Many claiming they have no interest in history are attentive to the sixth-century A.D. predictions of Nostradamus and the fifth-century B.C. Mayan prophecies. If the treasury received $5 every time the media mentioned one of these historic fantasies, our national financial crisis would be resolved.

The Erie Canal

In a time when civilization sometimes feels like a dangerous gamble, it makes sense to remember and celebrate historic successes like the Erie Canal that exemplify our capacity to improve human circumstances. Civilization’s success stories are less dramatic than Nostradamus’s cataclysms, but they have the advantage of being based on facts.

In 1800, the biggest obstacle to national development was the Appalachian mountain range, which made it impossible to move bulk freight such as corn and wheat from the heartland to the East Coast. Mountain roads were rough, long and scarce. The Mohawk River Valley, a channel between the Catskills and the Adirondacks, was the only natural passage through the Appalachians from Alabama to the St. Lawrence River. The Erie Canal was routed through it.

The project’s cost was unprecedented. Private developers tried to build the canal and went bankrupt. A delegation of New Yorkers appealed to President Thomas Jefferson for federal support. Jefferson called the project “a little short of madness” and “said to come back in 100 years because the project would bankrupt the nation let alone the state,” according to Wikipedia.

New York Governor De Witt Clinton took up the cause; he was mocked. But in 1817 Clinton persuaded the New York Legislature to appropriate $7 million.

The canal became one of the most incredible success stories in American history when it opened eight years later. Freight expectations were exceeded immediately. The canal provided a navigable connection between the upper Midwest and Western Europe via New York City, which became America’s leading city, surpassing other Atlantic coast ports including Boston, Philadelphia and Baltimore.

The canal opened large areas of the American frontier to settlement and economic development and drastically cut transport costs. New York is called the Empire State primarily because of this unique connection through the Great Lakes to the Midwestern heartland.

What lessons can we derive from this story?

– Keep national and state government strong. There’s so much anti-government talk these days, it’s easy to forget that both the Erie Canal and the U.S. Constitution were incredibly successful government projects.

– Take advantage of ideas and developments from every nation. The Erie Canal project was inspired by a successful canal project in Britain and was completed using technology developed by the Dutch. Most of the workers were German-Irish and Scotch-Irish immigrants.

Many historic successes came as a complete surprise. Civilization is about identifying and developing natural advantages. There is reason to be hopeful.

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Before Thanksgiving weekend 2011 passes into history, let us be thankful for people who pay their taxes, because they are supporting the people who don’t.

Benjamin Franklin famously wrote that “In this world nothing can be said to be certain, except death and taxes.” Indeed, civilization cannot exist without taxes, by which we pay for services including national defense, clean water, public safety, education and, increasingly, health care. People are likelier to accept their share of the tax burden when such services are efficiently provided and the taxes are fairly administered.

The exact day in human history when taxes were invented will never be known. Tax resistance probably began the same day. Cynicism, anger, frustration and skepticism about taxes has been a global phenomenon in every age. Resentment against taxes played a part in many historical uprisings. In 1794, settlers west of the Alleghenies rebelled against a new federal tax designed to help pay down the national debt. President George Washington recruited an army of 15,000 men to fight tax resistance. Many politicians today cultivate their constituencies by opposing this source of their own power.

A national income tax was considered in 1814, to pay for defense spending during the War of 1812. It was not enacted because that war ended just one year later, in 1815.

Cost estimates for the Iraq and Afghanistan wars to date range from 1 trillion to 5 trillion dollars. No special tax to cover these expenses has been imposed. Is it patriotic to saddle future generations with the costs of today’s wars? They are being added to our national debt.

A recent article in Forbes Magazine, “Rise of the Shadow Economy: Second Largest Economy in the World” (http://www.forbes.com/sites/benzingainsights/2011/11/07/rise-of-the-shadow-economy-second-largest-economy-in-the-world/), faults governments for taxation and bureaucratic regulation inhibiting healthy commerce. “Of course, the black market extends to illegal activities fitting the characteristics of classical crimes such as burglary, murder, robbery, drug dealing, but much of the shadow economy is made up of individuals who are not what average Americans would consider criminals,” according to the article. Workers at flea markets, roadside produce stands, bake sales, babysitters and kids selling lemonade are presented as “embracing their entrepreneurial spirit … and seeking to better their lives.”

Assuming that the many sectors around the world that are currently granted special tax benefits will continue to enjoy them, and that the percentage of the human population that survives and even thrives in the shadow economy continues to grow, who pays for civilization? Taxpayers.

This Thanksgiving, we should all be grateful to the apparently shrinking portion of the human constituency who pay their taxes. As Oliver Wendell Holmes once said, “Taxes are the price we pay for a civilized society.”

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