Predictive History - The Story of "Civilization", "Secret History", "Game Theory" and more - Civilization #50 - Rule, Britannia!

Episode Date: October 7, 2025

Civilization #50 - Rule, Britannia!

Okay, so the question we are looking at today is, how did England become the greatest empire in human history? This is about the 19th century when the British Empire is at its peak. As you can see, it really controls most of the world. So the question then is, how the this happened? Why is it that England was able to surpass Spain, France, Germany, the Holy Roman Empire, Russia to become the dominant hegemon in the world? So my argument to you today is it has to do with the fact that throughout its history England was forced to innovate in a more rigorous and

Realized this way than other nations. And a lot has to do with its geography. Okay? So as you can see from its geography, Great Britain, this is Ireland, this is England, Wales, Scotland, it is an extremely mountainous region. And with very, they have a lot of rivers, but there are no major rivers,

which meant that for most of its history, history, Britain never had a major population center that could grow and grow until it overwhelm the entire geographic area. This meant that for most of its history, England, Britain was engaged in a process, what we call, open, competitive cooperation. Not only that, but because This area is very mountainous, and because these groups, these tribes are divided heavily amongst themselves, throughout most of its history, Britain is actually pretty easy to invade.

They have no centralized authority, so it's possible for other groups of people to come and create settlements in Britain, which is what the Vikings did, which is also what the Romans, the Amnaya. So throughout its history, Britain had underwent a series of credit destruction, where the elites were constantly replaced by new elites. And because Britain is poor, because there's once conflict within Britain, eventually the English people were forced to migrate overseas, to create new opportunities. And this process of colonial expansion led to the British Empire. So there's a famous saying that the British Empire

was founded by accident. There was no intention to create this empire, but because of these historical, geographic forces, Britain became the world's largest empire. Let's very quickly look at Britain's demographic history. So for most of its history, because of its geography, because of the fact that it was poor and devourable, The population of Britain stayed very flat, up until the year 1,000.

What happened in the year 1,000? Well, Europe became wealthier and wealthier and engaged in a proto-industrial and agricultural revolution, which caused the demographic to increase. But unfortunately, if your demographics increase, but you don't have improvements in sanitation, in health, in nutrition, well, what happens? You have something called the black. something called the black death which causes the entire population of Europe including

Britain to collapse okay after the black death the Europeans start to engage in the gunpowder revolution and with that you have industrialization organization and that causes the population increase but if you see about the middle of the 16th century 17th century up until the year up into about 1800 the The population is flat. This is what we call the Industrial Revolution in Britain. Britain is the first European nation to undergo the Industrial Revolution. What that meant is you have this mass migration from the rural areas into the urban areas, especially London.

So why would this population or demographic shift cause the population to stay flat? Well, the first reason is it's really, really unsafe. in the cities. Diseases, malnutrition, lack of sanitation caused people to die really, really young. Also during this time, because of the massive inequality in Britain, people are forced to migrate overseas in order to seek better opportunities, mainly America, but they will also go to Australia and New Zealand. So even though the Dutch were the first to discover and settle Australia and New Zealand, it is really the British who, because of

crash back home, they will settle in Australia and New Zealand. And today, Australia and New Zealand, of course, British, they have a British culture instead of a Dutch culture, okay? Starting in about the year 1800, because of improvements in nutrition, sanitation, the population explodes. All right? And this is true for throughout Europe.

And this is really why Europe will eventually conquer the world. All right, so let's go briefly, into the history of the British Isles. So at first, we believe that the British Isles were settled by an agricultural people. These are the people who built Stonehenge. Now, if you remember way back to the beginning of this course back in September,

I discussed Gobi Lépepe, right? Gobletepe is a temple in Anatolia, in what is Martinate Turkey that shows the desire for humans to settle down and found religious societies. Well, Kobole-Tepe is very similar to Stonehenge. There are both astronomical calendars that measure the stars, measure time, and try to bring divine energy onto the earth in order to feed agriculture. agriculture, okay? So you can argue that what's happening is the Gobi Tepe culture is spreading all throughout Europe and it gets into the British

Isles. But eventually these people are conquered by the Yamaya. Okay, and if you look at the DNA evidence, a lot of these people were eventually wiped up by the Yamnaia and replaced. This is a process of critical destruction that will happen throughout British history. The next major development is the Roman conquest of Britain. When the Romans conquer Britain, they bring Roman technology, which is aqueducts, irrigation, urbanization. They will also bring Roman customs, especially law. So now you have a legal tradition in Britain that continues on to today. They will found a city called Lindenium, which is now modern-day London,

on off the river Thames. And this city will eventually become the largest city in Europe. After the Romans will come a new group of people who are Germanic. So these are people who used to live in Denmark and northern Germany. And because of population pressure, they are forced to migrate overseas. And they settle in Britain. There are three different tribes of people that settle in Britain. They are the Angles, the Saxons, and the Jukes.

