Indus River Valley Civilization

Less is known about this River Valley Civilization because we have less ruins to interpret. The written language has yet to be deciphered. The first great finds--Harappa in 1921 and Mohenjo-daro a year later--brought to light a society impressive for its uniformity. In each city, a raised "palace" area was set off from a rectilinear "middle town" and from less well-developed residences even farther out. Streets were not only drawn on a north-south grid, but were of fixed width--around 9 m for the main thoroughfares, 1.5 m and 3 m for the lanes on which most houses opened. The dimensions of the fired bricks used in palaces, houses and the revetments of heavy fortifications--nearly 14 m wide at their base in Harappa--followed a strict geometric ratio, 1x2x4.

The ruins of Mohenjo-daro indicate a civilization with advanced technical skills. The streets were lined with drainage gutters and it appeared that many of the houses were linked by these gutters. These have been labeled by archeologists as sewage lines. Mohenjo-daro had the first sophisticated waste removal systems city wide.

What is terrorism?

There are many Americans today who seem to believe that the United States is surrounded by a sea of evil terrorists who are eagerly trying to destroy them. This is wrong. In fact it is reminiscent of three-year-olds who are afraid of the drain monster and the demons who live beneath the basement stairs. Even worse, it is reminiscent of the anti-Semitism that was popular in Germany and much of Europe a century ago. In those days many people really believed that the Jews were engaged in a vast conspiracy to destroy European civilization.

Paranoia is a very powerful human emotion. Anyone who has studied a lot of history has come across this emotion on numerous occasions. “Beware, they are out to get us” is a common theme in history. The “they” are usually foreigners but have also included minority groups and social classes.

The only remedy for paranoia is knowledge and understanding. That is why this emotion is so common among the very young who, quite naturally, are lacking in knowledge and understanding. One of the most important jobs that parents have is to reassure their children that there is no drain monster and there are no demons living below the stairs. Likewise national leaders and historians should be educating their people to understand that foreigners are not intrinsically evil. Unfortunately, many politicians and historians do the opposite. They use the natural emotion of paranoia to win votes and sell books. This is a great human tragedy and one of the most serious problems of democracy.

Most terrorists are not intrinsically evil people who revel in death and destruction. They are revolutionaries. In some cases they are individuals seeking revenge. In a very few cases, they are evil.

One of the most important aspects of modern society is that individuals are not allowed to use violence against each other. Violence becomes a prerogative of the state. It is reserved to specially recruited and trained police officers and soldiers who wear distinctive uniforms and are given the job of keeping the peace and defending the state. Ordinary citizens are allowed to use violence only under the most dire circumstances when their lives are in danger and they must act immediately to defend themselves or their loved ones.

The concept of reserving violence to the authorized agents of the state is a very good idea, but what happens in a society that requires revolution? For over 400 years the entire world has been engaged in a massive revolution from traditional society to modern, democratic market society. If the state is the only entity that is allowed to use violence, how can this revolution proceed? About three-quarters of the world is still engaged in this revolutionary process, which typically lasts for one or two centuries. In a revolutionary situation, self appointed people sometimes use violence. This does not necessarily mean that they are evil terrorists.

The imperative of the modern revolution is by far the most powerful political force on this planet. The much-vaunted power of the United States is miniscule in comparison. America wants peace and stability throughout the world and has developed a policy that is against most revolutionary activity. Since the end of World War II, the United States has been energetically interfering with the natural course of revolution throughout the world.

For over a decade Arab leaders have been warning that American policies in the Middle East would lead to trouble. Hundreds of times this country was warned, and every single time those warnings were ignored. The Arab leaders knew what they were talking about. It happened. Roughly 3000 Americans were killed by Arab revolutionaries. Because the perpetrators of this act did not wear uniforms and were not the agents of any state the Americans call them terrorists.

I am not going to quibble with this definition. They were revolutionaries, and they were terrorists. What is important is why this happened. American leaders claim that the only reason was a desire to do evil. They say that America was attacked by evil terrorists, period. That is wrong. This kind of revolutionary terrorism happens for a reason. The following is a brief tour of trouble spots where the United States has created enemies for itself.

The Arab Countries

Much of the Arab world is still involved in the most violent part of the modern revolution and will be for decades to come. They are a long way from the final outcome, which is democratic market nation-states. The Palestinians do not yet have a nation-state of any kind. Their land was taken from them by the Israelis. Hamas, Hisbulah, and Islamic Jihad are Arabic revolutionary organizations that have become involved in the fight for a Palestinian homeland.

The Arab states must have revolution, and the Palestinians must have a national homeland. That is why these organizations exist. They are not simply evil terrorists trying to cause death and destruction. So far Hamas, Hisbulah, and Islamic Jihad have mostly tried to avoid targeting Americans. But the United States gives full support to Israel to target them. If this policy continues, it is likely that they will eventually retaliate. The Americans will have no one to blame but themselves.

Al Qaeda is an umbrella group that grew out of Saudi, Egyptian, and other Islamic revolutionary organizations. The United States has deliberately chosen to support oligarchic, Arab governments that use violence to maintain their power against the legitimate revolutionary aspirations of their people. It is this American policy that has turned the wrath of Al Qaeda against the U.S. This did not have to happen. All that is needed for the United States to remove itself from the target list is to change its policy and stop trying to prevent revolution in the Arab world.

Most everyone is in agreement that the world is better off without Saddam Hussein, but there must have been a better way to eliminate him than starting a major war in Iraq. He has now been out of power for a year and a half, but the war continues. The Americans insist on fighting to gain control of Iraq and impose their version of democracy. This is not going to happen.

The Americans are killing Iraqis on a daily basis. This policy is provoking more resistance, which leads to more killing in a vicious cycle. It is clear to any objective observer that American policy is not working. It is only causing death and destruction. This kind of arrogant behavior could easily lead to more attacks on the United States in the future, possibly for decades to come. If those attacks materialize, American leaders will blame evil terrorists, but it is their own policy that will be the real cause.

Iran

From 1948 to 1979 the United States supported the Shah of Iran because he allowed free reign to the CIA to use his country as a base for spying on the Soviet Union. The Shah needed this support because his own people were turning against him. The modern revolution had arrived in Iran, and the time for absolute monarchs was over. The United States deliberately chose a policy of opposing the revolution and maintaining the Shah in power against the wishes of the Iranian people.

