The Reluctant Empress and The Fallen Eagle

As the contemporary Eurozone appears as a neo-Holy Roman Empire, it is only fair to draw comment on the conduct of its "Emperor" (or "Empress"), Angela Merkel of Germany.
The current state of the Eurozone puts Germany in a morally awkward position. Having long recovered its status since the Second World War as the economic centre of Europe, its status as the home of the ECB and Europe's economic sentinel puts it in a position of unrivalled power compared to its Eurozone co-partners.
The awkwardness comes from the fact that since the fall of Hitler, Germans have been psychologically hard-wired to resist any temptation to use its strategic and economic muscle beyond its boundaries. The idea of a potential (Eurozone) "Fourth Reich" no doubt brings out most Germans in a cold sweat; their instinct is for pacifist non-intervention and stepping out of the spotlight at the earliest opportunity, as though they are terrified that somehow a jack-booted storm-trooper lies just under their skins, ready to burst out.
This thinking can be seen in the words and actions of the neo-Holy Roman Empress, Angela Merkel. As the governments of the Mediterranean collapse one after another, they are replaced by (non-elected) administrations that happen to fit the wishes of the Holy Roman Empress; she wishes exactly what the markets wish for: a return to fiscal sanity in the regimes south of the Alps. And while those new (imposed) regimes are there to sort out their respective financial mess, they still ask for further help from the Empress.
And the Empress Angela, partly for reasons of financial principle, and partly (it appears) out of fear of appearing too dictatorial, shies away from any thought of doing more for her southern clients. The mere thought of her being able to have such power over the fate of other nations, and using it, brings her, like her compatriots, out in a metaphorical cold sweat.

There are some odd comparisons to the attitude that Emperor Angela has to her new, financially-dependent, Southern European clients, and that which the USA had to the rest of the world prior to the First World War.
By the start of the 20th century, the USA was an empire in all but name, in that it possessed colonial dependencies (recently won from Spain), and was a world power of increasing influence. In spite of that, many Americans were (and still are) in denial about their imperial status. They were loathe to interfere in affairs beyond their immediate vicinity, notwithstanding what the first President of the American Empire, Theodore Roosevelt, called "policing" in the Western Hemisphere - such as the creation of the Panama canal (by supporting Panama's independence from Mexico), amongst others. It took the First World War, and the European Powers' mass suicide of the First World War, to get the American Empire to take an interest in what happened beyond its shores.
Likewise, it may well take the even more drastic financial collapse of Italy, Greece or Spain, for the Empress Angela to realise that Germany may well eventually have to grasp the nettle of financial responsibility for the rest of the Eurozone, come what may. Like it or not, Germany may eventually have to realise the reality of it's own financial "White Man's Burden" - The Reluctant Empress may have to accept her imperial financial obligations, and rule the fiscal roost over Italy and Greece, regardless of her feelings on the matter.

There is one more take on this issue: that the financial perspective that Angela Merkel takes on the bailouts of Italy and Greece is remarkably similar to that of the Republicans' view of how to deal with the American economy. Merkel believes that the way of dealing with Italy and Greece's economic mismanagement is not to help them (through an injection of foreign funds), but to force them to deal with the issue by themselves (through cutting government expenditure); likewise, the Republicans' believe that the way of dealing with the American economy is not to help it (through a federal injection of funds), but to force the government to deal with the issue on its own (through cutting government expenditure).
This issue of financial responsibility brings into sharp light the reality of America and Europe in the 21st century; that, from a financial point of view, they are run in more or less a similar manner, with similar issues of sovereignty over fiscal responsibility.

In other words, the EU/Eurozone and the USA are both post-modern empires built on some kind of federal structure.
The former is ran in a similar way to the medieval Holy Roman Empire: a loose, semi-autonomous network of minor states and princelings, held together by an imperial figurehead, whose power is more important within the Empire than without.
The latter is ran more like the Roman Empire of ancient times; divided into clearly-marked provinces ("states") with their own governor, but ultimately held accountable to an imperial centre ("Washington DC"), ruled by a Emperor who, counter-intuitively, has more say, and usually more interest, in foreign affairs than those within the confines of the Empire.
In that sense, like the Holy Roman Emperor of medival times, Empress Angela has more clout within the Eurozone that she does compared to the influence she has on other imperial world leaders. Conversely, like the Roman Emperor of ancient times, Emperor Barack has more influence on world affairs than he does in his own squabbling Senate.
This makes these two major Western powers of the 21st century, facing each other on opposite sides of the Atlantic, political giants but also political deadweights, in some ways, compared to the likes of China or Russia.
The European Empire of Empress Angela is too concerned about its own parochial intricacies to allow its figurehead be taken seriously by the rest of the world; at the same time, the American Empire of Emperor Barack may well be taken seriously by the rest of the world, but the relentless machinations of his fractious political elite prevent him from fully taking advantage of it.
Thus Western civilisation is represented on the world stage by a Reluctant Empress and a Fallen Eagle.