And together we will collectively call them the Anglo-Saxons. And at this point in history, this culture, this language, it's no different from that of Germany. Okay? So if you were to go to this place in about the year 800, they're speaking the same language, which is West Germanic. And today we call it Old English. Again, what's really important to remember is

it's fairly easy to settle down in Britain because there's no centralized authority. After the Anglo-Saxons comes the Vikings from Denmark. And even though England has no major rivers, it has several rivers. So it's fairly easy for the Vikings with their very fast long ships to come and make settlements. So as you can see, the day law are territory

that is seeded by the Anglo-Saxons to the Vikings. And now you have this merger of the Viking culture with the Anglo-Saxon culture. This process of destruction continues with the Norman conquest of England. This year 1066, this battle is called the Battle of Hastings, in which when the conqueror of Normandy in France, he comes and conquers the British Isles, Britain. This is significant for two reasons. The first reason is that the Normans are Vikings who settle down in the United States.

in France, in an era called Nomini that's off the British coast. And remember, before the Anglo-Saxons were German people, so their focus was on Northern Europe. Because the Normans conquer Britain, Britain now is united with parts of France. So Britain is drawn into the politics of France, which will lead to something called the Hundred Years' War,

in which Britain, the English, are trying to maintain, their territory in France. So that's the first major geopolitical consequence of the Norman conquest. The second consequence, which is also relative significant, is a radical change in the English language. So before the Anglo-Saxon spoke a Germanic language we call Old English. Now you have a merger of the German language with French and Latin. So French is what the language that the Norman spoke, but Latin is the official language of the English educated elite of Europe.

So now you have Latin and French elements blend into Old English and let's create a new language we call Middle English. And in Middle English, of course, will give rise to modern English. This is significant because what makes Middle English different from old English is, Middle English is a lot easy to learn because, remember, now you have a very custom-pawrature to Britain, you have Vikings, you have Anglo-Saxons,

you have French, you have Normans. They all need to speak one language. So the best elements of these different languages are blended into Middle English. And this tradition continues today, because you think about it, English is the most widely spoken language in the world. Why?

Because it's the easiest to learn. Now, you may argue that, no, it's because we live in the Anglo-American Empire, and therefore people are incentivized to learn English. But at the same time, what I will show you next class is the reason why they were able to establish the Anglo-American Empire, a lot has to do with the fact that English is easy to learn, and therefore it's easier to spread soft power, right? Because when you learn a language, you're not just learning a language, you're also learning a culture, you're learning

in history, right? And this is what we call soft power. And the British did this better than anyone else. Now the Americans do this better than everyone else. But it starts with the Norman conquest in 1066. All right. All right. So, as I mentioned, what's really important about Britain is it really never had centralized authority. Maybe now and then you had a great king like Alfred the Great, right? But it was never centralized because the king could never sort of authority over the different fiefdoms.

So whenever king does that, the nobles get together and they rebelled. So in 1215, King John tries to impose taxes on the nobles in order to finance wars and friends, right? Because again, the English are trying to maintain their territory in France. And that creates a lot of conflict with the French themselves. So they find a lot of wars and you need money to pay for these wars. So King John was trying to make the nobles pay taxes. So what the nobles do, and this is going to be consistent pattern throughout British history

is they rebel and they force King John to sign a document called the Magna Carta, the Great Charter. And the Great Charter is significant because it severely limits the power of the king. Now this has happened throughout human history before when the nobles rebel and they force a compromise with the king. This has happened throughout human history, but this is actually the first time that this has been written down and become part of the British tradition okay this will become part of what we call the British Constitution what makes the British Constitution

unique is it's not written down it's not a document like the US Constitution is it is a set of traditions and norms okay so this this begins the British Constitution the Magna Carta right what I want to do now is look at different clauses in the Magna Carta it's a very old document so most of the stipulation, most of the clauses don't need to apply, but there are three that do apply, okay? So I want us to just look at very closely at certain clauses within the Magna Carta. All right, Clause 10. If anyone who has borrowed a sum of money from Jews dies before the debt has been repaid,

his here shall pay no interest on the debt. Okay, this is really interesting. This year 1215, there are Jews in England. Why are they Jews in England? Okay, so let me explain the history of Europe at this time. So Europe is entirely Catholic. The Catholic religion does not allow for something called usury. And the idea of usury is you charge interest on debt,

because that goes against the teachings of the Catholic Church. That goes against the teaching of God. Also, it's socially destructive, right? because if you're on a debt, you're basically stuck there for all of eternity. So the Catholic Church explicitly forbids charging interest on debt. But it's really important. Debt is extremely profitable. So the way that the king and the nobility get around this taboo is they get Jews, okay,

to lend out money and to charge debt. And then the king gets part of that, right? Also, because Jews are heavily disliked anyway because they engage in money lending and usury, the king also gets them to go collect taxes, right? So the Jews throughout European history have been the scapegoats for the elite. They're the ones who charge usury.

They're the ones who collect taxes. They're also the ones who will engage in businesses for the nobles okay so they basically subcontract businesses from the nobles and they're very good at that all right and why do Jews agree to do this because the king and nobles provide protection to the Jews so over time you have this huge problem where even nobles owe money to the Jews and the problem of debt creates a lot of social tension within English So in the Magna Carta, it says very explicitly that, yes, you still owe money to Jews, but if you die, you're here, does not have to pay interest.

