Great interview and discussion – thank you Tereza and Jeff.
I will just repeat the comment I posted to Jeff – a series of triggered thoughts (slightly edited):
[…]
“DEMOCRACY: it is controlled by capitalist ownership and control of the media, grants from tax-free foundations and favoured press coverage for favoured political candidates. Wide franchise to vote is given to the people to make them easier to control by making them think that “the people” are responsible for the inevitable distortions and negative consequences of the policies the super-rich mattoids impose in order to serve their selfish interests. Democracy separates authority from responsibility, this making it virtually impossible for the voters to reform the system. Those in authority (the mattoids) have no responsibility. Those responsible (the politicians) have no authority except that which is lent to them by their controllers.“
Source:
W. A. Carto. May 20, 2003 in “Populism vs Plutocracy: The Universal Struggle” and cited in ”Publisher’s Note” in “The Third Rome: Holy Russia, Tsarism and Orthodoxy” by Matthew Raphael Johnson (first published 2003 – Third Edition 2010)
---
Atwill was mentioned – here is an interview Acharya S (Dorothy Milne Murdock, author of “Did Moses Exist? The Myth of the Israelite Lawgiver” and other topical books)
This is a super interview with lots for me to learn. My questions about China and Asia will follow soon.
As I think you know already I believe the problem we are discussing here stems from prehistory. I published a complex view of recent synthesis of anthropology and genetics.
- The bottom line was that in Europe people called the Anatolian Farmers invaded. In doing so they wiped out the Neolithic population - but inadvertently since they "mated" with the women. Women still carry a lot of Neolithic DNA in the mitochondrial DNA (handed down in an unbroken line to offspring coming only from the eggs of women). Our actual nuclear DNA carries less as it is diluted over the eons.
- The other main point is that agriculture changes fundamental human relationships, requires a "civilized" lifestyle requiring more and more land to be obtained. Growing and eating grains weakens a population - causing tooth decay and more. Populations of hunter gatherers are thought to be much healthier than their farmer cousins.
- The weakened populations became susceptible to the plague. And of course rodent populations explode with human populations and carry the fleas which carry the plague.
It is obvious these changes took place all over the world - throughout Asia as well.
- The real biggie is that this spread of farming did not take place as much in the Americas. After the conquest of the Americas even the once comparatively Native Americans became weakened by the same forces at work. Where farming and civilizational-based did occur in the Americas we see the same weakening and collapse.
If you have a chance, KW, check out The Dawn of Everything. Graeber provides some anthropological evidence that people 'played' at farming and the domestication of animals without becoming dependent on it or letting it weaken them. I find it interesting that the same things not good for our bodies--grains, sugars--aren't good for the world. I'm not a purist but I like this synchronicity. And slave agriculture that ruined the land and moved on, certainly was destructive for people and planet.
Sure. All are possible. I will send you the post I wrote or the lecture which helped inspire it. Lot's of prehistory but wonder how much any of our ideas may count among this run away freight change. Please email me at dreamcatcherowl2050@proton.me
I believe we have only begun to decipher our prehistory for the world and for the Americas. But it always seems to be far more complex and nuanced than we are prepared to deal with.
Reading Graeber, btw.
I'm certainly no purist either. But much of the combined genetic and anthropology studies do seem to indicate an actual link between farming and a physiological weakening present throughout Europe, exacerbated by repeated attacks of plague from 5000 years ago.
Yes there are examples of groups even today who only farm a little to round out their diets. But those waves of European farmers were perhaps more than playing in that they fought desperate battles for farm land, and raped and pillaged their way through subsequent history.
Thanks for all the links and info, KW. The relevance, I think, is in figuring out where to go from here if/ when we get the chance to redesign our economy. At a personal dietary level, pre-revolution, I'm in agreement with you that grains in particular, don't seem to be what our bodies are designed to digest in the large measures they're foisted on us. We might agree that a return to hunting is not likely. So the way forward, I think, is with regenerative ag that combines animal husbandry with rotational grazing and sees meadows as the crop. I'd also see communal farming on the outskirts of cities as beneficial, and kitchen gardens and chickens where space allows. I don't really see another way that people could feed themselves, but I'm open to your thoughts.
