Well, maybe not blow it up, but maybe before someone blows us all up. Pre CapitalismHunters and gathers As mankind evolved, we started hunting and gathering food, we lived in small family centred groups ... clans ... tribes. Some were ruled by the strongest man, others were ruled by committees of elders. As time passed these groups fought, some took over others etc until the groups grew larger, always the strongest leader who could gather a close following to allow him to control the rest. Farmers and artisans. As time past the people figured they could farm the animals they hunted and grow that which they gathered. The warlords that ruled each group grew more powerful. Innovation had given them the sword and the spear. The landowners, once warlords were now just lords, they rules at the tip of a spear or slice of the sword. The peasants on the land worked the farms, supplying the lords with the produce, of course, they also needed food and clothes so the Lords gave them the bare essentials to live, well nearly everything, they needed them to aspire to work harder with the prospect of getting more. The lords grew richer and stronger building armies to keep their lands and peasants from the ever-present threat of other lords. Over time the lords made allegiances with each, the strongest would rule the other lords and their peasants. These lords were now the kings and took some of each lords wealth for protection, the kings building bigger, stronger armies, conquering more and more land, taking more and more spoils, becoming richer and more powerful. These kingdoms become nations, all the wealth lay with the Kings and Lords. Over time traders and agents were employed to do the business of the kings and lords, armies enforced taxation to ensure that the wealth stayed at the top. They needed to pay their armies to go out and conquer other lands to steal the spoils. Slaves, raw materials, minerals, and land. The great pyramid called Capitalism was about to be born. The kings sat at the top, with their families they owned obscene amounts of land and therefore people. They had power, armies and eventually ships. They had conquered all they could locally, wars were hard and expensive, better to go where the picking was easier. The New World, a gold mine to rape, pillage and plunder. They found excuse after excuse, like the inhabitants, were not human, some sort of ape, black and not civilized by the standards of the invaders. The kings used the superstitions of the people to rule them, and one superstition, in particular, was about to climb to the top. The Catholic Church. Christianity was a superstition born out of the invasion and conquest of North Africa by the Romans, the people needed something to cling to some hope. That hope once was given to Abraham who started the Jewish superstition. The Jews though weren't really protecting the people, instead got in bed with the Romans so the people needed something to give them hope in a hopeless situation. Christianity was invented to give hope to those crushed by the Romans and their Jewish servants. Unable to survive, they moved to Europe, just across the sea. In Rome, the administration saw the danger. People were preaching to their people, telling them that there was hope, that they were really free. The administration saw this and saw that it was bad, for them that is. In a spark of genius the Roman administration took this new superstition on board, they had to, it had a God of its own and the new God seemed to make their collection of deities that had kept the people under control were taking a hiding from this new benevolent God of Abraham. The Roman Catholic Church was born. The Dark Ages The church had one great fear, losing the wealth and power they had. They had all the rulers by now in their pocket so what they said went really. Now some people were too smart to fall for the illusion so the church, who already had the Kings scared, set out to kill anyone too smart and destroy any chance of the ordinary people getting knowledge. Books were burned, people slaughtered by the thousands until they had purged any intellectual resistance. Physical resistance was no problem. Islam Islam happened to help the now getting more and more disgruntled Jews. Jesus had come, but the Jews soon put an end to his rot, well they did it at the behest of the Romans who saw him as a threat to Rome. After Christianity had bugged out of North Africa leaving the Jews there and being adopted by the Roman government, this Dude, Mohamad started his own group. Of course, he stuck to the God of Abraham as he was fairly well instilled into the superstitions minds of the people. He kept Jesus too, just demoted him from the son of God, part of the Trinity to one of a prophet, the same as himself but a slightly lower rank. Islam for the most restricted itself to North Africa and any close by countries they could conquer. We will leave Islam here, it plays only minor roles in the future until recently so we will pick Islam up again in our brief history of mankind. So we go back to Rome where the Catholic Church has become the most powerful entity in the known world. Riches beyond imagination from plundering others, armies so strong they could defeat other Kingdoms. From time to time they would lend their army to Kings where they thought it would be to their (the Catholic Churches) benefit. Naturally, the Church took their share of the spoils of these wars as well as a cut of taxation etc. The church did notice however, that a lot of people still owned land and had riches, some rulers were not playing their game, they must be devil worshipers, well that was a good excuse to kill them and steal their land, goods, property including slaves. So the Catholic church went around moping up all the loose ends, killing anyone who they wanted the wealth from under the disguise of ridding the world of Satanism, good reason eh? We are now civilised. You either believed in my God and gave him all you didn't need as calculated by the church, well you gave it to the church to mind for Him anyway, or you were declared as evil, killed and all you had would be confiscated in the name of God. The church allowed Kings to rule, naturally, Rome was rewarded for this allowance, the kings ruled the other Lords, they, of course, owned the land and therefore the people. Now they were civilised, they could extend the conquering, rapeing and pillaging in ernst. The Americas, the south pacific, Australia all their for the taking and we could use the excuse, these people are uncivilized to try and exterminate them and steal their lands and wealth. The Industrial Revolution. The next phase of the Abridged History of the Human Race really started here, so I will have a coffee and write the next chapter soon, ya all come back now, ya hear!
