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Economist Fred Harrison in his book The Predator Culture homes in on the systematic carnage of the 20th century. All for land grabbing - appropriating the wealth of land and its resources. The 1941 German invasion of the USSR was the last great colonial land grab - to create a Greater Germany (a USA of Europe) with an abundance of resources.
Fred concludes that the current Capitalist system is a killing machine as the carnage of the 20th century clearly displays. Violence is ingrained into the system although most do not recognise it. It is not difficult to rectify, but those who make the easy and biggest gains stop change.
The current Capitalist system has a major "systemic" flaw. Most do not see it. Pointing that maybe a half-baked Communist system was little better does not negate the flaw in the current system.
The depression of the 1870s caused Europeans to grab for Africa to claw out of the European economic deadlock, even Belgium got lot larges slices. To get over the slump they grabbed land and its resources - the gains of this land was appropriated for private means not common means. Harrison calls these freeloaders the Predators. Those who take common wealth and the fruits of what others (the Producers) worked for, for private gain. In economic terms titled, "unearned income".
The British land grabbed at home (the Highland Clearance where Scotsmen were forcibly taken to ships to take them to Canada, and the Enclosures in England), when that land grabbing was exhausted they looked elsewhere creating a massive empire. The USA also did so to its west, the Germans attempted mainly to its east. Spanish, French, Dutch, etc empires were created by grabbing land and its resources.
Harrison points out that the depression of the 1870s eventually caused WW1. Germany and Italy were largely excluded from the Africa land grab, displacing and impoverishing the locals, and the 1929 crash caused WW2. Will the 2008 crash cause WW3? We must work to make sure it does not and that means adapting the flawed current system, which also periodically crashes on a world-wide scale. First identify where the problem is. 99% do not know where it is.
Harrison puts it into two groups:
The Predators - mainly those who own land and its resources and take what nature (commonwealth) gave for themselves.
The Producers - those who work and honestly produce.
The above two are opposed and only work together by propaganda telling the Producers that the current flawed system is beneficial to all (which it is not) and violence via the army and police.
In the USA the wealthiest top 1% own more wealth that the bottom 90% - FACT. That may give you an indication that the current system is flawed somewhat as the proceeds of a society's production is grossly and unfairly distributed. Marxism is not the answer as Marx concentrated on Capital as the problem and generally ignored Land & its resources as the crux of problem - although in some statements he did which tended to negate a lot of what he wrote. If Lenin had not ignored Marx's limited writings on land and maybe "Das Kapital" was titled "The Monopoly of Land" maybe many millions would not have been systematically killed in the 20th century.
Harrison concludes, as I did decades ago, that wealth created commonly be taxed to pay for common services and that private wealth be left alone and left in private hands. This means:
No Income tax - a temporary tax to fund the Napoleonic wars, which is a tax on production. The landed in the UK (0.6% of the population own 70% of the land), which also had/has political power, saw Income Tax as a way of taking tax from their lucrative land and onto the working poor.
No Sales Tax (a transaction tax on trade).
Two things you do not want to tax - production and trade.
Take away the mechanism that makes private individuals and concerns (these days many corp'ns) pursue unearned income and appropriating commonwealth and greed diminishes. People concentrate on enterprise as easy pickings on the backs of others are not there. Boom & Bust disappears and the need to steal others land & resources is eliminated.
It sounds like another reductionist attempt to explain all the events of history with one cause. That these simplicities gain so much credence says more than it intends about the ability of the adherents of these theories to know what happened in the past. Let alone understand why it did.
The small stones that set off the avalanche of WWI were thrown by Napoleon and handed to him by the revolutionaries of 1789. The wars of 1802 - 1815 changed Europe, its people and the way it fought it wars for the next 130 years. German nationalism was the response to Napoleon, empowering Germans to throw off his yoke and struggle over the next 50 years to create their own country. French nationalism resisted this and fought to stop it in 1870 until she was finally, and violently, overcome. Nationalism was the driving force of the the 100 years through 1918.
