The Spanish modern weakness only proves the Carlists right.
Posted on 09/09/2012 12:25:22 PM PDT by Alex Murphy
Perhaps you don’t know it: in northern Europe many people think that the "spread", the difference between the interest rate for the soverign debt of his own "virtuous" country and the rate for those countries in a sorry state to the south, is the fruit of a Catholic sin. In German the word “Schuld”, for debt, also means ‘fault’. This semantic nuance reflects profound cultural differences and helps to better understand the distrust – or prejudice – of some nations of northern Europe towards countries considered members of a blithe "Club Med".
The spread between Spanish and Italian bonds on the one hand and German bonds on the other leads in the end to assumptions of implied ethical superiority, far more discriminatory than the budgets of the states in question, throwing us back – indeed, one almost fears to say it – to values that intertwine culture and religion and injecting ancient poisons into the tired veins of Europe.
In fact, a taboo has been broken, bringing to the front of the stage ghosts of the Reformation and Counter-Reformation, of European wars fought in the shadow of God. This aspect of the controversy has hardly been mentioned in recent months. Yet it crops up repeatedly, while the euro has begun to evoke not wealth and stability but unemployment, poverty and decline.
The anti-Italian and anti-Mediterranean rhetoric, and the rhetoric flying back against the Germans, unconsciously nourishes stereotypes that are both cultural and religious – stereotypes of ancient “truths" buried in the memory of the Old Continent that it would be best not to exhume, under penalty of wrecking the difficult compromise between the European nations that has kept the social and political peace for decades. The present uncertainty, however, is bringing those stereotypes to the surface in the minds of those pushing for new isolationisms in the illusory conviction that, alone, one can save oneself more assuredly than in a crowd.
“Fiscal sins”
It is this desire for solitude that is being entertained by certain circles in the part of Germany that declares itself Lutheran, and in countries with Protestant majorities such as the Netherlands, Finland and other Nordic countries – prompting Stephan Richter, director of The Globalist, a site that analyses global trends in the era of globalisation, to put forward the hypothesis that if the sixteenth-century German theologian Martin Luther could have been present at Maastricht in 1992 when the foundations of the monetary union were laid, he would have “nixed” the candidacy of the Mediterranean countries. Richter goes on to imagine that Luther would have declared that “no unreformed Catholic countries” that had not gone through the Protestant Reformation could enter the euro.
Richter is a Catholic commentator, and most importantly, he is German. According to his theory, “an excess of Catholicism has distorted the fiscal health of nations, even today in the twenty-first century." The current bitterness of northern Europe towards the "other Europe" thus lies in the failure to uphold the "law of Luther," the violation of which has brought about our ills. If, in contrast, his imaginary exhortations had been heard correctly, "the euro would be more cohesive, and the European economy in far less trouble."
In brief: to size up the capability of a nation to join the single currency, it is not its finances that have to be vetted, but its religious chromosomes – that would have been easier. The premise is very simple: the so-called Pigs, an acronym formed from the first letters of Portugal, Ireland, Greece and Spain, which with the double ‘i’ in ‘Piigs’ also takes in Italy, are – apart from Greece, which is Greek Orthodox – all countries with a Roman Catholic majority.
The novelty is that this label has lately been taking on a significance that is not only economic, linked to a crisis of financial capitalism exported from the United States, but that is also tied to a judgement, to a definitive condemnation of a culture, a way of governing, and – again – of a religion. At the origin of the "fault" of indebted nations there would seem to lie those nations’ inability to emancipate themselves from Catholicism: a lifestyle that is more than a faith, that helped move on from the purchase of indulgences for the forgiveness of sins to an excessive tolerance when it comes to “fiscal sins".
Currently the controversy is driving some economists, mainly Spaniards, to trace the origins of capitalism in order to refute its Protestant backgrounds and advance, in contrast, the dynamism of capitalism in Catholic Spain precisely at the time of the Reformation and Counter-Reformation.
The geo-religion of “bond spread”
The backwards-looking tussle over the noble birth of capitalism in one or the other churches, however, merely confirms the ambiguity of an operation that could well herald a rupture, and not a reconciliation, in Europe. For the average German, rolling out the European Financial Stability Fund for erring states would be an unacceptable concession to the “culture of sin" and of the omnipresent debt in a Catholic Europe considered incorrigible.
Without taking this background into account, it is difficult to grasp the apparent failure to communicate among the European ruling classes, and the attempt of some political and economic circles to make use of it for their own purposes.
