While it is certainly proper to celebrate the 250th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence, the American success story did not start in 1776. It took over a century and a half for the colonies to grow to the point where they could stand on their own feet and march forward across a continent. It took a special kind of people to cross the Atlantic, settle a wilderness, and develop it into a global superpower.
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Two years before he wrote the Declaration, Thomas Jefferson penned “A Summary View of the Rights of British America” where he established the basis for the colonists’ claim to self-government. They had earned it. “America was conquered, and her settlements made, and firmly established, at the expense of individuals, and not of the British public. Their own blood was spilt in acquiring lands for their settlement, their own fortunes expended in making that settlement effectual; for themselves they fought, for themselves they conquered, and for themselves alone they have right to hold.” This is based on John Locke’s case for private property; “Every man has a property in his own labour, and so he may acquire a property in what he mixes his labour with.” Human action fundamentally alters natural resources, creating value from individual effort. Indeed, without such action, idle resources have no value. The colonists did not simply take the land; they transformed it, making it useful and productive, and thus gaining the right to profit from their efforts. That “frontier spirit” continues as we work towards colonizing the moon, exploring Mars, and think about reaching Saturn’s moon Titan.
Yet, in the dark corners of our society, there are those who proclaim that America is a “failed experiment,” that its very success is a delusion. We should reject our triumphalism and turn inward to a happier life of less action, less affluence, and more contentment with the simple things. Socialism is gaining ground as the alternative to the capitalism that built the modern world. It truly would bring the material progress of centuries to an end with the deranged promise that our (reduced) needs can be met better by bureaucrats than entrepreneurs. And worse than its theoretical errors is the prospect of turning America into a dull, joyless gray morass, a continental public housing block where no one has to fear that they or anyone else will become rich. We will own nothing and be happy (on command). There will also be fewer anniversaries to celebrate. The embrace of failure over success because it seems easier and more equitable has a long track record in history as the path to ruin so grim no ideologue can spin it as fulfilling.
I was reminded of this recently on a trip across the world and back in time to the ancient Mediterranean Sea whose waters linked Greece, Rome, Egypt, and other lands whose empires often lasted much longer than 250 years. I visited Old Town in Istanbul, Turkey, which 573 years ago was called Constantinople, the capital of the Eastern Roman Empire (also known as Byzantium). The Roman Empire was founded in 27 BC, replacing the Roman Republic, which had spent four centuries building an empire around the Mediterranean and extending through Gaul (France) to the English Channel. The constitutional changes did not end Roman expansion, but internal strife, social disintegration, and political instability (which had earlier jinxed the Republic) eventually weakened the Western part of the empire to the extent that Roma fell to barbarian invasion in 476 AD. As historian Bryan Ward-Perkins has shown, the collapse of Roman authority and the peace it brought led to precipitous economic decline, including disruption of food production and distribution that increased mortality and led to the depopulation of urban areas.
In was, however, my first visit to Crete this summer that brought to mind common elements of success that have been carried forward from the very dawn of civilization to today. In Greek mythology, Crete is the birthplace of Zeus, the king of the gods and where he brought the Phoenician princess Europa. She became the mother of King Minos of Crete and the namesake of the continent of Europe. The actual creation of Minoan Crete was as miraculous as the myth. As our tour guide put it, sometime in the Third Millenium BC, the “brighter people” on Crete moved out of the caves and started to build houses, develop agriculture, raise sheep and, most importantly, build ships to engage in trade with Egypt and Greece. Such movement and development then as always required leadership and vision, backed by rewards for those whose actions and innovations generated progress.
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At its peak around 1700 BC, Crete dominated trade in the eastern Mediterranean with colonial outposts from Sicily to Gaza and beyond. Its main trading partner was Egypt, where its olive oil exports transformed society through its use as a fuel for lighting, which turned night into day. Trade also included pottery, textiles, food, and metalwork. Other transformative trade goods were medicinal herbs and plants. It protected its commerce with a powerful navy (cited by Thucydides as one of the first). There is some question about government direction of trade, but successful merchants got rich. The era 2000-1700 BC is called the Palatial period because of the many grand castles and large coastal villas. As historian Theocharis Detorakis put it, Crete was “the birthplace of European civilization.”
It was also capitalism, the most natural form of economic organization based on creative effort and competition that validated or discredited policies on their performance, not theory.
Competition was a prominent cultural element. At the Heraklion Archaeological Museum are paintings from some 3,500 years ago depicting boxing matches with the pugilists wearing gloves. Wrestling, running, and javelin throwing were also common sports. Unique was “bull jumping” in which contestants did not fight the bulls but instead risked their lives jumping over them as they charged! People will find all ways to compete as another natural trait. Today, the U.S. is hosting the soccer World Cup. Soccer is a relatively new sport added to the large host of American contests organized at every level of society and involving a staggering array of venues and equipment. Anything that moves we race, and every physical or mental skill is put to the test to prove who is best (or at least better than others). It is a universal quest to become unequal. As I looked out my hotel window in Istanbul, I saw a basketball court with Turkish teenagers dribbling and shooting like they were in Chicago. If there is a new way to compete, it will be taken up. American pro and college teams are now recruiting European players. Teams like countries succeed when they find the best people and encourage them to get the job done.
Yet, the job is never done any more than history ever comes to an end. America continues to be a work in progress. Socialist theory is predicated on economic development reaching a peak, at which time the “means of production” can be seized without sacrificing future growth. But human genius has not run out of things to create, nor are people disinterested in further improvements. Green claims that we cannot do more are disproved daily. History is the experience of people tackling challenges from which we learn what works and what does not. One clear lesson is that capitalism works, whether in ancient Crete or modern America.
William R. Hawkins is a former economics professor who has worked for several Washington think tanks and on the staff of the U.S. House Foreign Affairs Committee. He has written widely on international economics and national security issues for both professional and popular publications including for the Army War College, the U.S. Naval Institute, and the National Defense University, among others.
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