Why the Ruling Ideology
Makes Me Do It

Augustuses of Augustuses, the greatest of Augustuses! (Repeated 8 times).

God gave you to us, God gave you for us! (Repeated 27 times).

As Roman Emperors, pious and felicitous, may you rule for many years! (Repeated twenty two times).

For the good of the human race, for the good for the Senate, for the good of the State, for the good of all! (Repeated 24 times).

Our hope is in You, You are our salvation! (Repeated 26 times).

May it please our Augusteses to live forever! (Repeated 22 times).

May You pacify the world and triumph here in person! (Repeated 24 times)

These are the prayers of the Senate, these are the prayers of the Roman people! (Repeated 10 times). Selection from much longer acclamation of Theodosius in Minutes of the Senate in Constantinople, Mar. 26, 429

And do thou, Honorius, who with thy brother, lord of the East, governest with equal care a world that was once thy sire's, go thy way with favourable omens and order the sun's new course, thyself heaven's hope and desire, palace-nurtured even from life's threshold, to whom the camp, gleaming with drawn swords gave schooling among the laurels of victory….when thou was born thou was born a king. Power which was thine by birth received thee a precious pledge, amid the purple; soldiers bearing victorious standards inaugurated thy birth, and set thy cradle in the midst of arms. Claudian, Panegyric for Emperor Honorius on his fourth consulship.

We delegate the right of the sacred Imperial decision to Your Magnificence when an appeal is interposed from the Vicar of the City of Rome and appears to await the dignity of Our cognizance. To Symmachus, prefect of Rome, from Emperors Valentinian and Valens, 361, Theodosian Code.

The Emperor was God's Vice-Regent here on earth. Previous to Constantine's establishment of the Church, the Emperor was worshipped as divine, a god while still alive. In fact the major conflict between the Empire and Christians prior to Constantine had been that Christians refused to worship the Emperor--a fault considered much worse than an American refusing to salute the flag. While the Church did not define the Emperor as a god, the Emperor was still viewed as divine, and as Claudian's Panegyric demonstrates, with the dynastic succession of Theodosius, he was perceived divine from birth. It was the supreme religious compromise, the bishops realizing, probably, that they would have to recognize some kind of divinity in the Emperor if they--or Christianity--were to prevail. They prevailed; it prevailed. The third selection, an edict from the Emperors Valentinian and Valens lays out how things worked in reality; designated officials carried out the business of governance while it awaited the dignity of Imperial "cognizance."

Our official political "ideology" is supposed to be the Declaration of Independence and the US Constitution, but the interpretations of the Constitution by men like John Yoo, and Samuel Alito, and the policies followed by George W. Bush, makes clear that, at least among some Americans, our constitution means something much more like the Roman autocracy than we realized. After all, if we have a never-ending state of war (the "war on terror"), and if the President as Commander in Chief can do anything abroad or domestically to "protect" us from our enemies, then the limits to power that we thought we had are apparently "outmoded."

Further, although we may protest--against fighting wars in Iraq or Iran, for example--it is the President who defines who our enemies are. If we disagree with his determinations, again we can protest, but if big media projects "The President's" ideas and not ours, who is going to prevail? What this illustrates is that our political ideology is undergoing significant changes. Autocracy may not be described in our Constitution, but it seems as if it is creeping into practice--and is justified by legal theorists like Yoo and Alito. As I indicated in Chapter One, the selfish class may prefer autocracy; it is more easily manipulated for class interests. Democracy is messy. Besides, whether the President is George W. Bush or Hillary Clinton, as long as the President has to listen to the people who control institutions of power, people like Rupert Murdoch, and as long as the President can get what they want through Congress, then it is easier to deal with him or her, than with 535 members of Congress and goodness knows how many others: interest groups, etc. If the President is an autocrat, then what the government does in his or her name is not going to be second-guessed, except by the President, or his or her closest advisors.

Honorius and Valentinian III were incapable of governing (the former spending all his time with his chickens, the latter with his courtiers' wives), but they reigned over the west, one after the other, from 393 to 455, a crucial 62 years when the Empire's disintegration accelerated beyond the point of no return. Governance was therefore in the hands of the bureaucracy, led by men like Symmachus and Sidonius, Senators of the highest rank, but men we have seen, in previous chapters, who were extremely limited in their training and outlook, and clearly identified with their class's interests. They were trained to be sycophants. In the case of Sidonius, it is clear that his impeccable good manners and high rhetoric did not prevent him from abasing himself with the grossest flattery, such as his panegyric to Avitus (his father in law, briefly Emperor), and his panegyric to Anthemius, the next Emperor.

Imperial autocracy depended on sycophancy. The ideology of governance was both extremely simple and highly complex. The Emperor was an autocrat with unlimited powers, yet he ruled according to law as set down in his and his predecessor's decrees. Still, when the people of Thessalonika rioted and overturned the statues of the ruling Emperors, Theodosius the Great sent in the army--to massacre the city in retribution. According to the ideology of the day, he was acting within the law. Nevertheless, it was this act for which Ambrose, Bishop of Milan (Milan was the Imperial seat at the time), demanded penance from the Emperor. According to various stories, the Emperor not only acquiesced in his demand, he abased himself before the Bishop, climbing the steps to the basilica in his bare feet. Whether this actually happened or not, the story reveals the changing nature of the official ideological system.