This policy was doomed to failure. The revolution happened. The Shah went into exile, and the new revolutionary government was an enemy of the United States. Saddam Hussein, who ruled next door in Iraq, saw his chance to win glory, annex an Arabic-speaking province, and seize a large part of Iran’s oil. He quickly launched his army to seize the opportunity.

Iran was much larger than Iraq, and its population was filled with revolutionary fervor. Saddam was soon in big trouble. He was on the verge of a massive defeat, which probably would have caused him to lose his job as dictator of Iraq. Then, Ronald Reagan rode to the rescue. American policy tilted toward Iraq. Saddam was given access to satellite photos of the battlefield, but that was not enough. So the United States provided Saddam Hussein with chemical weapons technology and the ingredients he needed to produce poison gas. Saddam was able to stabilize the front lines, achieve a draw in the war, and stay in power.

Iran suffered a million casualties in the war, and its revolutionary government became even more anti-American. George Bush knows every part of this story, and it was fully reported in the American media. But the reason that he came up with to explain anti-Americanism in Iran is that they are evil terrorists. “The Axis of evil,” Bush calls them. “They hate us because we are free,” he says. Say what! He has GOT to be kidding.

Axis of evil? They hate us because we are free? I don’t think so. Iran is anti-America because American policy was anti-Iran. It is an open and shut case of cause and effect. The U.S. supported their unwanted Shah, tried to stamp out their revolution, and helped Saddam Hussein wage war against them with weapons of mass destruction. Now the Americans say that Iran is to blame for the problems between us. Give me a break. The American media is fully aware of all of this, and has done nothing to put the record straight. What is going on here?

North Korea

In 1944 the United States desperately wanted the Soviet Union to attack Japan. If they would do this, America offered to let them occupy Manchuria and northern Korea after the war. That is what happened. The Russians attacked Japanese controlled Manchuria and Korea, which became an artificially divided country.

Kim Il-sung, the leader of North Korea, desperately wanted to reunite his homeland, and negotiations were going nowhere. After many requests, he prevailed on the Russians to provide enough of their war-surplus weapons to seize the South, and he launched an attack. This is exactly the same thing that Abraham Lincoln did when the United States was a divided country. The Americans went ballistic. The evil communists are trying to conquer the world, they shouted.

The American military was quickly rushed in to defend South Korea and attack the North. As part of the war B29 bombers, commanded by Gen. Curtis LeMay head of the Strategic Air Command, destroyed every city and town in the North and then started wiping out the larger villages. The civilian death toll is estimated at about two million. At the beginning of World War II, bombing civilians was called terror bombing. Then Britain and the United States started using this strategy in a major way and it became known as strategic bombing.

Curtis LeMay was the foremost practitioner of this kind of terror, whoops, I mean strategic bombing. He was told many times that North Korea’s weapons mostly came from the Soviet Union and bombing their cities would have little effect on the war effort. To hell with that, he said, the only good commie is a dead commie. He worked as hard as he could to kill as many North Koreans as possible, military and civilian.

Fifty years later the North Koreans still do not like us. Well surprise, surprise. George Bush thinks he knows why. They are evil supporters of terrorism, he says, they are part of the axis of evil. They hate us because we are free. No, George, that is not the cause of the problem.

Considering American government policies, over the last fifty some years, toward communists, Arabs, and revolutionaries in general, it is amazing that the United States has not been attacked much more often. What goes around, comes around is the old saying. The communists mostly licked their wounds quietly. The Arabs are different. They have practiced a cult of revenge for many thousands of years, an eye for an eye and all that. It should not be a big surprise that they found a way to retaliate. I think that the United States and Israel should stop killing Arabs as soon as possible.

It is long past time for the United States to stop creating enemies. Half the world is still in the grip of the modern revolution. A large amount of political violence is going to continue for the next generation or two. It is counter-productive to define all of this violence as evil terrorism. The United States has done a lot of good work to help solve some of the world’s revolutionary problems, but it has also made mistakes. America could learn from those mistakes and do a better job in the future. Paranoia is not the solution to anything. With knowledge and understanding, we could do much better.

What went wrong in the Middle East?

In the years following World War II most of the Arab countries gained their freedom from British and French rule. For the first time they began to have regular dealings with Americans. They liked the Texans and other Americans who came to help drill wells, build pipelines, and establish the oil industry. These people did not come as conquerors. They represented a new modern world. They were competent, friendly, and knowledgeable. They brought new ideas, modern technology, and a sense of equality. They were well paid, but they created far more wealth for the Arab people than they took. The Arabs were extremely pleased.

Now, 50 years later, most Arabs still admire Americans, but many of them have also acquired an intense dislike for the United States. What went wrong? It is a long and complicated story, but it is important for us to understand.

The first and biggest problem is the Arab Israeli dispute. After World War II the Americans believed that the Nazis were the epitome of evil, and they believed themselves to be magnificent heroes for fighting and defeating them. The proof of this was established when the concentration camps were liberated at the end of the war. The Nazis were evil, and the worst example of their evilness was the Holocaust. The Jews were poor innocent victims. The Americans were great heroes because they defeated the Nazis and liberated the Jews.

For the American media, the Jews were the good guys. American sympathy poured out to them. In the past many Americans had been anti-Semitic. That quickly came to an end. Nazis were evil. Anti-Semitism was evil. Jews were good. Americans were good. The United States and most other countries were eager to help the Jews establish a national homeland of their own.

Few people had ever heard of the Palestinians. If they would not allow the Jews to come live in their ancient homeland, well then they must be anti-Semitic. Therefore, they must be evil. The United States had one hundred percent sympathy for the Jews and zero percent sympathy for the Palestinians and anyone else who opposed a Jewish homeland.

Because the Palestinians refused to turn over their land to a completely different, unrelated people, they were considered to be evil. This was totally unfair, but the United States, like all other countries, has its own prejudices and priorities. All of the Arab countries had great sympathy for their Palestinian brothers and no sympathy for the Jews. This just convinced Americans that the Jews were once again poor innocent victims, who deserved American support.