Tereza, RE: HEALTHY DIETS include many tree foods including nuts, seeds etc. not just the false choice between grains & meat.
KW Norton thankfully provided a web-link in this Comment chain to Toward a New European prehistory: genes, archaeology & language by Kristian Kristiansen March2023 1h5m45s https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bxTVSwt-jsU
I've written a supporting comment from my own 60 years research to understand the lens of pre-7000 year old Oligarch Anatolian (Turkiye) exogenous' agricultural invasion of Europe. Healthy human Primate diet is largely based in the Polyculture Orchard, where nuts, particularly the white Oak acorn (sweet edible without much processing) are the primary source of excellent protein, complex-carbohydrate, deeply-mineralized, high vitamin & enzyme foods. Acorns once were the primary indigenous Polyculture-Orchard of pre-European conquest California. Some scant Oak & such as Pinion Pine nut orchards are still to be found. Acorn flour is delicious made into pancakes, breads etc. available from many Middle-eastern & Palestinian stores.
POLYCULTURE-ORCHARD once continental average 100 year old Oak tree in an area of 50 square metres produces some 3 tonnes (3,000 kilograms) of acorns per year, if properly nourished with human & community leavings. First Nations used two of the half-circles of the tipi cloth, as a catchment cloth under the Oak & other nut trees. Most people of Turtle-Island lived in permanent homes & used the tipi for gathering huge concentrations of food from their regions.
The same area of 2-D 'Agriculture' (L. 'ager' = 'field') if lucky produces only 3 kilograms of grains per year & only after massive human labour & resource investments into Cutting, Ploughing, Seeding, Weeding, mechanical harvesting over 1000 times the same area, winnowing, de-husking, drying, centralized guard-secured storage etc.
'INDIGENOUS' 3-D POLYCULTURE ORCHARDs of all humanity's worldwide 'indigenous' ancestors: a) 3-D Polyculture's 92-98% photosynthesis is based in trees on multiple levels, bushes, vines, herbs, vegetables, mushrooms etc spanning many 10s of metres tall powered by the incredible solar energy efficient bio-technology of the tree leaf. Just one hundred year old white oak tree produces some 3 tonnes of nuts per year in an area of about 50 square metres. White Oak acorns are, easily harvested & directly edible or may be dried & stored with very little transformation if at all. Acorns, other nuts are protein & essential oil rich. With > 95% photo-absorption of solar energy, then a continental energy vacuum is created, which draws warm-moist Ocean winds inland. 60% of moisture transfer it through condensation of these moist winds on quadrillions of square kilometres of fractal leaf & bark surfaces. Only 40% of ocean to continent moisture transfer is through rain & snow & only if winds are drawn inland. The same 50 sq. M. of Agriculture is lucky to produce 3 kilograms of grains, but only after massive human labours of: cutting, ploughing, seeding, watering, weeding, labour or machine heavy harvesting, then winnowing, drying & centralized storage needing security personnel. 2-D 'agriculture' (L 'ager' = 'field') only photosynthesis 2-8% of solar energy. >95% of solar energy is reflected back into the troposphere pushing winds from hot dry continents towards the sea creating permanent desert. Agriculture roots only descend short centimetres into the substrate leaving many 10s of metres hard-packed & lifeless. After destruction of Polyculture, barren fields were/are all settlers & 1st Nations had/have left to 'farm' (French 'ferme' = 'contract of servitude by the peasant imposed by the armed aristocrat') after violent Oligarch commanded cutting. Some of the cutting is for violent Oligarch established colonies to starve indigenous & 1st Nation peoples so they do not return to their homes & Polyculture. b) Deep Polyculture roots descending many 10s of metres into the substrate mining minerals, pumping water, developing extensive nutrient colonies etc. being 100 times = 10,000% more productivity than agriculture. Depth of the roots meant indigenous Polyculture stewards really never had to move because the surface soil was constantly being renewed. Hence permanent housing with stable peoples over 10s of 1000s of years. https://sites.google.com/site/indigenecommunity/b-ecological-design/1-indigenous-welcome-orchard-food-production-efficiencies
