{"id":2447,"date":"2016-06-28T17:02:20","date_gmt":"2016-06-28T21:02:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/barrystrauss.com\/?page_id=2447"},"modified":"2022-03-08T13:58:20","modified_gmt":"2022-03-08T18:58:20","slug":"how-anti-trade-nativism-wrecked-the-ancient-greeks-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/barrystrauss.com\/how-anti-trade-nativism-wrecked-the-ancient-greeks-2\/","title":{"rendered":"How Anti-Trade Nativism Wrecked the Ancient Greeks"},"content":{"rendered":"

\u201cHow Anti-Trade Nativism Wrecked the Ancient Greeks<\/a>,\u201d The Wall Street Journal, May 22, 2016<\/p>\n

——<\/p>\n

How Anti-Trade\u00a0Nativism Wrecked the Ancient Greeks<\/h3>\n

Cleon was an Athenian demagogue, a shrewd operator known for\u00a0violence and for getting things done.<\/h4>\n

Today\u2019s presidential candidates are playing recklessly with free trade, alliances and immigration. They\u00a0are pushing the misguided notion that high trade barriers will restore jobs and prosperity to the middle\u00a0class, and scorning old alliances and new immigrants. These protectionist and nativist ideas aren\u2019t new\u037e\u00a0they\u2019re as old as the Greeks. Athens tried them but it created international disorder and the opposite of\u00a0the desired result.<\/p>\n

While nationalism will always be fodder for politicians, today\u2019s leaders need to understand the\u00a0consequences. Athens learned the hard way. Here are the lessons:<\/p>\n

\"Acropolis,<\/a>The story begins about 2,500 years ago with an alliance between Athens and the Greek city states\u00a0of\u00a0the Aegean. Historians usually call it an empire, but it was more like a cross between the European\u00a0Union and the Warsaw Pact. It was meant to protect Greece against Persia and it succeeded so well that\u00a0it left some allies complaining it had turned into a protection racket in which they were bullied into playing\u00a0along but got nothing in return. Athens didn\u2019t allow allied exits and backed up its position with force.<\/p>\n

At first, things worked smoothly. Athens slowly turned the alliance into a common market in which\u00a0Athenian coins, weights and measures became the norm, a kind of ancient euro. Athens\u2019s free-trade\u00a0zone fostered prosperity, democracy and the soaring confidence that built the Parthenon and fired the\u00a0Golden Age of Greece.<\/p>\n

Athens also had a magnetic appeal to immigrants. They came from far and wide and represented rich\u00a0and poor. Immigrants competed with natives for jobs but not for political power since they were rarely\u00a0allowed to become citizens.<\/p>\n

Then came the backlash. Three disturbing developments took place.<\/p>\n

Nativism.<\/em> Athens\u2019s old landed elite disliked democracy and despised the immigrants. So, when extreme\u00a0conservatives seized power in a coup d\u2019\u00e9tat after Athens lost the Peloponnesian War (431-404\u00a0B.C.),\u00a0they evicted immigrants from the city limits and targeted the wealthiest for murder and property\u00a0confiscation.<\/p>\n

Fortunately, the coupmakers\u00a0didn\u2019t stay in power long. An armed uprising, funded and manned partly by\u00a0immigrants and slaves, defeated the usurpers and restored democracy to Athens. But the coup shows\u00a0that even the most open society is vulnerable to nativist and anti-immigrant\u00a0sentiment.<\/p>\n

Demagoguery.<\/em> In Athens, for the first time in history, demagogues emerged. They were popular leaders\u00a0of unrestrained vulgarity and crassness. They shouted, used abusive language, and instead of keeping\u00a0their hands modestly tucked inside their cloaks, they raised their garments and introduced hand\u00a0gestures into oratory. Although wealthy and well educated, they spoke in populist accents and criticized\u00a0the establishment.<\/p>\n

The biggest demagogue was the Athenian general Cleon, described by fellow general and historian\u00a0Thucydides as \u201cthe most violent man in Athens.\u201d Maybe, but Cleon was also a shrewd operator with a\u00a0reputation for getting things done. He attacked elites, especially intellectuals, and the crowds cheered.\u00a0Although some of his initiatives fell flat\u2014including the plan to execute everyone in Mytilene whether or\u00a0not they had taken part in a rebellion against Athens\u2014he remained popular and successful overall until\u00a0he fell in battle with the Spartans (in Athens even demagogues died with their boots on).<\/p>\n

Endless conflict.<\/em> Athenian foreign policy should have built an international order that shared prosperity\u00a0and encouraged allies to stay loyal. Instead, it chose Athens First.<\/p>\n

Like Brussels in today\u2019s EU, Athens became a supercapital. But it made the mistake of trampling on local\u00a0rights. Athens mandated, for example, that major court cases be heard there rather than in the allies\u2019\u00a0home city states\u00a0such as Lesbos, Naxos or Miletus. Athenians also threw their weight around abroad\u00a0and bought up property that was supposed to be for locals only.<\/p>\n

Allied elites burned with anger that makes today\u2019s Brexit fever in the U.K.\u2014in favor of Britain leaving the\u00a0EU\u2014look like a sniffle. Therefore many of those allies threw in their lot with Athens\u2019s rival, Sparta, even\u00a0though Sparta was an economic backwater.<\/p>\n

Athens had given people an impossible choice: prosperity or freedom. In the end, all they got was the\u00a0more than quarter-century-long\u00a0Peloponnesian War, the ancient Greek equivalent of our world wars.\u00a0The long struggle weakened all of Greece but especially Athens, which by 404 B.C. lost its alliances, its\u00a0ships and its prosperity.<\/p>\n

Fast forward to today\u2019s world. As in the past, Americans face a choice. We can erect trade barriers and\u00a0build walls\u2014and stoke bad will among nations. Or we can continue on the road to peace and prosperity\u00a0by maximizing free trade in goods, ideas and people (vetted for national security) while offering a plan to\u00a0bring back prosperity for those in need without re-erecting\u00a0trade barriers.<\/p>\n

Our leaders need to make the case for the second path, clearly and fearlessly. In short, we need smart,\u00a0tough and responsible leadership. Otherwise, make way for Cleon\u2014demagogues, nativists and\u00a0protectionists who risk stoking a new conflict. That could make the Peloponnesian War look tame by\u00a0comparison.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"excerpt","protected":false},"author":8,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"sync_status":"","episode_type":"","audio_file":"","castos_file_data":"","podmotor_file_id":"","cover_image":"","cover_image_id":"","duration":"","filesize":"","filesize_raw":"","date_recorded":"","explicit":"","block":"","itunes_episode_number":"","itunes_title":"","itunes_season_number":"","itunes_episode_type":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[392],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/barrystrauss.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2447"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/barrystrauss.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/barrystrauss.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/barrystrauss.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/8"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/barrystrauss.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2447"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/barrystrauss.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2447\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/barrystrauss.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2447"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/barrystrauss.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2447"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/barrystrauss.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2447"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}