor, having many more pressing matters in his in-box [2] But whether there was a real Valentinus or not, he has left us a feast which we still celebrate today: Christians of all makes and now many non-Christians too. So with the aid of a little research we thought we’d take you back to the sort of food and drink he might have f known in that cold winter day in Rome in 269 AD.

The first thing: this isn’t the opulent capital of a superpower depicted in the movies any more. The Empire has been racked by civil wars climate change and invasions for over a century. A terrible pandemic, the Plague of Cyprianus, is raging: it will carry off the Emperor and many citizens in the next few years. And Rome reflects this downturn: it is starting to look scruffy and uncared for, because the money is running out, and the Emperor is nearly always on the frontiers. But a sort of middle class, the Decuriones still survives. It’s the stratum a real Valentinus might have come from. And tonight the paterfamilias of a modest family wants to push the boat out in honour of his older brothe, who is about to return to active service with the prestigious Legio V Macedonia, in Dacia.

All the Hollywood togas, silks and linens have vanished too. People dress in rough woollen tunics with equally serviceable hooded cloaks to keep out the weather. Much is influenced by military styles: the brother even wears braccae, a curious new garment which encloses the legs in tubes of cloth joined at the top and belted at the waist. And the food reflects Rome’s beleaguered state. As this is special, there is a first course of bread (panis secundarius) and some cheese, olives and pickled vegetables. Wine is served: rough red stuff from Campania: Gaul has long been cut off by a military rebellion. It will be well watered and served in earthenware cups. The main course will be a type of stew usually made from herbs. As tonight is special, a little expensive pork has been added. Desserts are simple too: a few raisins, dried figs maybe even some honeyed dates, as Africa is still under the rightful Emperor. And the talk is not of literature or Courtesans, but of battles, taxes, and who is still alive.

Ok it’s fiction But there really was a Valentinus, this is the world he would have known. Pretty rough, pretty humble. Compare it to the pink prosecco, chocolate and lavish meals that so many will be gobbling down tomorrow. And whatever your troubles, think yourself lucky.

[1] Saint Valentine – Wikipedia

[2] Claudius Gothicus – Wikipedia

For a general history, try

Goldsworthy, Adrian. Rome: The Eclipse of the West. London: Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 2003.

#christianity #st valentine #roman empire #history #church #food #drink

GCSE Revision: why humans became extinct

The following is a specimen answer to a History examination question set for GCSE students of the species Homo emergens in the year 2126 (year 76 NSE of the New Species Epoch)

Discuss the extinction of our predecessor species Homo sapiens in the middle of the 21st century and its replacement by Homo emergens

The factors that led to the downfall Homo sapiens, sometimes called humans, were in fact biological. Their cognitive capacities were no longer able to match the complexity of the world which their own technology had created.

Homo sapiens emerged from a group of similar hominin species such as Homo erectus and Neanderthals. It had evolved a brain structure which gave it an edge in cognitive reasoning. This allowed it not only to drive its competitor hominins to extinction: it allowed it to become, briefly, the biologically and ecologically dominant life form on this planet. And to form huge interconnected networks of information, trade and energy exchange called “cities”. Yet the brains of these creatures had not evolved beyond those of their ancestors. Who were adapted for survival in small hostile competing groups. The neurological architecture which had been so adaptive for that period was utterly inadequate for the complicated world which had been created in the last century of their existence. These cognitive inadequacies included confirmation bias, the sunk cost fallacy, motivated reasoning and a tendency to divide quickly into mutually jealous hostile groups. The primitive institutions which this species evolved were therefore plagued by short term bias, institutional inertia and deep patterns of hierarchical loyalty which left them unable to adapt to the rapidly changing complexities in which they operated. And none of these cognitive failures could be overcome, because they were part of the inherited biological adaptations of the species.

