Learning from Imperial Rome

[BitDreams]

Thanks for the topic. I believe that at some point cultures and communities will use bitcoins programmed to their needs, may the best protocols thrive, and that those bitcoins will be bound through Bitcoin. It will be exciting to live in a world where the rulebook is plain for all to see. Earned and proven wisdoms enduring while short sighted corruption fails. Let the psychopaths of finance go find more exciting things to do with their lives, go rustle a comet or something. Heck, I'll help fund it with Bitcoin!

I wrote this a few years ago: http://ponziunit.blogspot.com/2010/01/jubilee.html?q=jubilee

While a single celled organism living communally may counter the attack of a parasite by dying off (preventing the spread to other communities) humanity simply can't afford the die off, or at least hopefully the more social minded individuals would prefer not to devolve into all out warfare against their neighbors so over time, humanity has developed simple mechanisms: codes, laws, standards that remain effective even after thousands of years.

To me, the concepts of Jubilee are fair valuation, debt limitation, governance by a third party held to high standards, the rights of ownership and the protection of freedom. It simply doesn't get any more basic than that.

We simply need to purge the unethical. We can't let them continue to twist the rules. They must be expelled and it will be very bad for the community if the unethical are expelled in an 'at all costs' scenario.

Here's an article from a blogger about Jubilee and the Long Cycle, specifically Kondratieff - a demonstration that nipping the debt cycle in the bud before it has a chance to spread bad debt over generations is possible.  I believe that Bitcoin is the enabler to many ages old algorithms that for one catastrophic reason or another, never really got to see the light of day.

http://www.biblicalresearchjournal.org/brj-pages_html/001bp_2010-03-08.html#.T9vgTdDDLeg.blogger

( he's currently anti-bitcoin :-> I always listen to both sides of a story )

[minor-transgression]

BitDreams - thanks for the links - I was unaware that someone had made the connection between
interest rates and the Kondratiev long wave. There may also be a causal relationship
between Debt and generational change, the "Fourth Turning" etc, but there is enough
basic math to work on here without invoking either metaphysics or religion ;-)

Found on that link:
"Obviously, with a date for universal debt forgiveness written in stone, no lender would ever set terms for repayment PAST the Jubilee year."
But see this :
http://www.infosources.org/what_is/Code_of_Hammurabi.html
"The laws (numbered from 1 to 282 but numbers 13, 66-99, 110 and 111 are missing) are on an 8 foot tall stela of black diorite"
Not as easy as wiping a hard disc, but stone yields to a hammer and chisel eventually ;-)
It does make you curious about laws 66-99, No?

Seriously though, attempts to subvert and evade a Debt Jubilee are a certainty in any Age.

Elsewhere on that link a graphs show "interest" at 10 percent and seven percent "growth",
suggested that such an economic system could not continue indefinitely.
Stated that way, I'd suggest the proposition is misleading, though not incorrect, and if I may,
I will direct my reply as best I can toward the economy of Imperial Rome.
The census figures suggest that the Roman population grew by a little over 0.5 percent per year,
and based on best guesses, productivity grew similarly, giving growth in the economy of a little
over one percent per year in most periods.
I had a look at the effect of increasing productivity in an economy with 0.5 percent population
growth and fixed rates of interest of 10 and seven percent - all figure approximate,
using a variant of Keen's Minsky model. The results were unexpected and intriguing, - I don't know
how long it will take to get my head around these dynamics. [ Some of the results are pure
vanilla - see Dr Grasselli's and Prof Keen's papers and video, the other results, ...  too early to tell. ]

[semaforo]

But is there any other god but the Human Intellect? If we listen to Buddha we may as well spend our lives in mental masturbation oops sorry "meditation". Epicurus slaps Buddha everytime, and Chryssipus tells him to get over it.
[/quote]

    I don't think even the most Islamophobic historian would try to limit the Islamic golden age to the Fatimid dynasty. Do an image search for Samarkand.

