Why West is Best

Why West Is Best Secrets — or rather, obvious ingredients — of the Good Society.

By Paul Johnson, the British journalist and historian, is the author of many books, including A History of Christianity and A History of the Jews. From the December 3, 2001, issue of National Review

No such thing as a perfect society exists in the world or ever will. But the Good Society can and does emerge from time to time, and is far more likely to exist within the orbit of the Western system than in any other. Why is this? To begin with, consider the historic blend of two valuable but imperfect and distinct moral/legal systems — the Greco-Roman and the Judeo-Christian — which together are much more than the sum of their parts. All of us desire moral order. All of us wish for justice. The chief problem that faces a civilization is how to translate morality and justice into a workable system of law. The Greeks took legal concepts from numerous ancient societies, notably the Medes and Persians, but they brought to the science of law the spirit of philosophic inquiry, their own unique gift to humanity. They probed the nature of justice and the validity of morals, and thus infused law-making with a new dynamic: the endless quest for truth, viability, and endurance.

The Romans, in turn, built on this method, evolving a code that worked effectively over the world's largest and longest-lasting empire, enduring in one form or another for two millennia. What the Romans struggled towards was the notion of rule by law, rather than by mere men, and this involved the supremacy of a political constitution, which men, however powerful, were obliged to obey. The attempt ultimately failed, Rome became an oriental dictatorship of god-emperors, the rule of law collapsed, and, in due course, so did Roman civilization itself, in both its Western and Byzantine forms.

However, from the 5th and 6th centuries onwards, Roman notions of law and its rule were reinforced and transformed by Judeo-Christianity. The Jews were as devoted to law as the Romans. They saw the law as God-made, and under its rule all, from kings and high priests to shepherds, were equal: That is why the great 1st-century Jewish philosopher, Philo of Alexandria, called Judaism a "theocratic democracy." The Christians took over the principle of equality under the moral law and applied it to both the law codes of the Germanic north, based upon tribal consultations, and those of the Romance south, based upon Roman digests. The clergy evolved their own canon law and, between the 11th and the 16th centuries, there was a struggle between secular and clerical systems. The result was a felicitous compromise: neither theocratic law (as in Islamic states), nor wholly secular law, since the codes recognized natural law (as interpreted by Christianity) as the basis of all justice.

The rule of law was not established in the West without conflict. The constitutional struggle that produced in 1215 the Magna Carta, the first English Statute of the Realm (still in force), the English Civil War of 1640-60, and the "Glorious Revolution" of 1688, the American Revolution of the 1770s and 1780s, producing the first modern written constitution, and the French Revolution of 1789, leading to the creation of the Napoleonic law code (both these last, as amended, still in force) are all episodes in the successful effort to make even kings and governments subject to the rule of law. The process continues, the latest salient event being the collapse of the supra-legal Communist dictatorship in Russia in 1991 and subsequent attempts, as yet incomplete, to establish the rule of law for the first time in Russia and its devolved territories.

From this long history, it has become evident that equality in law cannot be finally ensured without the mass participation of the public. But it is important to understand that the rule of law must be established first before democracy can successfully evolve. That is the great political lesson of Western civilization. It explains why democracy has quickly collapsed in all those (mainly Third World) countries where the rule of law was weak or nonexistent. A notable exception has been India, which — with all its weaknesses — still maintains democracy because the rule of law, thanks to the genius of Macaulay, took root there under British rule.

Where the rule of law exists, continually reinforced by an evolving democracy, liberty too takes root. The point was succinctly made by Thomas Hobbes, who, together with his follower John Locke, was the determining political philosopher in the evolution of both the British and the U.S. constitutions. "The silence of the laws is the freedom of the subject," wrote Hobbes: Where the law does not specifically prohibit, the citizen is free to do as he pleases. In unfree or Oriental societies, the assumption is reversed, and the freedom to do any individual action depends on favor, tradition (as interpreted by the absolute ruler or his agents), or corruption.

The freedom enjoyed in Western society under the rule of law and constitutional government explains both the quality of its civilization and its wealth. In the early Middle Ages, Islamic societies enjoyed some freedom in transmuting the Greeks' knowledge and spirit of inquiry, but this came to an end in the 13th century, which was precisely the point when the Western university system took off. Where the quest for knowledge is relatively, and now almost absolutely, unrestrained, the public benefit will be great, especially where the certainty of the law ensures that knowledge is rewarded. This is exactly the combination that is the foundation of wealth-creation.

