Money

Ancient states did not produce ‘budgets’. Ninety per cent of Greeks and Romans lived in self-sufficient farming communities; the rest sought work in the cities. No one expected the state to provide them with ‘services’ except in the case of famine or natural disasters, while state budgeting played a role only when war threatened or an attack planned. In 483 bc Athens’s miners at Laurium struck a massive vein of silver, and the Assembly decided to distribute it among the population. Then the far-sighted Themistocles intervened, suggesting it would be better spent on building 200 triremes with which to create a maritime empire that would rule the Aegean. The Assembly agreed.

In my mid-twenties, my one-bedroom in Astoria, Queens, developed a roach problem. I don’t mean the odd single scurry disappearing irretrievably beneath the fridge, either. Oh, it started that way. But I didn’t take measures when the situation was manageable because roaches gave me the creeps, and so many activities beckoned that were much more fun. Between a small shelf and the kitchen wall I stored spare brown paper bags – from which I began to detect a rustling. At some point, the bags began to move. Beside them, the wall gathered an undulating shadow that I trained myself never to look at directly; like Faye Dunaway in Little Big Man, I would ‘avert my eyes at the necessary moment’. One night a friend came to dinner and stared at that wall in frank revulsion.

As every single one of my friends – and their spouses – is a tasteful soul, it goes without saying that every wedding I have ever attended has been the last word in elegance. You do hear things, though. Of Balham-based chartered accountants behaving like Victorian land magnates by renting stately homes for their nuptials. Of multi-venue events in five-star resorts by the lapping shores of the Mediterranean Sea. Of women having to buy, rent and borrow ten dresses for the summer that makes up wedding season. I could go on. So I am not surprised to read that one in three people is now turning down wedding invitations because they’ve become so expensive.

I stopped charging my phone beside my bed four years ago and have never regretted it. Alarm clocks seemed destined to go the way of the DVD, but I am on a solo mission to restore them to bedside tables around the world. The harsh tone of the alarm is certainly no match for what Spotify can give us, but it’s worth avoiding the 30 minutes of doomscrolling that the phone inevitably causes. Since making the switch from the waking blue-light bath, I have rediscovered those early hours of the morning, with their associated peace and silence, before children and work invade my limited headspace. Carving out that half hour before the noise begins has helped restructure my priorities in life. Every year the Pope chooses a preacher for the Roman Curia’s annual Lenten retreat at the Vatican.

Money is a pagan god because it has value only as long as people believe it does. Refuse to believe, and the value disappears. In the 3rd century ad, the Roman empire was under intense pressure, and emperors resorted to increasing taxes and debasing coinage to fund its protection. The result was terrifying inflation. Cash became worthless. Soldiers refused to be paid in it and the state to accept tax in it. So ‘requisitioning of supplies’ – goods, materials, labour – became, in effect, taxation ‘in kind’ to pay for the military; and the army plundered at random to ‘collect’ it. The emperor Diocletian rationalised the system by organising this requisitioning of supplies into a coherent tax scheme.

This Middle East conflict ought to be much easier than the oil embargo which followed the Yom Kippur war of 1973. The Arabs came quite close to winning, whereas Iran has no chance. The embargo, imposed on all countries, including Britain, which had supported Israel in the war, was backed by almost all Arab states, few of which were fanatically Islamist, and by the Soviet Union. It lasted for six months. America depended on Saudi Arabia alone for 25 per cent of its oil (only a bit over 5 per cent of imports today). The price rose by 400 per cent. The economic disruption was massive. In 2026, by contrast, almost all Middle Eastern states detest Iran and want their oil to flow without let or hindrance. There is plenty of money and power in the world to reopen the Strait of Hormuz.