The Lessons of History – by Will & Ariel Durant

The Lessons of History lets us see the patterns and make better decisions in the present moment. As we’ve progressed our human nature hasn’t changed, but we’ve found new ways of achieving old means. This book gives us history’s lessons through the lens of different filters.

In this episode we cover:

– Biology and history

– Character and history

– Morals and history

– Economics and history

– Socialism and history

– Growth and Decay of Civilisations

Grab a copy of the book here: https://www.bookdepository.com/Lessons-History-Will-Durant/9781439149959/?a_aid=adamsbooks

The Lessons of History Summary

History lets us see the patterns and make better decisions in the present moment. As we’ve progressed our human nature hasn’t changed, but we’ve found new ways of achieving old means. This book gives us history’s lessons through the lens of different filters.

  Biology and History:

 One unavoidable characteristic of being a human is, we are subject to the trials of evolution. This includes sometimes brutal struggle of the survival of the fittest. One thing that biology teaches us that life is competition. 

  Competition is not only the life of trade, it is the trade of life. Co-operation is real, and increases with social development – but this is just a tool for a form of competition between groups. We co-operate in our group, family, community, party, race or nation, in order to strengthen the group in its competition against other groups. Competing groups have the same qualities of competing individuals: acquisitiveness, pugnacity, partisanship and pride.

  Another lesson of biology is that life is selection. Inequality is embedded into us from birth – it is a fact of life and we can’t change it. Nature loves these differences as it is necessary material for natural selection. Inequality is not only natural and inborn, it grows with the complexity of the civilization Even when repressed inequality grows, only the man who is below average in economic ability desires equality. Those who have superior ability desires freedom. 

  Character and History:

  Evolution is a slow process. Therefore over the last 5000 years we haven’t changed much biologically, but we have in character.  It has proceeded not by variations in the species, but mostly economic, political, intellectual and more innovations in technology. We are constantly encountering new situations, which require new responses. 

  In social evolution, the imitative majority follows the innovative minority. The submissive natures unite with masterful individuals who move the society further.  History is in large is the conflict of minorities, and the majority applauds the victor and supples the human material of social experiment. 

  However, no man can come in one lifetime with such fullness of understanding as to safely judge and dismiss the customs or institutions of his society. If you want to change the status quoe, most of of the time you’re wrong and the traditions are there for a reason that you haven’t yet fully understood.  So the conservative who resists change is as valuable as the radical who proposes it. It is good that new ideas should be heard, for the sake of the few that can be used. It is also good that new ideas should be compelled to go through the mill of objection, opposition and contumely. This is the trial heat which innovations must survive before being allowed to enter the human race.

  Morals and History:

  Moral codes differ because they adjust themselves to historical and environmental conditions. If we divide the economic history to hunting, agriculture, industry, we will see the moral code of one stage to be changed for the next. Morals aren’t universal constants – morals change based on what part of history we’re in.

  For hunter gatherers, a man had to be ready to chase and fight and kill. As the death rate of men was higher than woman, some men took on several woman to frequent pregnancy. Pugnacity, brutality, greed and sexual readiness were advantages for existence and the moral compass reflected this. Murder and multiple partners wasn’t such a bad thing compared to today, as that part of history demanded it. 

   Economics and History :

  History is economics in action. The Crusades, like the wars of Rome with Persia, were attempts of the West to capture trade routes to the East. The French Revolution came not because Voltaire wrote brilliant satires, but because the middle class had risen to economic leadership It’s our desire for resources that drives change throughout history. If we had no desire to improve situation with resources then nothing in history would have happened. History reports that:

“men who can manage men manage the men who can only manage things, and the men who can manage the money manage all”

  From the Medici of Florence, the Fuggers of Augsburg and to the Rothschilds of Paris and London, and the Morgans of New York, bankers have sat in the councils of governments, financing wars and popes, and occasionally sparking revolution. These are the groups of people running the world and driving history. 

  Socialism and History:

  Socialism has also had it’s time throughout history. The idea to redistribute wealth through a central force has been common in History. For example, Egypt in 323 BC had all commerce controlled and regulated by the state. They put taxes on every person, and these central resources were able to complete great engineering works such as the Pyramids. But Pharaohs also completed other works that weren’t always productive, such as expensive wars. Generation after generation, government extractions grew. Eventually agriculture productivity decayed due to lack of incentive. The empire was torn apart and order wasn’t restored until Rome came to rule in 30 BC. 

  But Rome had it’s socialism under Diocletian in AD301. They set maximum prices and wages for all services, extensive public works undertaken to put the unemployed to work, food was distributed at reduced prices to the poor and the state became a powerful employer standing above the private industrialists who were crushed by taxation.

  Today we seem to be flowing towards the same pattern. Most countries are borrowing money to Invest in infrastructure, high pensions and unproductive wars. The world debt is huge and growing exponentially to the point that the world economy may collapse. The only way out of the debt is through higher taxes, eventually like in Egypt, we may remove all incentives for the populace to work. 

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