The ruling ideology of the fifth century included rulers with unlimited power, separate classes that deserved different treatment according to their status: "exalted birth" versus "humble birth," but the church was beginning to interpose a new set of values as well.

Constantine (306-337), when he declared himself Christian, and declared that his victory at Milvian Bridge was a judgment of God, he still ruled over a largely pagan empire. By the end of the century, pagan practices were outlawed. There were various attempts along the way to restore paganism; Julian (361-363) was an apostate, who at one point sacrificed several thousand bulls and persecuted Christian professors, but by 391 Emperor Theodosius (the Great) (378-395) had defeated Eugenius, a pagan usurper who championed Jupiter, and he enacted laws that prohibited pagan worship:

No person shall pollute himself with sacrificial animals… no person shall approach the shrines, shall wander through the temples, or revere the images formed by mortal labor, lest he become guilty by divine and human laws. Theodosian Code: 16-10. enacted 391

In other words, in a little more than two generations, Christians went from persecutions under Diocletian (284-305) to persecuting pagans and becoming not only the official religion, but the only religion permitted, and one that had the legal right to persecute everyone else. However, since societies change more slowly than individuals, there were still many pagans, and in fact many of the leaders of society still practiced paganism, or winked at the practices of others who continued to do so. It took generations to extirpate pagan practices, as continuing decrees give evidence. Many of the later decrees were directed especially at the officials who did not enforce the earlier decrees. "We sanction and decree more severe penalties against the governors." (Theodosian Code 16-13, enacted 395). This was because the Senatorial class was more conservative than the Emperors, and it mounted continuing attempts to restore paganism. The last open and official appeal for restoration of the statue of Victory to the Senate chamber was made by Symmachus in 391 in a great rhetorical flourish, but he was hurried from the imperial presence and set down at the "hundredth milestone" from Milan, despite even the Bishop of Milan admitting that the Senator's rhetoric was admirable; his argument, however, was wrong.

Perhaps the last official gasp of paganism was during the short, troubled usurpation by Attalus in 409-10, when he was sponsored as Emperor by the Goths besieging Rome. The Goths were Arian Christians, considered heretics by the Roman church. Attalus, the head of the pagan party among Senators, agreed to an Arian baptism, but he declared, during his short ascendancy, a vision of the renewal of the old religion stretching across both empires. When Alaric left Rome, Attalus' hopes died, but the practice of paganism, the practice of revering the lares and penates in shrines at homes died hard. Senators held onto the traditional religion because it was part of the tradition that had dominated their lives for 800 years, but they also argued that it was the abandonment of the ancient gods that had caused all the disasters being visited upon the Empire. Since Senators held the highest offices, since they acted as judges to their dependents, since judges came from the same class, and vicarii and prefects did as well, it is not surprising that the Emperors' decrees against the old religion were often not enforced.

In fact an argument can be made that the rapid and forced conversion to the new faith, and especially the coercion attempted by the Emperors, at least added to the ethos of non-compliance among the official classes. If they were still pagans at heart, and laws were being promulgated that read as the following:

Proscription of their goods and exile shall restrain the pagans who survive, if ever they be apprehended in the performance of accursed sacrifices to demons, although they ought to be subjected to capital punishment. 16.23 enacted 423.

Why wouldn't they evade the laws? The situation was a little like the response of Americans to Prohibition: widespread evasion and the creation of alternative institutions that provided ways around the law. In the case of fifth century Rome, however, there was no repeal.

The religious upheaval in the fourth century (completed in the fifth) is paralleled by the rise of conservative, fundamentalist, or evangelical Christianity today, and by its political strength, especially among Republicans. And just as the Romans' move to suppress all competing religions became a policy of the autocracy, so, too, has "the Christian Right" gone far to dominate conservative circles and the Republican Party. They make no secret of their desire to establish a "Christian" state in the US. It is unclear as yet if secular opponents can prevent them, but the latter may be analogous to those Senators of old who evaded, and helped others evade the anti-pagan statutes. By Sidonius' generation they weren't resisting, anymore; they were accepting the new religion and even leading it.

Christianity became part of the official and unofficial ideology of almost all Romans by the end of the Empire. Old skeptics like Sidonius became Bishops (Sidonius is even counted as a saint!) as the imperial government receded and new leadership was needed to resist the incursions of the barbarians. Earlier, Sidonius had been almost treasonous in his accommodations with the Visigothic King Theodoric, and only a very casual Catholic Christian. Dealing with Theodoric's successor, Euric, was much more difficult, however, because Euric was a determined and intolerant Arian, and much more determined to take over larger and larger parts of Gaul. Sidonius as Bishop actually led the inhabitants of Clermont in resisting Euric's siege; he was exiled to Bordeaux by the triumphant Euric for several years as a consequence.

