Thursday, December 27, 2018

Rise of the West, part II



Paysage à Saint-Joachim (1903), Clarence Gagnon. A hundred years ago genetic evolution came to a halt throughout the West, yet cultural evolution continued to forge ahead ... at an accelerating speed.



My last post covered the reasons why liberal regimes have historically prevailed over conservative ones. In short, liberalism delivers the goods. By reducing the importance of kinship, it has given the market a freer rein to mobilize labor and capital for production of goods and services. More wealth is created—not only in peacetime but also, and just as critically, in wartime. Because liberal regimes are not tied to a single ethnocultural community, they can recruit from a broader pool of people and, if need be, relocate production of arms and ammunition to territories far from enemy attack.

In this post I wish to discuss the contradictions of liberalism. By "contradiction" I mean an inherent problem that will worsen even in the absence of organized opposition. Here, I will focus on one problem: liberal regimes tend to erode their own cultural and genetic foundations, thus undermining the cause of their success.



End and reversal of gene-culture coevolution

Liberalism emerged in northwest Europe. This was where conditions were most conducive to dissolving the bonds of kinship and creating communities of atomized individuals who produce and consume for a market. Northwest Europeans were most likely to embark on this evolutionary trajectory because of their tendency toward late marriage, their high proportion of adults who live alone, their weaker kinship ties and, conversely, their greater individualism. This is the Western European Marriage Pattern, and it seems to go far back in time. The market economy began to take shape at a later date, possibly with the expansion of North Sea trade during early medieval times and certainly with the take-off of the North Sea trading area in the mid-1300s (Note 1).

Thus began a process of gene-culture coevolution:  people pushed the limits of their phenotype to exploit the possibilities of the market economy; selection then brought the mean genotype into line with the new phenotype. The cycle then continued anew, with the mean phenotype always one step ahead of the mean genotype.

This gene-culture coevolution has interested several researchers. Gregory Clark has linked the demographic expansion of the English middle class to specific behavioral changes in the English population: increasing future time orientation; greater acceptance of the State monopoly on violence and consequently less willingness to use violence to settle personal disputes; and, more generally, a shift toward bourgeois values of thrift, reserve, self-control, and foresight. Heiner Rindermann has presented the evidence for a steady rise in mean IQ in Western Europe during the late medieval and early modern era. Henry Harpending and myself have investigated genetic pacification during the same timeframe in English society. Finally, hbd*chick has written about individualism in relation to the Western European Marriage Pattern (Note 2).

This process of gene-culture coevolution came to a halt in the late 19th century. Cottage industries gave way to large firms that invested in housing and other services for their workers, and this corporate paternalism eventually became the model for the welfare state, first in Germany and then elsewhere in the West. Working people could now settle down and have families, whereas previously they had largely been a lumpenproletariat of single men and women. Meanwhile, middle-class fertility began to decline, partly because of the rising cost of maintaining a middle-class lifestyle and partly because of sociocultural changes (increasing acceptance and availability of contraception, feminism, etc.).

This reversal of class differences in fertility seems to have reversed the gene-culture coevolution of the late medieval and early modern era. The evidence is still incomplete, but a consistent pattern is emerging:

1. Mean reaction time has risen in Great Britain by 13 points since Victorian times (Woodley et al. 2013). This finding may be an artefact of better sampling of the general population over time (hbd*chick 2013a). A Swedish study, however, has confirmed this lengthening of reaction time, particularly in cohorts born since the 1970s (Madison 2014; Madison et al. 2016).

2. The genetic basis of intelligence has fallen in Iceland since the cohort born in 1910. This is shown by a progressive decrease in the "polygenic score" of alleles associated with high educational attainment (Kong et al. 2017).

3. The Flynn effect is slowing throughout the West (Flynn 2007, p. 143). In Scandinavia, mean IQ peaked during the late 1990s and has since declined (Teasdale and Owen 2005). A review of this literature has shown recent declines in mean IQ in England, Denmark, Finland, and Austria and a leveling off in Norway and Australia (Rindermann 2018). The Flynn effect does not, in itself, seem to be a real increase in intelligence. Rather, it is simply a greater familiarity by people with the process of doing tests and, as such, has masked an underlying decline in real intelligence. Now that the Flynn effect has exhausted itself, we are seeing this underlying decline.


Causes?