Israel was established. It quickly became a modern democratic state, and it has continued to receive full American support to this day. The Palestinians were swept out of the way, and most of them are still living in refugee camps. This is an intolerable situation for the Palestinian people and an intolerable situation for the entire world. The Palestinians have now suffered at least as much during their 50 years of exile as the Jews did during the 5 years of the Holocaust. The problem has also caused a gigantic amount of suffering for Israelis, Arabs, Americans, and the entire world. It is obvious that this is not a problem that will heal with time. Every decade it has gotten worse.

The Israeli Palestinian problem has festered and putrefied. It is causing a gigantic amount of ill will between Arabs and Americans. The United States and Europe helped to cause the problem. It is absolutely necessary that they help to find a solution. The map shows one possible compromise that provides a sovereign, independent nation-state for both Israel and Palestine.

There is a second important issue that has intensified the Arab dislike for America. The United States has been interfering with the natural course of the modern revolution in the Islamic Middle East. Just like everywhere else, the Arab world has been caught up in the transition from traditional society to democratic market society. This means that traditional rulers—monarchs, aristocrats, and tribal leaders—must be replaced by oligarchs and/or dictators as part of the transition to democracy.

It may be that many conservative Arabs would like to call off the entire transition to modern democratic market society. This revolution is causing gigantic amounts of problems and is taking them away from their roots as a conservative Islamic society. The problem is that social evolution only moves in one direction. You cannot go back for reasons of nostalgia. Eighty years ago in the old society, Arabs got their daily food from their animals or from peasant agriculture. Now they go to the store and buy their food. The Arab population is about four times higher than it was eighty years ago. The old system cannot possibly feed the modern population. The market system of food production and distribution is gigantically more productive. It is not possible to use a modern economy and still retain the old political and social institutions. The Arab countries cannot go back to the old form of society. They have no other choice but to go forward.

Traditional Arab society did not emphasize industry and did not use any form of democracy or elections. This means that the transition to democratic market society was always going to be a difficult process. In the past when an Arab dynasty declined, the strongest available new leader usually took charge and established a new dynasty. This process has continued in modern times, although in a somewhat modified form. Since monarchy and tribal rule are now being replaced, the strong new leaders usually govern as dictators.

The problem is that the United States has an intense dislike for dictatorship. This is left over from its World War II and Cold War propaganda. America very much prefers to see oligarchic rule with a democratic facade rather than dictators. Oligarchs are a collective group of industrialists, bankers, merchants, lawyers, and anyone else who has achieved wealth in the new market economy. In most of the Arab world this class of people has not achieved enough success and power to take control of the government. For the most part the only alternative to traditional rulers has been dictators. Since the United States is adamantly opposed to dictators, it has been supporting the traditional monarchs. This constitutes gross interference in the revolutionary process, and has led to a great deal of trouble.

The United States came into conflict with Gamal Nasser. It has tried to prevent revolution in Iran, and tried to intervene in civil war in Lebanon. It has opposed Muammar Qaddafi, Hafez Assad, Saddam Hussein, and every other revolutionary leader. Of course, it has not helped that all of these revolutionary leaders have supported the Palestinians against Israel.

This kind of American interference in Arab government has generated a great deal of anger among the Arab people. Some of them approve of the dictators who seize power and some do not, but almost all of them do not want outsiders like the United States to intervene in their political affairs. This is a very natural attitude.

The vast majority of Arab people do not like Israel, and do not like foreign interference—especially from countries that support Israel. This means that they have come to dislike the United States. At the same time Israel and the United States have made absolutely zero effort to resolve any of the legitimate concerns of the Arab people. The U.S. and Israel maintain that their actions are entirely blameless, completely correct, and absolutely necessary. If there is a problem between them, it is totally the fault of the Arabs and their evil dictators. This is the perfect recipe for turning Arab dislike into open hatred, which is exactly what has happened.

We now have a situation where most Arabs have major grievances against Israel and the United States, neither of which seem to be willing to make any compromises to alleviate this situation. At the same time the Arab governments are too weak to engage in open conflict with either country. Since there does not seem to be anyway to resolve the dispute, the animosity just festers and grows worse. A hundred million Arabs are seeking a way to apply pressure on Israel and the U.S. to force them to change their policies, and the Arab governments are unable to find an effective way to accomplish this. Because of this leadership vacuum, the Arabs have turned to non-governmental organizations to find a solution.

When two hundred million people desperately want leadership to accomplish some goal, it is inevitable that someone will step forward to provide it. Various terrorist groups and Islamic religious organizations have arisen to do just that. This solution is abhorrent to the United States. Americans believe that religious leaders should play only a minor role in politics, and that terrorists are nothing but criminals.

Under normal circumstances this is an entirely understandable attitude, but the United States and Israel have backed the Arab people into a corner. The Palestinians have rights as human beings and citizens of this planet. All Arab countries have a right to national sovereignty and to expect foreigners to refrain from intervention in their domestic political affairs. These rights are being blatantly ignored by Israel and the United States. Arab governments have been unable to enforce these rights. The result has been that individuals like Osama bin Laden and religious leaders have begun to take steps to fill this vacuum. This should not come as a surprise to anyone

Islamic religious leaders and terrorist groups are now waging open warfare with Israel and the United States. America has begun to fight back. This is a natural and understandable reaction. When Americans are engaged in a fight, they tend to think only about winning it. They assume that the United States is always in the right, and that anyone who uses violence against us is evil and deserves to die. This situation, however, is more complicated than that. The American government claims that the problem stems from a few religious fanatics and criminal terrorists. This is obviously not true. Every single person who is familiar with the Arab world acknowledges that the real problem is much deeper than that.

The terrorists and anti-American religious leaders are in fact champions of the Arab people. They have stepped into the leadership vacuum that has arisen from the weakness of Arab governments. Killing them will not solve the problem. Victory in this conflict will not come on the battlefield. The United States and Israel must acknowledge that the Palestinians and Arabs have legitimate grievances. They must take steps to deal with these grievances. Until that is done, the conflict will only grow worse. Terrorists who are killed will be replaced by new terrorists. The conflict will continue to escalate.

Saddam Hussein and the government of Iraq have already stepped forward to help provide leadership for the Arab cause. The United States is fully capable of crushing that government and replacing it with a new one. But that will not solve the problem. Every single Arab government is telling the United States that it is on the wrong track. These leaders know what they are talking about. They know that a popular revolution led by hard-liners in their own countries is an increasing possibility. The entire history of the modern revolution confirms this possibility. They are begging the United States to reconsider its actions.