Thus the complications of the late human era such as climate change, Artificial Intelligence and disease pandemics represented a new environment to which this species could no longer adapt. Instead of solutions they caused economic decline, political polarisation and eventually The Great Final War of 2046. The massive falls in human population and its reduction to technological impotence provided the ecological niche into which our own species, Homo emergens, was able to move. Our current thriving is due to the same superior intellectual capacity which had allowed H sapiens to exterminate Homo erectus: as it in turn had done to the preceding Australopithecines. It is a mark of our intelligence that we have not exterminated our own predecessors but have confined their remnants to zoological parks where they may continue to be objects of scientific study and public amusement. Their fate shows that no species can survive if it is not well adapted to its environment: a lesson our own would do well to learn.

_{copyright: EmergentEdge Specimen solutions 76: “we write ’em- you pass ’em!”}

#biology #evolution #extinction #cognitive bias #war #climate change

Everyone hates Keir. Here’s why

As we write. the current troubles of UK Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer are profound. One of the reasons they are so bad is that, almost before he took office, almost no one has warmed to him: many evince active dislike. Meaning this serious, intelligent man can draw on no reserves of public goodwill in the way that a more raffish character like say Boris Johnson could. Why?

We think part of the answer lies in this article by Larry Elliott. For it charts Britain’s fall from manufacturing powerhouse to fragile services-led house of cards in a few punchy paragraphs, while noting China’s almost inverse trajectory to high tech manufacturing superpower. How so? Elliott compares the policies of two politicians who took power at around the same time in their respective nations: Deng Xiaoping and Margaret Thatcher. While the former did everything he could to foster manufacturing, the latter, a true disciple of unfettered free markets, believed:

…… market forces should determine which businesses thrived. If Britain excelled in financial and business services……… That’s what the country should concentrate its efforts on, while other nations made the ships and the machine tools

Underwritten by the short term unearned bonanza of North Sea Oil, this catechism was applied unchecked. With the results we see today. No British Government will ever again have the resources to satisfy the clamours of its citizens-for hospitals, for thriving high streets and clean water, nor create the booming economy they crave. But, used to abundant wealth and easy answers, these citizens still think like spoiled heirs burning through the last remains of the family patrimony. So any sensible family lawyer like Starmer, who tries to utter the self-earned nature of their plight, will pass unheeded, or worse, actively scorned. Such people will always prefer a story teller to a truth teller. And for a way forward? Restore manufacturing, to which end Elliott has some policy recommendations of course . But his real answer is psychological, not economic.

The bottom line is that to rebuild manufacturing Britain has to see the world through the prism of a developing country not a developed one.

In other words -forget its pride.

[1] How can Britain regain its manufacturing power? Start thinking like a developing country | Larry Elliott | The Guardian

#economics #UK #China #Deng Xiaoping #Margaret Thatcher #manufacturing #politics

Neo Liberalism to National Market Liberalism: is this a Great Global Transformation?

“The nine most terrifying words in the English language are: ‘I’m from the government, and I’m here to help.’”

These words of Ronald Reagan were the best and most concise summary ever of the creed of Neoliberalism, which he shared so avidly with Margaret Thatcher. They called themselves Conservatives: but their belief was utterly radical, dominating all public discourse and transforming the world at least until the Great Crash of 2007-2008.

The radical nature of that transformation is laid out by Branko Milanović in The Great Global Transformation. We have two reviews for you, one via the inestimable Nature Briefing [1] and the other by Ivan Radanović for the equally prestigious London Review of Books [2] As ever we won’t spoil these excellent pieces, humbly begging you to read both. However we could not resist this passage from Radanović’s review. For it highlights the contradiction at the heart of the Reagan led project which would ultimately bring it crashing down:

For Branko Milanović and many others, China is at the centre of the current ideological paradigm shift. China’s rise, enabled by global neoliberalism, also made the end of global neoliberalism inevitable, by growing too big to be integrated into a global order whose rules are written by the US and its allies.