The ideology promoted by the Catholic Church in this period was one that had initially been set up by the great church Council of Nicaea called by Emperor Constantine. It not only established the Trinity, and its meaning, but the Creed. In fact, to be a Christian you didn't have to know much else. What was critical politically, however, was the Apostolic Succession, which set the clergy apart from, and above, the laity. In addition, the orthodox position established a cosmology that looked familiar, a monarchy ruled over by God and his angels--of various ranks--as the physical world was ruled over by the Emperor and his officials. Priests and bishops not only looked like the familiar officials in the Empire's hierarchy (and adopted some of the same titles: vicarius for the diocese, for example), but many were drawn from the same classes--not all, but enough of them.

Some historians have maintained that the reason that the Franks ultimately prevailed in Gaul and Spain, and not the Goths, was because the Goths were Arian, and therefore in opposition to the Church hierarchy; the Bible was translated into Gothic in the fourth century; Arian Christianity belonged to the Goths and Vandals, not to the Romans. Where Goths and Vandals conquered, Catholic clergy were persecuted, and churches were purposely desecrated. That made it hard for Italians, or Gauls, or Spanish to accommodate the Goths. The Franks, on the other hand, who were pagan longer, converted directly to Catholic Christianity and therefore could easily work with the Church, even though they were less civilized.

And just as the Imperial officials, and the Senators as landlords, had life or death powers over their subjects, and their subjects were supposed to accept their authority (and those of their overseers) unquestioningly (the alternative was to flee to the hills), parishioners were expected to accept the authority of the priest without demur, and the priest was expected to defer to the Bishop.

Conservative Christianity today, has a long history in the United States; in some sense it goes back to the emotional revivalism of the Great Awakening in the 1730's prior to the Revolutionary War period. However, the current fundamentalist movement didn't really take conceptual shape until the 1920's. Bruce Lawrence defines it as

"The affirmation of religious authority as holistic and absolute, admitting of neither criticism nor reduction; it is expressed through the collective demand that specific creedal and ethical dictates derived from scripture be publicly recognized and legally enforced."

It's interesting how closely this describes the Christianity of the Catholic Church in the fifth century. The major difference is that in the fifth century, scripture was a concern only of the priests and bishops, and the creed was taught by rote, because most believers were illiterate; it was the priests who read portions of the Bible to their parishioners, and they read them in high church Latin. This became harder and harder for the lay people to understand, since their own language was slowly transmuting into the modern Romance languages of today, so a case could be made that the Medieval Church became more and more of a mystery religion as time went on.

A major Protestant innovation was that believers ought to be literate, so that they could read the Bible themselves, because the church, as institution, was not inerrant or infallible (it is, still, according to the Catholic Church). For fundamentalists, one of the core doctrines is the inerrancy of the Bible, even though it has been translated many times. Some fundamentalists hold that the King James translation was guided by God and therefore every word of it is literally true, while others insist that only the "original autographs" were inerrant, and these were lost long ago; translations may be close to these originals but there is no guarantee that they are wholly inerrant. However, if passages seem to contradict each other, or common sense, that is the failing of the believer's exegesis, not a failure of the text. This is why, in practice at least, collective religious authority is still imperative, even if the Apostolic Succession was rejected by Protestants. In other words, even though there is no laying on of hands by a successor to Peter (except in the Catholic and Episcopal churches) to create a Priest with mystical powers, it still takes a Minister, a church, a church council like the Southern Baptist Convention, to tell you what the words mean. Since the Bible is True, the meanings are absolute and cover all aspects of life.

In both the fifth century and 21st century church models, authority is (at least pragmatically) found within the church leadership; believers are supposed to believe and do as they are exhorted by their church leaders. Neither of these are democratic models; they are autocratic, modeled really on the Imperial hierarchy established by Diocletian and Constantine. Yet fundamentalist and related churches (evangelical, Pentecostal) are the fastest growing religious groups in the United States, and the most politically mobilized. Politically, they are often joined by like movements within the Catholic Church.

Why are they the fastest growing? Bruce Lawrence's subtitle: "the fundamentalist revolt against the modern age," says it all; modernity creates tremendous stresses on people; a religion of absolutes provides a foundation to an existence that otherwise appears to be constantly shifting and changing, out of control. In other words, modernization, which tends to remove the sacred, to secularize, will be resisted by people who search for meaning in the sacred. Any evening spent surfing TV will demonstrate the overwhelming secularism of most of modern society. Fundamentalist religion offers both "re-sacralization" and certainty. Fundamentalism's global success (in Islam, Hinduism and Judaism, as well) is because it offers certainty--something that otherwise eludes modern man.

I don't see this as some conspiracy of the selfish class, but a coincidence of factors that helps to promote selfish class dominance; the trend toward fundamentalist churches is helped by it in turn. The growth of conservative fundamentalist Christian religion establishes an ideology that reinforces the position of the corporate and governing elites: it reinforces authority and discipline, economic discipline, especially.

Because of its historical antecedents, fundamentalist Christians also usually subscribe to the Calvinist ideology that wealth comes from moral rectitude and hard work. In other words, those who are rich and famous have proof of their own moral and religious worth; those who are poor lack religious worth, or at least the proof of it, despite what Jesus said about the rich and poor.