The history of the transition from traditional society to democratic market is replete with many examples of revolution and militant dictatorship. It is a time when ordinary people stand up, demand their rights, and demand a government that will fight for their interests. It is also a time of paranoia, fear, and violence. Today the Arab people are becoming more paranoid, more fearful, and more violent. The United States believes that it is fighting this trend. It is not. It is encouraging it. This is the wrong policy.

There are 250 million Arabs. They control half of the world’s oil. They have legitimate grievances. They have the sympathy and support of a billion Moslems. The majority of these people have begun to believe that Western Christianity and the Jews are out to destroy the Islamic religion. This is not true. This belief comes in large part from the paranoia that often accompanies modern social change. The actions of the United States and Israel are feeding that paranoia and inflaming the conflict.

The United States should not think of this conflict as a war that must be won. We should think of it as a misunderstanding that must be ended. Under the present circumstances at the beginning of 2003, if the United States insists on picking a fight with Iraq, there is a good chance that it will lead to a political, economic, and military disaster. Such a fight is not necessary. Contrary to American opinion, the Arab dictators are not evil monsters whose mission in life is to attack Western freedom and democracy. They are a normal and natural part of the transition to democratic market society in the Arab world.

Why is the conventional wisdom in the United States so different from the explanation of history presented here?

History books that were written at the end of the 19th century and beginning of the 20th century had a great deal in common with the analysis that is contained in this explanation of history. Historians documented the development of modern society in Europe and America. They described the traditional societies in most of the rest of the world and explained how imperialism was bringing them the benefits of modern institutions. This work contains a different interpretation of imperialism, but in general terms, it would have been familiar to history readers a century ago.

All of this changed with the development of communism and fascism and the beginning of the Second World War. Communism and fascism both use dictators. Historians began to write about the great clash between democracy and dictatorship. No one understood that communism and fascism were actually part of the worldwide transition to democratic market society. They were seen as new forces leading off in a different direction toward autocracy and totalitarianism.

During World War II, Western propaganda portrayed the war as a clash between democracy and dictatorship. According to the popular media, Germany and Japan had attacked France, Britain, and the United States in order to destroy their freedom and democracy. This was very effective propaganda. Americans believed that their freedom was at stake, and that it was necessary to work hard and fight hard to defend their way of life. The Arsenal of Democracy cranked out an incredible amount of war material, and millions of men fought like hell to defend their freedom.

Historians accepted this propaganda and turned it into history. Politicians, editorialists, news commentators, teachers, ministers, and public figures of all kinds adopted it and preached it relentlessly to the American public. As a kid in the 1950s and 60s I sat through hundreds of repetitions of “the speech&rdquo. It went like this.

“During the 1930s America tried to ignore the rest of the world and concentrate on dealing with its own problems, mostly the depression. Evil dictators who wanted to destroy democracy and conquer the world took advantage of this isolationism. They built up gigantic military forces, and when they were ready to strike, they launched World War II. For years they engaged in a mass orgy of killing and conquering, until America, Britain and their allies were finally forced to employ their entire national resources to defeat them. Let this be a lesson to future generations of Americans. Dictators are evil. They want to destroy freedom and democracy. They want to kill and conquer. They must be stopped in the early stages before they are powerful enough to unleash their reign of terror on the world. America must never again retreat into isolationism and allow evil dictators to grow strong and wreak havoc on the world.”

Every member of the baby boom generation heard this speech hundreds of times. The next generation has also been indoctrinated by it. It seemed so clearly to be the lesson of World War II that no one doubted it. Most Americans today learned this lesson as children. It has become embedded in their minds. There is no controversy over it and no doubt about it. Americans firmly believe that dictators are evil and must be crushed—the sooner, the better.

“The speech” is very stirring, very patriotic; it makes sense, sounds good, and encourages Americans to make sacrifices on behalf of freedom and democracy, not just for ourselves, but for the entire world. But there is a problem. It has led to a gigantic misunderstanding of what is happening in the world. Its affect has produced an increase in world violence, not a reduction.

For over 50 years the United States has been going around the world attacking dictators, not for what they have done, but for what Adolph Hitler did 60 years ago. American scholars study dictators only to document their evilness. There is no attempt to understand dictators and the societies that produce them.

In the 1930s about half of the world was part of some large multinational empire. One fourth of the world was under the control of the British Empire. Large areas were ruled by France. Much of the Soviet Union was actually the Czarist Empire. The Dutch Empire, most of which is now Indonesia, was one of the wealthiest. Belgium ruled the heart of Africa. There was a moderate size Portuguese Empire, and a relatively small American Empire.

Germany had lost all of its small empire during World War I. The Germans were jealous of the other European imperialists. They wanted to have a large and wealthy empire of their own. This is why Adolph Hitler was so aggressive. He intended to conquer Poland, Czechoslovakia, White Russia, the Ukraine, and more. Mussolini wanted to expand the small Italian Empire. The Japanese were extremely jealous of the Europeans who ruled most of Asia. When Germany defeated France, Britain, and the Netherlands in 1940, they saw an opportunity to grab the undefended colonies and greatly expand their own Asian empire.

World War II did not happen because dictators are evil and like to kill and conquer. World War II happened because the world was still in the imperial age. Most countries still thought that it was acceptable behavior to conquer and rule empires. This included Germany, Italy, and Japan.

American and British wartime propaganda did not mention anything about empires. Winston Churchill was one of the leading British imperialists. During the war he said, “I did not become the king’s first minister to preside over the dissolution of the British Empire.” Instead allied war propaganda focused on the idea that evil dictators wanted to destroy freedom and democracy and conquer the world. This was very effective propaganda, but it was not true.

Hitler considered democracies to be weak and impotent. He was very pleased that his enemies in the West were democracies. To him, it meant that they were much easier to defeat. The very last thing that Hitler wanted was for his opponents to find strong willed dictators to prosecute the fight against him. If France and Britain had been dictatorships and tried to stop German expansion in Eastern Europe, Hitler still would have attacked them. Hitler did not care how a foreign government was organized. He only cared what its policy was toward Germany.

