The Lessons of History - Part II
Let’s not waste any time with formalities. This is Part II of my summary of The Lessons of History by Will and Ariel Durant.
If you haven’t read Part I, you can check it out here.
Religion and history
“As long as there is poverty, there will be gods.”
Religion, like morality, is cyclical. “One lesson of history,” writes Durant, “is that religion has many lives and a habit of resurrection.”
When times are good—the government and economy are stable—religion loses popularity. When times are tough and social order rests more on morals than laws, religion prevails.
As religious beliefs decrease, desire for a “heaven on earth” increases. Because religion offers hope to the poor, when belief decreases, class warfare increases, and so does the popularity of socialism and communism.
In the absence of order, religion increases. As religion increases, so does order. As order increases, religion decreases. As faith and morals relax, disorder increases, again causing religion to increase. And the cycle continues.
Key Takeaway: Popularity of religion rises and falls. Popularity of socialism also rises and falls, in equal but opposite amounts to religion.
Economics and history
Concentration of wealth results from concentration of ability.
This concept ties nicely with the biology and history lesson in Part I. Because life is selection, the people with brains, brawn, and resources prevail. This is true biologically and economically.
The speed of wealth concentration depends on the political system. More freedom leads to faster wealth concentration. Less freedom leads to slower wealth concentration.
Eventually, the poor can offset the power of the rich through sheer force of number. When this happens, history faces a fork in the road: wealth is redistributed through legislation, or poverty is redistributed through revolution.
When peaceful redistribution happens, neither the rich nor the poor are happy, but society is preserved. The rich complain of their property being stolen. The poor complain they haven’t received enough. Then the rich resume accumulating and the poor resume squandering.
When peaceful redistribution doesn’t happen, revolution does, and it’s much more likely to destroy society.
Key Takeaway: In a natural cycle, societies experience concentration of wealth followed by peaceable or violent redistribution of wealth. The societies that endure are the ones who avoid violent redistribution.
Socialism and history
Societies throughout history—from China to Egypt to Rome to Peru—have experimented with socialism. They all succeeded for differing time periods, but they all ultimately failed.
The progression is similar in every socialist society:
Initially, culture and society improves. Unemployment decreases. Everyone has enough to eat. Public works projects improve quality of life. The lower classes live a better life than before socialism.
Then the system begins to struggle through a variety of circumstances. Sometimes the leaders spend excessively on war. Taxes increase to outrageous levels which decreases people’s incentive to work. Businessmen complain about supporting freeloaders. Government employment swells to unnecessary levels, further consuming tax dollars and increasing tax rates. Corruption becomes common, undermining public trust.
The economic pendulum swings back toward capitalism.
Socialism has many positive aspects, but it hasn’t been able to survive in a pure form for centuries. Socialism seems to work best when balanced with capitalism.
As Durant wrote, “The fear of capitalism has compelled socialism to widen freedom, and the fear of socialism has compelled capitalism to increase equality.”
Key Takeaway: Neither pure socialism nor pure capitalism can survive on its own. The most enduring societies find a reasonable blend of the two. The blend will shift back and forth but never fully to one side or the other.
Government and history
Everyone wants freedom. But absolute freedom dies in chaos.
Contrary to common sense, the first necessity for freedom is to surrender some of it to the government. In so doing, they can regulate conduct and guarantee a baseline level of freedom.
Government is comprised of a minority of the population. A majority can’t rule because a majority can’t organize for united and specific action. A minority can.
Like with biology and economics, ability is concentrated in a minority of people. So naturally, the minority with the greatest abilities garner the greatest amount of governmental power.
Different types of governments work to varying degrees, but democracy has “done less harm and more good than any other form of government.”
Democracy is the fertile field in which the seeds of progress bloom.
Democracy promotes culture, arts, and education. It provides abundance for more people than any other form of government. And it advances educational opportunities, along with public health.
Democracy doesn’t guarantee equality, but it increases equal access to opportunity for all.
In many countries—the US, Canada, England, Sweden, Switzerland—various forms of democracy have increased prosperity and kept the wolves from the door. Democracy isn’t invincible. It has many possible avenues of decline. But while it is maintained, democracy is the best way to guarantee freedom and opportunity to its citizens.
Key Takeaway: Government is necessary to guarantee freedom. No government is perfect. No government is immune to ruin. But democracy does the best job of preserving freedom and increasing prosperity.
History and war
Less than 10% of recorded history knows absolute peace.
Like so many of the lessons of history, biology plays a central role. Life is competition, and life is selection. Society is merely an extension of the individual. So societies compete, and natural selection dictates the winners among nations.
Peace, therefore, is an unstable state. It also weakens the muscles of a nation, setting them up to be conquered.
Not all conflicts can be resolved through negotiation. Peace doesn’t happen through handshakes but through victories so decisive that the victor writes the rules.
Key Takeaway: War is constant because competition is biologically constant. Peace will not prevail.
Growth and decay
“History repeats itself, but only in outline.”
History repeats broadly because humans are predictable. But as civilizations become more complex, humans become harder to predict.
We know the outline: growth and decay. Civilizations appear, grow, prosper, decline, and disappear. The pattern repeats like the ebb and flow of the ocean, rising with the moon and receding right on time.
Within the cycle, civilizations grow when they meet challenges—when they’re threatened by enemies and win the fight, or when they face water shortages and build irrigation systems. Each challenge successfully met builds momentum to clear the next hurdle.
Civilizations decay when leaders fail to overcome the challenges of change—when droughts cause food shortages, or when industries collapse, leaving an area economically devastated.
While civilizations may decay, they don’t die. Nations die, but people persist and bring their memories with them. Civilizations are passed down and transformed, like family traditions, from generation to generation.
Key Takeaway: All civilizations grow and decay. They grow when they meet challenges and decay when they don’t.
Is progress real?
“If undertakers are miserable, progress is real.”
Durant defines progress as the increasing ability to control the conditions of your life.
By this definition, progress is real.
Life expectancies have skyrocketed. Famine disappeared in developed countries. Education expanded from an elite man’s privilege to a right shared by all.
Studying history is a wonderful reminder of the progress we’ve made and a glimpse into the progress yet to come.
Key Takeaway: Progress is real and incredible.
Conclusion
There you have it: The Lessons of History.
This was a difficult book for me to finish. Although it was only 100 pages, I had to read each page two or three times before the lessons sank in.
Hopefully with this article—and Part I—you won’t have to take the painstaking time to learn the same lessons.
If you’ve applied these lessons to your life, I’d love to hear about it. Send me an email, or reach out on Twitter.