This kind of religion will tend to support any policy that will reward wealth, while opposing anything that would require wealth to be shared for social purposes, or that restricts or discourages people from accumulating as much as they can. The wealthy are likely to support churches that teach this, since it makes them feel good and look good, as well as do well. So, part of the reason for the growth of the movement--aside from its appeal in providing absolute answers--will also be that the churches and missions are well-funded.

The political consequences of "conservative religion" are compatible with what we know to be the agenda of the selfish class, so it becomes part of the ideology. Conservative church leaders would likely favor tax cuts for the wealthy, but also consumption taxes, since that will only tax what you shouldn't have too much of anyway; indulgence is sinful. This is especially true when it comes to the "sin" taxes. The Calvinist idea, translated into modern dress, is also inimical to labor unions; you should cooperate with and follow the directives of the entrepreneur, or manager, not question them, since by his very position he clearly ought to be respected.

Maybe it is going too far to say that a contemporary manager or boss is comparable to the Senator's overseer or the Senator himself in the fifth century: the Senator was blessed by his social position and therefore a peasant or a slave was expected to defer to him without question. But a contemporary boss is also blessed by his achievements, according to the neo-Calvinist point of view, so there may be more of a tendency to defer to higher authority for fundamentalists than for secularists, or for people in the more liberal churches.

There is also a reciprocal tendency to think of the poor as lacking in moral virtue: otherwise why would they be poor? Indolence and laziness, those are the reasons, therefore they shouldn't be coddled. Their very position shows that they are lacking in moral virtue.

Liberal churches (most Episcopal churches, Quakers, Universalist-Unitarians, Presbyterian churches, and others) tend to emphasize Christ's social teachings from parts of the Gospel like the Sermon on the Mount, speaking of feeding the hungry, and opposing wars. Their members are active in soup kitchens and other social welfare activities, although the fundamentalist mega-churches have a large presence there as well.

What is different about the liberal "mainstream" churches is their tendency to translate their commitment into support for direct government action, or liberal ideology; the fundamentalist churches have actually gained support, through President Bush, for "faith-based initiatives" in which the government funds church-based social welfare services, but they have supported a more punitive approach to the "needy." And one that permits proselytizing.

Both religious groupings are carrying out the tradition of the Church established in the fifth century, when it fed the poor after the dole began to fail, but the fundamentalists are closer to that tradition, since, as I've pointed out in an earlier chapter, the Church in the fifth century did not attempt to solve the problem through government action. Feeding the poor was a stop-gap, and a means to extend power; it was more compatible with an autocratic ideology.

The part of conservative religious ideology that may give the selfish class most trouble, that has created the most political problems, has to do with sexual morality: abortion, homosexuality and the role of women. However, the conservative side of all three issues would further reinforce the patriarchal, authoritarian model of authority: outlawing abortion increases the power of men, since women then become less than autonomous; they have no right to decide whether to give birth; criminalizing or discriminating against homosexuality reinforces male dominance (while reassuring people who are afraid of the changes brought about by modernity), and the subordination of women increases male authority by definition.

A good case can be made that the "liberal" positions on all three issues are actually more compatible with the economic interests of the selfish class, but also with modernity. If women have fewer children, they can work more; if same-sex couples are recognized, there will be less likelihood of disruption in the work-force from pregnancy, especially unplanned pregnancies; finally, if women achieve substantial equality, then the talent and skills pool from which corporations can draw will be much larger. The most backward nations are those in which women are excluded from the work-force, or from acquiring the skills necessary to participate in a modern economy, countries like Afghanistan and the Sudan, parts of India like Bihar, as contrasted with parts like Kerala.

Is it significant that Emperors Constantine, Constantius, Valentinian, Theodosius and Valentinian III all decreed punishments for ravishments that for the first time punished the woman, even if she had consented? These decrees were issued in 321, 349, 364, 374, and 421, and they became more and more draconian. The status of women was not very high during most of the Empire. By its end, when Christian Emperors imposed their values through these decrees, the status of women had declined even further. According to previous law, consent was a defense for both the man and the woman, but under Constantine's decree, "The girl, herself, will be held liable as a participant in the crime….If willing agreement is discovered in the girl, she shall be punished with the same severity as her ravisher." In other words, the stricter sexual morality demanded by present-day conservative Christians was paralleled by the Emperors' insistence on stricter morality when the Roman Empire was becoming Christian.

Given the turmoil of the times, it is not surprising that a significant movement within the church in the fifth century was to go into retreat; this was the period when monks became important in both the East and the West. While monasteries became the repositories of whatever learning survived, they also modeled a new ideology, or ethos, one of renunciation. It was an appropriate model for times when "war-bands" could ride into view at a moment's notice and invading Goths, or Suevii, Franks, or Vandals, Burgundians, or Lombards could take control of the local countryside and demand their share--of whatever wealth remained. Renunciation was an ethos that was condemned by the pagan Senators, however, and even by the Roman mob. They saw it as unpatriotic, which it probably was.