Society in the West was establishing a consistent pattern of wealth-making even in the Middle Ages. From the 15th century, two factors — the invention of double-entry bookkeeping and of printing from movable type — were joined by six others, all consequences of the rule of law and of (virtual) equality under the law. These were the invention of the legal corporation (later including the limited-liability company and the trust); the development of a clear legal doctrine of marriage and inheritance; the invention of freehold in real estate and of banks operating as sure deposits for liquid wealth (both serving as the basis for lending and investment in mercantile and industrial enterprise); the development of copyright law; the inability of government to confiscate or tax individual property except by due process; and, finally, the invention of an immense range of legal devices, from commercial and personal insurance to stock exchanges (to promote, protect, maximize, and employ savings efficiently).

From these dozen or so advantages and their interaction, capitalism evolved. It is not, strictly speaking, an "ism," but a process of nature, which at a certain state of human development — the rule of law and a measure of personal freedom being the most important ingredients — occurs spontaneously, as millions of ordinary people go about their business in as efficient a manner as they know how. It is, then, a force of nature, which explains its extraordinary fecundity, adaptability, and protean diversity. It is as much a product of Western civilization as the university and the library, the laboratory and the cinema, relativity theory and psychotherapy. Coca-Cola and McDonald's are not alternatives to the Metropolitan Opera and the New York Public Library: They are all four products of a wealth-creating and knowledge-producing process based on freedom and legal certainty.

Moreover, because capitalism is based on human nature, not dogma, it is self-correcting. The freedom of the market enables these corrections to be made all the time, to short- and long-term problems. The expression "the crisis of capitalism" is therefore misleading. Capitalism moves through continual crises, major and minor, absorbing their lessons and so continually increasing productivity and living standards in the long run.

Indeed it is the protean ability of Western civilization to be self-critical and self-correcting — not only in producing wealth but over the whole range of human activities — that constitutes its most decisive superiority over any of its rivals. And it is protean not least in its ability to detect what other societies do better, and incorporate such methods into its own armory. All the other systems in the world, notably the Japanese, the Chinese, and the Indian, have learned much from the West in turn, and benefited thereby. The Islamic world has been the least willing to adopt the West's fundamental excellences. That is why it remains poor (despite its wealth of raw materials), unfree, and unhappy. Its states are likely to have uneasy relations with the West until Islam reforms itself, embraces the rule of law, introduces its own form of democracy, and so becomes a protean player in the modern world.

You have a curious habit of using the word West to refer to Western civilization when it serves your purposes and using it to refer to - roughly - the NATO countries when that it helpful.

Re: Afghanistan
This about western influence. western I think we have established the fact that communism is western. Besides, Afghanistan was (relatively) better off under Soviet rule than under the murderous thugs funded by the US.

Re: Iraq
In the Gulf War, the west could have decided to leave things alone, or to liberate Kuwait, or to take overthrow Saddam. All of these decisions would have been reasonable. The actual choice: to murder a hundred thousand soldiers attempting to withdraw from Kuwait and to follow up with the destruction of the country's infrastructure and a cruel and senseless embargo is, to say the least, obscene.

Re: Saudi Arabia
Their country. Their problem. Stop supporting corrupt monarchies and let them worry what the next step is.

Re: Jordan
The West has not meddled much in this country at all, like Syria. Some places get lucky in their choice of monarch. Syria has done less well than Jordan. Hopefully, they'll do better after the old buzzard dies. Like Portugal did, for example.

I'm not going to address everything in your post because in my experience, arguing with people who have already decided that U.N. sanctions on Iraq were responsible for killing a gazillion children is pointless. People who believe that have a fixed, unmovable view of the U.S. and western civilization that they are not ever going to change. But, I will respond to certain other points:

"Re: Afghanistan
This about western influence. western I think we have established the fact that communism is western. Besides, Afghanistan was (relatively) better off under Soviet rule than under the murderous thugs funded by the US.

Communism is a western idea, the Soviet Union was a big place that spanned from near west to the far east. Culturally, they combined west and east. Afghanistan was never under Soviet rule-- the Soviets left, just like we left Vietnam.