Because a problem of debt, again, is not the debt itself, the principle, but the interest. Okay? Right. So does that make sense, you guys? This is really important because if you want to understand World War II, if you understand the Holocaust, it starts way back here, okay? All right, so the two most important clauses in the magnet color that still applied today is 39 and 40. All right, so let's look at 39. No free men should be seized or imprisoned except by the lawful judgment of its equals or by the law of the land.

This creates a new principle in British history call due process. This means that if you are, if you commit a crime, you are still guaranteed. a jury, a trial before you are punished. There's a process in which you are found guilty for your crime. This is what we call due process. Number 40, to no one will we sell to no one deny or delay, right or justice. This means that no one is above the law. So number 30, establishes the idea of due process.

Number 40, establishes the idea of rule of law. Everyone is guaranteed due process. Not even the king has the power and authority to take away due process from someone. And this establishes the British common law tradition. And this becomes the basis for the American Constitution. Okay, so as I mentioned, because of the Norman conquest, Britain now is forced to defend its territory in France,

and this leads to a series of disastrous wars. wars in France called the Hundred Years' War. I don't have time to go into the history, but obviously there's certain very important figures on the merchant of 100 years war, the most famous being Joan of Arc, okay? Joan of Arc, who is this French mystic, a teenager, a girl who leads the French armies to victory

against the British and their allies. During this time, there's also a civil war fought in Britain called the War of the Roses between the House of York and the House of Lancaster. You may like the Game of Thrones television series, I'm not sure if you watched it, but that series is actually based on the civil war between the House of York and the House of Lancaster. This goes on for a long time. It's very, very deadly. It almost destroys Britain. But eventually a man names Richard of York. Richard III, he emerges victorious from this civil war. But he He has a problem. His problem is his family, the House of York,

had to borrow a lot of money from overseas, the Florentines, right, the Medeches, in order to finance the war. Once he became king, he fought, well, I'm king, and I don't have to pay you back, okay? So now the bankers are angry at him. And if banks are angry at you, you have a problem, because what bankers will do in this circumstance

is finance an invasion of your country, okay? So the Medechi's, the Florentine bankers, they sponsored a man named Henry Tudor, Henry Tudor, who is of the House of Lancaster, okay? But he grew up in France, and they sponsor him to invade England and defeat Richard III. Okay, and this establishes the House of Tudor. And so the Henry Tudor becomes Henry the seventh,

and his son becomes Henry VIII, who is one of the most famous king, in British history. He's famous because he decides to negate the authority of the Pope. He decides, I'm the king, I don't have to listen to anyone, even the Pope, okay? And this came to pass because Henry V was trying to divorce Catholic and Aragon and the Pope would not agree. So the Henry VIII decides to step his own church called the Church of England and separate himself from the Vatican. Now, what's really important for us to remember is, There's only one difference, only one difference between the Church of England and the Catholic Church.

The Catholic Church swears loyalty to the Pope. The Church of England swears loyalty to the King of England. That's it, guys. There's no other difference. The customs, the doctrine, the rituals are all the same. There's only one difference. He will have a very famous daughter called Queen Elizabeth. All right?

So because of the Reformation, there's a huge religious civil war going on between the Catholics and the Protestants. Okay, so Elizabeth, why she is so consequential is she's on a throne for 40 plus years. And what makes her extremely significant is she brings stability to England by sympathizing with the Protestants, but also by working with the Catholics, okay? So even though there are all these Catholic conspiracies against Elizabeth in order to install a Catholic monarch, she's still able to resist these conspiracies, these rebellions, and establish a pretty stable nation.

At the same time, during her reign, Shakespeare will write his place. Next class, we are doing Shakespeare. Because of Shakespeare, there would be no English language. If there's no English language, you can also argue there'd be no British Empire. So next class, we'll spend an entire class on analyzing how Shakespeare created the English language and created the possibility of the British Empire. Okay, that's next class. Francis Drake is the most famous pirate at this time.

and he is a trusted deputy of Elizabeth. Elizabeth has a policy of piracy, right? England is poor, Spain is rich, so what do you do? You steal from the rich and you give to the poor, right? And that's what Sir Francis Drake did. So at this time, England is emerging as a naval power, and it's gonna surpass both Spain and France become the dominant navy in the world.

And as you know, it's just, It's really a navy that allows the British Empire to control the world. The major innovation of the British, of the English, is how they fight at sea. Traditionally, the way you fight naval battles is by ramming the enemy and then boarding the ship and then killing everyone, okay?

That's what the Romans did, that's what everyone did. The English decided that's silly because we're always outnumbered, where I was out-men. So they pioneered, long-range cannon warfare where from a distance maybe a few hundred meters you will blast your enemy with cannons there are lots and lots of problems with this okay the first problem is um you could possibly sink your ship because the cannons are very heavy also you could blow up your own ship because the cannons are very explosive also the cannons aren't very accurate okay

so but the english persisted even though you can make the argument that this um type of war it's not sustainable okay and in the beginning for the first few decades the way they fought was terrible but the thing about the British that made them very similar to the Romans is they were relentless they were willing to suffer heavy casualties major setbacks major failures and still persist until they eventually won okay that's the mentality of the British that's very Roman all right so this is 1588 the battle of the Spanish Amarda okay and this is that's heavily celebrated in England because for the English it marks the day when the

British Navy reigns supreme over the seas. This is a day that the Spanish Armada was conquered and destroyed by the English. Something that's really important for us to remember is that in a year later in 1589 the Spanish will defeat the English and the English will suffer tens of thousands of casualties. Okay, so what's important for us remember is that these wars go back and forth. There's no one time when, okay, now the British are dominant. What matters is persistence, what matters is resilient. And in that respect, the English are far superior to the European adversaries. Okay, so Queen Elizabeth dies and King James of Scotland inherits the English throne, okay?

