Parallel Economies in Times of Collapse
How northern Europe sidestepped the collapse of the Roman Empire
“We need to really build a parallel economy, quickly. We need to begin to do business with one another.” — Glenn Beck, Media Personality, Author, Co-Founder of Blaze Media & Host of The Glenn Beck Program
What’s in this Post?
The End of the (Eastern & Western) Roman Empire (1min read)
The Hanseatic League (1min read)
Lessons for Today (1min read)
What I’ve Been Reading (links to +/- 1hr reads)
The End of the Roman Empire
Entire volumes have been written about the collapse of Rome.1 For our purposes there are only two things worth noting:
The trade routes of the Roman Empire existed predominantly in the Mediterranean Sea, an area of 2,5 million km².
According to most sources, Rome’s influence had come to an end by 476 AD. However, the Eastern Roman Empire continued until the fall of Constantinople to the Ottoman Empire in 1453, almost 1,000 years later. Rather than collapsing dramatically with the fall of a single city, the empire over-extended itself through endless wars across the region. The Peace of Westphalia—concluded in 1648—marked the end of this traumatic period of European history.2
The Hanseatic League
During this period of immense upheaval and instability, savvy merchants and businessmen developed the Hanseatic League between the 13th and 15th centuries (1201-1500).3 While the trade routes of the Roman Empire were concentrated in the Mediterranean Sea, the Hanseatic League focussed on the Baltic Sea, an area of 377 000 km².
The fascinating history of the Hanseatic League can be summarized as follows: Merchants negotiated agreements with local rulers, which allowed a parallel economy to emerge as the Roman economic system collapsed. Trade in the Baltic Sea thrived and states prospered, while trade in the Mediterranean Sea suffered.
The League laid a solid foundation for globalism as we know it today.
Lessons for Today
As the Russian military prepares for full-scale conflict with NATO, there are signs that NATO is overextending itself, just as the Roman Empire did in the 14th and 15th centuries. NATO publications never acknowledge resource limitations: weaponry, economic resources, industrial resources, production capacity and the like. In their universe, they assume a position of unlimited power, where they can do anything they want. NATO’s actions show that we are well into the Age of Hubris, and it’s at this stage that signs of collapse will become more and more apparent, even to those who have stoically avoided this reality.
“Those afflicted by hubris become the agents of their own destruction. Like a tragic hero, a civilization comes to a ruinous end due to intrinsic flaws that are the shadow side of its very virtues.” — William Ophuls, Immoderate Greatness: Why Civilizations Fail
All of these signs lead me to wonder what a modern-day version of the Hanseatic League might look like. Imagine a network of 1,000 or more influential businesses around the world, all united by the common purpose of protecting their mutual trading interests in the face of collapse. The Hanseatic League proved to be an outstanding blueprint for success based on the revolutionary idea of giving trade interests priority over national policies.
The League produced fabulous levels of wealth, all without the violence and slavery that became hallmarks of colonialism. Perhaps that’s what the world needs now, and our political leaders have demonstrated that they are unwilling to do what’s necessary. Perhaps it’s time for business leaders to show true leadership in the form of the creation of parallel economies. We have the historical precedent, and the times we find ourselves in are without precedent.
That’s what I’m focussing on for 2023: a mastermind of private sector executives who get that it’s now up to them to take the lead and work closely with the people sector who are becoming disenfranchised by the over-extension of their governments. More about that soon.
All the best,
Michael
What I’ve Been Reading/Watching This Week
An old video from Jordan Greenhall discussing how a network like we have discussed could provide collective sensemaking:
A worthwhile discussion of the over-extension of NATO:
A worthwhile analysis by comedian Russell Brand of Zelensky’s visit to the military-industrial complex in Washington:
The Emergence of a New Hanseatic League: How Special Economic Zones Will Reshape Global Governance by Mark Frazier. Mark is the American Chairman of the Startup Societies Foundation and president and co-founder of Openworld, Inc, a nonprofit research group specializing in land value appreciation as a means of privately funding public goods. His projects help communities and entrepreneurs awaken real estate assets through policy reforms, learning innovations, and challenge offers for inclusive, self-funding growth. His research paper is a fascinating read. See my notes at https://bit.ly/NewHansLeague.
See https://bit.ly/CollapseLit for the major works I have referenced.
There are many parallels between the Thirty and Eighty Years Wars and the wars currently supported by NATO and are well-worth studying: https://bit.ly/PeaWest.
For extensive research papers and study videos, see https://bit.ly/HansLeague.