The Same thing was true for the Japanese. They believed that Americans were undisciplined and dissolute. If the United States was a militant nation with a strong dictatorship, it might have tried to conquer Asia for itself. This was the last thing that the Japanese wanted. They believed that American interference with their plans in Asia was halfhearted and that a sharp defeat at Pearl Harbor might convince them to mind their own business. They were certainly not fighting to change the United States from a democracy into a dictatorship.

The Idea that World War II was a fight between democracy and dictatorship is just plain wrong. On the allies’ side, the majority of the fighting was done by the Soviet Union, which was a dictatorship. Are we supposed to believe that Stalin was fighting for democracy? The entire idea of a massive war between democracy and dictatorship is propaganda. It was not real during World War II, and it is not real today.

World War II was fought to prevent a new wave of imperialism from overthrowing the established order. It was a magnificent success. The war not only stopped German and Japanese imperial aggression, it also destroyed all existing empires and ended the entire concept of imperialism. A hundred nations gained their independence because of the Second World War. This was not the original intention of France and Great Britain when they declared war on Germany, but the law of unintended consequences came into play.

When the war was over, the wartime propaganda should have been consigned to the dustbin, but that is not what happened. As the saying goes, the victors get to write the history books. The American people liked their wartime propaganda. It portrayed themselves as the good guys, fighting for freedom and democracy. Their enemies were the bad guys, evil dictators fighting for power, greed, and oppression. The American people, the government, and the media worked to perpetuate this myth.

Books, movies, and popular literature often have the theme of the struggle of good versus evil. Today it seems like every third movie out of Hollywood features an evil dictator trying to conquer the world. Americans like to believe that they are the righteous soldiers of God, fighting against evil dictators and in favor of peace, stability, and democracy. This is a great fantasy, but it is not reality.

The real world is going through a massive revolutionary transition from traditional societies to democratic market society. It is not engaged in a Hollywood fantasy battle between evil dictators and Western democracies. Dictators have often played a role in the revolutionary transformation of society. Most countries have used dictators as part of the revolutionary process. This includes many of the thirty or so countries that have already developed into democratic market societies.

Traditional societies were ruled by monarchs, aristocrats, and tribal leaders. Fully developed modern societies are ruled by democratic politicians. Very few countries manage to go directly from traditional leaders to democratic leaders. There is usually a transition period of chaos and anarchy that includes one or more dictators. More than half of the world is still in this transition period today, and they sometimes use dictators to reduce the chaos and impose some kind of order. This is why there are dictators in the world. They are not here to glory in their evilness and attack freedom and democracy in the West.

Of course, if the United States insists that dictators are evil and must be destroyed, they quickly become America’s enemies. After World War II, the U.S. decided that communism was an evil tyranny that wanted to destroy freedom and democracy everywhere. This idea existed before the war, but it grew in strength and became America’s dominant ideology as a direct resolute of wartime propaganda.

The Soviet Union had been an extremely useful ally, but by screaming and hollering that they were evil and intended to conquer the world, the United States quickly turned them into an enemy. This was completely unnecessary, and it probably led to a prolongation of the unworkable communist system in the Soviet Union and their defensive buffer zone in Central Europe. Mao Tsedong, Ho Chi Minh, and Fidel Castro never wanted to be enemies of the United States until America declared that they were evil dictators who must be destroyed. After that, they did not have much choice.

America’s own actions have been turning its wartime propaganda into prophecy. By picking fights with dictators, this country has managed to create a history of warfare between democracy and dictatorship, but it did not have to be that way. This policy brought about the Cold War, and now it is leading the United States into war with the Arab world. This conflict is just as unnecessary as the Cold War. It is the result of World War II propaganda. One of the primary reasons for writing this explanation of history is to clear up this misunderstanding.

It is certainly true that revolutionary dictators can be a problem, and sometimes, they start wars. This has been going on for more than 400 years. The Princes of Orange performed a role very similar to that of revolutionary dictator in the Dutch Revolution of the 16th century. Oliver Cromwell was a revolutionary dictator during the English Civil War of the 17th century. Revolutionary leaders in France established dictatorial rule at the end of the 18th century. Both Napoleons called themselves emperors, but they were actually revolutionary dictators, along with Simon Bolivar and many others, in the 19th century.

The 20th century had a bumper crop of revolutionary dictators. This is largely because of the massive breakup of colonial empires after World War II. About 100 newly independent nations were born. In most of these countries, the traditional leaders had already been replaced by colonial governors and administrators. Now the colonial rulers were gone, but most of these countries were not yet ready for democracy. In the last 50 years, they have had large numbers of revolutionary dictators.

According to the logic of the American myth, all of these dictators, from Oliver Cromwell to Saddam Hussein, are evil autocrats trying to destroy freedom and democracy. This is clearly not the case. They are a fundamental and necessary part of the revolutionary transition, which leads to only one place, democratic market society.

It is true that some of these dictators have gotten out of hand. This was especially a problem back when conquering empires was considered to be acceptable behavior. It is entirely possible that some dictators in the present and the future will also cause more trouble than they are worth. It is probably a good idea for the world to have an emergency process for the removal of revolutionary dictators that cause too much trouble. In order for such a process to work, the world has to understand what dictators are and why they are here.

Theory One

One theory, which is the conventional wisdom of modern America, is based on the World War II experience. It says that the world is in the midst of a war between the forces of democracy and the forces of dictatorship. It equates this to the conflict between good and evil. According to this theory, evil dictators—like Hitler, Stalin, Saddam Hussein, and their fellows—are fighting against freedom, democracy, and world peace. It comes to the conclusion that these dictators are a cancer on the world and must be destroyed in order for democracy, and all things good, to flourish.

Theory Two

My theory is more complicated and is based on the entire flow of human history. It says that the world is undergoing a massive revolutionary transformation of its economic, political, and social institutions. This revolution was set off by the adoption of markets as the primary mechanism for the distribution of food. Dictators are part of the revolution. War is part of the revolution. Chaos and anarchy are part of the revolution. All of these things are temporary. They will not last forever. The end result of this revolution is democratic market society.

If the democratic nations of the world are going to go out and remove dictators from office, they should at least know why dictators exist and why they are connected with violence. Here are two very different explanations. Only one of them can be correct. Which one is it? You decide.

How should the United States deal with problem countries that are still in the first half of their oligarchic experience?

