Socialism, Inflation — and Vikings!

This post is part of a series from The Torch looking at lessons from history to the challenges facing us today.

History isn’t just fantastic at helping us learn from past mistakes — it is also a brilliant reminder of what happens when we forget, refuse to learn, or convince ourselves that this time it will be different.

Some of these failures can have devastating consequences — and we may be on the verge of repeating some of them today.

The Raid on Jarrow in 794 is a great illustration of a lesson of history which was never properly learned or understood.

The Raid on Jarrow took place during an era characterised by rising numbers of Viking raids on Northern and Western Europe, including Britain. Northumbria had been subject to a number of these, including a particularly vicious and violent attack on Lindisfarne.

These raids were rising in number and were proving highly lucrative for the Danes and Norse who took part due to the particular institutions and organisation of the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms.

8^th Century England was divided into almost constantly warring small kingdoms which were prone to faction and coups (particularly Northumbria). It also relied on small and highly trained armed forces to protect large areas — including a number of increasingly wealthy trading ports and abbeys. These ports — and the abbeys in particular presented highly attracted targets for Viking raiders, as they held huge amounts of wealth and were poorly defended.

Typically, by the time Vikings had landed, raided, looted, pillaged, raped and enslaved the war bands of the king or nobility were only just arriving — giving the Vikings the opportunity to escape.

But the Raid on Jarrow was different.

On this occasion, after looting and raiding the Abbey bad weather meant that the Vikings were not able to make their usual speedy escape — and the war bands of Northumbria were able to meet them in battle — and roundly defeated them.

Such was the success of the Northumbrians that for the next few decades the northern kingdom was left alone — and it appears that the Vikings found richer pickings in France instead.

The Viking raids had been so bad that senior figures in the Church, and leading scholars were convinced that they were God’s divine punishment for the sins of the Kingdom. It appeared now though to the Northumbrians that whatever sins had been committed had been atoned for and the scourge was over.

And of course it wasn’t.

It is no spoiler to reveal that decades later the Danes returned, first as Viking raiders, then ultimately as invaders and conquerors.

It is now apparent to us that at Jarrow Northumbria was lucky. But rather than learning the lessons — putting their kingdom on a more stable footing, ceasing the conflicts with other Anglo-Saxon kingdoms, expanding the army, fortifying their towns and ports, introducing an early warning system and reforming the Abbeys (all tactics which ultimately worked elsewhere in the long-run) instead they convinced themselves that this was the end, it was all over and things could continue as usual without the need for vigilance or reform.

A few decades ago we in the West reached a similar conclusion. Indeed, one of the most influential books of the early 1990s was titled The End of History and the Last Man (by Francis Fukuyama — it is wrong but well written and still worth reading.)

Fukuyama and others after the fall of the Berlin Wall and the collapse of the Soviet Union were convinced that we were entering almost a post-history period of history. That liberal, democratic, constitutionalist, free market Governments were emerging everywhere around the world and that the ultimate triumph of all of these good things was at hand.

The marauding, looting, pillaging and scourging menace of socialism had been roundly beaten by the incredibly effective and motivated leadership of the West in the form of Margaret Thatcher and Ronald Reagan.

At about the same time we started to convince ourselves of something very similar when it came to another menace to people’s livelihoods — which would steal hard earned savings, reduce many to poverty and bring the economy to ruin. I speak of course of inflation.

The sound money economic medicine of the early 1980s had worked. A tough check was being kept on the money supply, Government spending was restrained and the days of rampant inflation and stagflation seemed to be over for good.

And so we come to the present. And much like the Northumbrians and other Anglo Saxon kingdoms we appear to have forgotten or not learned the lessons of the past — vigilance has dropped and we have made no serious attempts to be more ready for when these menaces return — meanwhile all the factors which might bring them back remain.

And thus it comes to pass that Government around the world are intervening in more aspects of our lives than ever before — not just economically, with record high taxes and spending, but also in how we think, talk, interact and live our lives — all motivated by calls to a greater good and to make sacrifices for a great national effort. If it walks like socialism and quacks like socialism…

And inflation too is returning. Initially just as raids — but increasingly boldly.

Inflation is at its highest rate in over thirty years — yet Government spending increases, interest rates are astonishingly low, above inflation pay increases are being promised in the form of the “living wage”, the benefits roundabout is speeding up and “quantitative easing” continues.

Lessons can be learned. We do not need to repeat the mistakes of the past — but we must value historical knowledge and be prepared to fight again. Let’s not leave it much longer and just hope that inflation and socialism will be seen off by modern Alfreds and Aethelstans. We could just as easily end up with a new Danelaw.

Published at The Torch by catouk.

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