Barbarians, with silk road money. nothing exceptional about them.
[/quote]

      Epicurus is an aesthetic hedonist- much more pallatable than the more materialistic strain, but nonetheless, his philosophy is only accessible to a leisure class supported by a slave underclass.

       The silk road was generating huge amounts of income for centuries before the arrival of Islam, and yet the "barbarians" ruling over it never achieved the level of advancement in architecture, mathematics, astronomy, poetry, or a number of other disciplines that were achieved in the Islamic golden age. Also, remember that the civilized/barbarian dialectic used by the Greeks has still been used in our lifetimes in Bush's "with us or against us" rhetoric.

        The math behind neo-liberal economic theory that points to the wealth generating effects of free trade is sound. The reason that it attracts the ire of the left is because of a problem that is more difficult to calculate- the wealth generated by this free trade is unevenly distributed and intensifies class divides. The decline in influence of the Sassanid and Byzantine empires and the rise of Islam opened up a huge area where goods were able to move more freely due to improved security and decreased taxation- Islamic law taxes wealth, rather than income or trade. Zakat, one of the pillars of Islam, acts as a wealth tax, a sort of negative interest rate and a redistributive mechanism as well as an investment incentive, which increases productivity and helps allay the social tensions that the militaristic structures and intensive taxing of other empires usually quell with sheer force or spectacles.

       The military is provided for by voluntary donations by citizens due to the spiritual rewards that are associated with participating in the military ventures of the Islamic state, which relieves a huge amount of the tension that plagued Rome and still affects those following the Roman tradition, like the US and Western Europe. The failures of the various Caliphates can be attributed more to their failure to adhere to the shari'a than the principle itself. In the same vein, the negative image of Islam in Western media, while serving specific economic interests- in particular the interest hungry financiers of the global economic order- is bolstered by the actions of individuals who stray from clear edicts in shari'a- such as the prohibition on dying by one's own hand- and are picked up as poster children for the Christian PR campaign that has not rested since the crusades... these individuals have been supported both ideologically and technically by both the KGB and CIA (via Saudis by CIA, and in Soviet incitement of aggression toward Israel by KGB see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Active_measures), and have proved useful not only as pawns in geopolitical maneuvering, but also to demonize the one ideology that has the potential to provide a credible alternative to both communism and capitalism-an ideology whose spread would erode the dynamic tension that sustains both the bipolar world of the cold war and the two party system, and would render the skill set of the current elite obsolete. The elite are fighting for their survival using any means possible, and our minds are their battlefields, and the media the weapons.

    Anyway, it was not my intention to thread-jack- apologies for the rambling...

[thaaanos]

[...]

Trade also attracts "Protectors" as was the case with Timur, who profited not from trade itself but by gatekeeping it. I claim he was a barbarian and not worthy to include him and his empire in any islamic golden age simply for the fact that he had the honnors of massacring 5% of worlds population. And yet still not a sharia promoter either.
I still fail to see how sharia, or any other religious law for that matter, is objectively  better that Roman Law.
And yes Law is decoupled from Religion in the west, in your arguments you are simply confusing Law with Power.

[BitDreams]

May bitcoin be a thread that binds humanity in time of need.

[bitm3]

A lesson in history.

Thanks!

[minor-transgression]

Today's financial world requires an entirely different train of thought to
that of ancient economic systems. I will therfore begin at the very beginning, - because
I do not want as yet, to see how deep the rabbit hole goes - with this from p55 of
the  translation by Robert Francis Harper of the Code of Hammaurabi dated 2250BC.

CoH#111 "If a wine-seller give 60KA of drink on credit, ... at the time of harvest
she shall receive 50KA of grain"

Note four things: that debt and credit were created; that for all intents and purposes
measures of grain were money; that the transaction was regulated by law; and that
hard currency is significantly absent from the law.

(To help you collect this train of thought, try telling the barman at your local watering
hole that your right to drink on credit is enshrined in law ;-))

A further observation: if grain is money, the supply of money will vary from year
to year, but the supply, with some qualifications, will be a fixed amount.