So now Scotland and England are united. What's significant about King James is he produces them call the King James Holy Bible. This is something that the Protestants have been demanding for a long, long time. Remember the difference between the Protestant of Catholics is the Catholics are not allowed to read the Bible, the priests tell the parishioners what to believe, what the orthodoxy is. The Protestant believed that everyone must read the Bible. So the King James Bible, it's the first time that the Bible has been mass produced for everyone. So this spreads positive very quickly throughout the British Isles.

Also what's really significant is with the Bible, now you've standardized the language, okay? Now you can make a transition from Middle English to modern English, the language we speak today. 1620 is significant because it's the year when the pilgrims on the Mayflower they move to America to found a new colony, a new civilization, a new empire that will take over the world. Why are the pilgrims moving to America? Well, the prosons are divided into two major factions at this time. Yet the Puritans. Who are the Puritans? The Puritans believe that the Church of England is too Catholic. And so therefore we must purge the Church of England of Catholic tenancies, like rituals, like a priest. The pilgrims are we're called separatists. So there's another group called the Pilgrims, the Separatists, who believe the Church of England, it's too corrupt, it's too evil, it's too much like the Vatican.

Therefore, we should abolish it, or we should just separate from it. And so, of course, they were persecuted by the king, and as a compromise, the pilgrim. were allowed to go to America to build a new civilization based on their beliefs. And this civilization, of course, what we call America. So that's something that you must remember that America was founded by programs who want to build a kingdom of heaven on earth. And we'll discuss this next week when we discuss the American Revolution. Back in England, there is a civil war now raging. And it starts again when the king tries to impose too much authority of the nobles.

But there's also a religious dimension to it because the Puritans want to impose a religious state on everyone. So the fanatics at the stage are the Puritans. And what will happen is the Peritans will emerge triumphant under the leadership of Oliver Cromwell, and he will establish something called the Commonwealth of England. And this is a disaster. It doesn't really work out well because it goes against British tradition. Remember, the idea of the Puritans is they want to establish a religious, centralized theocracy on England, but England has always been pretty independent and autonomous.

So what will happen is after Carmel dies, the Carmel goes away, and the nobles reinstate a new king, who is Charles II. After he dies, James II will take the throne. The problem of James II is he's a Catholic. He's a Catholic. And so there are a lot of English who are afraid that he will move too close to France, Spain, and the Vatican. And these are British enemies.

So what will happen is this. The nobles would invite a Dutch king Wilma of Orange, who is of British blood, to come to England in the year 1688. And the womb of Orange will bring about 10,000 soldiers to Britain. This is an invasion. This is a very last invasion that succeeds in Britain. King James has a larger army. But what will happen is King James is not very decisive.

He's not very effective. So a lot of his army will desert him. So basically his army sort of dissipates and he's allowed to go to France. And William Orange, bloodlessly, not bloodlessly, but he's very quickly able to assume the throne. And this is significant because, and this is called the glorious revolution. This is significant because it establishes for the first time officially the sovereignty of parliament over the king. Okay, does that, okay, this is really important, okay? Now it's official. Parliament is the ultimate authority, ultimate sovereignty in Britain and the king is a figurehead. Right, and this is significant because it will now allow Britain to energize the middle class. If you're middle class, you now have an incentive to work hard because now there's patents, there's trademarks, there's incentives, there's incentives, there's incentives. There's incentives.

for you to get rich and this will lead to of course the Industrial Revolution all right so the glorious revolution is one of the main contributing factors to the Industrial Revolution in Britain this is also significant because in 694 the Bank of England is established all right now I I can't emphasize enough what a huge deal this is all right so let me slow explain what is the big deal And I want to make sure you understand because now we go into finance and economics and I really haven't taught finance economics before I want to make sure that you understand the idea here, okay? So before, if you're king, you want to fight a war, what you do is you borrow money from the rich and these are usually cartels. All right, so Charles of Second borrowed a lot of money to fight wars from the goldsmiths of London, including a group of

Jews okay and then he refused to pay it back now you have a problem because now you have a credit crisis you have a trust crisis right if the king refuses to pay back the rich for their loan why would the king ever be able to raise funds ever again okay so Parliament solves this problem because now because now if Parliament is the central authority essential sovereignty in the land, then you are not lending money to the king. You are lending money to the nation, right? If a king dies or a king is to pose, you're screwed.

You're not getting your money back. But if you lend money to the nation, the people for the parliament, then you are always guaranteed to get your money back unless England gets conquered, okay? But we know because of the Navy, England cannot be conquered. And so not only are the rich willing to lend money to the nation now to finance wars, but also foreigners, especially the Dutch. Right? Because the Dutch were very wealthy, and they need a safe place to put their money. So where's the safest place in the world to put your money now?

