Download European History

European History:
Lessons for the 21st Century
Gregory T. Papanikos
Director, Athens Institute for Education and Research
(www.atiner.gr)
General Secretary, Economic and Social Council of Greece
(www.oke.gr)
Opening Speech at the 3rd International Conference
on European History: From Ancient to Modern.
Athens, 29-31 December 2005. Cultural Center, City
of Athens.
Athens, 29 December 2005
The past, the present and the future: What history has to do with this
History deals with the future reflecting on the past in order to serve present
needs and interests.1 This definition of the subject matter of history is suitable
for the political and economic history of Europe since ancient times. It is quite
possible that fits other histories as well. This interpretation of history, takes
the future as given (fixed). The past is manageable. Present needs determine
how the past should be managed to achieve, the best way possible, the
desired future course of events. One corollary of this approach is that the past
has many histories.
The above description of history fits well with the two fundamental
approaches to history that seems to dominate the historical writings of the
European world in the last two centuries. The first is based on the works of
Karl Marx. Historical materialism is the “right” approach for the left to
interpret the past because it serves the needs of the present day “proletariat”.
As for the future, this is determined and inevitable, in other words fixed.
Capitalism will collapse. Socialism and communism will triumph. Slightly
paraphrasing Marx, “the historians have only interpreted the world, in various
ways; the point, however, is to change it” (emphasis in the original). Change
by definition relates to the future course events. And after communism what?
Is it the end of history? Marx is not around to respond.2
The second approach came as a reaction to the Marxist interpretation of the
past. Hayek, the Nobel Prize winner is the most important authority who
stood up against the Marxist interpretation of capitalism in general and the
historical interpretation in particular. According to this view, our present day
civilization is due to private property and capitalism. The future is fixed.
Private property and capitalism will triumph and socialism wherever it exists
will collapse. Hayek (1954, p. 4)) in his introduction of an edited book called
Capitalism and the Historians stated very clearly “[H]istorical myths have
perhaps played nearly as great a role in shaping opinion as historical facts.
Yet we can hardly hope to profit from past experience unless the facts from
which we draw our conclusions are correct”. Historical myths are spread by
1
As I was writing this short note, I read a recently published paper that in its opening
sentence uses the same definition of history. According to Liu and Hilton (2005)
“History provides us with narratives that tell us who we are, where we came from and
where we should be going”. If you substitute who we are with the word present,
where we came from with the word past and where we should be going with the word
future, we have the same definition.
2
The writings of Karl Marx and Frederick Engels on Historical Materialism have
been published in a collected volume prepared and edited by Progress Publishers in
1972.
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the historical materialistic approach. The greatest of all myths is the misery of
the working class under capitalism. And Hayek proceeds to criticize all those
historians and philosophers who consider the industrial revolution as the
cause of all evils. Such anti-capitalist interpretations of history are myths and
they are not based on historical facts (truths).
Just for the historical record, data up to the early 20th century did not refute
Marx’s approach to history. On the contrary they vindicated him. Allen
(2001), examining the trend of real wages and standard of living in Europe
after 1500, concluded that for many Europeans the alleviation of mass
(absolute) poverty was achieved only in the 20th century.
One just wonders whether the specter of communism was responsible for
creating the modern civilized society that has elements of capitalism and
socialism. Some scientists baptized this bastardization the “welfare state”.
One may interpret this historical development as being the result of class
struggles under capitalism. This is Marx’s definition of history.1 Even though
it might sound absurd but Marx and the working class movement,
particularly under the umbrella of social democrats and Keynesian elements
of government interventions, reformed capitalism in a way that postponed or
(even worse for Marx) prevented altogether the collapse of capitalism. Marx
saved capitalism along with its Soviet type realization. If socialism is like the
one implemented in the Soviet Union, we are better off with capitalism.
Capitalists took Marx’s historical interpretation, particularly its future part,
very seriously and decide to use it to prevent what Marx thought inevitable.
After all, Marx predicted it in his 3rd Thesis on Feuerbach, “[T]he materialist
doctrine that men are products of circumstances and upbringing, and that,
therefore, changed men are products of other circumstances and changed
upbringing, forgets that it is men that change circumstances” (emphasis added).
Capitalists are men and, I should say, very smart men. Who is going to blame
them if they decided to change their circumstances? Definitely not Marx.
According to Hayek, great men such as Bertrand Russell spread the bad
myths about capitalism. In his book on The Impact of Science on Society,
published in 1951 Russell stated that the industrial revolution created
unspeakable misery reducing the average happiness. Hayek’s interpretation
of history and with him all the political and economic philosophers of the new
economic order of unrestricted market power deny all these as lies and
against the common sense facts. History should be rewritten.
Unfortunately for Hayek his interpretation of history is not vindicated. In a
recent paper on happiness, by the well-known economist Richard Layard of
LSE, it was concluded that happiness does not go hand in hand with
The opening sentence of the Communist Manifesto states: “The history of all hitherto
existing society is the history of class struggles”.
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increasing standard of livings. On the contrary, it is reduced. Russell is
vindicated on happiness; Hayek is vindicated on standards of living and the
future might vindicate Marx.
There is nothing new in saying that history is not the past per se. Nor it is new
to say that history reflects on the past serving present needs. Present needs
reflect certain ideologies that historiography is called to serve. Both Hayek
and Marx will agree on that. That ideology and history are interconnected is
nothing new and is as old as the writing of history itself. It seems that this
issue will re-appear all the time. As Strath (2006) has argued, the whole issue
of globalization and the clashes of civilization is sufficient evidence of the role
of ideologies in shaping history. The history of the 21st century or of the 3rd
Millennium will continue to be shaped by ideology, i.e. by people’s beliefs of
how things should or must turn around. How these beliefs are shaped is an
entire different question. Whether they are realized or not is a completely
different story.