Some of this decline may be due to class differences in fertility, especially during the early to mid-20th century. Today, with widespread use of contraception and abortion by all social classes, this factor is much less operational (Jayman 2012). Recently, two economists, Bernt Bratsberg and Ole Rogeberg, have found that the reversal of the Flynn effect in Norway is largely explained by "within-family variation." So this decline is not due to the poor outbreeding the rich or to immigrants outbreeding natives. 

It doesn't follow, however, as Bratsberg and Rogeberg argue, that a genetic cause is excluded. In Norway, as elsewhere, siblings are increasingly half-siblings. This is not a minor factor. Bratsberg and Rogeberg charted their country's IQ decline by looking at pairs of brothers; their data came from the military conscript register, and only men are subject to conscription. To produce a pair of brothers, a woman has to have three children on average. Among Norwegian women with three children, 36.2% have had them by two or more men (Thomson et al. 2014). Furthermore, because half-siblings tend to be born farther apart than full-siblings, they have contributed more to changes in mean IQ over time. 

If the genetic basis of intelligence has been declining between older and younger half-siblings, two things must be happening:

- Divorced mothers are, on average, having their second children by lower-IQ men;

- Such men have been contributing more than other men to succeeding generations of Norwegians, at least during the last forty years.

Lappegård et al. (2011) found that multi-partner fatherhood is most common among Norwegian men with the lowest level of education. Furthermore, multi-partner fertility has increased over time among such men. Thomson et al. (2014) have similarly observed that education is negatively associated with childbearing across partnerships in Australia, United States, Norway, and Sweden. These differentials increased from the 1970s to the 2000s.

Unfortunately, we cannot easily measure the impact of multi-partner fatherhood on the IQ of the next generation. How can we compare the first father’s children with the second father’s children when Norwegian statistics do not identify a child's biological father? Only the "registered father" is identified. Once a man has adopted the earlier children of his spouse, he becomes their father for all statistical purposes.


Uncoupling of gene-culture coevolution

There has thus been an uncoupling of gene-culture co-evolution. Genetic evolution is leveling off throughout the West and even reversing in some countries. Meanwhile, cultural evolution has been forging ahead. The mean phenotype is no longer one step ahead of the mean genotype. It's several steps ahead.

A century ago the market economy was important, but a lot of economic activity still took place within the family, especially in rural areas. In the late 1980s I interviewed elderly French Canadians in a small rural community, and I was struck by how little the market economy mattered in their youth. At that time none of them had bank accounts. Few even had wallets. Coins and bills were kept at home in a small wooden box for special occasions, like the yearly trip to Quebec City. The rest of the time these people grew their own food and made their own clothes and furniture. Farms did produce food for local markets, but this surplus was of secondary importance and could just as often be bartered with neighbors or donated to the priest. Farm families were also large and typically brought together many people from three or four generations. 

By the 1980s things had changed considerably. Many of my interviewees were living in circumstances of extreme social isolation, with only occasional visits from family or friends. Even among middle-aged members of the community there were many who lived alone, either because of divorce or because of relationships that had never gone anywhere. This is a major cultural change, and it has occurred in the absence of any underlying changes to the way people think and feel.

Whenever I raise this point I'm usually told we're nonetheless better off today, not only materially but also in terms of enjoying varied and more interesting lives. That argument made sense back in the 1980s—in the wake of a long economic boom that had doubled incomes, increased life expectancy, and improved our lives through labor-saving devices, new forms of home entertainment, and stimulating interactions with a broader range of people.

Today, that argument seems less convincing. Median income has stagnated since the 1970s and may even be decreasing if we adjust for monetization of activities, like child care, that were previously nonmonetized. Life expectancy too has leveled off and is now declining in the U.S. because of rising suicide rates among people who live alone. Finally, cultural diversity is having the perverse effect of reducing intellectual diversity. More and more topics are considered off-limits in public discourse and, increasingly, in private conversation. 

Liberalism is no longer delivering the goods—not only material goods but also the goods of long-term relationships and rewarding social interaction.

To be cont'd


Notes

1. Markets, of course, go much farther back in time, farther than the earliest historical records. For most of that time, however, they were secondary to kinship. People organized their lives primarily in terms of blood ties or the ties of procreation between husband and wife. The main unit of economic activity was the family. Markets were not only of secondary importance but also highly localized in space and time. In short, there were markets but no market economy.