KW Norton, Thank you for your many insights. I believe we are on the same Anthropological path. I respond here to your link above to: Thank you Professor Kristian Kristiansen for this research on what you refer to as New European prehistory. I will here, put your data through the lens of Anthropologist Henry F. Dobyns in his 1970s pioneering work 'Their Number Become Thinned' on the numerous 110,000,000 'indigenous' (Latin 'self-generating') peoples of the Americas, being forced after invasion to succumb to 'exogenous' (L. 'other-generated') Oligarch commanded colonial 'exogeny'. Dobyns' analysis centres in detail on the Timucua peoples of North Florida, Georgia & the Carolinas. The problem of Anthropology & Anthropology has been in these exogenous institutionally indoctrinated & grant-subvention dependent Anthropologists. Unfortunately these regime dependent professionals do not take into account that: they are for the most part studying Colonial forced Refugees often far from their ancient indigenous homes. Anatolia itself represents > 7000 years, while the Timucua represent >500 years of destabilization. Yes people moved particularly during the 7-8,000 'exogenous' years, but all human8ity's indigenous ancestors were quite stable with massive decentralized distributed massively productive 3-D Polyculture Orchards. I support Dr. Dobyns from my own 60 years of solidarity work with 1st Nations & indigenous people worldwide, living & working in these community milieu.
COMPASSIONATE HEALTH: You will be surprised to learn how all humanity's worldwide indigenous ancestors fared quite well upon exposure to the exogenous domestic animal confine-generated diseases. At first colonists would turn to indigenous Medicine People for holistic & plant-based healing. Its only after the forced migrations of such as the millions of indigenous people violently forced to leave their permanent homes & Polyculture Orchard livelihood, as Refugees en route that; disease took hold. Personally at 71 years old I'm vegetarian for 52 years & vegan now for 37 years, being familiar with the advantages of easy to source, plant based nutrients. https://sites.google.com/site/indigenecommunity/b-ecological-design/2-responsible-compassionate-health
ECONOMIC MEMORY The best analogy of indigenous societies worldwide is to compare their functioning to the Autonomous Function of the body's genes, cells, tissue, organs working in harmony across continents. Our social, economic & political system should really be, like the 'indigenous' (Latin 'self-generating') system, a reflection of the gene, cell, tissue & organ Autonomy of the human body with the expert memory retention, decision-making & implementation of each part. The brain’s only one of several Nexus-of-communication for facts & actions, mostly after they’ve already happened. We know for example now how the digestive system contains many times more memory & implementation neurons than the brain. Distributed 'ECONOMIC' (Greek 'oikos' = 'home' + 'namein' = 'care-&-nurture') MEMORY is core to the holistic function of the body. Our bodies as our guides to good living, is the Neural Science of today. https://sites.google.com/site/indigenecommunity/d-participatory-structure/3-economic-memory
BIOSPHERE HUMANITY'S 7-8,000 YEAR TRANSFORMATON FROM INDIGENY TO EXOGENY
SYLVALIZATION (Latin 'sylva' = 'tree'), wherein Biosphere based 'indigenous' (L 'self-generating') Polyculture-Orchard 'communities' (L 'com' = 'together' + 'munus' = 'gift-or-service') live in harmony for many 10s of 1000s of years, giving & receiving with the massive productivity of nature. Imposition of fake metal-coin 'money' (Greek 'mnemosis' = 'memory') empowers Oligarch violent command destruction of Sylvalization in Babylon, 7-8,000 years ago. Babylonian money changers flee the destruction they've created to re-centre metal-coin money minting & issue in Assyria, Levant, Egypt, Greece, Rome etc. Oligarchs destroying each people & biosphere in their hierarchal process. As each successive hierarchal empire, such as the Assyrians of Anatolia are turned to desert from 2-D agriculture, exogenous' (L 'other-generated') amnesic centralized control moves its center of armed violence to the next Polyculture to be extracted & destroyed. As empires spread, hungry in artificial Oligarch commanded scarcity, fear, dread, fraternal violence & war for such as hardwood Oak for weapons of war, forts, arms, ships etc., then huge swaths of 3-D Polyculture Orchards are destroyed. Polyculture is 100 times or 10,000% more productive of: Food, Materials, Energy & Water-Cycle. Agriculture's minus 100 fold scarcity is used by Oligarch colonial empire for command & control of subject peoples. There is massive 100 fold (10,000%) productivity loss in the remnant 2-D 'agriculture'.