The Chinese saw a blindspot which the complacent westerners had missed: if you build an economy where the private sector is good and the state bad, how do you cope when foreign governments act like private companies? In Britain many utilities privatised by Thatcher are owned by foreign governments: is that Socialism or Capitalism? The shrewd rulers of China simply flipped this conundrum: the State and the Communist Party oversee the activities of a thriving private sector. Is that Socialism or Capitalism? In which case, what do words like “Conservative”, “Liberal” and Neo Liberal” really mean?

Milanović worthily joins a list of critics of the Neoliberal project including Wilkinson and Pickett, Thomas Piketty, and Will Hutton. It is easy to see Neoliberalism’s faults now, but it was very popular once. And before we rejoice its final passing, what follows may be very much darker indeed.

[1]“Nationalism grows on the terrain of never-satiated mass plenty and greed,” writes economist Branko Milanovic in his new book, The Great Global Transformation. Milanovic argues that globalization benefited previously poor populations, notably those in China, and the already rich, but left the middle and lower classes in countries such as the United States behind. The result is “the exponential growth of ‘nationalism, greed and property’”, writes sociologist Roberto Patricio Korzeniewicz in his review. “For Milanovic, greed is the iron cage of our times, and our future is bleak.”

Nature | 7 min read

[2] Branko Milanović – is neoliberalism being replaced by something more capitalist? – LSE Review of Books

The Great Global Transformation: National Market Liberalism in a Multipolar World. Branko Milanović. Allen Lane. 2025.

#politics #economics #Ronald Reagan #free markets #capitalism #socialism #communism

How the Emperor Justinian tried to Make Rome Great Again-and failed

When the Emperor Justinian succeeded to the Roman Empire in 527 AD it was already well past its best. All the western provinces-lands we now call Britain, France, Spain, North Africa, even Italy and Rome-had been lost in the previous century. What was left, the Eastern Empire governed from Constantinople, was still the most powerful state, primus inter pares. But no longer the sole hegemon it had been. However Justinian had big ideas: he would fully restore the glory of the Roman Empire. He would rebuild all the cities and defences which had decayed. He would reunite all Christians under his leadership and build a series of new churches across his domain. Above all decided “to reconquer all the countries possessed by the Romans to the limits of the two oceans”[1]

At first it went well. North Africa was captured, after a struggle. Forces were despatched as far as parts of Spain, with limited success. But it was in Italy that things started to go wrong. When Justinian became Emperor, Italy still had a thriving economy: there were big cities, Catholics, even a Pope. It was Roman in everything but name, being ruled by barbarian Ostrogoths. But names and titles mattered to Justinian. Accordingly he launched a series of wars (535-554 AD) designed to reconquer what he saw as Rome’s ancient homeland, and thereby restore its former glories. It didn’t matter that he had the help of able men like Belisarius and Narses: nor that he spent immense amounts of money and lost thousands of men; nor that he tried, and kept on trying. The contending armies swept back and forth across the peninsula, killing. taking and re-taking cities, destroying farms, aqueducts and roads. Even Rome suffered a long and disastrous siege. When the Empire finally prevailed, it wasn’t for long because the Lombards invaded in 568 AD and quickly wrested most of it away from Imperial control.

And back home did anyone thank their ambitious Emperor? Effectively, the citizens were bankrupted by the cost of all those armies, churches and palaces. Constantinople was torn apart by riots between sports fans. And the Christians, whom Justinian so loved, were divided into two irreconcilable factions, the Monophysites and the Orthodox, a feud which would have disastrous consequences for his successors. Of course Justinian was not to blame for the plague that struck the empire. But there was little left in the kitty to repair the ravages it unleashed., When Justinian died in 565AD he left the Empire larger-but fatally weakened in economic and human terms. He was a consequential Emperor, but he was a dreamer, unable to grasp that some things are truly lost forever. We shall leave the last damning words to Professor Davis

But the historian of Europe is forced to admit that by undertaking a reconquest of the West when all his forces were needed to defend his empire on the Persian and Slavonic frontiers, Justinian exhausted the resources of his Empire in pursuit of a policy which could not possibly succeed,[2]

Can anyone think of any modern parallels?