"Re: Jordan
The West has not meddled much in this country at all, like Syria. Some places get lucky in their choice of monarch. Syria has done less well than Jordan. Hopefully, they'll do better after the old buzzard dies. "

Jordan may have gotten lucky in Hussein, but the western influences on both him and his father are, I think, a big part of that. The old Assad is already dead-- the new Assad is his son, just as bad.

we could discuss Israeli society instead. You know. Has a tendency to elect terrorists in high places in government. Denies the right to vote to 3,000,000 of the people that it "governs". Instead places snipers on rooftops to shoot them. Things like that.

So let me get this straight - Israel should grant to Palestinians the right to vote, even though the Palestinians refuse to acknowledge that country's right to exist.

*** head scratch ***

Are you this absurd on purpose?

Well done. Found your little hole to pigeon me into. Now you can safely discard anything I say. Of course you might instead attempt to tell me what purpose the sanctions have served - besides, of course, satisfying American anger at the demon du jour Saddam Hussein while simultaneously tightening his hold on Iraq and fomenting Arab hatred of America.

Demonizing enemies is a bad American habit and the treatment of Saddam is a good example of this trait. As tin pot dictators go, he is decent enough - aside from his very bad habit of playing with fire. There are far worse. And if you don't like this habit, do something about it instead of killing babies.

You may note that I suggested that we had three options back in 1991. Two of those options are still available today. Instead, this obscenity has been inflicted on the Iraqi people. Where exactly is this analysis wrong?

You know exactly as I do where the analysis is wrong-- this has been argued ceaselessly both in the press and on this board-- you repeat your line-- I explain where you wrong-- you deny it-- and on and on, ad infinitum, ad nauseum. The very way you frame the case tells me your belief system, and how rigidly you hold it.

Waste of time. Besides, you didn't respond to the substantive comments that I made to your other points (corrections of errors of facts, actually), so I guess the discussion is over. It would have been graceful to acknowledge your mistakes.

Perhaps, my friend, it's about time that you stopped attempting to justify the Israeli government's actions against the Palestinian people on the basis that "they" do/are/believe something.

The Palestinians do not refuse to acknowledge Israel's right to exist. There is no such thing as the Palestinians. The proper term is some Palestinians...

The Israeli government's insistance on punishing all Palestinians for the actions of some Palestinians is a crime against humanity. As long as Israel continues to act like this it will continue to suffer the consequences. And that, my friend, is not a threat. It is a simple observation of fact.

The refusal to allow the right to vote on the basis of ethnicity is called apartheid. It is a sham to use the word democracy to describe a place that.

I don't think Bundy and Dahlmer had any consideration of goodness at all

On the contrary, I'm told Bundy at least had a genuis IQ and several years of Harvard education under his belt. He no doubt considered "good" and "evil" and decided that they were just words.

I'm not sure I misinterpreted anything about your statement, though. You said

the one, great virtue of western Victorian society (not only in Britain, but here as well) was its utter, unquestioning self-confidence

I just wanted to make it clear that self-confidence is necessary but not sufficient to a good society: the Nazis were utterly convinced of their moral superiority, too. You note later that the Victorians were "good" (I would say they were temperate) and "confident in their goodness." That is sufficient to a viable good society, but I didn't see that in your original statement. And go back and read why Emerson leaves for the forest.

I was responding to your snide aside, not to your earlier comments. I am no lefty and your attempt to characterize me as one was slander.

As for your earlier substantive (e.g. non-slanderous) comments, they are wrong about the Soviet Union. Yet again a consequence of your incapacity to separate Western ideas, such as communism, from the West, a place. Besides the Soviet Union did, in fact, invade Afghanistan.

You also refuse to acknowledge the Western influence on Syria while preening yourself about Western influences on Jordan. There is plenty in Rousseau and Marx to justify Assad's thuggery, just as there is plenty in Locke and Mills to back up Hussein. To my mind, they are both largely home-grown monarchies. But the Western influence is undeniable, just as is your selective choosing of what is western and what is not.

Oh, and I stand corrected about the death of the old buzzard. Of course the point is irrelevant to the discussion. But I was wrong.

Work it out, Einstein. We had them on the run. Instead of taking prisoners of war, we murdered conscripts. Instead of overthrowing the dictator, something we could have done with contemptuous ease, we inflicted a embargo on the country, murdering civilians. Most of the victims have been children.