The last section outlined an economic development program that can help oligarchic societies progress faster and with less violence. However, it is unlikely that most of the world will immediately put it into action. Those countries whose traditional experience has been primarily with tribal and mixed aristocrat tribal society seem to have an especially difficult time making the transition to semi-stable oligarchic society, to say nothing of democratic market society.

Social inertia is a very powerful force. People tend to behave in the same way that their parents and grandparents behaved. In tribal societies most young men are expected to be warriors. In many areas with this kind of tradition, the majority of men carry weapons most of the time. There are inherited rivalries, feuds, and animosities that often lead to violence. A short review of the relevant historical data shows that these kinds of societies are unlikely to change from traditional culture to modern culture in one or two generations. They cannot be expected to just put away their weapons, start large numbers of successful corporations, and have everyone show up for work.

The change from traditional societies to modern, market economy society is not an event. It is a process. It happens over a long period of time. It takes at least one century and more often than not it has taken two centuries or longer. The data of how this change happened in Western Europe, the United States, and Japan is available in history books for everyone to read. It is not only a long process, it is a violent one.

Whether we like it or not, we can be sure that more violence is coming. Sometimes the most visible aspect of social change is chaos, confusion, anarchy, and random violence. Other times strong leaders have taken control and tried to manage the chaos by channeling the people’s anger toward some specific target. This target might be Jews, Westerners, capitalists, communists, foreigners, or any other group of people. This kind of behavior by revolutionary dictators and other strong leaders is a common occurrence in the first half of oligarchic society. If there is a problem of ethnic animosity, they may lead one group in battle against another. Or they may choose an external opponent and lead their people in war against them. If the people are excited, angry, and eager to fight, this is a way to channel the violence along a specific path rather than endure total chaos and anarchy.

Most Americans, urged on by the media, have come to believe that this kind of targeted violence is just plain evil. They thought that fascism and communism were evil, and that is what they believe about events in Iran, Iraq, Bosnia, Kosovo, Rwanda, Palestine, Afghanistan and many other trouble spots around the world. Since the United States is a democratic nation, when the people believe that something is the result of evil so does the government. The American government sometimes responds by sending its military to bomb the evilness into submission.

This policy of declaring troublesome oligarchic countries to be rogue states full of evil and sending bombers to punish them does not seem to be working very well. It occasionally has an impressive short-term effect where the troublemakers fall back in shock, but the long-term result of this kind of intervention is seldom peace and stability.

Americans may be thinking about the example of Germany, Italy, and Japan after World War II. These three countries caused a great deal of trouble. The United States, and others, fought a major war, defeated them, and they quickly settled down and became peaceful democratic market nations. More recent military interventions have not followed this pattern. What is the difference?

Germany, Italy, and Japan were already in the second half of their oligarch experience when World War II started. They had functioning economies, corporations, and jobs. They wanted to have empires because in the 1930s most large successful countries had empires. When the imperial age ended as a result of the war, they could settle down and become peaceful modern nations.

The rogue states that have been causing trouble in the last few decades are in a different situation. Most of them are in the first half of their oligarchic experience. They have not yet figured out how to organize a modern economy. They do not have successful companies, jobs, and incomes. Many people in these countries are still bewildered by the concept of modern development. When the United States calls them evil and attacks them for causing trouble, they do not understand what is happening. They do not think—we were wrong, we should settle down and become peaceful businessmen and employees. Instead, they get angry. They blame all of their troubles on the United States, which they believe is out to get them. Sometimes they start thinking about revenge.

Is there a better way to deal with these early-stage oligarchic society troublemakers rather than calling them evil and bombing them? To be honest, I do not know, but it seems like there should be. Here is an example that may illuminate this situation from a different point of view.

In the years from 1820 to 1850 the United States was an agricultural nation in the first half of its oligarchic development. Most of the people were farmers living well to the east of the Mississippi River. In the days before chemical fertilizer, land tended to lose its fertility after prolonged agricultural use. The country already had a lot of land, but the farmers were still “land hungry.” They cast greedy eyes on the frontier and the Indian lands, which they wanted for their own.

They invaded and seized Florida. They cleansed the Cherokee and Creek Indian nations from their land and took it for themselves. They annexed Texas and precipitated a war with Mexico during which they seized the present states of New Mexico, Arizona, Colorado, Nevada, Utah, and California. They threatened to go to war with Great Britain if they did not get the best part of the Oregon Territory. They cleansed the Indians from all of this land and made it their own.

During this period of extraordinary aggression, expansion, and ethnic cleansing, they held a large part of the population in slavery. They also used violence to cleanse the Mormon minority from Missouri and Illinois and force them to trek west to Utah.

This is the epitome of rogue state behavior. They seized more than a million square miles of land and attacked anyone who got in their way. They engaged in serial episodes of ethnic cleansing. They bought and sold slaves and beat them into submission.

Suppose that there was a group of advanced modern nations in existence at that time. Suppose that they were disgusted with the rogue behavior of the young United States. What kind of policy should they have used to solve this problem? Should they have called the Americans evil and bombed them as a punishment? If so, would this policy have been successful?

The golden rule says: “Do unto others as you would have others do unto you.” It is time for the United States to make use of the historical data that is available and try to find a better way to deal with problem countries in the first half of their oligarchic experience.

What is the best way for oligarchic societies to transform themselves into democratic market societies?

I have no doubt that eventually all countries will become prosperous democratic market societies. Since I am not a wizard with a crystal ball, many readers probably wonder how I can be so confident about the future. It is actually fairly easy. All countries have already made the change from traditional society to oligarchic society. Many of them would not have chosen this path, but it happened anyway. That is because traditional, tribal and aristocrat peasant societies could not possibly feed the number of people that live in modern countries. The flexibility and productivity of a market economy is the only possible way to provide enough food, clothing, and shelter for modern populations.

There are two kinds of market economy societies, oligarchic society and democratic market society. Oligarchic societies are dominated by a small wealthy ruling class that controls the economy and the government. Democratic market societies are much more open with a high level of economic and political opportunity for everyone. They still have a small percentage of very wealthy people, but they do not dominate the entire country. Nearly everyone has a voice in the political institutions and the chance to become a prosperous citizen. This is obviously a preferable situation. The question is, how to achieve it.