England, right? Because if you are in the Netherlands, you can be conquered by the French or the Germans, which happens a lot. But if your gold, and this is gold, right, goes to London, no one's going to touch that, be able to touch that. So now the Bank of England allows Britain to borrow money from its people, from foreigners, and from the future by printing money, right, by issuing war bonds. And therefore, Britain has infinite financing. And this is a major reason. This is the main reason why Britain was able to defeat Napoleon.

right it took seven wars seven coalitions to defeat Napoleon each of these coalitions was financed by Britain okay and once Napoleon was defeated Britain became the hegemon of the world it became the British Empire no one could now challenge the might of Britain okay so you understand the impact of central banking central banking allows you to mortgage your nation's future in the pursuit of total war that allows you to weaponize the trust and confidence of your people okay does that make sense but there's a problem okay this is really important there's a problem with this innovation the problem is this once you commit to a war once you raise debt and

commit to war you're forced to fight the war until the very bitter end right because if you lose the war your nation goes bankrupt Does that make sense, guys? That's why Britain refused to ever compromise from Napoleon. Napoleon said to Britain, hey guys, I control all of Europe, let's talk peace. Let's just trade peacefully. And Britain says, no, we can't do that because we let a lot of money to the Austrians, the Prussians, and the Germans and the Russians in order to defeat you. If we sign a deal of peace, all its money is now gone.

is now gone and we the Bank of England we the British nation is completely wiped out we are completely wiped out okay do you understand this is really important for the future history of Europe if Britain fights the war it does so through financing it does so through debt but because it does so through debt it has to fight the war until it wins it can never ever compromise it can never ever surrender all right and this is important because this explains what happened in World War I And this also explains, and I'll discuss this towards the end of the semester, it also explains American foreign policy.

Okay. Okay. Was that clear to you guys? Any questions about what we've learned so far? Okay. Now, I want to talk about political philosophy of the British. Because, again, we discussed this throughout this course. You can have new ideas, but now you have to justify these new ideas.

You have to explain the innovation through philosophy to the people. So Britain at this time is really famous for its political philosophers. At this time, Thomas Hobbes is one of the most dominant political philosophers. He lived through the English Civil War. He saw all the chaos, all the destruction. He wrote a book called Leviathan. Leviathan is to justify why Britain returban. to a monarchy instead of maintaining a commonwealth, okay?

And this is the most famous passage from his book, Leviathan, which will probably read in university, okay? There is no place for industry because the fruit thereof is uncertain, and consequently no culture of the earth, no navigation, nor use of commodities that may be imported by sea, no comelius building, no arts, no letters, no society, and which is, worst of all, continual fear, danger of violent death and the life of man solitary poor nasty Buddhist and short

okay so um he's trying to explain why there's government and so he gives the idea like we were born in a state of nature and we're free to do whatever we want we can kill we can love we can steal we can do whatever we want so why would we give up this freedom in order to enter a state of nature is sorry in order to have government the The answer is because state of nature sucks, okay? Because you can be killed because things will be stolen from you because there will be no innovation. So no matter how bad government is, it's absolutely necessary. Okay?

Now this is John Locke. And John Locke is writing during the time of the glorious revolution. He is a supporter of parliament. He's a supporter of the glorious revolution. And he writes something called, so 1688 is the glorious revolution. In 1689, he will publish the second treatise on government. And this is his most famous work. Again, when you go to university,

you'll have to study the second treatise. But in it, he basically explains that, okay, Hobbs is right. We are born in a state of nature, and we do need government. But let's remember this. When we're born in a state of nature, we are born with certain inalienable rights.

And these three rights are the right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of property. The proper function of government is to maintain our rights. The government does not do that, then we have the flexibility, we have the freedom to rebel against the government, okay? So Hobbs is saying government isn't necessary, you can never ever challenge it, because if you do, things will get much worse. Locke is saying government is only legitimate if it guarantees us our inelible rights.

So Locke is considered the founder of liberalism. And this ideas will become the basis for the US Constitution, which we'll study next Thursday. Okay, so I want to remember this. All right. Now, what I'm doing now, and this is really important, okay, is compare and contrast the British Enlightenment with the European Enlightenment. Remember, before we did the European Enlightenment, we studied Rousseau, we studied Kant-Voltair. And I told you the British Enlightenment is very different from the European Enlightenment.

European Enlightenment in three major ways okay so now what I will do is explain what the differences are okay all right so let's compare Rousseau and Locke published his theories at the end of the 17th century Rousseau comes about 50 years later okay and Rousseau will give us a French revolution so there are three major differences I want you to remember between British political philosophy and European political philosophy okay the first is this. Locke believes that we are born Tabula Rasa, the blank slate, okay, which means that

we are influenced by the environment. If our parents are nice to us, we'll be good people, our parents are mean to us, will become bad people. Tabula Rasa, okay? We are controlled, nurtured by the environment. Rousseau, the Europeans believe, no. We are born inherently good. Knowing that, we were born with a capacity to reason, if we were given the freedom to reason. Remember, when we discussed Rousseau, he said, do not educate your child before the age of 12. Because if you do, you just school up the child. And the idea is, there's a natural capacity in us that will grow over time that allows us to reason naturally. So Rousseau believe this, but also can't believe this as well.