2. Hbd*chick has accused me of plagiarizing her work on the Hajnal Line and the Western European Marriage Pattern. The truth is that I became interested in that subject much earlier— during the early 1990s in an exchange of letters with Kevin MacDonald in the pages of Ethology and Sociobiology. Afterwards, I intended to write a follow-up that would prove two points: 1) the Western European Marriage Pattern predates Christianity; and 2) this cultural environment has selected for certain psychological traits. Over the years I gathered material, but I didn't feel I had enough for a publishable article. I finally wrote up several blog posts on the subject in 2011 and eventually a full article in 2017. Meanwhile, hbd*chick had published her first post on the Hajnal Line in 2011. I did read that post but she seemed to be taking the same position that Kevin MacDonald had taken, i.e., that the WEMP was created by the Catholic Church and that outbreeding was key to emergence of the Western mindset. Later, in a 2012 post, she began to see the WEMP as a template for gene-culture coevolution. At that point I had the impression she was drawing on my material, either directly from my articles and blog posts or indirectly through various bloggers.

So did I "discover" this idea? No, of course not. Neither I nor hbd*chick was the first to write about the Hajnal Line or the WEMP. More importantly, neither of us was the first to link the WEMP to Western European individualism and mercantilism. I would award that title to Wally Seccombe in his 1992 book A Millennium of Family Change. Feudalism to Capitalism in Northwestern Europe. In the end, few ideas are truly original. It's no coincidence that both of us began writing about that subject around the same time. Other people were writing on related topics, and those people were influencing both me and her. I'm thinking here about authors like Gregory Clark and blogs like Jayman and Those Who Can See. I didn't read it at the time, but in January 2011 Kevin MacDonald wrote a book review that discussed the Hajnal Line and European individualism:

The nuclear family, freed from extended kinship obligations, is the basis of Western social organization. It is unique relative to other culture areas. This pattern is particularly noticeable in the Northwest of Europe rather than the Pontic steppe region. As one goes from the Northwest of Europe to the Southeast, there is an increase in joint family structure, with brothers living together with parents, grandparents and children. Family historian John Hajnal discovered the "Hajnal line" that separates Western Europe from Eastern Europe, the former characterized by nuclear family structure, relatively late marriage and large numbers of unmarried in economically difficult times, the latter by joint family structure and relatively early and universal marriage.

Finally, while preparing my 2017 article, I wanted to cite hbd*chick as someone with an alternate point of view, but I couldn't find anything published under her real name. There were only pseudonymous posts from her blog. To cite her in my manuscript would require inserting citations like (hbd*chick 2014). The reviewers would immediately notice, and the chances of rejection would increase accordingly. This point should be obvious.


References

Bratsberg, B., and O. Rogeberg. (2018). Flynn effect and its reversal are both environmentally caused. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences June 2018, DOI: 10.1073/pnas.1718793115

Clark, G. (2007). A Farewell to Alms. A Brief Economic History of the World. Princeton University Press: Princeton and Oxford.

Clark, G. (2009a). The indicted and the wealthy: surnames, reproductive success, genetic selection and social class in pre-industrial England.

Clark, G. (2009b). The domestication of man: The social implications of Darwin. ArtefaCTos 2: 64-80. 

Flynn, J.R. (2007). What is Intelligence? Beyond the Flynn Effect. Cambridge University Press.

Frost, P. (2017). The Hajnal line and gene-culture coevolution in northwest Europe. Advances in Anthropology 7: 154-174.

Frost, P. (2011a). From markets to market economy. Evo and Proud. March 4

Frost, P. (2011b). Bringing reproductive maturity into line with the age of marriage. Evo and Proud. October 29

Frost, P. (2011c). The Western European Marriage Pattern. Evo and Proud. November 12 http://evoandproud.blogspot.ca/2011/11/western-european-marriage-pattern.html

Frost, P. (1991). "Mechanisms of sexual egalitarianism in Western Europe": Comment. Ethology & Sociobiology 12(5), 335-336. 

Frost, P. and H. Harpending. (2015b). Western Europe, state formation, and genetic pacification. Evolutionary Psychology 13: 230-243.