RELATIONAL ECONOMY: Before Metal-coin amnesic 'money', all humanity cultivated real memory on Time-based, Equivalency Accounting on the STRING-SHELL VALUE SYSTEM (eg. Wampum on Turtle-Island/N. America, Quip in S. America & Cowrie in indigenous Celtic-Slavic Europe, Asia, Africa, Australia & all islands. From the bottom up organized into specialized Production-Society-Guilds each professional is issued String-shell for time & tasks performed. As people worked in periods roughly equivalent to hours, they were according to their labour or task contract issued String-shell beads (about one centimetre long by 3 mm wide with a hole drilled down the centre. White Wampum for example was worth the base value, while blue at twice this value. String-shell accounting integrates: 1) 'Capital' (L 'cap' = 'head' = 'collective-intelligence'), 2) 'Currency' ('flow' compensation), 3) 'Condolence' (Social-security'), 4) Collegial mentored-apprentice 'education' (L 'educare' = 'to-lead-forth-from-within') Credit, 5) time-math Communication, 6) professional Costume & more. People were identified for their professional expertise & would vote at meetings in their specialized Production-Society-Guilds with their Wampum in fathom lengths of accumulated beads. https://sites.google.com/site/indigenecommunity/c-relational-economy
The collective Domestic (mostly women) 'Economy' (Greek 'oikos' = 'home' + 'namein' = 'care-&-nurture') in the ~100 (50-150) person MULTIHOME-DWELLING-COMPLEX (eg. Longhouse-apartment, Pueblo-townhouse & Kanata-village) is the core economy with Industry & Commerce (mostly men) as subset Relational Economies. Multihomes are intimate, intergenerational, female-male, interdisciplinary, critical-mass, economies-of-scale. Women have a tendency to organize essential goods & services of food, shelter, clothing, warmth, health for children, handicapped, injured, ill, elderly etc. at the core of organizing human & physical resources, supported by men. With women & some men organized into their specialized Production Society Guilds, deciding a range of community policy, many exogenous outsiders mistook indigenous societies for being Matriarch ruled. https://sites.google.com/site/indigenecommunity/c-relational-economy/1-extending-our-welcome-participatory-multihome-cohousing
'INDIGENOUS' 3-D POLYCULTURE ORCHARDs of all humanity's worldwide 'indigenous' ancestors,:
a) 3-D Polyculture's 92-98% photosynthesis is based in trees on multiple levels, bushes, vines, herbs, vegetables, mushrooms etc spanning many 10s of metres tall powered by the incredible solar energy efficient bio-technology of the tree leaf. Just one hundred year old white oak tree produces some 3 tonnes of nuts per year in an area of about 50 square metres. White Oak acorns are, easily harvested & directly edible or may be dried & stored with very little transformation if at all. Acorns & other nuts are protein & essential oil rich. With > 95% photo-absorption of solar energy, then a continental energy vacuum is created, which draws warm-moist Ocean winds inland. 60% of moisture transfer it through condensation of these moist winds on quadrillions of square kilometres of fractal leaf & bark surfaces. Only 40% of ocean to continent moisture transfer is through rain & snow & only if winds are drawn inland.
The same 50 sq. M. of Agriculture is lucky to produce 3 kilograms of grains, but only after massive human labours of: cutting, ploughing, seeding, watering, weeding, labour or machine heavy harvesting, then winnowing, drying & centralized storage needing security personnel.