Okay, so that's a huge difference, right? Second major difference is this. Lough believes the purpose of society is liberty. Liberty just means you are free to do whatever you want. Do you want to eat ice cream? Go ahead and do it. Yes, ice cream will make you fat. Ice cream will maybe increase your cholesterol.

But you should have the freedom, the liberty, to make that choice, okay? That's the purpose of society, to give you the liberty. to make bad choices for Rousseau the purpose of society is reason society if it's good should enable you to reason properly okay so the Europeans believe that society should be much more interventionist it should help you become more reasonable these reason is what allows for freedom okay and the last major difference and this is key okay guys I I need you guys to remember these three differences.

The last major difference is this. How do you base laws? On what basis do you have laws? And so for luck, the answer is very simple. Tradition, guys. It's just what we've been doing all this time, right? British common law. If the Romans did it and we're still doing it,

it's probably for a reason. It's probably because it works. But for Russo and the Europeans, it's general will. Remember, okay, so just remind you, General will is what is in the best interest of people. Okay, this is really important. It's not what people want, it's what the majority says, it's what is in the best interest of people.

So we're so talks about this a lot where, okay, if you let people vote, there's a danger that they'll be influenced by a minority who manipulates them, okay? The idea of the general will is, think about this using your reason. Think about what is in the best interest of everyone. All right, so if everyone's like, you know, I want free ice cream, okay?

This entire school says, I want free ice cream, then we should give you free ice cream according to law, right? But according to Uso, no, we cannot give you ice cream because if you sit down independently and think about what is your best interest, you would know that ice cream is bad for you. Therefore, we should not give you ice cream, okay? The general wheel is what is in the best interest of everyone involved? Not necessarily what do you vote for. necessarily what you believe but what is in your best interest okay if you have

reason if you have the capacity to reason all right now let's summarize what the difference is the Europeans always asking what is good what is right the British and then later on the Americans only ask what works okay what works what is the least worst world we can live in okay so the British are practical You can also say the British are Utitarian, where the Europeans are romantic and they are idealistic. All right. Also, and this is really important because Rousseau's thought of thinking

will give us the philosophies of communism and Nazism. Okay, does that make sense? And of course, Locke's ideas will give us the US Constitution. So this is part of the Anglo-American political tradition this will not become the European tradition which will give us Marxism and communism all right all right let's continue so one of the most important political philosophers in Britain is Jeremy Bantham he's a founder of something called utilitarianism okay so um bentham agrees with law and that we need a

more liberal society we need a more progressive society but for him it's really question of like how do you mathematically and logically come to the point where you have a tolerant liberal progressive society and so he develops the idea of utitarianism okay the idea of utitarianism is there are two principles that govern the universe okay that motivate us there's the pleasure principle and there's a pain principle okay and so what he says is if if something makes us happy it's inherently good if something is makes us feel pain it's inherently bad okay so we should we should structure society that mathematically calculates the amount of pain and pleasure we produce and then we

should maximize the pleasure and reduce the pain okay and if you do that then you get to the same point of law where people should be guaranteed liberty people should be allowed to do whatever they want as always it doesn't really harm other people You want to eat ice cream, don't eat ice cream. You're not harming anyone. Obviously, there are lots of issues with this theory of Utenianism. So along comes his disciple, John Stuart Mill. And John Stuart Mill is considered the most significant political philosopher of the past 200 years.

He is the founder of what we're called classical liberalism. The very basis of classical liberalism is people should be free to do whatever they want as long as it doesn't hurt anyone Also people should be allowed to say whatever they want because free debate free open debate is what allows for society to progress Okay, so what John Tzu-Mille does is he takes the principles of uteranism and refines it In order to explain Why classical liberalism is the best philosophy out there okay? And classical liberalism will include women's rights. It will include prison reform.

It will include a more egalitarian society. Okay. So another thing that locked, sorry, John Stewart Mill, that does, that's very important, is he explains pleasure is not what you think it is. Pleasure isn't like, okay, whatever makes me happy. Because there are different types of pleasure. There's short-term pleasure. and there's long-term pleasure, right?

Short-term pleasure is eating ice cream every day. Long-term pleasure is having a healthy body which allows you to climb mountains, which allows you to enjoy life more. Short-term pleasure is just watching TikTok videos. Long-term pleasure is being able to read Shakespeare, being able to read Dante, and being able to enjoy life more.

Okay, so that is this major refinement of bantam Just because you enjoy something today doesn't mean it's good for you So we have the capacity to understand there's short-term pleasure and there's long-term pleasure, okay? Long-term pleasure is what he refers to as happiness. The purpose of life is to be happy. It's not necessarily to seek pleasure, it's it's but it's the purpose is to to seek happiness, okay? All right, so this is a very role rough introduction you will learn all the stuff when you get to university okay all right so these are the reasons why the rich empire came to conquer the world okay all right it's history its geography its demographics forces it to engage in a

continuous series of innovation this innovation will allow it to eventually dominate the entire world and even though the British Empire is gone we still have to come the British Commonwealth okay so these are nations that speak English, that believe British culture it's the best in the world, and who believe that working together in a community will be beneficial for all, okay? The British Commonwealth.

