A slightly depressing perspective

Sigh. Leave it to History--not unlike grandparents who lived through The Great Depression--to squelch self-pity, particularly the kind that has apocalyptic undertones.

Backstory: My husband and I spent our 2006 vacation in Washington, DC, partly because neither of us had been there before, and partly because one of my passions is Venetian history (particularly the Renaissance period) and the National Gallery of Art's feature exhibit covered that time period (in spades!). Like any self-respecting museum, the NatGal sports a well-stocked bookstore--actually, more than one, IIRC--which is where I scored Patricia Brown Fortini's Private Lives in Renaissance Venice.

Dipping into that reminded me that intrusive government regulation is nothing new, and that there are definitely degrees to "intrusive." In this case, the Venetian patrician class (less than 5% of the city-state's total population) prided itself on maintaining an illusion of solidarity for the lesser classes, and indeed, the world. Part of the process of maintaining this illusion was minimizing the disparity between the richer and poorer echelons in the nobility by tamping down attempts to flaunt wealth. (The history of the Middle Ages and Renaissance is rife with such "sumptuary laws," which were also intended to prevent wealthy merchants from impersonating their social betters, particularly in terms of dress. Such laws were, btw, spectacularly unsuccessful in the face of the Force of Nature that is the impulse to one-up the Joneses.)

Rationale aside, regulating what cloth could make up one's clothing or how much embroidery or lace could be added, or even what kinds of food could not be served at a wedding feast seems more than a bit excessive to our modern (and, in my case, at least, American) sensibilities.

As much I dislike making forays into the political realm, I will go on record that my hope for the option of buying health insurance from a public pool open to all (having seen first-hand what an insulting joke the options for the unemployed can be) has been disappointed by the over-compromised "solution" to the fundamental problem that Americans pay ridiculous per-capita sums for lesser health care outcomes.

But I can't help but wonder whether the solution would have better addressed the problem had some people--people who should have been well-read enough to know better!--would have resorted to constructive debate, rather than hyperventilating sloganeering--or, in some cases, pure self-serving delusion. Call me biased, but I firmly believe that a little historical perspective on "regulation" and "reform" would have gone a very long way. Venice is fascinating for her uniqueness, not least of which because she was, at the height of her power, an remarkably enlightened state built to avoid concentrating too much power in too few hands. And, significantly, her wealth and relative security made her the jewel of Europe, regardless of sumptuary laws.