Before moving on, ... the footnote from CoH p50 reas as follows (see earlier post)
"five columns #66-99 have been cut off the stone"

I'd suppose that the relevance of that depends on your view of the probability
and predictability of a financial crash in ancient Babylon. If crises were frequent
enough to be anticipated, they would have written provisions into their law.

What would happen to an economy with no ability to grow its money supply if it had
fixed rates of interest and no real-world limits to growth?

Suppose their population grows at 0.5 percent each year; productivity increases by
2.5 percent each year; money is lent at ten percent interest and seven percent
interest is paid on deposits.

More and more goods are produced, money is restricted, hence the price of goods and
wages falls. Debt does not fall, because the additional goods produced merely makes up
the difference between borrowing and lending interest payments. After 50 years, the
economy weakens, and after sixty years it collapses. At that time, each interest payment
on the debt would be near equivalent to the original purchasing power of the loan.

I cannot pretend that this is a real example, or that it is even approximates the
modern financial system. It is however, close enough to suggest that an economy based
on bitcoin would not provide a long term solution to financial instability without
additional measures being taken. I will attempt to put this another way: If Imperial
Rome had bitcoin, a collapse was still unavoidable. Growth would have been lower,
interest rates would be lower, increasing debt and hyperinflation would be a more
probable route for collapse, and it may have taken longer, but the outcome would be
similar.

In all this, recall that the sun still shines, crops still grow, and life goes on.
And ask, is it really necessary that civilisations of a certain age suffer something
that seems equivalent to a heart attack in people at the top of their profession?

[thaaanos]

The thing with grain as money, Is that in hard times you propably can eat your stash, no other currency had this utility since. (sustain life)
Plus an expiration date. Debt can be covered by labour, People don't save more than neccessary so propably low interest rates
Most goods where peged on grain anyway, Ale, Bread, livestock food
And if there is an economic collapse it will be only after a food crisis which will rebalance demand, if there is a bubble burst you still have something to eat even unemployed.
I assume land was not an issue for them.

But on your question, money is trust, and humans are prone to mood swings, not to claim psychos. Law can protect propably from small disturbances but people when in tune all hell breaks loose.

Stop what you are doing and play some Dwarf Fortress

[5thStreetResearch]

lol wtf

[minor-transgression]

Thaaanos - thanks for the advice.

I knew that the things I was proposing would be difficult to sell,
hence if the readers show little interest in the content, there would be no
point in setting out the implications for say, NewYork, or, for example
Scotland.

[thaaanos]

Thaaanos - thanks for the advice.

I knew that the things I was proposing would be difficult to sell,
hence if the readers show little interest in the content, there would be no
point in setting out the implications for say, NewYork, or, for example
Scotland.

 By all means continue, I keep open mind but occasionally my brain spits out rants

[Fizzgig]

You could make an alt that will generate a new genesis block at random after each block. The longer the chain the higher the probability of a restart. Put the 50/50 chance at year 50. 50k blocks per year, probability that 1 of those blocks resets the chain is .5, next year it is .51, would anyone use such a doomsday coin?

[BlockChainLottery]

Thaaanos - thanks for the advice.

I knew that the things I was proposing would be difficult to sell,
hence if the readers show little interest in the content, there would be no
point in setting out the implications for say, NewYork, or, for example
Scotland.

 By all means continue, I keep open mind but occasionally my brain spits out rants

Yes, continue. I enjoyed reading this thread, just didn't reply because I had nothing sensible to say yet.
Doesn't mean I agree with all things, but I like comparing ancient times with the present and trying to learn from that.

[semaforo]

[...]

Trade also attracts "Protectors" as was the case with Timur, who profited not from trade itself but by gatekeeping it. I claim he was a barbarian and not worthy to include him and his empire in any islamic golden age simply for the fact that he had the honnors of massacring 5% of worlds population. And yet still not a sharia promoter either.
I still fail to see how sharia, or any other religious law for that matter, is objectively  better that Roman Law.
And yes Law is decoupled from Religion in the west, in your arguments you are simply confusing Law with Power.

