This is interesting given that the Venecians moved their banking and trading empire over to Amsterdam and then to the City of London Corporation, founding both a central bank and an East India trading company in both places.
In many respects the British Empire was simply a continuation of the Venecian one, itself a continuation from Rome.
They are likely right now in the process of moving to their next victim...
As I understand it the thesis here is that the decadence of Venice and England are both rooted in "ossification".
But the decadence of Venice was due to material factors: the weak byzantine empire was replaced by the stronger ottoman empire, and the main area of trade switched from the Mediterranean to the Atlantic and beyond.
To some extent the loss of the english empire was similarly due to material factors: the profits from empire, largely based on trade in precious spices, dwindled to the point it was no longer paying for itself, and there was a rise of the USA and another continental power:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/books/non_fictionreviews/3667997/How-victory-spelt-the-end-of-empire.html «“Churchill was reduced to a subordinate position in the Grand Alliance as early the Teheran Conference in 1943, when he "realised for the first time what a very small country this is". By Yalta in February 1945, he was "weaker than ever before". Roosevelt was concerned with Stalin – he "wasted little time on pandering to Churchill, a vaudeville act with which he was becoming bored". By that time, Clarke writes, "a well-briefed and prudently calculating leader" would have realised "what limited options were realistic... for Great Britain as a bantam in a heavyweight league, for the Anglo-American alliance as an expedient relationship premised on subordination...”»
As to decline and ossification since Thatcher and Blair instead I have instead seen a booming economy for incumbents in property and business ownership (paid for entirely with redistribution from the lower classes), with many active design or benign neglect policies protecting their interests.
The government is indeed agile, generous and determined when it comes to protecting those interests, consider:
* The speed and size of the handouts to finance etc. after the 2008 crash.
* The speed and zeal with which over a million visas were granted to a much larger supply of immigrant tenants and workers, just after COVID-19, to boost the housing markets and "moderate" wage inflation.
* More recently the Starmer government acted with rapidity and determination to get rid of the overzealous head of the Competition and Markets Authority (which was promptly downsized) as soon as incumbent oligopolists complained, replacing them with the ex-head of Amazon EMEA.
* Even more recently passed on the double a law to drastically reduce the consultation period for big projects such as new data centers, and transfer their approval to the benevolence of a secretary of state, as soon as incumbent oligopolists complained, while leaving astutely in place every possible blocking factor for new project that might remotely reduce the price of residential property for incumbent middle-class owners.
"The Serrata del Maggior Consiglio, enacted on September 27, 1297, under Doge Pietro Gradenigo, restricted eligibility for the Great Council to adult male descendants of families already serving or recently served in it, effectively locking political participation to a defined hereditary class."
At least Venice has its history, its art and its architecture. All three in this country are being wilfully destroyed.
This is interesting given that the Venecians moved their banking and trading empire over to Amsterdam and then to the City of London Corporation, founding both a central bank and an East India trading company in both places.
In many respects the British Empire was simply a continuation of the Venecian one, itself a continuation from Rome.
They are likely right now in the process of moving to their next victim...
As I understand it the thesis here is that the decadence of Venice and England are both rooted in "ossification".
But the decadence of Venice was due to material factors: the weak byzantine empire was replaced by the stronger ottoman empire, and the main area of trade switched from the Mediterranean to the Atlantic and beyond.
To some extent the loss of the english empire was similarly due to material factors: the profits from empire, largely based on trade in precious spices, dwindled to the point it was no longer paying for itself, and there was a rise of the USA and another continental power:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/books/non_fictionreviews/3667997/How-victory-spelt-the-end-of-empire.html «“Churchill was reduced to a subordinate position in the Grand Alliance as early the Teheran Conference in 1943, when he "realised for the first time what a very small country this is". By Yalta in February 1945, he was "weaker than ever before". Roosevelt was concerned with Stalin – he "wasted little time on pandering to Churchill, a vaudeville act with which he was becoming bored". By that time, Clarke writes, "a well-briefed and prudently calculating leader" would have realised "what limited options were realistic... for Great Britain as a bantam in a heavyweight league, for the Anglo-American alliance as an expedient relationship premised on subordination...”»
As to decline and ossification since Thatcher and Blair instead I have instead seen a booming economy for incumbents in property and business ownership (paid for entirely with redistribution from the lower classes), with many active design or benign neglect policies protecting their interests.
The government is indeed agile, generous and determined when it comes to protecting those interests, consider:
* The speed and size of the handouts to finance etc. after the 2008 crash.
* The speed and zeal with which over a million visas were granted to a much larger supply of immigrant tenants and workers, just after COVID-19, to boost the housing markets and "moderate" wage inflation.
* More recently the Starmer government acted with rapidity and determination to get rid of the overzealous head of the Competition and Markets Authority (which was promptly downsized) as soon as incumbent oligopolists complained, replacing them with the ex-head of Amazon EMEA.
* Even more recently passed on the double a law to drastically reduce the consultation period for big projects such as new data centers, and transfer their approval to the benevolence of a secretary of state, as soon as incumbent oligopolists complained, while leaving astutely in place every possible blocking factor for new project that might remotely reduce the price of residential property for incumbent middle-class owners.
Do you think the closure of the book of gold was part of the problem?
https://grokipedia.com/page/Libro_d'Oro
"The Serrata del Maggior Consiglio, enacted on September 27, 1297, under Doge Pietro Gradenigo, restricted eligibility for the Great Council to adult male descendants of families already serving or recently served in it, effectively locking political participation to a defined hereditary class."