2-D 'agriculture' (L 'ager' = 'field') only photosynthesis 2-8% of solar energy. >95% of solar energy is reflected back into the troposphere pushing winds from hot dry continents towards the sea creating permanent desert. Agriculture roots only descend short centimetres into the substrate leaving many 10s of metres hard-packed & lifeless. After destruction of Polyculture, barren fields were/are all settlers & 1st Nations had/have left to 'farm' (French 'ferme' = 'contract of servitude by the peasant imposed by the armed aristocrat') after violent Oligarch commanded cutting. Some of the cutting is for violent Oligarch established colonies to starve indigenous & 1st Nation peoples so they do not return to their homes & Polyculture.
b) Deep Polyculture roots descending many 10s of metres into the substrate mining minerals, pumping water, developing extensive nutrient colonies etc. being 100 times = 10,000% more productivity than agriculture. Depth of the roots meant indigenous Polyculture stewards really never had to move because the surface soil was constantly being renewed. Hence permanent housing with stable peoples over 10s of 1000s of years. https://sites.google.com/site/indigenecommunity/b-ecological-design/1-indigenous-welcome-orchard-food-production-efficiencies
Super comment and thank you for the abundant generous information. And yes I am also inspired by the work of the geneticists and anthropologists in the vein of "New European prehistory" .
And also understand the reluctance in the Americas to understand the real anthropological history - which faithfully keeps pushing back the boundaries of our oh so limited and circumscribed understanding.
It is considered heresy to believe the indigenous people might have had some of the best cultural systems and a healthy diverse and inspired way of living.
Funny as the founding fathers of America lifted some of the indigenous peoples cultural or governmental practices for our own constitution.
And yes I feel the indigenous people - those who apparently have been the first to be subjected to genocide - are healthier for quite obvious reasons. And unfortunately represented perhaps our finest gene pool to draw from.
I personally have had to return to a carnivore diet due to widespread allergies to plants. I have children who are dedicated vegans.
I on the other hand would like to see our prairies restored ecologically and the large ungulates such as buffalo restored.
It appears the area we may not agree on is the value of a plant based diet .
On the other hand we appear to agree on holistic and plant-based - or ecologically natural sources of healing - which our indigenous ancestors excelled at.
It is all a very important and critically relevant subject for our times.
KW Norton, Thank you for introducing me to Kristian Kristiansen!
Personally I believe very strongly that there are so many factors (such as the allergies you experience) in diet that each person should listen to their own body's senses, such as you do with your Carnivore diet. One size or way does not fit all. I'm happy with my own Vegetarian & Vegan choice over these 52 years. My choice isn't perfect, but works pretty well for my day to day energy & health. I also applaud your own body calibrated choice & experience, as well as those of your Vegan children. Food is a main connection with the biosphere, of which there are many 10s of 1000s of choices in both plant & animal base. It's key that we both listen to ourselves but as well take note of the experiences of others around us towards a greater synthesis & alignment with nature. The Mayan 'Inlakesh' meaning, "I am another you, you are another me, together we are one." A friend shot these 3 films on gardening with me. https://sites.google.com/site/indigenecommunity/b-ecological-design/1-how-to-grow-your-own-raw-vegan-food-garden
Yes it is always about the freedom to make our own choices. Scientifically I believe the hunter gatherer diet of seasonal wild foods may be optimal. But we must make our way through the food ways of this big bad culture of which we are a part.
I love gardening and we do a lot of it - no room for buffalo ranching here.
I agree with you about harvesting some portion of Wild Foods, so have done so regularly over 1/2 a century, because of the super nutrients therein. The Buffalo, considered, pre-invasion, to number 55 million plus 100 million other free-range Ungulates (Cariboo, Deer, Moose, Antelope, grouse, wild duck, goose etc) across the Great-Plains of the US & Canada lived in the Tall (3-5 metres) Grass.
After Oligarch commanded colonial invasion these same lands have only supported 35 million heads of Beef cattle typically locked up in Feed-Barns & dependent upon most of the remaining Prairie under industrial agriculture. Similarly confined chicken, pig & other animals are no where near their wild abundance & particularly inherent food health. 'Dorothy' & Frank Baum (called for the genocide of 1st Nations) of the Wizard of Oz never realized how they, their families & themselves caused the Tornado of the story. Now Hurricanes travel up the Mississippi & other rivers of the region. They destroyed the photosynthesis of the Tall-Grass & hugely reduced food, materials, energy & water-cycle productivity.