  Yeah, okay Timur was kind of lame... but it can be said that he did institute and maintain many practices of Islamic law, and the caliphate of Cordoba and Berber rule in spain also has a huge legacy in the intellectual history of the west... especially considering that that is where the knowledge of astronomy and wealth came that allowed the portuguese and spanish to effectively launch their colonial expeditions, which eventually led to the rise of Europe as a world power.

       I think it's quite plain to see how a negative interest rate of 2.5% is better for consistently driving economic growth and investment. Any time there is an excess of labor available, the system is inefficient. A negative interest rate is the best way to get to full employment possible, because it means that their is a constant incentive to invest and employ the labor force by building things like irrigation projects, schools, universities, factories, foundries, mines, workshops, vehicles, farms, and anything else that generates revenue and has resale value. Islamic law also prohibits the use of derivatives and abstract financial devices that ultimately generate buying power out of nothing, effectively devaluing the labor of those whose labor is denominated in fiat currency. This also limits the rampant growth of the financial sector. But why is growth in the financial sector a problem? They're productive, right? See the graph here http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Financialization

    Islamic law effectively makes deficit spending impossible... which might explain part of why the US is so keen on making sure Islamic law is not implemented on earth.

    The basis of the law is that it is from God and its implementation is for the best interest of the people who follow it. Twisting it or trying to make it favor a certain class or monarch only leads to disaster. It is so clearly codified in established source material that cannot be revised or edited- even in translation it is hard to interpret your way out of 80 lashes or the total prohibition of interest. It also results in much lower taxation, which is one of the ways that the Islamic empires were able to spread so quickly- where do you live that you wouldn't consider a change in administration in exchange for a 20-40% tax cut?

  So Islamic law increases efficiency in investment, trade, and taxation, increasing the stability and legitimacy of the government. The failures of Islamic dynasties can be attributed to their lack of adherence to the law, and their success comes from the momentum established by the first generations who more faithfully applied this law. The revival happening right now is heating up as the next phase of the information wars begins, and people realize that the crusades are ongoing and it becomes increasingly clear that the "freedom" the west is fighting for is a purely economic freedom that is being concentrated into fewer and fewer hands.

  I say it is an economic freedom, because the freedom of expression and social liberation that characterizes the Western European liberal tradition is only possible with an insulating buffer of vassal states where dissidents are imprisoned, tortured, and killed. As wealth becomes more concentrated, it becomes more difficult to secure the consent of the subjects of the state with bribery- like all you can eat buffets and xbox 360's, and it becomes increasingly necessary to limit public gatherings, illegally wire tap, imprison, and so on and so forth. The modern banking system traces its roots back to the Knights Templar, and the crusades continue...

  So the internet is making an understanding of Islamic law possible, which, as it penetrates Islamic population is leading to a rise in what the Western intelligence agencies have instructed the media to call "extremism." This is setting the stage for a civil war across the entire middle east flaring up between recipients of western "aid" and those left out of these payments. I'm guessing eventually China and Russia will challenge U.S. hegemony in a series of proxy wars, and exhaust each other among ecological fallout (Islamic culture being well adapted to rising desertification and scarcity of water), setting the stage for yet another phase of Islamic expansion as a new caliphate expands into areas inherited from declining Russian, Chinese, European, and US influence, in the same way the East-West Byzantine-Sassanid wars laid the way for the expansion of the early Islamic empires. Anyway, sorry for the digression, but this is still with the theme of correlating historical events to present circumstances at least.

  More concretely, it is difficult to generalize and say Islamic law is better than Roman law as a whole, but I would challenge that it cannot be objectively that any single aspect of Roman law is better than Islamic law.

[BitDreams]

Wisdom passed down over the ages will get to see the light of day through the blockchain.