Colonialism had been a work in progress at least since 1492. It shaped, but was more shaped by, every Spanish-English or Engish-French war of the next 350 years. Dynastic rivalries much more than pounds and francs drove these conflicts. As well as the almost spontaneous and wholly unanticipatable events of 1776. And most of these wars were ignited by events deeper in the heart of Europe, which were wholly ignorant of India, the Ohio valley, and the St. Lawrence.
The problem with economic explanations, one problem anyway, is that they relate history to something everyone can see everyday. They appeal to our desire for familiarity and superficiality. We like to believe what is easy to understand. It relieves us of the need to dig deeper. That makes these explanations plausible and difficult to replace with the truer ones that require education, thought and debate to understand. These are difficult and so not popular.
Economist Fred Harrison in his book The Predator Culture homes in on the systematic carnage of the 20th century. All for land grabbing - appropriating the wealth of land and its resources. The 1941 German invasion of the USSR was the last great colonial land grab - to create a Greater Germany (a USA of Europe) with an abundance of resources.
It was the last great "direct" colonial land grab.
With the birth of neo-liberalism colonialism is still alive and kicking. Only instead of invading countries we use the banking system and money to constrict and control their behavior.
It sounds like another reductionist attempt to explain all the events of history with one cause.
You will find that economics is behind most wars. Eliminate the need for nations to steal off others and we way down the road. Economics clearly was the seed of WW1, Napoleon was way too far back to have any influence on WW1 - wealth by acquiring land and its resources was the key to riches in the 1800s. Economics was clearly the root of WW2. We need to remove the predators.
It was the last great "direct" colonial land grab.
With the birth of neo-liberalism colonialism is still alive and kicking. Only instead of invading countries we use the banking system and money to constrict and control their behaviour.
You have a point. The US empire does not occupy land. Look at US economic hit man John Perkins:
When I read things that try to explain every result as the effect of the same cause, I am reminded of the old saying, "If your only tool is a hammer, every problem looks like a nail."
Economists have a hard enough time explaining what is going on with prices, wages, and interest rates. They should make some progress with these before they venture into the domain of others. Or maybe it is because they have been so unsuccessful in their own realm and they are trying to draw attention away from their failure that they try to apply their failed theories to other situations.
They are living proof that a little knowledge is a dangerous thing.
The French Revolution and Napoleonic Wars did indeed sow the seeds of the rest of the history of 19th century Europe, the latter part of which made WWI inevitable. In place of the Bourbon dynasty it established chaos and mass murder as the government of France until Napoleon took over. He swept aside the old European powers to make himself, and France, the ruler of all from Gibraltar to the Vistula. And the eastern boundary of France proper he extended to the left bank of the Rhine from Basil to Rotterdam.
He was a despot. His armies conquered with rape and plunder. When he invaded Russia in 1812 he had 250,000 non-French impoundees among his 600,000 man army. After his retreat, Prussia saw the opportunity to throw him and his oppression out of all of Germany. King Friedrich Wilhelm III appealed to all Germans as Germans, not Prussians, Saxons or Bavarians, to rise up against the French. This was the first time any king anywhere in Germany had done this. They did rise up and in alliance with Russia and Austria, France was defeated.
This was the birth of German nationalism. Germans saw that they could never be secure unless they formed one German nation. The revolutions of 1848 failed to do it. It took the wars of 1866 - 1870 to bring it about.
France would never accept a united German state. One Germany would mean its 1000 year reign as the military, economic and cultural hegemon of Europe was over. And the French knew that they would never regain the left bank of the Rhine if Germany were united. This was the goal of almost every Frenchman and no politician or party of any stature stood for anything that did not include hegemony and the left bank. Napoleon III said that if Germany attempted to unite, France's cannons would go off by themselves.
Of course, the Germans had others ideas. They threw Austria out of Germany in 1866 and in doing so, woke up France to how far along the process of German unification had already gone. From then on, Prussia and France prepared for the inevitable but Prussia was better prepared. When France declared war on it and invaded in 1870, the other German states allied themselves with Prussia. Together, they crushed the French armies and declared a united country. As one Frenchman said, "It is not an army which invades us, but a nation." As part of the peace, Germany demanded Alsace and Lorraine from France to create a more defensible border for the next war, which both countries knew would come.