Demarchy - Democracy without the "demos" problem?

Democracy these days is having quite a tough time trying to live up to its reputation in the developed world.
The other day I wrote about the recent fate of the democratic governments of Italy and Greece, ousted under foreign economic pressures, to be replaced by technocracies.
(A technocracy, by the way, is government by bureaucrats and "experts" - the kind of government the civil service in the developed world would love to have, if they didn't have the hassle of democratic elections to get in the way of the decision-making process)
Meanwhile, other autocratic regimes, such as Saudi Arabia, Russia and China, seem to be doing very well without a properly-functioning democratic system, if they have one at all. Outside of Europe and North America, the only major world economic powers that are (fairly) well functioning democracies and are economically stable with a likely good future to look to, are India and Brazil.

All this makes you wonder why people still put up with democratic government at all; it's messy, prone to instability, suffers from the threat of continual ugly compromises. The example of Greece and Italy may well add to the scepticism that the Eastern giants (such as China, Russia and Saudi) have towards any steps in the democratic direction.
After all, it could be argued that it was the constant pressure of the democratic process that put Italy and Greece's politicians on the slippery slide into granting their electors whatever irrational wish they had, regardless of the cost. If those country's politicians were weak, it might be argued, that was simply because they reflected the weak will of their populations to deal with reality.

Of course, that depends on the politicians and the people of any democratic country; if the people and politicians are both irrational, then by definition, democracy quickly becomes dysfunctional - infact, it may not even be called "democracy", but rather could be something technically called "Ochlocracy" - Mob Rule, to you and me, where government is at the whim of every protest group, interest group and one-issue party that has the largest voice at any given moment.

The main functional problem that many see with even "rational" democracy is that in order to become elected, a person has to become known to the public; this necessitates the formation of parties that broadly reflect that person's views, unless that individual is extremely rich.
Those parties then develop their own interests, sometimes they scheme together to gain power or influence decision-making, and after a short while, many ordinary voters see a "political class" that seems seperate from them. Hence in the USA you have "the Beltway", a term to describe all decisions and actions carried out by the elected politicians in a faraway and disconnected capital; in Europe, "Brussels" has much the same character.

There is another system, that was tried with positive results, most recently in medieval Venice (and in ancient Greece), that has been called "Demarchy": where governing officials are not voted into office at all; instead, they are appointed at random from the electors.

This might sound perfectly insane, but there are some immediate differences that can be seen with this system compared to democratic election.
For a start, the "party system" that is a necessary evil in democracy, becomes totally irrelevant if government officials are chosen at random. A persons opinions, income, background, or any other factor, are not counted for or against them, and besides, campaigning would be pointless, because there is no "election", only selection.
(At this point, it might be fair to add that there perhaps could be some minimal criteria to qualifying for governmental selection: age, minimal residential requirements, and so on; though this may be no more than would be expected for someone to qualify for jury duty)

It also makes the job of goverment cheaper: no party funding, no election campaign costs. Furthermore, as the people in government will have only just entered for the first (and probably only) time, they should instinctively have no special interest to be able to promote (as they would not have had the time to do so; and besides, any of the other potential government members would be able to oppose any special interest in government). Although it may be practically impossible to stop this from happening entirely, it certainly should reduce the risks to a minimum.

One possible criticism of this method is that if the people selected all chose to act (as a group or individually) in their own interests for their term in office, then things would quickly become dysfunctional; that said, the very fact that they would lose their position next time around should also make any potential wrongdoers think carefully about how the rest of the public would react to them once they became "civilians" once again - unless the culprits chose a self-imposed exile. In that sense, it would be in the selected goverment's own interests to attend to the public's concerns.
Another obvious point is the potential danger of allowing people without suitable education and experience to the reigns of government. Democracy, so its proponents say, is good for seperating the wheat from the chaff. Well, that may be so much of time, but even the system of democratic election serves its fair number of regrettable results - again, it all depends on the rationale of the electors, as we have seen over the years in Italy and Greece.
One way around that problem could be to have a stable civil service, or shadow "technocracy" that could be also selected in a similar random manner to the "regular" government, albeit using more stringent criteria to be eligible for selection (based on a higher level of qualifications and experience) - by definition it would therefore be from a smaller base of potential candidates (in the tens of thousands rather than the millions, for example). The function of this "technocracy" would be to act as a counterweight to the potential drawbacks in the "common" selected government; namely, the slight risk that the government taken from the general population could make an instinctive or poorly-reasoned decision.
Therefore, a little like in the USA, you would have two arms of government of equal stature: a general cabinet, and a technocratic cabinet, working together where necessary to reach a common agreement.