1] RH Davis A History of Medieval Europe Longman 1989 p 50

[2] ibid.p61

#roman empire #politics #economics #history #justinian #church #christianity

George Monbiot on the arc of History

There’s a simple view of history as series of pageants. Kings fight glorious battles, heroes like Nelson and Genghis Khan kill lots of people, talented artists like Michaelangelo gaily paint frescoes of the male nude all over the walls of some slightly dodgy cleric’s new palace It’s interesting, it’s fun, it excites podgy old men who have never been in a war to dress up in funny costumes. There’s only one problem with it, in fact,

It’s bollocks.

Starting slowly at first, reading the works of much clever people like Professor Kennedy[2] [3] we realised that History is driven by deep slow moving inexorable forces: things like climate, infant survival rates and technology. Britain rose because it was the first to develop modern commercial and industrial processes. It fell when other countries started to do those things better. Rome succeeded, for a while ,because it turned the Mediterranean Sea into a single trading zone in an epoch when sail was the most economic means of transport. It fell when plagues and climate change so decimated its population that it could no longer defend the frontiers of that zone. Above all it’s demographics, economics and logistics that determine the fate of nations, not battlefield heroics.

It is in this light that we present this article by George Monbiot of the Guardian. [1] For it attempts to address this single determining factor, both in our lives-and those of the next four or five generations to come. It doesn’t matter if you love immigration, or hate it. Whether you thought everything would solved by a rising population or a falling one, (as we used to). See this more as advice from a wise accountant to a failing family firm “this much is in your coffers, therefore these will be your spending options” In world terms, the arc is very simple. The population will grow a little while longer. Then it will start to fall. Precipitously. All decisions on defence, finance culture, even our own little idées fixées like antibiotics and climate change, shall be made in the light of this simple, ineluctable fact.

We have followed Monbiot on many topics for years; his writings are always stark and cogent. We urge to you look him up and read more. But today, for now, we beg you to read this one, It should lend perspective like nothing else.

[1] https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2025/dec/12/europe-migrants-birth-rates-immigration-countries

[2]Paul Kennedy, The Rise and Fall of the Great Powers: Economic Change and Military Conflict from 1500 to 2000 (New York: Random House, 1987).

[3] Kyle Harper, The Fate of Rome: Climate, Disease, and the End of an Empire (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2017).

#history #population #demographics #immigration ##economics

Why taxes are good for you #5: No taxes= no economy

Let’s go back to part one of this series where our old friend Dave Watford is leaning on the bar of the Dog and Duck. Complaining how the government takes all his money in taxes and” if he ditnt ‘av ter pay no (expletive deleted) taxes his wife wouldn’t ‘av ter (expletive deleted) work at all!” It’s a widely held view, assiduously promoted by certain very well funded “think” tanks. In fact it’s the exact opposite of how a real economy works. Or exists at all. All the evidence suggests that without taxation, and the government to enforce it, there could have been no economy. Humanity would have frozen at the level of sheep grazers and dirt farmers.

It worked something like this Once there was a King somewhere in old Mesopotamia: and he invented something called an Urg, No one wanted it much at first. Until the King said: ”everyone has to pay ten Urgs a year in taxation. Which I will enforce.” Suddenly the Urg had value because-everyone needed it to pay the taxes. They started to work and trade to earn and swap all the Urgs they needed to pay the King. Who helpfully kept the whole process going by creating more Urgs which he issued to people in order that they could pay their taxes…….suddenly roads were built, trade networks flickered into life, and huge buildings like ziggurats started going up. “Ah!”. cry the detractors, “all these things were gong on before there was money!” It was Keynes who nailed this fallacy. Money is about much more than coins, and came much earlier, he said. Money is all about the network of obligations, debts and credits, which by their redemption make trade possible. The whole point of the king was to ensure that these contracts were enforced. Coins came much later in the archaeological record, as a convenient technological advance to the system. . The electronic banking of their day, if you like.[1] [2]

We’ve talked before how kings use taxes to pay for armies and policemen and courts and other things to keep its citizens safe. But below that level, they are even more fundamental to the very existence of an economy. Without them there would be no Dog and Duck bar for Dave to lean on. He would depend on home brewed beer and home spun clothes. And, as it was mainly women who produced all those sorts of things (they do most of the work in agricultural societies), think of this Dave:-she would indeed ‘av ter work, mate. Innit.

