Carthage in the 21st Century

Last year, I wrote about the amazing Phoenicians because, historically, I consider them the first capitalists. As the old saying goes, they had a head for business. Perhaps because Phoenicia was a sort of federation of city-states, the folks in Tyre were able to do business instead of fight in stupid wars of expansion. It also helped that they were a coastal location. Like all things in this world, there is never just one explanation.

What turned my thoughts to Phoenicia is chapter 4 in the Dressing for the Ages class. They are the subject of that chapter. Since I had not read up on them for a few years, I did a review of that glorious age, when all things capitalist and trade were new.

Well, sort of.

Somewhere I read that it is thought that early humans traded with other early humans. You know, back in the day when no one could read or write, when even talking was new. How do we know this? Archeologists have found sea shells that were hundreds of miles from the coasts they belonged to. One of the reasons given for those wayward shells is that coastal bands of humans traded stuff with interior folks. It is even suggested that the shells may have been used for currency. How about that? Hmm?

Humans doing business is as natural as humans having religions. Atheists might get their panties twisted at the thought that religion is a natural part of being human.  However, Atheists also have religions. Some of them are Greens, which means they worship the oldest god out there: Gaea. And some are Vegans. That is animal worship. And then there are the Rationalists, many of whom practice the Communist religion. Their god is Marx. Indeed, they refer to themselves as Marxists.

Being “woke” is not a religion. It is a business plan. Being woke is about employing people, like trainers, in inclusion, diversity and equity. These are much more pressing issues than getting our soldiers out of places like Syria.

No one is teaching job skills. As in how to do the job. So workers get themselves coaches, hoping this expensive bit of therapy will help them with their work. In the meantime, companies go begging for workers.

Many participants in the new religions do not like to hear that their belief system is a creed. They are so done with the sky god, and the supernatural, that they have no understanding of what a religion is. These new disciples don’t need no stinking god in the sky to force you to believe. They just need government bullies to do the job for them. Communism is a perfect example. Marx, in the communist religion, is the god that once walked among the people. He is the god of the working class, brought to you by the leisure class. The leisure class, aka, oligarchs, preaches abstinence when it comes to worldly possessions. Meaning, you will own nothing. Including your thoughts and ideas.  The priests will do your thinking, you will just work for the benefit of the oligarchy, humanity.

The trouble with communism is that it has no rituals, no music, no beautiful buildings, though it does have human sacrifice. If you are to die for the sake of the state, it is an honor, is it not?  Every child born is there for the use of their church, the state. History tells us this is so, because most communist states have a falling birthrate. Why? Ask yourself, who wants to bring children, infant human beings, into such a dumb, boring, stale world?

Doing business brings people out of poverty and into prosperity. Look at the history of commerce in this world. Look at its development. All the cultures that did business thrived and grew. Those that did not, are now dusty ruins in the desert that no one really knows about. Who cares about petty kings and petty dictators, that don’t leave much behind? The people of business? You know them for their expansive ways. The traveling sales force trades more than goods. They also trade ideas. They build ships, develop seamanship, learn how to navigate, set up routes across the seas and oceans, tame camels to bring goods inland across deserts, learn languages, develop accounting, build roads, employ engineers to build canals to bring water to the farmers, and then buy from those farmers, vintners and women in workshops who weave cloth, make necklaces, and design pottery.

Yes, try to tell me how awful capitalism is. Tell me about all those wicked business people who struggled to open up new markets, so that the world could satisfy our needs, and give us things we wanted, but didn’t need, items that made life fun. Because, life was once filled with the drudgery of existence, of staying alive. Doing business changed all that.

It was the people of business who funded the people of science so that they could come up with meds to save the lives’ of children, so that we humans would not have to bury our children so often. They also funded schools and hospitals.

The problem with so much success is that it can make a people arrogant and unappreciative of what they have. I ascertain that Carthage was destroyed by the Romans because of their attitude towards others. Hannibal surprised Rome because he could afford to take elephants over the Alps. But in the end, Carthage was destroyed by the Romans because money will take a culture only so far. Diplomacy, that is negotiating with others, that is the skill of living with others. It is the adroitness all high end nations need.

Life is, of course, constantly recycling. What is big, what is huge, can, and does, fail. Sears Roebuck was the amzon.com of its day. Where is Sears today? Its buildings are leased to other companies. Or razed.

