politburo diktat 2.0

This post is for some of the very astute, perceptive, and insightful commenters at Innocent Bystanders.

Xenophon, Anabasis, I.9
[19] Furthermore, whenever [Cyrus] saw that a man was a skillful and just administrator, not only organizing well the country over which he ruled, but producing revenues, he would never deprive such a man of territory, but would always give him more besides. The result was that they toiled with pleasure and accumulated with confidence …

The first word of interest is δεινὸν, translated here as “skillful.” Usually δεινὸν means “terrible,” and just as we might say “terribly clever,” the Greek δεινὸν λέγειν, means “to speak cleverly,” or maybe “to speak awfully well.” The interesting part about this usage is that δεινὸν doesn’t modify anything; it stands by itself.

Another point is that Cyrus might be called an early proponent of the Laffer Curve. In ancient times, empires and rulers pretty much squeezed subject territories for all they were worth. But not Cyrus. Note the idea that he wanted his subordinates to “organize the country well, and administer it with justice, so that it would produce more revenues.” It’s not exactly like our modern debates over marginal tax rates, but Cyrus clearly operated on the principle that “confiscatory” policies were counter-productive to the state’s revenue.

Oh boy. This post is gonna get an Instalanche; and it’s going to get picked up by Boing-Boing and Slashdot, for sure! See, I read in Blogging 101 that the way to really “pimp your blog” is to post randomly, sometimes skip days on end, change your politics periodically to drive away your base readers, go on obsessive streaks about obscure topics that really don’t interest anyone but yourself (one month, evolution; next month, Ancient Greek!), and then just when traffic is at an all-time low — write a provocative political post to skyrocket your blog-pimped traffic! It works every time.