It seems that, caught up in the train of the crisis on the financial markets, there is an attempt afoot to stir up a conflict between Catholics and Lutherans using the controversy over aid as a casus belli. For some, the conflict can be explained by a shift of the European Union axis towards the north and the east – and so, following the enlargement of the Union, by the growing influence of the Protestant nations. It is no coincidence that today we say that Finland is at the heart of the European Union, while Italy is at the periphery. This is one of many consequences of the end of the Cold War.
Following a European community that forged its unity along a central-southern axis of Germany, France and Italy, there is now a community that the German nation has established hegemony over and that at times seems to be cultivating the revenge of the Protestant traditions and of the East against the German Catholics and their enthusiasm for Europe. Chancellor Angela Merkel comes from East Germany and is the daughter of a Protestant pastor, while the new President of Germany, Joachim Gauck, is himself a former Lutheran pastor.
In its Lutheran version, though, the geo-religion of "bond spread" has been forced up against some political and geographical realities. If debt is also a sin to be atoned for, a sin whose absolution can rightly no longer be bought, excommunications and the so-called geo-economic and geo-religious supremacy threaten to re-awake demons that may well set Europe back – not a few years, but decades: to the darkest decades of the past century.
When you consider just how much of existing European industry was funded one way or another with German money or loan guarantees I think people are beating a dead horse over what Germany still owes Europe from WWII. -- well, I agree. As you know, I live in Poland, in Warsaw and seeing what the Germans did here is quite devastating. Also, the Poles were then abandoned to Stalin. But the Germans have helped build up industry here and are the main market and supplier to Poland, so I agree with your point.
My point was not so much what Germans today OWE, but what many people perceive they STILL owe. The Greeks seem to think that, going by their government's statement. AND, more to the point, I was specifically talking about what Germans until recently thought (and many still think) they owe for their past.
That guilt has been milked well.
Don't believe what the media tells you. the newspapers etc would like you to believe that ALL of Europe is godless. That's not true. Much of the East is still very faithful. Even in Godless countries like France, Germany, England there are pockets of devout that are not shrinking. The Church is smaller, but stronger in that smallness.
you are not wrong. Baptists have had little historical influence on national historical economic trends.
And Catholic — truly and very Catholic — Poland is doing best of all.
But do you agree that Protestant countries are generally of different mold as it comes to government and economics? After all Protestantism arose in great part in order to provide an ethical basis for the secular capitalist economics?
Catholics and Orthodox, however, regard government that is not obedient to the Church as an anomaly at best, and sinful generally, since the Middle Ages. So their secular governments are a bunch of scoundrels, as a rule.
The thing is that Poland proves the exception to this, as did the Austro-Hungarian Empire and the Holy Roman Empire before that.
the Polish-Lithuanian commonwealth was majority Catholic but not overwhelmingly, so it had room for dialogue and peaceful debates. The government wasn't under the rule of the Church
And this, paradoxically, was better for the Church as there wasn't the anti-clerical actions that occurred in the rest of Europe
Poland of what era?
I should have clarified that monarchies are generally, of course, regarded as legitimate, simply because the common space is a private property of the monarch. The government is still viewed with suspicion , but at least there is a king to deal with them.
This, by the way, is another equation that is missed: the north-western European countries are all monarchies.
poland of the Polish-Lithuanian commonwealth era from 1389 to 1793
The Spanish modern weakness only proves the Carlists right.
Most of human history, the monarchy has been depraved -- even Catholic or lutheran or Calvinistic or Anglican or Moslem or Hindu etc
The best form of government is a republic during peace times and a dictatorship during war. This was clearly apparent in the Polish-Lithuanian commonwealth where the King was powerful but not all powerful and while he could not be deposed, he was elected by the barons
I would not want Obama as King. I would not want most of the Spanish monarchs as king either
the Spanish weakness is more an indictment against welfare state policies (which are intrinsically leftist) rather than about monarchy or not
A constitutional monarchy has its good points, but a despotic monarchy has none right now. It may have worked in the 14th century but not now.
A rabble-rousing democracy is not ideal either, but a pure republic makes more sense
Even a democracy but a pure democracy like in Switzerland where people vote on every matter can work, but you need to be very small for tha.
What government to have during peace is a moot question. Any will do, the less the better and none is the best. Beyond a judge and a police department, -- which can be wholly private, -- no government is needed and most is harmful in peace time.
Given that most countries either are at war or prepare for one most of the time, the choice of a "dictator" as you put it becomes important. Here the contrast between a dictator without a legitimate claim to leadership and a monarch who simply owns the loyalty of the force and the military infrastructure could not be clearer. A gifted field marshal a dictator can be (Napoleon Bonaparte); a man whose life long duty is to defend his people, often against his government, that is a monarch, -- he cannot be.