Greer, T. (2013a). The Rise of the West: Asking the Right Questions. July 7. The Scholar's Stage

Greer, T. (2013b). Another look at the 'Rise of the West' - but with better numbers. November 20. The Scholar's Stage

Hbd*chick (2013a). A response to a response to two critical commentaries on woodley, te nijenhuis & murphy. May 27

Hbd*chick (2014b). Big summary post on the Hajnal Line. October 3

Hbd*chick (2013c). Going Dutch. November 29

Hbd*chick (2012). Behind the Hajnal Line. January 16

Hbd*chick (2011a). The Hajnal Line. June 30

JayMan (2012). It's not the cads, it's the tramps. JayMan's Blog. December 28

Kong, A., M.L. Frigge, G. Thorleifsson, H. Stefansson, A.I. Young, F. Zink, G.A. Jonsdottir, A. Okbay, P. Sulem, G. Masson, D.F. Gudbjartsson, A. Helgason, G. Bjornsdottir, U. Thorsteinsdottir, and K. Stefansson. (2017). Selection against variants in the genome associated with educational attainment. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 114(5): E727-E732.

Lappegård, T., Rønsen, M., & Skrede, K. (2011). Fatherhood and fertility. Fathering 9: 103-120.

MacDonald, K. (2011). Going against the Tide: Ricardo Duchesne's Intellectual Defence of the West. The Occidental Quarterly 11(3): 1-22.

Madison, G. (2014). Increasing simple reaction times demonstrate decreasing genetic intelligence in Scotland and Sweden, London Conference on Intelligence, Psychological comments, April 25
#LCI14 Conference proceedings

Madison, G., M.A. Woodley of Menie, and J. Sänger. (2016). Secular Slowing of Auditory Simple Reaction Time in Sweden (1959-1985). Frontiers in Human Neuroscience, August 18

Rindermann, H. (2018). Cognitive Capitalism. Human Capital and the Wellbeing of Nations. Cambridge University Press.

Seccombe, W. (1992). A Millennium of Family Change. Feudalism to Capitalism in Northwestern Europe. London: Verso.

Teasdale, T.W., and D.R. Owen. (2005). A long-term rise and recent decline in intelligence test performance: The Flynn Effect in reverse. Personality and Individual Differences 39(4): 837-843.

Thomson, E., T. Lappegård, M. Carlson, A. Evans, and E. Gray (2014). Childbearing across partnerships in Australia, the United States, Norway, and Sweden. Demography 51(2): 485-508

Woodley, M.A., J. Nijenhuis, and R. Murphy. (2013). Were the Victorians cleverer than us? The decline in general intelligence estimated from a meta-analysis of the slowing of simple reaction time. Intelligence 41: 843-850. 

15 comments:

Anonymous said...

Liberalism needs to be scrapped ASAP. NW Euro models should no longer be used for the European/American world. They've had a nice run, but ultimately, they simply suck.

Anonymous said...

America is the victim of its idealistic Founding Fathers. The Bill of Rights and the Constitution tragically sowed the seeds of what we are seeing today: the racial diversification, the Immigration Act of 1965, the decline of whites.

But when I shared this view with others they told me that America's globalism/diversity is "not a bug but a feature." There exists the view that this is what the Founding Fathers actually envisioned originally. We don't know, but maybe they were eccentric men who designed the country as a special, unusual place (in contrast to the Old World) where the evolution of diversity was a desired property. Of course there was slavery but it was regional and confined to the South of the US, and the country went to war to eliminate it.

I struggle with the question of whether the current demographic crisis is what the Founding Fathers of this country would actually approve of. Nobody forced them to emphasize that "All men are created equal" and "endowed with inalienable rights" which was the gateway to the abolition of slavery and later the 1965 Immigration Act. Other countries don't make this the cornerstones of their own constitutions. All those Anglo men such as Reagan, Bush Sr., Bush Jr.? For all we know they may have been following in the footsteps of the idealist Founding Fathers.

Anonymous said...

BTW just to add to the above, I read your 2012 essay (very contrarian/unconventional) arguing that the Democrats may actually help whites rather than the Republicans.

In today's Trump era, the R-party has become legitimately pro-white and populist, and they hate NeoCons/globalists (such as Bush and Reagan) as if it were a different party entirely. So in today's world, that 2012 essay doesn't apply anymore if the Republicans are now truly pro-white, which they are (with Trump's populism). Today's Democratic party certainly isn't helping whites at all, it's trying to directly enable open borders and caravans of immigrants, so that notion can be put to rest.