[1] The History Of Taxation In Ancient Civilizations: A Comprehensive Overview Of Early Fiscal Systems And Their Impact

[2] The Shocking Origins of Money Hidden in 1,000-Year-Old Artifacts

[3] Kelton, S The Deficit Myth John Murray 2021 see especially pp 25 et seq

#archaeolgy #economics #history #taxes #money #coins

Did St John predict the Fall of the Roman Empire 300 years ahead?

One thing we’ve always admired at this blog is someone whose predictions come true. Over the years we have praised seers as diverse as Edmund Burke, Gillian Tett, John Maynard Keynes and Rachel Carson, among others.(LSS passim) And one thing they all had in common: they called it before it happened which is not bad prophetting. To which illustrious company we would now like to add St John the Divine, the Patmos bloke, whose Revelations not only bookends to the whole Bible, it has generated no end of controversy and interpretation ever since.

Now we freely admit that St John doesn’t come across as a congenial fellow. A bit irascible and censorious, you might say. Not the sort of chap you’d invite round to your next dinner party to show off your latest bottle of Waitrose Claret. We suspect he even had a huge beard(always a warning sign) and the sort of scowl which instantly disapproved of conversations about holiday homes on Greek islands. But just pay attention to two of the things he wrote, around 95 AD while sojourning on one of them:

For all nations have drunk of the wine of the wrath of her fornication… and the merchants of the earth are waxed rich through the abundance of her delicacies.” (Revelation 18 3)

Now follow it up with this little bon mot

Come out of her, my people, that ye be not partakers of her sins, and that ye receive not of her plagues.” (Revelation 18 4)

All written when the Roman Empire was at its most prosperous and powerful height. Which leads us to the works of two authors who have explained two of the greatest mysteries which have ever bedevilled our minds: why was Rome(Republic and Empire) so successful? And if so, why did it so undeniably fail, around about 400 AD? The first of these answers was provided by the great Professor RH Davis in his immortal History of Medieval Europe [1] It was the genius of Rome to unite all the peoples of the Mediterranean into a single trading block, in which therefore peace and prosperity flourished by the standards of the time. Hence all those parties of which St John so heartily disapproved. And the second was Professor Kyle Harper who so convincingly demonstrated that much of Rome’s Fall was due to terrible plagues, such as the Antonine and Cyprian which entered the Empire and spread so well because of the efficient trade networks it had engendered. Two strikes, and Rome was out.

So how did a miserable old git, sitting alone in his shack while the rest of the island partied, get it so right? Was he a diva at economics? Epidemiology? Was he just lucky? Or could it be, was it just possible he had it from Someone who knew for sure-and whispered in his ear? we leave you to judge.

[1] Davis, R.H.C. A History of Medieval Europe: From Constantine to Saint Louis. London: Longman, 1970.2nd edition Longman1989 see especially pp 3-7

[2] Harper, Kyle. The Fate of Rome: Climate, Disease, and the End of an Empire. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2017.

#St John the Divine #Revelations #prophecy #Roman Empire #History #epidemiology #climate change #economics

World Government: Great Idea or daft fantasy?

We’ve passed a little time this year discussing the idea of a World Government. In our series which began back in January[1] we looked at the basic idea. Many of the world’s problems, we opined, were transnational: mass migration, climate change and pandemics are only a few. Nation states were no longer big enough to solve these on their own, we said. Or rather, their existence precluded the solutions, in any reasonable time frame, which would permit human survival. We also noted the terrible danger of a World State[2] : that it could quickly engender an tyranny even more terrible than those of Robespierre or Stalin: and this time with no where to escape to at all.