How often, and in what way, could these positions be selected?
The best compromise as I see it would be to have local governments, national "civilian" government, and the "technocrat" government selected at different periods and for different terms in office - for example, local government every four years, national "common" government every four years, and the "technocrat" government every five years.
A further amendment might be to have the selection list for national government come from the existing list of local government officials; that way, anyone who is selected to the national government already has several years experience in dealing with the basic affairs of local bureaucracy; they then will have a better hands-on knowledge of the best methods of dealing with public concerns.
Technocrats' terms in office ought to be longer as, to use the same rationale of the Founding Fathers of the USA, those who are more senior and experienced will have a greater chance to better inform those in the "civilian" government who may benefit from a older hand and wiser head.
So, for example, if country X decided to create this form of Demarchic government in the year 2020 with all three branches of government at the same time the following selections would go as follows:
Local: 2024, 2028, 2032, and so on
Civilian: 2024, 2028, 2032, and so on
Technocrat: 2025, 2030, 2035, and so on

Maybe this all sounds nuts. But every system of government has its benefits and drawbacks.

The Decline And Fall of The Roman Empire, And The Rise Of The New Holy Roman Empire

History is full of dejavu.
The politics of Europe of the early 21st century is really not so much different from that of Europe in the 11th century.

The recent histories of the modern states of Italy and Greece, and that of France and Germany, contrast oddly with their more medieval counterparts; the Holy Roman Empire, the Papacy (and Italian city-states), and the Byzantine Empire.

The Treaty of Rome, signed in the 1950s, created the prototype for the EU, beginning with the core members, France and Germany. After the moral and economic wreckage of the Second World War, hitherto mortal enemies France and Germany vowed to a future of economic alliance. Italy, amongst others, joined this association some years later, followed by Greece.

This suited all parties well, and then this association became a formal economic union with one currency. And this is where it became much more complicated. While Germany and France were the two strongest powers on Continental Europe - a contemporary "Holy Roman Empire", economically joined at the hip - Italy and Greece, the two ancient imperial powers, had been economic basket cases since the Second World War.

Both Italy and Greece had been through a succession of elected governments since the war. Greece even had a period of miliary rule. But both countries' governments, especially in the last forty years upto the 2008-11 financial crisis, utterly failed to manage their countries responsibly. In stark contrast to Germany, whose economy was destroyed after the Second World War, yet had gone from strength to strength, the ancien regimes of the Med, Italy and Greece, had gone from modest growth to profligate insanity.
Both Greece and Italy's problems were essentially the same, albeit that Italy's were much worse as their economy was much bigger than Greece's. Their governments, until very recently, had run their countries as a weak parent appeases and spoils an errant and tantrum-throwing child: the state provided generous subsidies and pensions, because they didn't want pensioners and unions marching on the street; the state turned a blind eye to rampant tax evasion and corruption because they didn't want the middle-classes and shopkeepers on the streets.
In other words, the Greek and Italian governments were repeating the same mistakes that all failing empires in history made - through governmental weakness, allowing their country to live beyond its means and avoiding the uncomfortable (but inevitable) truth.

So, it came to last week, as the New "Holy Roman Empire" of Europe (the Franco-German economic duopoly) ultimately calls the shots on the Eurozone, called time to Italy and Greece's governments.
Italy's premier, Emperor Silvio (whose title can be sybolically conferred as being the longest ruler of Italy since the time of Mussolini, and since his moral exemplar sometimes seemed to be Caligula), after ruling his state for much of the previous twenty years through corruption, mismanagement, and moral indifference, was forced to symbolically relinquish his crown to Italy's ceremonial President. Then the President, acting in the role once held by the Pope a thousand years ago, shortly after bestowed the title of Italian premier (once called by the name "Emperor of the Romans" in the days of the Papacy) to an Italian bureaucrat experienced in the politics of the Eurozone. In other words, a person far more suitable to the New "Holy Roman Empire" for the sake of European stability.
The same story can be said of Greece: after months of indecision and instability, the Greek premier bowed to the inevitable and resigned, to be replaced by a Greek bureaucrat experienced in the politics of the Eurozone, friendly to the interests of the New "Holy Roman Empire".

It could be argued, then, that what has happened in the ancient imperial territories of Greece and Italy is a kind of New "Holy Roman Empire" economic regime change. That may be so, but niether is that something that should surprise anyone who understands the modern world.