Ok before I go on to the Industrial Revolution, or Revolutions actually, I will recap, well from an economics point of view. Throughout Europe, most of the land was owned by Landlords, this really meant they (the landlords) owned the inhabitants of that land. The Lords came under a King, the King who was a kind of "Super" Lord, also owned much land and people. The economy worked like this. They would steal, land and resources to get the raw materials and land. The peasants would work the land and build and manufacture stuff for the Lords and their families. The peasants would be allowed to keep just enough to ensure they survived and were fit to work, sometimes with a little persuasion from a whip. The Lords and their families got all the goods, food and spoils of war, the people got a sustenance hand to mouth if they were lucky, life, didn't matter if some died of starvation there was always more being born, they bred like rats. The Lords paid money to the Kings and the Kings paid money to the Catholic Church which for all intents and purposes ruled the known world, and through missionaries going out with ships of conquest, hopefully, they would rule the entire world. More wealth, more power. OK so what happened next. The Industrial revolution really is in three stages. The pre-Industrial Revolution Industrial Revolution, the Industrial Revolution and the post-Industrial Revolution Industrial Revolution. Pre-Industrial Revolution Industrial Revolution. Industry is not just machines, people can be industrious and we are. So were some people back then and these people became the forefathers of the conservatives, they were about to create a whole new ideology, Capitalism. Everything was going ballistic, worlds were being discovered and the indigenous peoples conquered, either murdered or enslaved, anything as long as the Lords could pillage whatever they could. Managing all this invading, pillaging etc, then managing the shipping of goods and slaves. The management of it's distribution to the wealthy and the organisation of the peasants to turn the raw materials into goods for the wealthy was a lot of work. The entrepreneurial people, the forefathers of the conservatives saw an opportunity to cash in. They had always envied the rich and powerful, their lifestyle, no work all play, never wanting for anything, all the spoils. Businesses grew, there was a need, a demand, so the supplied that demand. They paid the peasants and sold to the rich at a profit. Supply and Demand ... Capitalism looks up from the afterbirth cries and is born. We had industry, just no good cheap efficient way to power it. Factories were starting up but filled with labourers and artisans. Some power came from fires for furnaces, animals {horses and mules etc), wind and water powered some mills whilst others, slaves. The famous kettle and a new era. A boiling kettle switched us from the pre-Industrial Revolution into the Industrial Revolution Proper. Now we could use steam to drive the machines, not only could fire help us extract the metals it could make steam to drive the machines to hammer and mould it. Steam could pull dozens of waggons of both raw materials and finished product, steam could power ships fast and better to pillage more and more from the dispossessed indigenous peoples of conquered lands. Other industries grew to facilitate the exploding growth. The poor got envious so we employed people to police them, others built banks to store the wealth in safety. Smart people who could exploit any little crack so they could cash in on the gravy train did so. Agents, brokers, bankers all evolved to help the rich protect their wealth and grow it more, they were richly rewarded, they were the first of the conservatives. However cracks started to appear, mechanisation meant less workers to make more goods, steam ships wewre bigger than sailing ships and need much smaller crews. WE could make more, for less money, quicker than we had ever been able to. The Industrial Revolution was in full swing, Capitalism was booming.