One of the reasons asceticism even drove the mob to riot might have been that it called into question their only privileges other than the dole: the games and the baths; it challenged their way of life, in fact their practical ideology. For the Senators, asceticism also threatened their whole way of life, and yet, time and time again in Sidonius' letters, he protests that the banquet he had just attended, or the baths he had just described were not excessive, were spare and in good taste, that no one should look at them askance. Apparently some people did, and when he became Bishop, Sidonius announced that he would attempt a sparer, unadorned style of writing to comport with his new position.

However, one of the elements of Sidonius and his class's world view were the Greek and Roman classics--pagan all--that he and his fellows were drilled in from an early age. The secular literature of the time fairly burst with classical allusions, quips and devices. Style was all-important, content was not; in fact Sidonius, Ausonius and others seem to have been most at home when they had nothing to say. Only the religious writers: Augustine, Salvian, etc. appeared to care about what they said rather than how they said it.

So, the fourth and fifth centuries were periods of relatively rapid change in the official ideology, but some things remained the same. Leaders still were revered and obeyed, but the landlord and overseer were supported (usually) by the priest, who was ultimately answerable to the Bishop, who was in turn answerable to the council of bishops for the region, and later to the Bishop of Rome. The landlord was nominally answerable to the Emperor (although as many decrees in the Theodosian Code make clear, he often didn't listen). The Emperor was also seen as the right hand of God on earth, and the landlord as his deputy--at least as far as the official ideology would have defined things.

The Church dealt with widespread and growing illiteracy by having the priest and bishop pass down to the people what the dogma was, what it meant and what to do about it. The pattern of the Catholic Church as repository of the written word was a practical response to widespread illiteracy that preceded its dominance, but it also increased its power. Even most succeeding barbarian Kings and princes were illiterate and the literacy of the Senators receded as the power of the Empire waned. So, the repository and teacher of the official ideology rather rapidly became the Church.

Since the US does not have an official church, can there be an official ideology? Of course there is, but it is largely secular, enshrined in our constitution and collected laws. As I indicated above, the interpretation of that ideology has undergone changes recently. While the official Roman ideology was of a divine absolutism, American constitutional law established political institutions with limited authority. The three branches of federal government and the separate state governments were not only vested with specific powers, but with opposing powers. Part of the official ideology was the idea of "checks and balances," i.e. that the separate institutions would compete, and would protect their own powers from encroachment by the other branches.

One of the main disputes current in official and constitutional circles is whether the President, in his role as Commander in Chief, ought to be limited at all. The "unitary" executive written about by Justices Scalia and Thomas, Justice Alito, and Professor John Yoo ought not to be so limited, they argue, especially if we are in "a state of war." This pushes the checks and balances aside--at least for the national emergency.

But the "war," by President Bush's definition, is not just against Iraqi insurgents and the Afghan Taliban, but against "terror." Since terror is a strategy not a group or a country, it is not surprising that Bush has said it will last a generation. It is convenient, at very least, to expand the definition of presidential war powers at the same time when the President asserts that we are in an un-ending war. The argument for a unitary presidency goes further: independent executive institutions like the Federal Reserve and the Securities and Exchange Commission ought to be directly answerable to the President according to this argument, whereas they were set up as independent and non-political bodies. These are arguments about ideology.

And terrorists like Osama bin Laden cooperate, i.e reinforce the growing authoritarian ideology: by issuing threats and attacking vulnerable targets. I don't mean to imply that the Bush administration was somehow working with Osama (I doubt that it was), only that the actions of one appeared to reinforce the effectiveness of the other.

The invasion of Iraq offered a tremendous opportunity to bin Laden's organization, while attacks in Spain and London, and threats to attack the US again could only help the project of executive power expansion in Washington. It would help even if Bush were replaced by someone like Hillary Clinton. It is likely, that Osama's anti-Bush message in October of 2004 was actually meant to help Bush win the election; apparently it did. So, you have the phenomenon of the two ideological opponents actually helping each other by their opposition.

In the fifth century, executive power was not strengthened by the incursions of barbarians (the equivalents of our terrorists?), although invasions did reinforce the need for an autocratic Imperial leadership. The absolutist nature of the Empire had been developed long before, in response to the military tensions and civil war faced at the end of the Republic.

However, here's the curious part. The ideology subscribed to by Emperors Theodosius, Honorius, and later, and the growing prominence of the Church in the corridors of power, led to policies and events that otherwise would appear irrational; they were probably counterproductive, but not decisively so.

The church and the Imperial establishment staged elaborate religious events, like the adventus, in which the Emperor and all his courtiers presided over the presentation to the basilica of sacred relics (finger-bones, etc. of saints and martyrs) with the implied expectation that the saints would protect the Empire and the Emperor from the threats of invaders. Substantial resources went into these displays, since they were one of the reasons why both Emperor and court had to decorate themselves, their carriages, their horses and their attendants with masses of gold, and jewels sufficient to dazzle.

Of course the adventus acted as a morale booster, when everything seemed to be falling apart, but it also was a substitute for effective action, policies like conscripting, arming and training the populace to resist the incursions. The gold and jewels worn in procession could have helped to finance a more adequate defense.