Most large democratic market countries made the transition through warfare. In any war most frontline troops are ordinary citizens. If they fight hard and demonstrate their willingness to sacrifice all that they have for their nation, those who return home will have the status of heroes. Win or lose, they will have earned the right to economic opportunity and a voice in political affairs. A single small or medium size war is not enough to transform an entire country. It requires a series of wars, or a very large war, to convert an oligarchic society into a democratic market nation.

For obvious reasons this is not good news. There are over 150 oligarchic countries in the world. If all of them used this method to transform themselves into democratic market societies, it would require more violence than this planet could stand. The world has to find a better way. We must use reason and understanding to solve this problem.

A lot of countries and a lot of people have worked hard to find a substitute for oligarchic society. They have spent millions of man-hours trying to think of a viable socialist form of society. They gave communism a try, and fascism, and religious fundamentalism. All of these social systems originated as efforts to find an alternative to oligarchic society. There are big problems with all of them, and they have all failed.

I can think of only one good solution. The oligarchs, themselves, must lead their people out of oligarchic society. There is a good reason for them to do this. They are the ones who will benefit the most. If they think they are rich now, they ain’t seen nothing yet. After their countries make the transition to democratic market society, they will be a lot richer. By leading the way themselves, they can avoid a lot of pitfalls along the path.

It seems obvious that the way to achieve real democracy is through political reform. Unfortunately, it is not that easy. People who are poor and have no prospect for achieving prosperity are politically powerless. In a market economy society, wealth is power. It has always been that way, and it will always be that way. The shortest path to real democracy is through economic reform.

The best way to avoid a lot of bloodshed is for the oligarchs to open up their economies and find ways to help and encourage the rest of the society to become successful and prosperous in the market economy. This is a big job. Many oligarchic societies have already been working along these lines. Some of them have made a good deal of progress, but for the most part, they have not gone far enough fast enough.

There are a lot of prerequisites to getting the majority of the population to be productive and efficient producers and ready to compete in the market economy. They have to be healthy. They have to be educated. They need skills. There has to be a certain amount of law and order so that the markets can grow and thrive. There needs to be a reliable currency. The money supply, interest rates, banks, and financial markets must be regulated by the best economists available. Ordinary people—who have skills, ambition, and good ideas—must have access to capital so that they can start companies and hire workers. When their small businesses begin to succeed, they must have assurance that they will not be stolen by someone with more political power. It is no good for a country to try to accomplish these things one at a time. They all have to be done together.

This is a long list of requirements, and they all have to be paid for, along with new infrastructure investments. New companies in developing countries cannot generate much tax flow. Old established wealth would have to pay the majority of the bill. That means the oligarchs, and they can come up with just so much. Other government expenses will have to be reduced to the minimum possible.

Developing countries should not pay direct subsidies to business and industry. Large expensive show projects should be avoided. Welfare and pensions must be kept to a minimum. Make-work-jobs and no-show-jobs on the government payroll must be avoided. Large amounts of money should not be borrowed from abroad. That path leads to trouble. The government will have to work hard to get the most value for the money spent.

This is not a project that can be completed in a decade or two. It could take that long for some populations to accept that the government really is serious about helping them to achieve prosperity. But when that happens the country will begin to change. Economic growth will increase and spread through the society. The traditional problems of oligarchic society will be reduced. The crime rate will decline, and stability will increase.

Year by year, as the economy grows, more taxes can be generated. This money should be plowed back into more education, more job training, more infrastructure, more courts, and better economic regulation. The virtuous circle of market economics will begin to spin. More wealth will be generated for everyone.

Beginning in the 1950s the Japanese government began a major push to develop export industries. The economy grew quickly by producing for foreign markets. This idea caught on and has been used by many countries in Southeast Asia and around the world, but it is not always reliable. Sometimes it works, and sometimes it doesn’t.

Developing countries should do everything possible to increase the size of their domestic markets. Most companies are best at designing and producing goods and services for the local market. Export earnings are a bonus that can help domestic growth, but they are not reliable enough to be the primary focus of economic development.

There is a major argument among economists about the usefulness of tariffs to protect and encourage developing industries. Much too often they have been used to provide artificial support to noncompetitive companies. If used properly and sparingly, they may have a useful role to play in economic development.

Any country that puts its primary focus on the kind of economic development program described here will achieve positive results. Economic development that is only for the wealthy is likely to fail. The key to success is to include as many people as possible. An entire population contains a gigantic amount of energy, skill, and ambition. Countries that put all of these resources to work will achieve success. If they keep at it year after year, decade after decade, and generation after generation, they will become wealthy.

Once the majority of the population owns property and has economic interests to protect, real democracy will follow. Public interests groups and political pressure groups will blossom. People will watch the government closely and insist that it protect and promote their interests. Democratic market society will be achieved.

There have been many different variations of tribal, aristocrat peasant, and oligarchic societies. The same is true for democratic market society. There is an American pattern, a European pattern, a Scandinavian pattern, and a Japanese pattern. None of them are static. In the future there will be an Asian pattern, an Islamic pattern, and an African pattern. These too will continue to change and evolve.

Democratic market society is capable of creating wealth on a scale that has never before been imagined. Another major advantage is that democratic market societies do not fight wars with each other. These are good things, but there are also many serious problems that seem to be associated with this new form of society. The worst of these is a breakdown of the traditional family structure.

I believe that we are still in the primitive early stages of democratic market society. There is a lot of room for improvement. No form of society will ever be perfect, but in the centuries to come, democratic market society should get much better than it is today.

There may well come a time when new technologies allow everyone to become self-sufficient in the necessities of life—food, clothing, and shelter. If that happens people may no longer have to depend on markets to distribute these things. Or the world may find a method of economic distribution that works better than markets. Either of these possibilities could lead to the evolution of a new form of society. We can only hope that if that happens the transition to the new kind of society will be much more peaceful than the massive revolution that the world is presently going through.