I had to bring this quote over from r/bitcoin: http://www.reddit.com/r/Bitcoin/comments/1x0n0w/i_just_wanted_to_say_that_i_love_you_all/

...Without community, Bitcoin is just source code. The simple realization of this is mind-boggling. In the same way that an organism is not equivalent to its DNA, Bitcoin is not equivalent to its protocol. Organism = DNA -> proteins -> cell(s) -> etc + feedback and interaction with environment. Each layer has a certain degree of plasticity that allows the organism to adapt and evolve. The same analogy can be applied to the layers of Bitcoin. Except, there’s a much greater degree of plasticity to Bitcoin than there is to a biological organism because it can adapt and evolve through conscious effort. This is especially true in its still early development...

[thaaanos]

[...]

Trade also attracts "Protectors" as was the case with Timur, who profited not from trade itself but by gatekeeping it. I claim he was a barbarian and not worthy to include him and his empire in any islamic golden age simply for the fact that he had the honnors of massacring 5% of worlds population. And yet still not a sharia promoter either.
I still fail to see how sharia, or any other religious law for that matter, is objectively  better that Roman Law.
And yes Law is decoupled from Religion in the west, in your arguments you are simply confusing Law with Power.

...

My main argument against religious laws is the appeal to God to determine the human relations, my problem is that it is: Dishonest, Absolute, Hard
1.Dishonest because god never said anything about laws, else he could very well contact me directly and tell me what he wants me to do, without needing some deluded "chosen" proxy
2.Absolute, because any transgression immediately falls to "Blasphemy" and raises asymmetric punishment
3.Hard because it cannot evolve along with society, why? because God said so!
While appealing to society itself to produce the Law, has none of the above problems, and imho more "mature" as citizens get to be responsible for the mess they are in.

But that doesn't in essence make state laws better as it can fall under the "Design by Committee" problems, still you can't trust some arbitrarily genius Lawgiver to get you out of a tough spot every time.

Now concerning the philosophy on the financial matters in Islamic law

I still don't have an opinion on whether Financialization is good, or bad, there have to be some non apparent trade-offs, but I guess the delphic maxim (appealing to Apollo now ) "Nothing to excess" applies here.

Negative interest rates will certainly kill banks, but people maybe will find something that inflates and build a market on top of it, Maybe there are examples in the Islamic world? has something like that occurred? something called "Favour"?

Sadly I will disagree with your assessment of the events in middle-east, The US "Divide and Conquer" game will leave the Islamic world in the ashes of civil war, and probably in Debt. I don't think that any power can rise out of it using Islam as vehicle, It will be in the cross-hairs of Imperial US, Orthodox Russia and Atheist Chinese commies.

I would claim that religion is now dead to be a power-vehicle, but then I look at Bitcoin and this forum and shut up.

[minor-transgression]

I will clarify a couple of things, that seem to have been misunderstood in the earlier posts.

I have come to view the Roman Tirmetallic currency as a primitive form of the internet, acting
to quickly transmit information, both political, price and financial across wide geographical
areas and beyond. The currency had a value separate from that of the metal in the coin,
a value that ultimately arose from the credibility of the State.

I try to avoid taking a position on interest charges on loans. While the interest rate itself is
valuable information if manipulation is absent, high interest rates on debt accelerate the
collapse of an economy in the models of Imperial Rome - I would add the caution that arguing
from the specific to the general is asking for trouble. 

I still struggle to get the next point across: as Debt in an economic system increases, the
possibility of achieving as "good" equilibrium becomes more and more remote. Furthermore,
Debt and interest might best be described as orthogonal, though some seem to see these
as interchangable. Graeber makes the point that during the Colonial expansion, the conquered
were expected to pay for the cost of conquest. Their struggle to remain free became a debt,
to be repaid in the conquerer's coin. Similarly, in Imperial Rome, on accession the new Emperor
was expected to pay a donative to the troops - and if it was not forthcoming the troops were
likely to press for a payment to be made - a Debt in all but name.