Concluding this section, the first lesson that we can learn from European
history is not to underestimate the power of ideology. It is a very strong
determinant of where we want to go. It determines how we should look at the
past. But how we should look at the past in the beginning of the 21st century?
Global history
Today the past should reflect globalization. A global history or a universal
history is needed. Globalization itself has a long history and can be
considered as a regular or irregular process of bringing together all nations,
particularly in the economic sphere. Technology is one of the most important
factors that determine the extent of globalization. Institutional arrangements
are another factor. Both are affected by the need for economic benefits to be
reaped off by an increasing number of global economic agents.
During the 20th International Conference of Historical Sciences that took place
in Sydney 3-9 July 2005, the opening session was devoted to the globalization
of history and its limits. Professor and President of the Association Jurgen
Kocka questions the possibility of coming up with a unified world history. He
gave various arguments why history will always be a subject with a high
degree of diversity, fluidity and conflict. I was almost persuaded till he made
a conditional statement: “…as long as such diversity, fluidity and conflict are
not ruled out or suppressed by political means or ideological force”. But
globalization is exactly this: a strong political (and sometimes military) force
that is driven by a very strong ideology. Thus, I conclude that a unified
history is coming very fast.
There is a strong interest to globalize the world. Therefore there is a need to
interpret the past in a way that supports these present interests. This might
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explain why history has shifted the focus from discussing national histories to
a discussion of a world history. From what I learn, courses are added on
issues that relate to world history at an increasing rate. We are going to see
more of that. If I read correctly the present needs, then I see this history to
focus on the conditions of social and economic developments rather than on
individual nations or cultures. A good and a typical example of this new
history is a paper on the economic history of Latin America. Cole, et al (2005)
explain the failure of Latin American countries to create the right conditions.
It is not historical but political and economic forces that will drive these
countries into the global arena. All they have to do is to destroy the barriers to
international integration. They do not have to change anything else. Look at
China as an example. Every country can play the game of integration
irrespectively of her historical role.
Thus, the second lesson for the 21st century history is that globalization needs
a unified world history. I am sure that many historians will be willing to write
it. However, this new history must be a practical history. Everybody should
understand it. What constitutes a practical history?
Practical history
It seems to me that many historians define history as what historians do. In
mathematical terms this is an identity and in terms of logic it is a tautology.
However, it is an important definition because it leads us to raise an
important issue: who are the historians that do it better. Contrary to what
many historians may believe, the 21st century history will be a global history
that is based on newly constructed and recovered hard data that will prove
beyond any doubt that the present world order has a long history and most
importantly has a promising future. Politicians, economists, sociologists and
other social scientists that have a position of authority rely on history to make
decisions. Decision-makings link the present with the future. Policy makers
set the latter.
Such a useful history should be based on “facts” and little stories that can be
easily and quickly understood. It is important that this history follows a
certain methodology that becomes familiar to policy-makers. First, such a
history should be based on data, whatever can be found in the historical
archives. Quantitative data, qualitative data, categorical data are fine as long
as they are well constructed. Cliometrics will be on the rise as a historical
subject. If historians do not do it, then others will fill the gap. Economists are
already there. In October 1993, the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences
awarded the Nobel Prize in Economics to Robert William Fogel and Douglass
Cecil North “for having renewed research in economic history”. The
Academy noted that `they were pioneers in the branch of economic history
that has been called the new economic history, or cliometrics.
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Second, the emerging global history should be based on the construction of
world historical myths. We need a new theogony to show that the end of all is
a globalized world. We need paradigms and successful historical case studies
that justify the global history. We need historical failures of attempts to
globalize the world to study them in order to show to the world that we learn
from our mistakes and that we are now ready to globalize the world. All races
and all nations fit into this world. The global history requires myths that
nations and races have always wanted to globalize and collaborate but
something has prevented them from doing so. Historians are called upon to
identify what prevented nations and races to collaborate in order to create the
beautiful world of globalization. I expect that the employability of historical
graduates will depend very much on how good they will be in spreading
these myths. However, do not confuse myths with lies. Do not forget that
mythology was the predecessor of history, if ever was such thing as history.
References
Allen, R.C. “The Great Divergence in European Wages and Prices from the
Middle Ages to the First World War”. Explorations in Economic History, vol.
38, no 4, October 2001, pp. 411-447.
Cole, H.L., Ohanian, L.E., Riascos, A. & Schmitz Jr, J.A. “Latin America in the
Rearview Mirror”. Journal of Monetary Economics, vol. 52, no 1, January 2005,
pp. 69-107.
Hayek, F.A. Capitalism and the Historians. Chicago: The University of Chicago
Press, 1954.
Kocka, J. “The Utopia of Universal History”. Paper presented in the opening
session of the 20th International congress of Historical sciences, Sydney,
Australia, 3-9 July 2005.
Layard, R. Happiness: Has Social Science a Clue? Lionel Robbins Memorial
Lectures 2002/3 Delivered on 3, 4, 5 March 2003 at the London School of
Economics.
Liu, J.H. & Hilton, D.J. “How the Past weights on the Present: Social
Representations of History and their Role in Identity Politics”. British
Journal of Social Psychology, vol. 44, no 4, December 2005, pp. 537-556.
Strath, B. “Ideology and History”. Journal of Political Ideologies, vol. 11, no 1,
February 2006, pp. 23–42.
Pomper, P. “The History and Theory of Empires”. History and Theory, Theme
Issue vol. 44, no 4, December 2005, pp. 1-27.
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