We spent some time discussing the idea both in these pages and with friends and acquaintances. We received some surprising responses. Even some quite hardened nationalists and Europe-bashers thought we had a good idea, but that it was utterly unfeasible in any meaningful time frame. We think that they are probably right. For another trope of these pages has been the depressing tendency of humankind to divide itself in to mutually loathing groups, over issues both large and small. We have looked at the work of thinkers Like Amy Chua , Eric Kaufman and David Ronfeldt{3.4] We looked at studies like the Robbers Cave Experiment [5] which seem to provide the essential psychological underpinning to these writers’ ideas. All of the foregoing made us feel that our sceptics had the point, and that our Big Idea was, if not wrong, then at least hopelessly impracticable.

It is the to the credit of Great Big Ideas that even when wrong, they can point the way to fertile new investigations, if they are catchy enough. No one thinks Henri Pirenne said the last word on Medieval Economics, not Freud on psychiatry. But it was the achievement of these scholars to make their ideas so strong that they challenged further studies, if only because some were so eager to prove them wrong. It is in this spirit that we shall turn to looking at some questions we have raised. Is the Nation State, which has served us so well so far, really constrained ? Can people from different groups and identities not only sink them into a common cause but actually achieve something thereby? These will be some of the the in the months ahead. And while you are waiting, don’t forget: problems like antibiotic resistance, climate change and mass migration will be getting worse.

[1]LSS 1 8 25, 14 1 25 et al

[2] LSS 22 1 25

3 LSS 16 8 20

4 LSS 10 3 21

[5]LSS 1 4 25

#world government #nation state #economics #politics #tribalism #amy chua

Why Taxes are good for you #3: look what happened to China

One of the great disadvantages of low taxes is that you end up getting conquered. As China learned at terrible cost. In the eighteenth century Qing China had been one of the greatest states in the world:, rich and populous, with booming trade, advanced techniques in agriculture, and envied craftsmanship Taxes were low, less than 5% of GDP it is estimated. So was military spending. And there was the problem. For nations in the west, like Britain for example, ran at much higher tax burdens, perhaps 15-20% GDP. With the result that they could pay for vast armies and fleets which captured all the world’s sea lanes and trade routes. It’s true that the most advanced western thinkers were classic Liberals like Ricardo and John Stuart Mill, who loudly proclaimed the virtues of low taxes and a minimal state. It was just that no one serious paid any attention to them. The result that these fleets and armies were eventually flung against China. The resulting Opium Wars were not only one of the most terrible crimes in History, they disgraced and destabilised China until 1949.[1] [2]

It was a lesson the British themselves had to relearn after the rise of Hitler forced them into frantic re-armament after 1937. After nearly two decades of orthodox economics like the Gold Standard and low taxes, suddenly the latter began to rise. Fast. All those Spitfires and cruisers and radar had to come from somewhere. So in 1938 the standard rate of income tax was raised to 27.5% (5s 6d in the pound) to help fund rearmament. A 41% surtax applied to very high incomes (over £50,000 annually), targeting the wealthiest. Other hated impositions like death duties and PAYE *were imposed. And -despite what it says in the Daily Mail-it worked. Not only was just enough done to survive the perilous summer of 1940, by 1944 Britain was the most fully mobilised of all the wartime economies. Pride indeed.

Yet there is a little irony at work here . It is our lived experience that those who most loudly proclaim the greatest patriotism are also those who would avoid paying taxes wherever and when ever possible. It is their right to say such things. But ours also to at least doubt the sincerity of a patriotism which will not pay to uphold that which it professes to adore.

_{*Pay as You Earn}

[1] Thomas Piketty Capital and Ideology

[2] David Ricardo Principles of Political Economy and Taxation

#taxation #economics #liberalism #free markets #imperialism #opium wars #china #britain