What is Carthage today, but a series of ruins? Indeed, there is still a city in Tunisia on that spot, but it is not the glorious city of the Phoenicians, and then the Romans who took it from the Phoenicians, or the Vandals who took it from the Romans. The millennium that Phoenicia excelled in is gone, and so too are the Phoenicians, the Romans, and the Vandals.

One day, Amazon will be gone. What will take its place?

Who will overrun our Carthage? China?

Rome could not keep Carthage for the 600 hundred plus years that the Phoenicians did because the world had changed. The world changed, partly, as a reaction to Rome becoming the new power. Which means, new alliances were formed. And, new religions changed the way people think.

Our current world is the result of the Germans and the Danes, that developed the Europe we now know. When Constantine walked away from Europe, the Germans walked in. The Germans, and the Danes, aka, Vikings, went everywhere. Europeans became the latest rendition of the Phoenicians. They were the people who did the business in the world.

The Northern Europeans had a knack for business. They still do. Like the Phoenicians, the Northerners had ships, and sailors, willing to go anywhere.

So too, did the southern Europeans, the Portuguese, the Spanish, and the French. Their real purpose was not to conquer but to trade. When they found Hunter-Gatherers and civilizations without the resources that the Europeans had, it was easy pickings. Aye, there’s the rub, the reason for so much anger today.

Like the Phoenicians, we turned arrogant in our success. Nonetheless, we fail to learn the lessons, to understand that human beings are capable of  jealousy and envy, on a large scale. It doesn’t matter how much Christianity and Communism, with their ideas on equality, there is in the world, the human being is naturally jealous of those who have what one wants. In the best of circumstances, the jealous human will work harder to get what they want. In the worst, they learn to bully others, to manipulate others for their own prosperity.  Those that were once the enemies can become friends, to make common cause when the successful have turned arrogant.

If anything, this is what the study of history teaches. When our pleasures outweigh our responsibilities, that is a civilization in decline. When we become full of ourselves, thinking nothing can touch us, that is a civilization that is ripe for rot. When the leaders think they are untouchable, that nothing can harm them, that is when they are most vulnerable. When the nose is stuck up into the sky, one cannot see what is on the ground.

Civilizations have cores, and when the cores decay, the civilization fails.

Other nations, that are forced to play the game by the rules of the successful, grow resentful. They seek change. Think of the Romans, who were disciplined and focused, and weary of playing the Carthaginian game, and how they pushed back. Hard. They didn’t take Carthage down on their own. They had friends, others who were also envious, that wanted to take the wealth for themselves.

And now, in the 21st century?

Iran and the Saudis are on friendly terms again. The Russians and Chinese have their chats. And all are weary of playing the American game of doing it the American way, or taking it to the highway. We Americans flirt with war, playing a proxy game in Ukraine. In the meantime, the Iranians have sent weapons on drones to kill us in Syria.

How much longer will this petty stuff go on?

Internally, as a nation, we are divided. Our core is gone. Yet we still play as if we are as strong as ever. The bluster of Washington DC, with their fingers in the currents of war, play that proverbial fiddle, thinking all is well with them in the world.

Many thinkers who write essays, point to the United States as the Roman empire about to crumble. I disagree. We are not the Romans. We are the Carthaginians. We sit up here on our hill, with our navy and merchant ships, sailing the seas, doing too much war business, and not enough manufacturing of the clothes we put on our backs. We tell others they abuse human rights, whilst we cannot understand why thousands of our own citizens die of overdoses every year. Fear reigns, not enthusiasm for life. We sacrifice our children to our fantasies, and do nothing to protect them from the harm of drugs. We will not carry a weapon to keep the schools from being easy pickings to monsters with a weapon. We are, in short, in fantasy land. The ending won’t be pretty. For our enemies are making plans for us.

Ask yourself, if missiles come your way, what will your plan for survival be? In America, we don’t know what it is like to have our cities in ruin, the women raped, the children taken from us, to be sold into a hellish slavery. In America, no one thinks that we could end up like Carthage. Who would do such a thing to us? We are busy saving the world from gas guzzling cars, helping kids to transition their gender, and making sure everyone is included. Doesn’t everyone love us for those endeavors?

Or do you think we could never end up like Carthage, our ruined cities left as a testament to what once was. That in a thousand years, archeologists will come along and pick over our bones, and tell the story of the once, great land where the milk and honey turned sour and bitter.

To be a grown up is to understand, that it can happen here.