I don't know whether America's Founding Fathers were of the same NeoCon/globalist mindset as the conventional old-school Republican party to which you refer, and which we have now left behind. If they were, they contributed to this crisis just as much as their Anglo globalist-R descendants such as Bush and Reagan. But what if that is the voice of "real America?"

Anonymous said...

More wealth is created—not only in peacetime but also, and just as critically, in wartime. Because liberal regimes are not tied to a single ethnocultural community, they can recruit from a broader pool of people and, if need be, relocate production of arms and ammunition to territories far from enemy attack.

The previous post cited the example of WW1, which I don't think is a good one since we can imagine the Central Powers winning it, and one of the major Allies was autocratic Russia which was critical to making the war a two front conflict in Europe that hampered Germany. Moreover, many of the broader pool of recruits, specifically the ANZAC soldiers, identified with the ethnocultural community of the liberal regime that recruited them. The rest of the pool consisted of non-white imperial subjects i.e. they were ultimately compelled to serve the liberal regimes. We shouldn't conflate the liberal and imperial aspects of the regimes. Empires, both liberal and illiberal, harness their colonial resources and compel their subjects to serve them.

Peter Frost said...

Anon,

What sort of demographic future did the Founding Fathers envision for their country? Answering that question would require a post in itself. Here are a few key points:

1. Most people, even educated people, see the future as a continuation of current trends. In 1783, immigration was a minor factor in American population growth, with most immigrants coming from northwest Europe. Natural increase was much more important:

"Already by 1790 the ancestry question was starting to become irrelevant to many, as intermarriage from different ethnic groups was becoming common, causing people to form a common American identity. The total white population in 1790 was about 80% of British ancestry, and would go on to roughly double by natural increase every 25 years. From about 1675 onward, the native-born population of what would become the United States would never again drop below 85% of the total."

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demographic_history_of_the_United_States

2. Slavery was a concern in 1783, but there was a feeling, perhaps naïve, that it would decline and wither away:

"Under the leadership of Thomas Jefferson, the new state of Virginia in 1778 became the first state and one of the first jurisdictions anywhere to stop the importation of slaves for sale; it made it a crime for traders to bring in slaves from out of state or from overseas for sale; migrants from other states were allowed to bring their own slaves. The new law freed all slaves brought in illegally after its passage and imposed heavy fines on violators."
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atlantic_slave_trade#End_of_the_Atlantic_slave_trade

Once slave importations were halted, it was thought that Africans would form a diminishing proportion of the American population because of their lower rate of natural increase. This was what actually happened elsewhere, particularly in Latin America. Cuba and Puerto Rico were largely African when slavery was abolished.

No one foresaw the steady improvement in African American natural increase. I believe it was only around 1900 that natural increase among African Americans overtook natural increase among European Americans. Nor did anyone foresee in 1783 the kind of migration flows that we are now seeing in the Western world. For that matter, very few people a half-century ago foresaw the current situation.

"we can imagine the Central Powers winning it [WWI]"

I can't, so am I excluded from your "we"? The Central Powers were doomed to defeat even in a scenario where the United States would stay out. Starvation was already rampant by 1916 -- not only in Germany but also in Austro-Hungary and the Ottoman Empire. Shortages were also developing in coal and non-ferrous metals. In short, the Central Powers were locked into a situation where they couldn't win and the other side couldn't lose. With each passing year, that imbalance steadily worsened for them. The same could be said for WWII: the Axis couldn't win, and the Allies couldn't lose. The Allies could mobilize much more resources, and they had much more capacity for increasing production.

Sean said...

A quick flip through the 2002 preface to A People That Shall Dwell Alone (p. xi) will show that Kevin MacDonald says quite clearly that while the European marriage pattern fostered individualism, extended kinship is incompatible with co-operation with strangers for market relations and exchange. Later in the book (written in the 1990's) he discusses the origin of laws against consanguinity in the Christian West and says they were pre-existing and established prohibitions of the Western Roman Empire that were taken over and became regarded as being Western Christian (p. 370-2) MacDonald quotes a 1991 paper about the "fundamentally exogamic marriage pattern of the West".

I like the the idea of a liberal state's powerful economy drawing on overseas connections being a measure to make the state more powerful in war, especially a long war. I have always thought that such considerations had a lot to do with why liberal elites feel a duty to foster immigration. The military motive was obvious. However, while Germany did not win it is going a little far to say they could not have. The Kaiser really should have been shot for not ordering an attack on France in 1905 (when Russia was in chaos). What is the point of having a military autocracy and large standing army if you sit on your hands?