And that's a legacy we still have of the British Empire. Okay, so now that I've done a brief introduction, what I'll do now is summarize the main points so that you are, so the you have, So you have a pretty clear framework to work with as we progress into the American Empire. Okay? All right. So what I'm going to do now is just summarize what we've learned into a story of the British Empire.

All right. So what's this clear to you guys? All right. So let's now just summarize what we've learned. All right. So there are many, many reasons why the British Empire can, to dominate the world. But the three things I want to highlight today is the Royal Navy. So the thing to remember about the Royal Navy is its main purpose is actually not to engage in war

and conquest. Its main purpose is actually to maintain global trade. Why? Because remember, Britain is the first nation to industrialize. Therefore, it's producing a lot of finished goods. If you have finished goods, you need markets. So the British Navy, it's made purpose is to open up new markets and to maintain safe trade routes against pirates okay to facilitate global trade so and this of course made Britain extremely wealthy second major reason is the Bank of England all right I cannot stress enough how important this innovation was also what's really important first remember is the Bank of England was private

Okay, private. So we have the powers of a central bank, the power to print money, issue currency, the power to issue debt, sell bonds, but it was private, meaning it was controlled by rich stockholders. And the reason why they did this is it was just the easiest way in order to raise money quickly, if that makes sense, right?

Because if you're a public person, you may not want to give your money to the government but you're a rich person where are you going to put your money you're going to put your money into a central bank that's that's supported by the government okay all right and the third major reason is english all right so the development of english which is again the the world's easiest language to learn so most languages in order to speak it well, you actually have to grow up in a place, right? So if you want to speak Chinese very well, then the best solution is to be born in China. But English is different. English is you can learn at any age and still have a pretty good command of the language.

That's a huge innovation in human history. All right, so now let's sort of figure out why was England able to achieve these three major innovations okay and not other places okay the first principle is the idea of open cooperative competition which I'll explain okay secondly said you have creative destruction meaning the elite is being constantly replaced by a new elite that brings in new ideas the third is expansion okay so colonial expansion where the British or the English are forced to migrate overseas instead of Canada the United States Australia New Zealand and other places as

well okay but permanently these places so these are the three major factors that drive innovation and because of all this constant process of innovation you have Britain develop a Navy a bank and a new language that is fairly easy to learn all Really quickly, I'm going to discuss the idea of open cooperative competition. All right, so historically, civilizing developed on a major river. So if you look at China, China developed on the Yangtzee. Egypt developed on the Nile. Mesopotamian developed on the Tigris and Euphrates.

Indivate developed on the Innes Valley, and the Ganges. Why? Because if you have a major river, you can build a settlement, and then for irrigation, you can expand your population. Okay? And once your population expands, it will allow you to colonize other areas. And then your population keeps on growing

before it becomes a dominant civilization in an area, okay? Does that make sense? Britain is different and Europe is different. Why? Because there are no major rivers. And therefore, population is constant you never have a need to go conquer new territory you just want to protect your own territory okay but because the population is so so

diffuse and limited it allows for foreign conquest okay which allows for credit destruction and that's the main factor driving innovation in Britain right So that's the history of the British Empire. Any questions? Anything you guys are not clear about? Feel free to ask any questions, okay? But please make sure you guys understand the logic of this because we're going to build on this as we go further and further into the present.

Okay? And remember, this is being influenced by the Dutch who will now, and then these ideas will then go on to influence the American. So America basically just takes all the ideas of the British Empire for itself. All right, so it's really important you understand what's driving the British Empire. Sure. The Puritans. Okay, all right guys.

All right, so let's go into, so the question is, what's the difference between the Puritans and the pilgrims, okay? Let's go into the problem of religion in England. England at this time okay so when you have a diversity okay you have diversity in England and so even though England is a small place as I keep on saying a lot of control is localized okay so if you cross from one village to the next the culture can be very different right so this is a feudal system you have a lot diversity so this diversity is gonna impact your religious outlook okay so

So what's going to happen is this. So England is Catholic. And then the Henry V. is going to turn this into the Church of England. But then what's going to happen is you all have new ideas, basically Calvinism, come in from Europe. Why is communism important? It's because England is the first to industrialize. It's the first to have a middle class. It's the first to have merchants.

Merchants prefer Calvinism to Catholicism. In the Catholic religion, you have to give all your money to the church. But in a Calvinist religion, you have to keep your money for yourself. Right? So Calvinism is a much more popular religion in Britain than the Catholic religion in England, as England begins to industrialize. And so the middle class is rising in power. Okay?

And the problem is the response to the Church of England. The Church of England, it's not Catholic, but it's using a lot of Catholic principles. And the Calvinist, the feeling of the Calvinists is they're fanatics, okay? They believe everyone should be a Calvinist, everyone should believe in hard work, everyone should be like us. And the Pope is evil. So the Calvinists are not very tolerant. So there are two major responses to the Church of England, okay? There's the idea of reform, and then it's the idea of dissolution.