Now would you rather have a man skilled only in lying in speeches and charming the press, yet democratically elected or a king whose rights to the throne no one disputes?
Which brings me to the Carlists. They have one point: you cannot get a king by altering rights of succession to suit the moment. Yet that is a force that rose to defend their country a hundred years after the Carlist controversy began and no doubt, if Spain calls them, will take up arms again. That is the power of the monarchic idea. It is worth many divisions, and many elections.
Confusion between other forms of non-democratic leadership and monarchy is unfortunately common as a result of pro-democracy myth-making.
I wonder. This can only happen if people are involved in their day to day activities
What you describe would work in a town or village, but not in a city, even a small one and not in a country.
There is a balance between this and total fascism/communism.
Given that most countries either are at war -- I disagree with that, most are not at war.
A gifted field marshal a dictator can be (Napoleon Bonaparte); a man whose life long duty is to defend his people, often against his government, that is a monarch, -- he cannot be. -- I agree
Now would you rather have a man skilled only in lying in speeches and charming the press, yet democratically elected or a king whose rights to the throne no one disputes -- I would prefer a democratically elected gifted person who of sheer merit and capability is in power
power corrupts -- even the best. And a king has unlimited power for a long time -- even the best man can wilt under this - look at the latter stages of Hipparchus and Hippias in Athens
I must disagree with you on this matter. But to clarify — what type of monarchy are you referring to? A constitutional monarchy of the Scandanavian type with the king having next to no power and verylittle influence? Or the English/Spanish version? Or to the other extreme, the Saudia absolutist version?
The present-day statists would have you believe that a government is needed in peace time. But the fact is, all you get from the government in peace time is taxation; everything else you can get from private parties. In absence on the state monopoly on power I would purchase a personal physical protection plan form an insurance company that will contract private cops and lawyers, a pension plan and a medical insurance. What will I be missing, and why can’t I get it in a city or in a large country? It seems the insurance pool gets only bigger with scale, a good thing.
I would say that most countries are not in an intense war but we in the West, for sure, are in a low-intensity war and we have to prepare for a more intense war. The relatively peaceful 19c. in America was an exception; the same peirod was not peaceful anyplace else. For that reason I would not advocate anarcho-capitalism for out present condition, although I strongly suspect that if we were an anar-cap society today we would have less enemies and so less wars to prepare for.
Power corrupts especially those who are elected for a limited term. Then they either have to retire or get re-elected. In this environment people in government are renters of public property: they have an in-built incentive to use what they can while they are still in power. Even if they are of stellar honesty, long-term thinking for them is virtually impossible as every 4 years they have to satisfy another client group and that only can happen with government spending. This is why we have chronic deficits: there is no incentive to cut the budget. We also have more wars than we have to, because a war is a good excuse for all trouble and a good way to, again, get re-elected.
In contrast, a monarch is not a renter, he is the owner. He will own the national infrastructure so long as he lives and after that he will pass it on to his son. He has zero incentive to get the country in debt, or in war, or choke the population with taxes, or give them fake benefits. He also has no incentive to become a tyrant: the foundation of his power is a happy people who would not want revolutions.
The type of monarchy is a secondary consideration. Surely a monarch wants to encircle himself with a cabinet and he will want to have democratic forms of decision making when they are appropriate. Surely it is not a monarchy when the parliament can override the monarch, but in an advisory role a parliament is a very useful thing.
It is important to understand that a monarchy cannot be just decreed. A calling up a monarch is a rare event in the life of a nation; most modern nations simply do not have a monarch and have nowhere to look for him. A monarchy rises organically and involves a bond that the monarch forms with his people, gradually. It is more like marriage than it is like governing. This is why it is foolish to think of monarchy in terms of constitutional law, although the obligations monarch takes on toward his people are very real, and consequences for violating these obligations are severe for both sides.
Which is precisely the reason it is not there. There are very few, if no monarch currently which has this -- except perhaps the King of Thailand, the Emperor of Japan. the Archduke of luxembourg and the Archduke of Leichtenstein and to some extent the Queen of England (but not Charles...), the King of Belgium. The royalty of Scandanavia or the Netherlands does not have it, the Spanish monarchy to some extent has it as does the Prince of Monaco
Yes. But just like sex education today teaches that marriage is a sex partnership in a shared household, so people of 19-20cc. have been taught that monarchy is about either dictatorship or decoration, but never a familial national bond. Pretty soon wives and husbands won’t be anywhere if we look for them, too.
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