I was thinking about this as I’ve been reading….and re-reading the absolutely brilliant book “Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind” by Yuval Noah Harari, who is one of my new favourite thinkers.

In particular, there is a chapter which takes a sword to the notion that empires always crush rebellions with an iron fist:

Throughout history empires have crushed rebellions with an iron fist, and when its day came, a sinking empire used all its might to save itself, usually collapsing into a bloodbath. Its final demise generally led to anarchy and wars of succession. Since 1945 most empires have opted for a peaceful early retirement. Their process of collapse became relatively swift, calm and orderly. In 1945 Britain ruled a quarter of the globe. Thirty years later it ruled just a few small islands.

In the intervening decades it retreated from most of its colonies in a peaceful and orderly manner. Though in some places such as Malaya and Kenya the British tried to hang on by force of arms, in most places they accepted the end of the empire with a sigh rather than with a temper tantrum.

He goes on to discuss the French empire, who were more stubborn (no surprise there)… but in terms of historical context pretty orderly:

Its collapse involved bloody rearguard actions in Vietnam and Algeria that cost hundreds of thousands of lives. Yet the French too, retreated from the rest of their dominions quickly and peacefully, leaving behind orderly states rather than chaotic free-for-all.

More recently, of course, we had the collapse of Stalin’s version of heaven, and as Harari explains, pretty damn peaceful, all things considered:

The Soviet collapse in 1989 was even more peaceful, despite the eruption of ethnic conflict in the Balkans, the Caucasus and Central Asia. Never before has such a nightly empire disappeared so swiftly and so quietly. The Soviet Empire of 1989 had suffered no military defeat except in Afghanistan, no external invasions, no rebellions, nor even large-scale Martin Luther King-style campaigns of civil disobedience. The Soviets still had millions of soldiers, tens of thousands of tanks and aeroplanes, and enough nuclear weapons to wipe out the whole of humankind several times over. The Red Army and the other Warsaw Pact armies remained loyal. Had the last Soviet ruler Mikhail Gorbachev, given the order, the Red Army would have opened fire on then subjugated masses.

Yet the Soviet elite, and the Communist regimes through most of Eastern Europe (Romania and Serbia were the exceptions), chose not to use even a tiny fraction of this military power. When its members realised that Communism was bankrupt, they renounced force, admitted failure, packed their suitcases and went home.

Three empires vaporised, and the elites basically walked away.

Do we have an empire today?

Sure, we could say this is the US, but actually if we look at the way the world operates, this particular empire is more closely tied to the global economy than any previous one. That global economy is largely influenced by central-bank-driven credit creation and fiat currency, which is incidentally how we have such an enormous sovereign bond bubble.

Now, we can debate where we’re at in the cycle of this particular empire, but we do know we’re not at the beginning. The bigger question is: How exactly does it end, and what replaces the existing clearly broken monetary system.

Which brings me to Bitcoin and an oft stated contention.

“They’ll Ban It”

Let’s tackle this one head on because there’s been ample reason and https://3lrofj3556kl9zu0p27yma51-wpengine.netdna-ssl.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/11/Screenshot-2017-11-10-15.16.23-1024x139.png