Capitalism was booming and the people were starving, they had to resort to crime, a cycle which seemed hopeless. The prisons filled to overflowing, people were being hung for minor crimes as there was no room in the prisons. Shipments of convicts were sent to the four corners of the earth to try to rid themselves of the problem but it just kept getting worse. Disease and plagues wiped out huge numbers due to unsanitary conditions, lack of medications, food and clean water. The people soon started to get sick of this so they started to organise against the Lords. Sick of the fat lazy wealthy getting all the spoils for doing nothing while they that worked got next to nothing for doing all the work. The Liberals were born. The post-Industrial Revolution Industrial Revolution. The Catholic Church was losing some of its power, England was going it alone, some European countries too were slowly cutting ties. England, France, Spain and Holland were the big players and of them, England was becoming the most powerful. America got jack of England getting the spoils and kicked the Brits out, other changes around the world were upsetting the status quo. The 2nd amendment is born. The workers were organising, sweatshops were being shut down, the workers were joining with each other in unity, things were looking bleak for the wealthy, they may even need to work. America had shaken off its colonial roots and soon came up with a moral dilemma, can one human own another human as a chattel, even as far as were they even human? So what does a democratic country do when it has a moral decision to make do, you try to slaughter the opposition, its the democratic way. Revolting. Unions come into existence as workers got together to get some rights against the rich who controlled EVERYTHING. The Modern era was born.
OK Time for a recap by looking where we are economically. Capitalism is in full swing, so how was it actually working. First, there was the first hurdle that the capitalists needed to overcome. From its onset, Capitalism had two main elements which allowed it to work. Raw materials were cheap, close to free actually, just paying a small amount to timbermen to fell trees and minors to mine minerals. The timber and minerals were virtually free. Often taken from conquered lands without real compensation to the indigenous people. Those free men in America had the whole country to plunder, just need to dispatch a few Redskins to their happy hunting grounds but there was no problem or moral dilemma there. Those that could exploit the situation the most became the rich and powerful, whilst those that couldn't worked for them. The Landlords of old England were replaced by the Land Barons, but all used the point of a sword or the barrel of a gun to achieve this. The end of slavery meant the end of free labour which meant the start of the demise of Capitalism. The demise of Capitalism, what you talking about Willis? I mean the end, death, finish caput. Now we know that most of the wealth is now owned by the wealthy, we saw how they acquired it. But being the richest and most powerful was not enough, first, they had to keep it, then they needed to get more, naturally, since when is all the wealth in the world enough. Since the rich do not do anything constructive, and since they do not fight in the Army and they certainly do not work in a factory or field, not enough time, too many high teas to attend. Since they had most of the money they needed to control the not-rich and as most governments were having a sale on politicians they saw the perfect solution. Well for them there is only one solution, money. Up until now, Capitalism had worked like this, don't worry about the scale, it is to make it understandable. So the rich invest say 10 in procuring raw materials, the workers then manufacture 75 worth of goods at a cost of 150 for labour, for the investors who then sell those goods back to the workers for 149. The breakdown cost of materials 10 plus labour @ 75 plus their profit 50 plus 10 to reinvest plus 4 tax. Wait it doesn't balance, well, yes it does considering the materials cost only 10 so we absorb some of the wages cost. Why so they (the workers) have enough money to buy the goods they made. It was even easier an equation before slavery was abolished as the labour cost was less. A few moments thought and this cannot work, how can a business sell back to the people who make goods and supply services, the very goods and services they made at a profit. Smoke and mirrors much beyond the scope of this discussion but they do. Now like perpetual motion, this cannot keep going, as a matter of fact it should have ended a long time ago except we managed to stave off demise with a very ingenious method. Kill about 30% of the poor, destroy a good third of the cities and industries, then get rich fixing it. After WW1 things picked up, but they were still sticking to the olde systeme and need another war so luckily WW2 came along, reduced the numbers of poor dramatically, created whole heaps of new technology etc. At last we had a fruitful war, it would be our last, not our last war, the last one that the net benefit was for the rich. Then the bloody liberals started to get more power, the unions were big and powerful, special interest groups were sticking their liberal noses into the riches business. Some people got upset at us plundering foreign lands and not compensating the indigenous people, we had to start paying for our stuff, God what next, they will be asking the rich to work, God help us. The mess we are in today.....
OK I need a break for a couple of hours so I will post a hypothetical for the few people reading this to ponder and hopefully reply to. Let's say you own a few thousand acres of land. One day a guy knocks on your door, you answer and he shoves a gun in your face, you aren't armed so he forces you and your family into a small inescapable room. He keeps you there for a couple of years, he just gives you barely enough food and water to survive on, he gives you alcohol and drugs to keep you sedated and quiet, he generally treats you like garbage. Over that two years, he runs a large heard of cattle on your land which he sells for a profit. He uses that profit to buy his own land. He lets you free. Question: Is that land he bought yours, do you have any claim to it, do you charge him with anything? P.S. You were not using that land, just doing enough to keep you and your family.
