By Norman A. Baliey @ The International Economy, Spring 2016
Thursday, June 23rd, 2016
It is said that the great Ottoman Sultan, Suleyman the Magnificent (1494-1566), was taught the following aphorism by his mother and that he repeated it often in subsequent years:
To hold a land, you need an army. To keep an army, you must share out property. To have property, you must have prosperous people. Only by just laws can you distribute the wealth. Only by laws can the people be protected. Land, army, property, laws. If one of these lacks, all four will soon lack. If all four lack, the land is lost.
The Sultana was describing the effects of a positive societal feedback loop and contrasting them with the effects of a negative feedback loop. The empire became great under Suleiman and subsequently began to decline. One after the other, property, laws, and army lacked, and as a result of social, economic, political, and military entropy, the land was lost. But it took four hundred years.
The Western world became great by adopting the political principles of freedom, economic policies encouraging wealth creation, an independent judicial system, and a powerful military force. The land under its control was vastly expanded, in all continents. By the dawn of the twentieth century, it was triumphant everywhere.........Since then, the Sultana’s negative feedback loop has been in full bloom and the forces of civilization have gone into re- treat. How was this possible? ........Let’s trace the negative feedback loop which has brought us to where we are now:......To Read More.....
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