David Priestland: Merchant, Soldier, Sage

I've just finished David Priestland's new book, Merchant, Soldier, Sage: A New History of Power. As the title suggests, David makes sense of history by juggling his three basic categories, analogous in some ways to capitalists, militarists, and intelligentsia. He defines them as castes, suggesting modes of thinking linked to occupation. David also discusses 'workers' quite a lot, but they rarely got to exercise power.

In general, David argues, a 'caste-balance' is a good thing. In the 1920s, and since 1970s, buccaneering 'merchants' have been hegemonic, with inegalitarian and de-stabilising results. Priestland looks back quite fondly to the post-war golden age of rapid growth and welfarism (whilst admitting its grave problems). Then a coalition of worker and 'sage' held the quick-buck market at bay. (This is quite similar, though with different terms employed, to the analysis in Gerard Dumenil and Dominique Levy's analysis in The Crisis of Neoliberalism (2010); they spoke more of a worker/manger alliance against finance-capital, which they hope to see re-instituted.)

David treats of a lot of themes I look at in my book, though I stick to more of a 'class' framework (tweaked about). I'll not judge whether that this following is also a difference, but David's prose really zips along! He's particularly adept at using portraits of individuals to illustrate wider themes.

There's some very intriguing data employed. For example, David cites the work of Graham Turner, which claims that had Britain and America not let domestic debt rip between 1997 and 2007 (private and government both, presumably), consumption would have been 20 percent lower! (p. 243).

Anyway, it's an outstandingly interesting, well-written and thought-provoking book. Highly recommended!

David's also got an article in the Guardian for you to take a gander at.