History's lessons

Hernan Cortes

Spain’s empire in the 16th Century saw ships laden with gold and silver sail from her many world-wide colonies back to the mother country. Some estimate that 16th C Spain had the equivalent of $1.5 trillion (USD, 1990) in gold and silver. Having access to such largesse was not necessarily a good thing. Such wealth contributed to ultra-inflation in Spain in the last decades of the 16th century, and made Spain overly dependent on foreign sources of raw materials and manufactured goods. The silver and gold whose circulation helped facilitate the economic and social revolutions in the Low Countries, France and England and other parts of Europe helped stifle them in Spain. In a way, all of her money positioned Spain as a ‘consumer’ country, and condemned her to a Late Medieval world that saw aristocrats all the more unwilling to get their hands dirty in something as base as manufacturing. Spain simply consumed, while so many other countries of Europe entered with aplomb the industry of the Renaissance period and became global ‘producers’.


What is the point, I hear you ask? My dear uncle Allan has been traveling around the world for a few years now, and is, I think, on his third lap. The last time he came to Campbell River, he told us that traveling west from North America to the Far East was a revelation. On this side of the Pacific we see the fruits of those eastern manufacturing juggernauts in our stores. However, when in the Far East, he sees the very source of such prolific industry and manufacturing. He argues that even if America’s economy is presently still bigger, at this rate it will not be long before it will be eclipsed by these manufacturing and producing economies. It is simply a matter of time.

Already we are the consumers, and the Far Eastern economies are the producers. On this trajectory, we are doomed to repeat Spain’s history, and slide into economic and political obscurity, while the Far East continues to rise in economic and political power. If history does indeed repeat, we are witnessing the death throes of American power and influence.

Why is this important?  As flawed as our western-style democracies can be (George W Bush's administration represents, perhaps, the nadir), even the worst democracies have got to be better than the best autocracies, let alone theocracies.  With the passing of economic and political power to countries such as China, the western democratic powers will lose political influence in world affairs.  This might mean the passing of hard fought world legislation on human rights issues like the treatment of women, First Nations, homosexuals, to name just three.  Will a politically powerful China be at all concerned about basic human rights?  Will it not simply flex its muscles when it is displeased?