Anonymous said...

Not everyone believes it was absolutely impossible:

https://nationalinterest.org/feature/how-germany-could-have-won-world-war-i-10398

At any rate, the blockade of Germany depended on Britain's navy. There was a naval arms race in the run up to the war. Germany was on track to eventually have a bigger navy, but quit the naval arms race to focus on its army due to the threat of Russia to the east. Britain of course did not have a large army and less need for it being an island nation. A naval blockade - aided by a large autocratic state to Germany's east - is a factor independent of liberalism.

As I mentioned in my previous comment, the broader pool of Britain's recruits included people who identified with Britain's ethnocultural community i.e. British descended Protestants in North America and Oz/NZ. Those who didn't identify, like the Irish, violently resisted conscription and started an armed rebellion against Britain and declared independence. The rest of the pool consisted of non-white imperial subjects i.e. they were ultimately compelled to serve.

Edwardian era was an oligarchy in which more people worked as domestic servants than in industry or agriculture. Whereas Germany had instituted a welfare state in the late 19th century.

Anonymous said...

Thanks for the response about the Founding Fathers.

On a positive note, to my surprise, I found that the anti-immigration/anti-diversity pro-white sentiment is very strong in... the Comments section of the New York Times, a liberal newspaper with a liberal readership, of all places! The commenters (subscribers) lean left on most issues, however when it comes to immigration/diversity they want to "build the wall" and "preserve European values" and have a "homogeneous population." The op-eds themselves are liberal and globalist as you'd expect, but the comments (from American liberal readers, presumably white and educated) paint a different picture. I found that notable.

Anonymous said...

One question about the Bratsberg study: did it cater for the possibility that a mother having a child at a later age might result in a reduced IQ? I would be interested to know if any studies have been performed to address this. It is well-known that the incidence of chromosomal abnormality syndromes increases with rising maternal age. Similarly, does a child's general genetic fitness (which influences IQ) deteriorate if its mother was older at time of birth?

Ken said...

"A naval blockade - aided by a large autocratic state to Germany's east - is a factor independent of liberalism". The naval fad in Germany stemmed from them aping the British colonies. Had Germany conquered land in the Ukraine food would have been no problem. Russia was financially supported by Britain (as was France). While less liberal than Britain, Germany was more liberal than Russia.

"Edwardian era was an oligarchy in which more people worked as domestic servants than in industry or agriculture. Whereas Germany had instituted a welfare state in the late 19th century." Pre WW1, the UK was an increasingly unequal society, but that proved the correct strategy because Britain's economy had huge financial reserves to put those scullery-maids to work in armaments factories. By the end of the war Britain’s overseas investments were sold, it had ran up huge debts, and even the unemployed with experience as domestic servants were extremely reluctant to go back into that line of work. You can look at the British system as the preparation for winning a war, whereby the oligarchy would be swept away. The independent British nation-state, not the oligarchs and Downton Abbey lifestyles, were what survived.

Peter, "Liberalism is no longer delivering the goods—not only material goods but also the goods of long-term relationships and rewarding social interaction..

Community and contentment vs liberalism Hacking Of The American Mind - Robert Lustig

Peter Frost said...

"while Germany did not win it is going a little far to say they could not have."

In both wars, German strategy was to deliver a quick knock-out blow. The Germans themselves knew they could not win a long war of attrition. The Allies could mobilize much more resources and manpower than they ever could. The United States, alone, had a capacity for arms production many times larger than Germany's.

Germany could have won WWI in only one scenario:

- not invading Belgium and fighting a defensive war against France
- telling the Ottoman Empire to remain neutral
- concentrating perhaps two/thirds of her army on the Eastern Front to knock Russia out of the war
- offering Russia generous peace terms in exchange for Russia switching sides

Even that scenario would have been difficult to manage. The Foreign Office wanted to bring Britain into an eventual war against Germany, and there were similar pro-British elements in the U.S. government.

"Britain of course did not have a large army and less need for it being an island nation. A naval blockade - aided by a large autocratic state to Germany's east - is a factor independent of liberalism."