Or, for that matter, the medieval world. The Papacy had been a plaything of the Imperial Powers of Europe, such as the Holy Roman Empire, for centuries, especially around a thousand years ago, when there were Popes and anti-Popes for much of the time. Italy and its city-states were a plaything of Popes, Holy Roman Emperors and Byzantine Emperors (all three of whom, by the way, claimed the title of ruler of the Romans); not long afterwards, the same became true of what is now Greece and the Balkans.

So, who runs Europe these days? The answer is, basically, the same as the answer was a thousand years ago: Germany. A thousand years ago, England was peripheral to the fate of Europe; France was still figuring out where its loyalties lay; Spain was a mess; Eastern Europe was in transition, while Constantinople/Istanbul was maintaining its position economically, and had made diplomatic in-roads in the Middle East.

So what's new? At least Germans these days are pacifists.

Liverpool - Britain in a microcosm?

Recently we went to Liverpool.

There's something quirky and unmistakeably British about Liverpool. I say this coming from Manchester (and therefore obviously comparing it), which has been modernised and gentrified massively over the last ten or fifteen years. So you might say this is an unfair comparison; but also places like Birmingham, which were previously famously undesireable cities, have received a great deal of investment, such as in the Bull Ring Shopping Centre, and thus have become much more trendy locations.
But I'm digressing. Before talking about details of the city, a couple of observations that stick in my mind. I remember watching a documentary about compensation fraud in the UK some years ago, the statistic that really stuck in my mind was that the number of compensation claims in Liverpool was ten times the national average; the highest in the country. So, either Scousers were falling over a lot in the street due to uneven pavements, or...
But I don't want to fall into crude streotypes. The city council of Merseyside is well-known for being one of the most inefficient and profligate in the country; in that sense, Liverpool bears more comparison to Naples, minus the mafiosi.

Evidence of the gloriously inefficent council can be seen throughout the city centre; shopping centres like Clayton Square, St Johns and Queens Square, are found in that gloriously run-down and dowdy part of the centre adjecent to Lime St train station and the bus station - an entire district of the centre that looks like an open air museum of 1993, stuck in a twenty-year-old timewarp.
It's little touches like that which I find strangely endearing: the quirky and unashamedly unfashionable side to Liverpool - shops that in other cities in the UK closed down about fifteen years ago; gift shops in Albert dock that sell unashamed utter crap; pubs a stonethrow's from the main train station that look like they were last refurbished in 1975,with some of the clientele looking like they last had a wash in that year as well; the charmingly indifferent attitude to rubbish; the glorious Victorian pubs that sit alongside the crappiest of crappy bars; some cafes' lovable ignorance to hygiene; I could go on.
Of course, Liverpool was European capital of culture a few years ago. The centre of Liverpool has a huge number of shops; more than I had appreciated until my most recent visit. But one district of the centre, now called "Liverpool ONE" has been a glorious addition to the centre's fabric - an ultra-modern and stylish urban environment that more than competes against Europe's finest retail spaces.
Then there are iconic places like the Albert dock, the two cathedrals and the three graces (Liver building and so on) that have barely altered since first being built, apart from a few cosmetic improvements. Then there's "The Beatles", who continue to be sold to death; and the football; and the Grand National.
In that way, Liverpool, for all it's oddity, is also much truer British city than many others - it has largely retained it's "take-me-as-you-see-me" character (which could also be interpreted as a negative); some foreign tourists have also been at the sharp end of that experience (more on that in a moment).

This leads me to the last icon of Liverpool to mention, which perhaps acts as a microcosm of all that is true of "good old British values" than any other in the city. "Fawlty Towers" was a British comedy icon of a bygone era; but one that still seems to exist, in spirit, in Liverpool's grandest and oldest hotel, The Adelphi.
As Liverpool has the distinction of having the highest rate of compensation claims in the UK, so it seems that the charming old Adelphi hotel has the distinction of being in contention for the most-complained-about "high class" hotel in the UK.
The complaints (which can be seen in all their glory on tripadvisor.com) fall into several areas: indifferent, unhelpful, incompetent and rude staff; dirty, unhygienic and broken fittings and funiture; noisy lifts and environment; hard pillows on tired, old matresses; bland food; being woken by cleaners; I could go on.
This all reminds me of the "good old days" of British hostelry: when service with a smile was an optional extra, food with taste was a novelty, and when the attitude of "mustn't grumble" kept all the lovely, appalling old British hotels in business for years on end.

Yes, I strangely love Liverpool. But maybe I'm a masochist, like many of the British nation.