The point here is that ideology can lead to policies that may be irrational on their face, but they are a natural or logical outgrowth of the world-view projected by the ideology. In the case of late Imperial Rome, the creation of a religious state with a leader who was seen as God's supreme instrument on earth, at the head of the secular hierarchy, complemented by the bishop presiding over the church hierarchy, inevitably led to impressive staged events that brought both of them together--along with a dazzling display of representatives of the two bureaucracies--as a substitute for effective action.

Are there contemporary parallels to the adventus? Symbolic action that takes the place of necessary policy is probably pretty common. Symbolic action derived from religion?

How about the government's insistence on cutting off funds to foreign health providers if they even talk about abortion? That doesn't gain us friends: we vote with countries like Iran and Saudi Arabia in the UN on issues like this. US insistence on ineffective sexual abstinence programs also does not further US interests in stability, for example, in the impoverished and chaotic nations of Africa.

Another example: Bush's promotion of elections in the Middle East. This has not served US interests at all well recently. In Iran a hard-line nationalist was overwhelmingly elected (although the election was tarnished by wholesale disqualification of more moderate candidates); in Iraq, Shiite religious parties swept the list twice in 2005, and both Dawn and SCIRI were sponsored and supported by the Iranian regime.

The ruling coalition will have to work with Kurdish parties, which will dilute the pro-Iranian tilt somewhat, and they may attempt some accommodation with the US as long as US troops are in Iraq, but here we are faced not only with a truculent Iranian nationalist, but after spending hundreds of billions to secure Iraq, we are faced with a pro-Iranian government, elected with our help. It is not only pro-Iranian, but it is in favor of regional autonomy, and appears to wish to overawe the Sunni minority and monopolize government jobs. That probably means that the simmering insurgency will come to a boil in a full-fledged civil war, especially if US troops leave. You have to wonder.

Maybe Saddam, or a replacement, would have been better, as well as cheaper, but that wouldn't conform to our democratic ideology. As if that weren't enough, there is the Hamas majority won in Palestine by a landslide, which puts the Palestinian government into the hands of the faction that is most militantly anti-Israel and extremely anti-American. And clearly the election was fair.

So, we draw parallels between the fifth century adventus and the 21st century elections in previously non-democratic states. We promote free and fair elections; our enemies get elected. And since the Islamists are ideologically opposed to democracy, it is very possible that their victories will mark the only free and fair elections these countries will have for a long time, now that they have gained power. This is a symbolic politics that is even more counterproductive than the adventus, because it has consequences that are very real, not symbolic at all.

Of course our own elections may not have been so free and fair the last several times around, as I have pointed out in previous chapters. So, the ideology of elections does not necessarily mean the reality of free and fair elections, only the symbol of them. In fact, Romans had symbolic elections and symbolic legislative deliberations, while the reality was far removed from old "Republican" forms.

The Senate kept on meeting and considering policy (until about 524), but it had no power; the Emperor and his bureaucracy made the decisions; occasionally, the Senate was consulted in order to maintain the ancient forms, but the Senators knew their expected role: support the Emperor and don't ask uncomfortable questions. If they did ask they might find themselves being sent into exile, or at least being set down at the hundredth milestone, as Symmachus found out.

Our own political constitution could evolve in the same direction; that is why the decisions of a Roberts court, in which Alito joins Scalia, Roberts and Thomas on the high bench could prove so important. They don't frame their arguments for the unitary executive in religious terms: the Romans did that both before and after the Empire became Christian. But the idea of the undivided and unchecked power of the Presidency does look similar to the kind of government Rome had developed by the fifth century. The story of autocratic government in Rome did not have a good ending: the Empire was corrupt, ineffective and finally went bankrupt and fell.

Another aspect of ideology is economic, not overtly political or legal/constitutional. Economics in fifth century Rome was a primitive philosophy, not a science at all, and the economic structure of the Empire was constructed very differently from a modern state.

Markets, to the extent that they were allowed to operate at all, were significantly interfered with by the government: the dole was a major government intervention that massively skewed the production of food and its transport, and caused the government to create whole categories of state servants bound to their functions and status by birth: to give examples only from the dole complex: sea captains and sailors responsible for delivering the grain shipments and millers, bakers and butchers responsible for providing the food to the citizens.

Not only were none allowed to desert their posts (although many did when they got the chance) but the Emperors were continually attempting to devise new ways to recruit workers to these despised positions: the daughter of a baker, for example, could marry someone who was not a baker, but then her husband would be required to become one.

Another intervention: Emperors issued decrees stating that sea captains would suffer dire punishments for delaying delivery of their shipments, but since the decrees were repeated, and the later punishments listed were even more dire, clearly the practice of dallying at port after port continued: "Every shipmaster shall know that within two years he shall either deliver the receipt for the cargo which he has accepted, or he shall prove the vicissitudes of his perils."

After all, there were no economic incentives for delivering the grain in timely fashion; the prices were set by the state. I suspect that shipmasters were dilatory in delivering their cargoes, however, because they were probably selling them elsewhere. Shipmasters were given equestrian rank, so they were supposedly among the honored members of the society.