I'm experienced in mainstream Grain (Wheat, Buckwheat) combine farming, fruit orcharding. But as well as cultivating, nourishing & gathering from the Oak, Hazelnut, Butternut, Almond, Carob, Horse-Chestnut (for soap) & many other Tree-foods over 5 decades of my 71 years. These past couple of weeks our trees are providing abundant Maple-Sap for drinking & cooking.
The uninformed concept of "scrounging" associated with "Gathering" is totally wrong. I live in a 20 foot by 20 foot 2 story + basement rented Townhouse with gardens about 20 feet out on 3 sides. I constantly nourish my Apple, Cherry, Pear, Plum, Sumac, trees, Grape-vines, Rose-hips, Black-currents etc, last year with 510 garbage bags full of leaves from the development around, 15 tonnes of branch chips from my son, the Arborist, grass-clippings, Compost & all sorts of other biological material. I'm still eating tomatoes, dried apples, Staghorn Sumac lemonade, dried mints & much more from 2023.
Polyculture Orchards can be progressively added to mainstream field food production in such as planting or creating quick-growing hazelnut & other valuable food hedgerows. A colleague Dag has converted his 50 acre once agriculture exhausted soil property into huge abundance with now 90,000 oak, butternut & other Polyculture. Dag had local city Landscape Contractors bring their truckloads of Fall-Leaves, Branch-chips, Grass-Clippings, Barn-cleanings to distribute on ~10 acres. Dag's squirrels, groundhogs & blue-jays set to work planting the 90,000 nut trees over 45 years ago. Creeks are running year round, Beaver have dammed 2 creeks & planted valuable Aqua-culture plants.
"Jeff: Yeah. You tied this back to the slavery economic model—giving your labor to have a place to live is not much different than being a slave. And I guess that’s where we get the term wage slaves.
Tereza: I think of that more as being servants because slaves don’t have other slaves. Right now, we in the US are able to get the products of other people’s labor—which is the legal fiction money is—without giving them any of our own labor in return. And that’s the paradigm that I think is coming to an end quickly."
Serfdom is the word I prefer to call it.
While it's true that no one's hands are truly clean under the current system, as everyone in the Global North has some level of non-trivial "slavery footprint", it is really more a matter of degree. Slavery is a negative sum game that the we in the North don't really benefit from on balance either, not when you take into account that it hollows out our own economy and depresses our wages as well via competition against much cheaper outsourced labor abroad. It is really the oligarchs who truly benefit on net from it all. (Some Degrowthers may disagree.)
Not that a trade deficit is always a bad thing, as Rodger Malcolm Mitchell notes. It can indeed be mutually beneficial if the game is not utterly rigged as it is now.
There are a number of nuances and gray areas here.
But the specious idea that "you will work for every crumb" to merely live on the planet on which one is born is the real root of all of this madness I believe.
Interesting, Ajax, and I'm looking forward to reading KW's post. I write in my book about the Civil War as another misrepresentation we've been fed. It should also be seen as the industrialists in the North wanting to destroy the autarky of the South, and make their economies dependent.
I am certainly no fan of the Confederacy, and I believe that the abolition of slavery was ultimately a good thing on balance, but yes there is a lot of nuance that gets glossed over in regards to the horrible War Between the States. The North was hardly run by saints, to put it mildly.
And what became of all the freedmen after emancipation, with no plan and no social safety net for them? Severe unemployment and wage slavery resulted, and sometimes even starvation to death. The Black/White unemployment gap eventually narrowed over the decades, but widened once again during the Great Depression and the exclusion of Black people from labor unions. And the Black unemployment remains twice as high as the White unemployment rate to this very day, regardless of how the economy is doing.
Hi, Waldemar. I definitely share your desire to not support Amazon. For a good year after the book was finished, I printed up copies and put them in local bookstores I knew, and kept asking about an alternative venue for distribution. For self-published authors, it doesn't really exist. In fact, I asked Russell Brand on a zoom call--when he said I should post where to get my book--if I should put it on Amazon and dance with the devil. His answer was "Dance with the devil but don't go home with him." Believe me, neither Bezos nor I am making a fortune from it.
