The Sage Forge

Whoa!! You may be saying, but let me tell my story.  We can argue the point later.  
We remember them as “Vikings” among English speakers, and know them primarily as the raiders who beset the Scots and Irish.  It was for fear of these Scandinavians that there still stand today in Scotland those ancient stone towers where communities once hid vainly against the marauders, and sought to drive them away with showers of stones.  Less well do we recall them as the Danes of Shakespeare’s histories- who made such inroads into the English landscape you can still see their influence on place-names ending in 'by' (such as Derby and Whitby) or 'thorpe' (as in Mablethorpe).  Even less well do we recall them as the children of the conquerors of northern France who, calling themselves “Normans”, (people of the North) won the Battle of Hastings in 1066 to the effect that the British courtiers of  Chaucer’s day spoke French when they were not addressing commoners.

Russia, a name roughly meaning “place of the red”, bears that name not for the populations of Slavic peoples that dotted the eastern European and western Asian landscapes comprising that vast land, but for the red-headed Viking folk who saw an opportunity to take long-boats up European rivers from the north and then, with a minimal twelve mile portage made easier by enslaved (remember “Slavic”?) laborers, down the Volga River to the Caspian sea and the rich markets of the Orient.

These same Scandinavian people raided Spain and were the mercenary Varangian Guard, providing order for the Byzantine Empire.

Texts I have read, unsurprisingly, draw parallels between the way these people organized themselves and the way mafias are organized.  Familiarity with the two phenomena make it difficult not to wonder at the possibility of a chicken-and-egg relationship.  Who came first?

What Vikings and Mafiosi offered in common was a kind of order.  This they contrasted with the life of disorder they would creatively augment for those who failed to accept their brand of order.  Mafias continue to work this way in modern times.  Ask anyone who has garbage collected in New York City.  Now how is that different from what governments do?

The Russian case is particularly illustrative of what I mean.  The little city-states and tribes that mercurially governed the landscape of Russia-to-be were probably not led by heroes of high-mindedness.  They were more likely bullies of modest ambition and ability who were peaceful enough when unchallenged.  When their relative inefficiency made them unable to meet the challenge of the incessant harassment Viking raiders used to sow disharmony, Viking promises of order could easily undermine their authority.  A few more capable bullies replaced a larger, less capable set of them.

A similar situation faced Britain’s King Harold as he fought William of Normandy six miles from Hastings.  These people and their cousin’s cousins had been harassing the relatively peaceful British for nigh unto three centuries and no one since Alfred the Great had ever effectively fought them.  William’s installation as ruler of Britain did not materially change the life of the common man in Britain, but it did end the raids by long boats on the waterways of the kingdom. Voila!  A more orderly life.

Our government is a long cry from the kind of government revolutionized by the descendants of the Vikings, but we congratulate ourselves too much if we imagine we are immune from the kind of harassment into slavery that happened in Russia or the loss of autonomy of Britain.  From Tammany Hall to any of a thousand southern sheriffs we have seen government take the short step from coercive societal arbitration to orderly criminality.  What is different for us is the “government” is, at least as long as we watch it and hold our version of the Varangian Guard at bay, us.  It is a distinction we must guard every single day.

In Texas we slipped up in the defense of self-government some years ago by letting local governments appoint the boards that actually set property tax assessments.  Furthermore, Texas law permits these boards, that have no reason to fear (or, for that matter, even to respect) us, to raise our appraisals as much as a cumulative 10% per year over any three year period.  Yep, your property taxes can conceivably go up more than 30% in any one year and they can more than double in a given seven years.  The long boats are in your neighborhoods and King Alfred has been dead lo these 1100 years.

An organization that can take what is ours by force for its own benefit is a criminal enterprise when it can ignore our determination to limit its powers.  In the regular legislative session this year Texas state government, if it does so, will at its peril ignore a tidal wave of public outrage by confirming its determination to remain just such an enterprise.  We have the remainder of a regular session during which we either will or will not change its mind.

So, feel like the Vikings are at your door every year at tax time? If you’re a little warm under the collar in the year 2007 it’s up to you to make your government feel the heat.  

Vikings and Texas legislators do not respect what they do not fear.