One difficulty in describing the performance of these models is that stability is difficult to measure.
Traditional measures such as margins have little meaning if the entire system is unstable, hence
any view on stability is somewhat subjective. Clearly, a system that has within it relatively large
quantities of debt will be subject to larger and more rapid changes in response to changes in
interest rates when compared to a system with little debt. You might want to consider the role
of Central Banks, and their supposed role in stabilising their economy when comparing ancient
and modern systems.

Some further points worth mentioning: population growth and productivity growth are incredibly
important in determining economic outcomes when looking at timespans of ten years and upwards,
to the extent that even tenths of a percent can be clearly seen by their effects. It is also difficult
to convey how fragile the Empire was at many times of crisis, and how costly the effort to keep
the show on the road could become.

I'll again mention that during the reign of Tiberius, laws prohibiting usury were progressively
enforced, pushing the banks into insolvency, and obliging Tiberius to bail them out with large
low or zero interest loans. Hence it seems that usury, in itself is not a solution to instability.

Setting up an alt-coin with a lifespan of less than thirty years would cause problems with long lived
loans such as mortgates. Shorter lifespans might in some circumstances be desirable - there are
some worrying predictions around suggesting that financial problems may precipitate societal
collapse. If we have a clearer view of the capabilities and limitations of bitcoin it can only help. 

[thaaanos]

I think measuring economic stability solely based on debt expansion or not, may be wrong...
Political advancements and technological advancements are IMHO more important to preserve stability, and continuing growth.
I think that Rome after the initial political breakthroughs in Law and Governance(Senate), as well as in  warfare(ie Pilum) and construction technology (arch) technology , that allowed Rome to become from a village to empire, regressed in political field back to monarchy, and hit a technology wall as well as an energy wall. Europe had to wait the Renaissance to   

Rome's failure was that it fell in love with the genius Julius Ceasar, and sought to replace him ever since, forfeiting the power of the Commons.
No amount of fiscal prudence can offset political regressions or technology and energy constrains,

Why for example West and not China dominated the modern age? was it Debt that held China back?
Han China was much wealthier than the contemporary Roman Empire, so what happened?

[Prayer]

An amazing thread.. I actually spent most of the day looking for a 'history of money' before giving up and browsing the forums.

It's my understanding that while the salary for the legionnaires was important, most were in it for the promise of land.  Equity in the Republic Empire.

At the other end of the spectrum, there were slaves.  Not to gloss over the plight of a slave, but the form of slavery was different that has been practiced in recent centuries.  Slaves were not only the poor and uneducated, they were often very well educated and actually had more wealth than the average citizen and were often given considerable responsibility.  A person who was forced into slavery (from conquest or economic hardship) had the ability to earn not only their freedom, but an equity stake in the Republic/Empire.

The biggest problem I see with the modern economy, is that we have too much debt and too little equity.  Imperialism, Feudalism, Communism, and Socialism haven't worked.  Capitalism, save for the debt, seems to work pretty well.

I'm starting to think we need to work towards a debt-free, equity based economy backed by a global, counterfeit-proof currency.  I think this can be done in our lifetime and think it would be a worthwhile goal.

[minor-transgression]

What little I know of China's history suggests a balance between the administration, the peasants,
the army, and the Temples (banks).

As a very crude analogy, China played "Old Maid" where Rome and the west played "Monopoly".
When the Temples got too powerful, too rich, issued too much debt, the others ganged up on them
and rebalanced the system. That's my understanding, I have no research to back that up.

I think the point of interest is related to the collapse from 305Ad on, and what might have been
done short of a complete reorganisation to get, for example, the currency restored. The Byzantine
Emperors seemed to have managed to last 1000 years after 305Ad, and their position seemed
little different from that of Rome, though their currency was based on gold, not silver.

The theory seems to point to "confidence," and the extension of trust to the currency to enable
investment - the expectation of reward in the future to take place. I'm reluctant to use the word
confidence because that implies certain things that may not be present in this context.