There was no understanding of markets at all in the fifth century, at least among government circles. Blackmarketeers probably did have an inkling about how markets worked, but decree after decree by Emperors begins from the simple assumption that the government can simply declare economic policy and it will be followed. "…shipmasters shall be compelled to build their ships according to the requisite and constituted size…" "If their fleet should collapse from neglect or from age, it shall be restored by the praetorian prefecture…"

The newly dominant Christian ideology didn't favor markets, either, and idealized renunciation and asceticism. However, until the Senatorial class was swept away in the chaotic decades and century after the fall of Rome, they apparently continued to lend out money at interest. It was one of the bases of their great wealth.

It is likely that Gresham was aware of the history of Roman coinage. In any case the minting of coins by the Emperors demonstrated his law over and over again. As the Empire ran out of money, the purity of coins was reduced: the denarius from 4.5 grams of silver during Republican times to 4 grams under the early Empire, to 3.8 grams under Nero, to less than 50% silver by the reign of Caracalla. In 260 Caracalla issued a new coin (the Antoninianus) worth two denarii, but only containing 1.6 times the silver, thereby saving the state money. During the civil wars of the third century, coins were struck that had only coatings of silver, since armies needed to be paid and the Empire had no money; the Anoninianus had declined to 2-5% silver.

Diocletian again reformed the money system in 301, and new gold and silver coins were struck with regulated amounts of those precious metals. Bronze coins were also struck as they had been before; the government kept on decreeing that people must accept them at the value assigned to them, but even the government would not accept bronze coins in payment: they were of no intrinsic value, since they contained no precious metal.

The idea of fiat money (as in our paper money) did not take hold until the 20th century and in fact did not become predominant as a legal monetary system until the 1970's. By the end of the Empire, about the only currency that retained its value was the gold solidus. Silver coins had only the barest coating of silver, and turned brown after only a little use.

What is interesting to notice here is that only the wealthy used the solidus. Value of the gold currency was important to them, but the barely coated silver and uncoated bronze coins were of no significance.

Economics in the modern era is a fully articulated part of our ideology and we have become much more economically sophisticated than the Romans. We do understand the market, or at least we think we do. We depend on it: it is part of the mainstream ideology, in fact one of its major justifications. We also view Economics instrumentally, i.e. we use its tools to manage the economy in a way that would dazzle and astound the fifth century finance minister (comes sacrarum largitionum, or Count of the Sacred Largesse).

Alan Greenspan, Federal Reserve chairman from 1987-2006 was our guru, the economics expert who miraculously fine-tuned the whole economy to maintain prosperity. And yet, modern Economics has not enabled us to avoid market cycles entirely, nor has Greenspan been able to prevent the US from going massively into debt with China, Japan and others. And, in fact, if you look beneath the surface of modern Economics, it is much less magical, and much more political than most people realize.

From the 1930's through the 1970's Economic orthodox ideology looked rather different from the orthodoxy of today; it was Keynesianism and it was credited with getting us out of the Depression and through World War II. The central idea of Lord Maynard Keynes was that you could manage the economy through fiscal as well as monetary policy; spending by governments could add to, or subtract from overall demand, while demand, itself, market demand for goods and services, drove the economy. Supply of goods, and investments to enable more efficient production of more goods would respond to greater demand.

The central experience of Keynes and the policy-makers of the 30's and 40's was the Great Depression, in which demand for goods and services plummeted, and no one seemed to know what to do about it. The problem was not inflation, but deflation--prices going down because no one had money. President Roosevelt happened on a Keynesian policy of deficit spending and the expansion of government services simply because he was willing to try anything to revive the economy and those policies seemed to work. What the deficits and programs did was to create demand where none had existed.

It is less remembered that FDR also attempted to establish a managed economy through the National Industrial Recovery Act, in which prices had to be negotiated, and could not be lowered. Luckily for FDR and for us, the Supreme Court found the law unconstitutional, so he turned to more expansive experiments, and he eventually found theoretical justification for his policies in the economic writings of Lord Keynesian, i.e an economic ideological system.

There are some significant differences between Keynesian Economics and the current supply-side, monetarist, Chicago-school free-market Economics of today, which has become the preferred Economics since Reagan's election in 1980, in which he touted "supply-side" solutions to the stagflation then facing the nation.

The first difference is one of emphasis: Keynesians worry about demand; supply-siders about supply. There are practical differences. A Keynesian would favor a tax cut that would put money into the pockets of people at the bottom of the income scale so that demand for goods and services would rise most effectively (poor people spend all of their income), and would also favor spending money on government programs aiding those people for the same reason. A Chicago-school economist would favor tax cuts that benefit investors, because investments are critical to expanding the future supply of goods and services.

So, Keynesians would favor a progressive tax in which the wealthy pay the largest share, because, they argued, the wealthy consume less of their income; they can better afford higher taxes, but also the higher taxes on them will reduce overall demand much less than if those taxes were imposed on the poor.