Russia played no role in the naval blockade. As for the size of Britain's army, she had 300,000 troops in August 1914 and four million by the end of the war. In addition, Britain could count on over one million men from India, 330,000 from Canada, 417,000 from Australia, 100,000 from New Zealand, 233,00 from South Africa, and smaller contingents from the West Indies and elsewhere.

"the broader pool of Britain's recruits included people who identified with Britain's ethnocultural community"

I assume you're excluding the South Asian recruits. Yes, most of the others thought they were fighting for "kith and kin." In reality, they were fighting for an empire that was severing its attachments to any specific community. This process had already begun before 1914.

"Edwardian era was an oligarchy in which more people worked as domestic servants than in industry or agriculture."

You're confusing liberalism with democracy. A liberal regime can be oligarchic. In fact, as I will argue, liberalism leads to oligarchy because it eliminates the barriers to concentration of wealth and, hence, power. In a traditional regime, wealth is more dispersed, and power itself cannot be so easily bought.

"The independent British nation-state, not the oligarchs and Downton Abbey lifestyles, were what survived."

That was what happened initially. The class structure broke down, and a lot of old money failed to adapt. In 1945 there was widespread fear that all of Europe would turn communist or socialist, and the actual postwar reality was close to that fear. With the end of the Cold War, we have seen a dismantling of socialism and social democracy and a return to pre-1939 conditions.

Anonymous said...

I think it is worth mentioning that the declines in life expectancy seen in America are not uniform throughout the entire nation. While also subject to wage stagnation, democratic strongholds continue to experience increases in life expectancy and in addition to this many urban centres are also experiencing a long-term decline in violent crime. The areas worst-hit by the aforementioned problems (suicide, drug use) largely vote Republican and do not have adequate safety nets in place.
All of which is to say that many, many of us on the left will assert that the solution to what ails Middle America is *more* liberalism.

Anonymous said...

"Russia played no role in the naval blockade."

Indirectly, the threat of autocratic Russia by land to the east inhibited the German naval buildup.

"I assume you're excluding the South Asian recruits. Yes, most of the others thought they were fighting for "kith and kin.""

Yes, the South Asian recruits served because they were imperial subjects that had been conquered by force. This is a feature of imperial states, not unique to liberal regimes as you suggest. The Central Powers, Tsarist Russia had non-native imperial subjects serving as well despite being illiberal. The rest as you note fighting for Britain identified with the ethnocultural community of Britain.

iffen said...

gene-culture coevolution came to a halt


You are the academic and not me, Peter, but this seems impossible. Slow down, speed up, change trends, or reverse trends, but evolution coming to a halt? Not likely.

Peter Frost said...

"While also subject to wage stagnation, democratic strongholds continue to experience increases in life expectancy and in addition to this many urban centres are also experiencing a long-term decline in violent crime."

The decline in violent crime is due to the aging of the population. Young males account for most cases of violent crime, and there are proportionately fewer of them.

If you control for race and ethnicity, the difference in life expectancy outcomes between Democrats and Republicans disappears. Blacks and Hispanics are not affected by the decline in life expectancy because they are less socially atomized. They also benefit more from the decline in violent crime.

"The areas worst-hit by the aforementioned problems (suicide, drug use) largely vote Republican and do not have adequate safety nets in place."

Both Republicans and Democrats are liberal. Republicans are right-liberals and Democrats are left-liberals. Even that distinction is easy to exaggerate. The Clinton family and the Bush family are very similar ideologically.

In any case, the government is running out of money. It's important to maintain the family as a safety net if only because the State-run safety net will become less and less reliable.

"many of us on the left will assert that the solution to what ails Middle America is *more* liberalism."

It depends on what you mean by "liberalism," and this is where you'll end up getting screwed by your own leaders. Do you really believe that the top 1% (which overwhelmingly supports the Democrats) have your best interests at heart?

If you believe in free universal medicare, then I'm with you 100%. Let me shake your hand. If you believe in open borders, then turn around and let me give you a swift kick in the butt. You're no friend of working people.

"This is a feature of imperial states, not unique to liberal regimes as you suggest."

Liberal regimes tend to be expansionist, if only because traders become a vector of imperial growth. India was not conquered by the British imperial state. It was conquered by the East India Company.

"Peter, but this seems impossible. Slow down, speed up, change trends, or reverse trends, but evolution coming to a halt?"

I'm not arguing that the halt is permanent. Regressive evolution then ensues. This will be explained in the next post.