Roman Predicament (Book Review)

I recently completed Harold James’ The Roman Predicament. It was a gift from an unknown, but greatly appreciated reader in Kansas.

The book was on my wish list not least because of its title. One of the peculiar trends of the post-Cold War Era has been the temporary position of the United States as the “sole superpower.” The stability and power of the Roman Empire is noteworthy and admirable, even 2000 years hence. At the same time, Rome has long been a symbol of the corruption of a sustainable and austere republic with a disunited, overstretched, decadent, and ultimately doomed Empire. Traditional Roman institutions gave way to corrupted versions of the same; the people soon relied exclusively on foreign mercenaries and frontiersman to fight Rome’s battles; and, soon enough, the entire edifice came crashing down, giving way to small principalities ruled by ex-Roman generals, soon to become the Barons and Dukes of the Medieval Era.

The author’s main thesis seems to be that empires arise because of the perceived needs of order to guarantee trade. (I say seems because his turgid writing and numerous qualifications make it hard to discern, at times.) But this imposition of order runs into a variety of resistance, particularly from proud, recalcitrant locals who perceive the ostensibly neutral system as benefiting the imperial regime more than its counterparts. His work is useful insofar as it notes that free trade, far from guaranteeing peace, instead makes what would otherwise be irrelvant backwaters highly relevant. After all, even the smallest deviation in rules, respect for shipping and merchants, exchange of currency, and the like is an affront to the imperial system as a whole. The whole world becomes part of the perceived interests of the imperial power.

I think his thesis is weak insofar as it posits these differences between strong nations and weaker nations are simply great big misunderstandings that can be solved by greater tolerance and education on both sides. Regarding Islam in particular, he notes:

There exists an alternative to the challenge and response model that has as its outcome the clash of civilizations. The other path depends on a dialogue within a shared natural law framework. Instead of thinking that technical development will automatically produce prosperity and thus solve, as it were, by a king of magic the problem of values, we need to think and talk explicitly about values. We will identify more commonalities across cultures in this discussion than we initially might have supposed. A symbolic and perhaps important exemplification of unity around values was the line-up in modern Rome at the funeral of Pope John Paul II, the best -attended funeral in the history of the world.

This seems highly debatable and unserious. James, in spite of his pretentions of a “birds eye view,” is very much a beneficiary and advocate of globalism. In other words, he thinks that trade, breakdown of cultures, and devolution of power from states to big international conglomerates (as well as organizations like the UN and WTO) is basically a good and inevitable thing. The real question to him is how can it be marketed and protected.

Unlike Huntington or Fukyama, he does not take seriously the content of any of this criticism lodged by traditional cultures, nor the ways that non-material accounts of the human good essentially disarm western models when they confront austere and religious nations. Consumer goods like pop culture, McDonalds, and Starbucks are no match for a sincerely acknowledged divine prohibition. In this example in particular, he forgets that a great many of the mourners at the former Pope’s funeral were Catholics from Eastern Europe, young people who rejected another imperial system that purported to lift man up from the backwardness of nationalism, war, and the obscurantism of religion. The natural law tradition itself is a product of the Christian worldview, with its uniquly balanced account of determinism and human freedom.

My main criticism of the author is that he sets up a variety of false dilemmas: dominate or be dominated; trade or be impoverished; free trade imperialism or anti-social isolationism. The venerable American (and Swiss and Chinese and Japanese) models of relatively free trade coupled with strategic disengagement is not taken seriously. Nor is the older Metternichian tradition of a European and worldwide balance of power. Instead, for James, it’s all empire and the deus ex machina of a “values discussion” based on “natural law,” as if natural law were taken seriously today by anybody but Roman Catholics.

Empire has meant long wars, impoverishment for the imperial power, and the eventual creation of conflict where conflict need not reside. Distinct interests within nations have successfully persuaded their countrymen that all of these matters are inseparable, when in actuality their parochial interests are being advanced by such wide ranging actions as the Banana Wars, the intervention in Kosovo, and arguably by the Iraq War.

America can trade or not with anyone, regardless of their tariff policies. Foreign investors can and should take their lumps if these alien regimes confiscate their accumulated wealth. “You dance with who brung ya” as they say in Texas. A commitment to this principle is far more likely to guarantee our ability to shape our destiny as a free and distinct principle than the “politics of empire,” even if it means we do not obtain the glory of foreign conquests and the aesthetic pleasure of our “way of life” (defined economically) being exported to every corner of the globe.

This book is ultimately an unsatisfying account of the history, theory, and future of empire, whether in the form of Pax Americana or in some other, yet unseen, form.