All right? So the idea of reform is, look, the Church of England, it's fine, but there's certain things within the Church of England, which is too much like the Catholic Church. So if we get rid of these things, we'll be good, okay? So, but within the reform movement, you have different factions as well, okay? So there's some who want to replace the governance structure of the Church of England, because the Church of England is controlled by the king, and they believe, no, we should all be obedient

to God, not the king, so they want to destroy the hierarchy, the governance. There are some who want everyone to read the Bible. There are some who want to change the nature of the priesthood, okay? So there are different theories of change. And these group of people we call the Puritans, the Puritans. But then you have a minority who are extremely violent and fanatical, and they believe, no. Let's just get rid of the Church of England, period, because there should be no earthly authority before God. These people we call separatists.

And they will become the pilgrims, because obviously the king will persecute these people. They will feel the king sees them as a threat and they will be persecuted. They'll be outlawed. A lot of them will be executed. So a lot of them will flee to America in order to practice their religion, in order to found a new religion. So the pilgrims are the ones who flee. The pilgrims will stay and eventually engage in the civil war and overfall the king.

But remember this, okay? While this is happening, while this is happening, it's really important, there's also a counter reaction. So there are these Catholics who want to return England into the Catholic fold. So Scotland is very Catholic. You also have other people, called the Armenians, who want to maintain the Church of England as it is. So you have all these massive factions emerging, and they're all in conflict over. religion and religion is a proxy for economic class as well okay so it's

obviously the middle class who support reform there are a lot of nobles who support the Catholic religion and the king is primarily a sympathizer of a Catholic religion all right so during the Holocaust Revolution they will make a stipulation that no king can ever be a Catholic Okay, and that's a way to limit the power of the king. Because you're a Catholic king, you can draw on the French, the Vatican, the Spanish, as allies in your suppression of the nobles, of the middle class of parliament, okay? So there's a fear that the king will ally with the Catholic in order to destroy the authority of parliament.

And so after the glorious revolution, a major reform is the king cannot be Catholic. And in fact, if you adhere to the throne, but if the parliament suspects you have Catholic sympathies, they will replace you with someone else. Parliament has that power. And they did that actually during its history. So there's a deep fear of the Catholic religion within the among English people. But as you can see, this is a very complicated process that will take about 20 years to fully play out. Does that make sense? What's really important for us to remember is this conflict is being through the pilgrims

is now migrating to America. And these people will make America into the most religious, fanatical, intolerant place on Earth in certain places in America, okay? And it's a tradition that still continues today. There are certain parts of America that are extremely tolerant, like New York City and Los Angeles. But hey go to I don't know Alabama Mississippi Arkansas they're not very tolerant people okay and you can make the argument that they are the most fanatical people in the whole world much more so than the Jews much more so than the Muslims okay so does that answer your question great any more questions you know that's a great question okay so how much power does a king have Okay, so the thing about the British is because it's a system based on tradition, there's a lot of flexibility built into the system.

So depending on the personality of the king, the king can have a lot of power, okay? So for example, Henry VIII was a very powerful king, and consider one of the most powerful kings in the world. Why? First of all, because he was a huge guy. He was extremely charismatic. He was a huge guy that was very good at winning friends with the no-powering. So he was very good building alliances. Also, he was in power for a long, long time, over 50 years. Okay, so he was able to slowly insert his prodigies, his minions into positions of authority. And also, he was also very popular because he took England away from the Catholic Church. Okay?

So the public king, it's not written down, and has to do an alliance. And a lot of his power has to do with his personality, his longevity, his alliances, his charisma. So there are a lot of different factors in place. And that's why the British think their constitution is the most perfect in the world, because it's not written down, so they're not actually constrained by words.

But there's traditions that allow the constitution to be living, to be flexible, and to be pertinent the present okay and and and so the English are extremely proud of their constitution does that make sense okay okay so that's a great question so if these pilgrims went over to America how was America able to become this multicultural empire right because that goes against a lot of peritonical teachings and the answer which we'll discuss next week is America is a coalition of conflicts okay it is it is a melting pot of differences okay so what

what I will teach you next Thursday when we do the American Revolution is there are two dominant strands in the founding of America there's the pilgrim strand which is peritanical which is like let's create a theocracy but there's also a enlightenment strand where they believe that they're founding a new empire based on reason. And so the religion we use for them is deism, okay? These are dais. And most of the founding fathers,

Thomas Jefferson, Alexander Hamilton, George Washington were deists. They wanted to found a tolerant, multicultural empire. So these are two dominant trends in America. And quite honestly, what's really important is, If you want to understand what's happening in America today, Donald Trump, right? You need to understand that it's these two strands that have always been present in America that are not coming into conflict with each other, okay?

Because you have on the left these multiculturals, like Barack Obama, who believe that America is great because America welcomes immigrants. And you have people like JD Vance, and there are lots of others as well, on the conservative side who say, no, America is great because we are Christian, okay, because we have this tradition of Christianity. That's what makes us great. And right now we're losing our Christianity due to multiculturalism,

and therefore we must close our borders. Therefore, we must re-assert the Christian faith in our nation. Okay? So we will discuss this next Thursday when we'll do America. But as this course progresses, I will show you how complicated America is.

and show you that because of this conflict, America is probably headed towards a civil war. Okay? If that makes sense to you. All right. Great. Any more questions, guys? Okay.

So next class, we'll do William Shakespeare. And then after William Shakespeare, we'll do the American Revolution. Okay?