What is Islamic fundamentalism, and why is there so much political violence in the Middle East? Part II

In 1954 a hesitant and chaotic revolutionary movement in Iran swept the young and inexperienced Shah from power. The United States sent in the CIA, which spent millions of dollars in bribes to pave the way for his return. The CIA congratulated itself on a job well done. The Americans were pleased with the return to power of a political ally. The Shah quickly built up a massive secret police force and bought billions of dollars worth of weapons to prevent such a thing from happening again. As the years went by it became clear that he was relying on the secret police and the American connection to maintain his throne rather than the support of his own people. The Iranian people became more and more opposed to the regime and its Americans backers. They turned to the Islamic clergy for leadership partly because they knew that this was one group that was definitely not controlled by the United States. The resulting revolution in Iran was a major disaster for American policy, and 22 years later friendly relations have still not been restored.

The United States does not seem to have learned anything from the debacle. For the last 20 years it has been a major supporter of an oligarchic Egyptian government. This is partly because Egypt signed a peace treaty with Israel, partly because it is a friend of the West, and partly for the general purpose of promoting peace and stability. That is all very fine, but this is another government that does little to promote the prosperity of its ordinary citizens. The majority of the people still live in poverty. Many Egyptians have now begun to blame the United States for their poverty and lack of economic opportunity.

American policy makers are very proud of their special relationship with the kingdom of Saudi Arabia. We support the monarchy, and they sell us oil. That’s great, but anyone with the money can buy oil from Saudi Arabia, and the price is the same for everyone. Now the ordinary Saudi citizens have started to blame us for their lack of a political voice. Of the 19 airplane hijackers in the recent terrorist attack, 15 of them were from Saudi Arabia. What kind of special relationship is that?

The United States is not an Islamic Arab country in the middle of a revolutionary experience. Yet it seems to think that it knows what kind of government these countries should have. This is nonsense.

An example of the vast difference in thinking between Americans and Arabs is Saddam Hussein and the government of Iraq. In 1958 the revolutionary Baathist Party in Iraq assassinated an especially corrupt monarch and seized control of the government. A decade latter Saddam Hussein took power. He solidified his popularity by bringing electricity to the rural villages, and building up the military. He then launched an unsuccessful war against Iran to recover Arab territory that had been lost in previous centuries. He tried to recover from this failure by conquering the principality of Kuwait and making it part of Iraq.

The United States had no problem with his attack on Iran, which was its enemy, but his conquest of the friendly state of Kuwait was a different matter. The American government and media demonized Saddam as an evil dictator by publicizing everything bad that he had done while ignoring his efforts to improve the lives of the common people among his core constituency of Sunni Arabs. The Americans portrayed Saddam as a mad beast who was trying to conquer most of the world’s oil, and went to war to restore the independence of Kuwait.

The Arabic people saw things very differently. All of Saddam’s actions had been calculated to increase his popularity in the Arab world. Kuwait was generally disliked because it had provided a key opening to the British. Back in the 18th century when the English first tried to penetrate the Persian Gulf, they had run into universal hostility and were on the verge of being expelled from the region. Then, they made an alliance with the city-state of Kuwait. This gave the British an important base from which they could expand. The two allies prospered together. In the 1920s when the British Empire controlled the entire region, they greatly increased the size of Kuwait and gave it a large part of the Iraqi coast.

Most of today’s large nation-states achieved their present size by annexing smaller aristocratic and tribal states on their borders. Most Arabs saw no reason why Iraq should not do the same. They highly approved of the idea of Iraq becoming a rich and powerful country that could champion the Arab cause against Israel. When the Americans destroyed the Iraqi army and reversed its conquest, they saw it as just one more example of the United States trying to keep the Arabs weak and impotent.

This is an example of two different societies looking at the same historical event and seeing completely different things. The Americans saw a horrible, evil, war-crazed dictator who was a threat to his neighbors and the world. Many Arabs, who are his neighbors, saw a great champion of the Arabic cause. This problem of different interpretations is common in history, and it often causes trouble.

The United States likes to go stomping around the world, beating its chest, and loudly proclaiming: we destroyed communism; we are the only super power; we safeguard the world against the aggression of evil dictators. Many Arabs have come to believe that America controls the world. It allows them to blame the United States for their poverty, weakness, and corrupt oligarchic governments.

This is a false impression. The Arabic people have few economic and political opportunities because they are still in the early stage of oligarchic society. The United States has been interfering in the region, and it has been less helpful than it thinks, but it has not been deliberately holding them back. The United States does not understand the revolution that the entire world is engaged in, and it is essentially powerless to help the Arab people through their revolutionary transition. The modern revolution is something that every nation must accomplish primarily on its own.

Many people in the Middle East have become disgusted with their oligarchic governments. This is a common feature for countries in the middle of their revolutionary experience. Socialism, communism, and fascism were all developed in a desperate attempt to find some alternative to oligarchic society. Many Arab countries flirted with various kinds of socialism in the 1950s and 60s, but it was not able to provide a successful solution to the problem of how to organize a modern state.

In recent years many people in the Middle East have turned to Islamic fundamentalism for a solution. This is not as strange as it seems to most Westerners. Christian fundamentalism, in the form of the Protestant Reformation. was the beginning of the modern revolution in Europe. In the English Civil War of the 1640s, Puritan fundamentalists under Oliver Cromwell overthrew the aristocratic establishment, executed the king, and began the modern transformation in England. The Puritan government only lasted for about ten years. Religious fundamentalists are much better at leading a revolution than they are at governing a nation.

The American media delights in ridiculing Islamic fundamentalism as a step backward into the medieval world. In this country just 140 years ago, the people in the southern states saw the oligarchic society that was taking shape in the north. They wanted nothing to do with this new kind of society that featured capitalist industry and an exploited working class. They much preferred to keep their agrarian society even though it required slavery in order to maintain an educated elite. They seceded from the union and started the Civil War in an unsuccessful attempt to avoid the modern progression of oligarchic society. Which is more medieval, Islamic fundamentalism or the institution of slavery?

It is true that Islamic fundamentalism and anti-American terrorism have developed together in the Middle East, but they are not cause and effect. Islamic fundamentalism is a reaction against oligarchic society. In Afghanistan it was a response to the extreme level of anarchy and lawlessness that has been endemic in the region. Anti-American, Arab terrorism is a reaction against U.S. support for Israel and American intervention in the revolutionary transformation of society in the Arab world. It is also influenced by the mistaken belief that the United States is responsible for the widespread poverty and lack of political opportunity. In reality these problems are a normal and natural part of every countries’ oligarchic experience. The terrorists are much more interested in politics than they are in religion, even though some of them use religion as a cover for their activities.