Conservative economists, for so they identify themselves, argue for flat taxes, for reducing taxes on capital gains and for consumption taxes ; these, they claim, will not skew incentives the way progressive taxes do, and will unleash entrepreneurial energy. It is much more important, they argue, to reduce the burdens on the investor. It is the investor who must be given incentives, not the consumer, because they argue, it is the supply side of the economy that government should focus on; consumption will follow.

You can see from just this bare outline that real policy differences will follow from these different economic ideologies. The Keynesian promotes policies that create greater economic equality (or a redistribution of income downwards, however minor), because that would promote demand for goods and services: progressive taxes, social programs, the encouragement of unions, all put money into the hands of people who spend most of it on consumption. Consumption is by far the largest sector in the economy.

For the Chicago school, intervention on the demand side is ineffective, and economic redistribution is inadvisable, since it might reduce incentives for investment, so increasing inequality might be considered a good thing. Unions are not positive to the supply-side economist, because they increase unit costs (or at least so goes the argument; there are counter-arguments), and therefore they are a burden on the investor, who will earn less. If he earns less, he will have less of an incentive to invest.

The takeover by supply-siders preceded Alan Greenspan. It took place with the appointment of Fed Chairman Paul Volcker, by President Carter. Volcker successfully combated stagflation by allowing interest rates to go as high as the market would drive them, plunging the economy into a short, sharp recession in 1981. But it was under Greenspan that monetarist orthodoxy re-emerged (It had been the received wisdom before 1929).

Despite appearing as if he was merely a highly trained technician, who tinkered with interest rates to maintain stability, Greenspan's policy was always tilted towards the interests of investors--and against those of workers; any time demand began to push wages upwards, he put his thumb on the scales, raising interest rates and raising bank reserve requirements to dampen demand, which is one of the reasons why wages have been so sluggish even when corporations are earning huge profits.

On the other hand, Greenspan kept interest rates as low as possible when there were no "wage pressures," because that encouraged investors, although it may have been disastrous policy in terms of US balance of payments, and in creating the real estate bubble.

Greenspan's low interest rate, easy money policies would not have been possible, without the cooperation of the Chinese and Japanese--lending us literally over a trillion dollars. Why they were willing to do so is another story, having to do with their own domestic concerns, but it makes the US particularly vulnerable to external financial pressures.

The other part of current Economics orthodox ideology is found in its international applications, what is termed "free" or unfettered world markets for goods and services. Keynesians were free-marketers as well, but the current orthodoxy, sometimes called The Washington Consensus, is even more extreme, and is promoted not only by US trade policy, but also by the World Trade Organization (WTO), the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund.

Few Economists oppose some version of free trade, now, but opponents to the Washington Consensus sometimes call their alternative "fair trade," meaning that restrictions need to be imposed to protect workers and the environment. There are also economic nationalists who insist that unfettered world markets are too tilted in favor of the large, established global corporations, which can use their huge capital funds to overawe local competitors, unless there are protections like the tariffs the US used to develop its industry in the 19th century.

The Washington Consensus is the establishment ideology in international economics. But it is now facing challenges by left-wing reformers in Latin America, and their critiques point out just why this form of domestic and international Economics has become so entrenched: supply-side domestic policy strengthens corporations and enriches the wealthiest, the investors and managers; the policies of the US, the WTO, the World Bank and the IMF enable large corporations to become truly global, enable them to take over whole national economies, to exploit low wages and natural resources anywhere in the world, to avoid paying most taxes anywhere and to repatriate huge profits to the owners and managers.

The reigning Economic ideology is tailor-made to the interests of the selfish class. It enables them (whether they are American, European, Arabian or Chinese) to funnel tremendous amounts of money into their own pockets from all over the globe. Whether this economic structure will enable real development of global economies is still unknown; some data are not reassuring.

Latin American challenges to this economic ideology (mostly political so far) raise some interesting points. Who should benefit from the resources found in a country? Should nations simply accept that they are going to provide low-wage, unskilled labor to international corporations whose profits are taken out of the country? Will they be condemned to that role, or will the skills they acquire allow them to raise their wages and living standards? Will the corporations then abandon them for the next low-wage haven? Will the sale of public services companies to international corporations provide better services, or just create profits for the foreign corporation? Who will buy the goods and services, if worker wages everywhere are kept down by global competition?

Challenges to both domestic supply-driven economic policies and to "free trade" international economic policies are on the horizon. Global corporations and the selfish class will resist these attacks, and will marshal economic theory, as well as their control over political institutions like the US government and the WTO to combat them.

We should note here that Clinton was almost as much of a global free-trader as Bush. Further, while some of his initiatives (raising the highest marginal tax rate, initiating the Earned Income Tax Credit) might look more like Keynesian Economics, other policies like welfare reform and the North American Free Trade Agreement were firmly within the current economic orthodoxy. And he did reappoint Alan Greenspan.

Therefore the reigning economic ideology is not likely to be challenged unless there are popular movements to do so. The same is true of the role of religion in the reigning consensus on ideology. Unless religious progressives are able to assert the more liberal, reformist doctrines found in places like the Sermon on the Mount, it looks as if more conservative, fundamentalist variants (in both Christianity and Islam) will have little competition appealing to people who find the secular vision of modernity unattractive.

Ideology matters.