Under Bismarck things might have worked out. He said the key to a successful policy was a good treaty with Russia. But he was relieved by Wilhelm II, who was so bellicose and so arrogant that he made alliances against Germany inevitable. When he built a German high seas fleet, even England, historically a German ally and united to it by royal and common blood, could not resist being drawn into the alliance against it.
Colonies played a part. But if they played the main part, it would have been France vs England in WWI, as it had been throughout their histories. They were the great colonial powers. Germany and Italy were bit players. It was the balance of power on the continent of Europe and the rise of nationalism everywhere but especially in Germany that precipitated WWI.
WWII, in Europe, had nothing to do with colonies whatsoever. National Socialism was a reaction against German Communism. It gained traction from the Great Depression. Hitler's motives were revenge for Versailles and reclamation of German lands lost in WWI. His racial hatreds and doctrine of Aryan supremacy were woven into this. Revenge and belief in racial supremacy were the causes of WWII. The Depression may have opened the door for Hitler but he didn't war for money or colonies, but for hatred and revenge.
Economists have already mucked up peoples understanding of their daily lives. They should have the simple courtesy not to make a hash out of areas where they have no knowledge or expertise at all.
All for land grabbing - appropriating the wealth of land and its resources. The 1941 German invasion of the USSR was the last great colonial land grab - to create a Greater Germany (a USA of Europe) with an abundance of resources.
Fred concludes that the current Capitalist system is a killing machine as the carnage of the 20th century clearly displays.
So economist Fred Harrison concludes that the mid 20th century socialist German invasion of Communist Russia was due to capitalism as the premise for his anti-capitalism book?
So economist Fred Harrison concludes that the mid 20th century socialist German invasion of Communist Russia was due to capitalism as the premise for his anti-capitalism book?
He may need to find a new line of work.
The Nazis were capitalist. Now you know. It is best you get the points put across.
Economists have a hard enough time explaining what is going on with prices, wages, and interest rates. They should make some progress with these before they venture into the domain of others.
You needed to understand economics to understand the cause of wars. The Capitalist vs Communist wars (e.g., Viet Nam) were all due to economics. Each side wanted differing economic systems that they perceived would improve their standard of living and quality of life. When countries are doing well economically they have no appetite for war. Leading to WW1 and WW2 there was major problems with economies of countries.
When internal economies falter they look elsewhere to gain wealth. "economic rent" seeking then takes hold. They should look at their own systems and get them right. The key is eliminating parasitical economic rent seeking.
Nazi Party, byname of National Socialist German Workers’ Party, German Nationalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeiterpartei (NSDAP), political party of the mass movement known as National Socialism. Under the leadership of Adolf Hitler, the party came to power in Germany in 1933 and governed by totalitarian methods until 1945.
The National Socialist German Workers Party translates to the acronym we know as NAZI.
Government health care, government confiscation of wealth, government development of infrastructure, government mandating design of a peoples car, government assigning work details for men and women, telling you where to shop and where not to. All socialist, contrary to capitalism. Nazi's didn't like religion, dissent, competing social institutions, or other parties. If you find yourself hostile toward religion, a political party, or if you think for example all debate in an area of science can be abruptly terminated. Then you are a socialist. You believe in collective superiority over the individual. You of course would self identify as being a member of the superior group.
When you start with a very flawed premise as this author has, the best to hope for is gibberish.
The following quote is translated from Hitler -
Quote:
It is part of a great leader’s genius to make even widely separated adversaries appear as if they belonged to but one category, because among weakly and undecided characters the recognition of various enemies all too easily marks the beginning of doubt of one’s own rightness.
John,
I suggest you learn the difference between socialism and capitalism, and understand the German Socialist party was a socialist party as it's name implies. Until you understand this, you will easily fall victim to the nonsense Hitler warned us about.
Ways to tell you are a socialist:
1) You think government has most if not all the best answers.
2) You see government as the primary power for good in the world
3) You believe people who disagree with you are evil, stupid, or inferior
4) You would like government to have great control over our lives
5) You detest differing political parties, don't know whey they exist, and or believe they are evil
6) You believe debate on issues where the government has decided one way or another should be controlling
Last edited by Zot; 04-18-2014 at 05:22 PM..
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