The embargo hasn't even served the purpose it was supposed to. It's not even clear what that was. But it obviously hasn't succeeded.

"And go back and read why Emerson leaves for the forest."

That proves you didn't read the same "Walden" I did-- Thoreau wrote it, not Emerson.

"I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life, and see if I could not learn what it had to teach, and not, when I came to die, discover that I had not lived. I did not wish to live what was not life, living is so dear; nor did I wish to practise resignation, unless it was quite necessary. I wanted to live deep and suck out all the marrow of life, to live so sturdily and Spartan-like as to put to rout all that was not life, to cut a broad swath and shave close, to drive life into a corner, and reduce it to its lowest terms, and, if it proved to be mean, why then to get the whole and genuine meanness of it, and publish its meanness to the world; or if it were sublime, to know it by experience, and be able to give a true account of it in my next excursion."

That's why Thoreau went to the woods, and it's the same reason I backpack in the mountains and sail my little boat in our local bays. "Walden" is not only my screen name; it's the name of my boat-- and don't you be dissin' my boat, you hear? :) In the woods, in the mountains, on the water, I have only myself, whatever simple gear I've brought along, and maybe a companion to help me to deal with whatever I encounter-- terrain, weather, wind, waves, wildlife-- and it is a great pleasure to live simply in a beautiful place, and realize how little I stuff to be happy, but how essential to my happiness is the grandeur and terribleness of the earth and the forces of nature. I just got back from a wonderful morning sail, and it reminded me all over again that I don't go often enough.

As for the Victorians, I think we're agreed.

I said that your comment on Iraqi sanctions was straight out of the far left playbook, which it is, so I will not apologize for the statement. If you're not a lefty, fine, but when you quote them verbatim, you must accept that you will sometimes be taken for one. I did not, however, strictly speaking, call you a lefty. Considering that in the past week I have myself been called both a Marxist and a Nazi on this board, I think you got off relatively lightly. :)

I acknowledged several posts ago that the Soviet Untion as a country was a mixture of eastern and western cultures, but that communism was certainly a western invention, despite the fact that it has been most widely implemented in the east (China, North Korea, Vietnam, and half of the Soviet Union, if you want to look at it like that.) And, certainly the Soviet Union invaded Afghanistan-- I merely disputed whether they ever actually "ruled" it.

As for Syria, before Assad (in the horrible Colonial days), I believe it was ruled by the French although I could be wrong. However, tracing Assad's "thuggery" to Rousseau and Marx I believe is fallacious-- basically, wherever there is thuggery and any history whatsoever of western occupation or "influence", it's the fault of the west? Thuggery is a part of human nature-- the Chinese monarchs were wonderful thugs long before they had ever met anyone or read anything from the west. In fact, most rulers throughout history, from the beginning of time, in all parts of the world, were thugs, if by that we mean ruling by force of arms.

In fact, when I think about it, as I sort of mentioned above, Marx was a much bigger hit with the rest of the world than he was with western democracies. (In fact, many true communists will tell you that the reason communism has never worked properly in practice to produce the utopian society is that it has never been tried in the most ideal place-- i.e., the United States.) I wonder why that is? Why does the rest of the world pick up and run with all of the worst western ideas rather than the best? They seem to only read selected authors instead of observing what we do in practice.

don't you be dissin' my boat, you hear? :)

Wouldn't dream of it--I didn't mean to say that Walden was a bad book, just that some of the influence on it is the same thing that influenced Nietzsche. (Emerson, Thoreau, I can never keep the Americans straight...)

Glad you had a good time. I understand completely--I miss the big sky back home now that I'm in a (sort-of) urban area.

I'm sorry, I'm not going to answer your question for you. I want to know exactly how far we should have gone in overthrowing Saddam, all WITHOUT killing anyone, of course, not killing "conscripts" or civilians, just taking prisoners of war (and detaining them in what your ilk would immediately term "concentration camps"...) No, I want to hear you say HOW we should have overthrown Saddam. What would have been acceptable? No killing, no refugees obviously (considering your support of Palestinians), so also explain how we could have done that without his supporters (and yes he has plenty) immediately re-ensconcing him. I want to hear YOUR military strategy for the bloodless coup that America should have imposed upon a sovereign country. Come on. You're the "Architect." Let's see your blueprint. Can you do anything besides criticize?

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