"Yeah, yeah. It’s crazy now. It goes all the way back to the Rothschilds and how they got the Bank of England which was basically a bunch of private bankers just like the Federal Reserve fomenting wars and imperial expansion, getting the government to borrow money from them, paying interest on it. And it’s a heck of a deal."
So true. The big bankers and oligarchs still run the world.
The privately-owned FERAL Reserve needs to be fully nationalized, the power of national money creation needs to be returned to the Treasury with the consent of Congress, usury needs to be abolished, interest rates need to be parked at zero, and the reserve requirements for private banks need to be gradually raised to 100% so only the federal government and public banks can create new dollars out of thin air. And we need some sort of debt jubilee as well. Problem solved, at least at the national level.
Local complementary and alternative currencies are fine to have in addition, of course. Including, but not limited to, the caret system for those localities who choose to do so.
Well, just to provide a counterpoint in logistics but agree with you in principle: nationalizing the Fed would take all the concentration of dollars that have been amassed and legitimize them. Interest rates at zero would make savings into a zero-sum game. YES on the reserves for private banks but why do that gradually? You could declare the right for anyone but gov'ts to lend what they don't have illegal tomorrow. It was never a right that was granted, it was usurped. Debt jubilee would reward those with high debt, make lending obsolete so everything could only be bought by the rich, and punish those who'd lived within their earnings, often with sacrifice.
If dollars are back by the mortgages and you abolish all debts, all you're doing is setting the clock for the next round of the rich owning everything and getting us all to work for them. IMO.
Nationalizing the Fed at least takes those dollars out of the control of the private banks.
Savings already is a zero-sum game in practice.
Raising the reserve requirement gradually (over several years) to 100% rather than suddenly overnight will prevent the financial system from seizing up and causing a potential financial crisis.
A one-off debt jubilee, if done right and within reason, would be no more perverse than what the ancient Israelites did every 49 years. And the distributional impacts would be progressive, as the rich are more likely to be creditors, while the non-rich are more likely to be debtors. Not only the stereotypical profligates and students, but also responsible people like small business owners too. And also things like medical debt as well.
There is no perfect solution, only less imperfect ones.
Respect taken and given back, Ajax. These are tricky issues to think through. But hear out the ones I spent the last decade working through, as I researched all the problems as they exist currently for my book. As I say there: leave the money, take the assets--like leave the gun, take the cannoli. The money will just shoot you in the foot. If nearly all the money is owned by the .000001% and you do a one-time absolution of mortgages and student loans (and credit card debt?) what then? The super-rich just use that money to buy up the properties, since no one can bid against them without debt, and we're back to "You will own nothing and be ... dependent."
If you make it where those dollars can't buy the properties, because you're pricing them in carets and it takes twice as many dollars to buy them as carets, what do you care who owns the dollars? And you're making it where they can't profit from owning them because any rents that are extracted in dollars have a 50% tax. And if they're destructive or monopolizing, you can use eminent domain to buy them back.
You can obliterate inflation, in fact reverse it. You can give Social Security a 7% interest rate, stabilize the mortgage rate at 5% (possible because you're lending up to 10X your reserves) and give long-term savings a 3% interest rate. You want to encourage people to save for their own retirement and bring the cost of living down to match it. Your solution for your community doesn't need to match mine but I don't see any reason there can't be one that's pretty darn good if not perfect.
Death-grip was how I've heard it. Some people try to explain that as 'once it's repaid the debt is dead' but come on. There are old Grange songs from 100 yrs ago on "Do Not Mortgage the Farm."
Excellent question. And does a home make you rich? Certainly not while it's a living asset to the family, during which time it's a black hole for money and energy. I'm typing this as plumbers are rerouting pipes for a new washer/ dryer, the old one of which had exposed wires hanging out and sounded like a helicopter had landed.
Does the sale of a home now make the Boomer rich? In my parents' era, only the men worked and earned a pension with adequate healthcare, so with a bit of savings they could retire without losing the house. Now, the house is lost to the family in divorce or they downsize when the kids move out so there's no family center to return to.
The costs of elder care make sure to wipe out any money made from the sale of the house, and Medicaid will lay claim to it so there's no inheritance. And what parent will count themselves as rich when their children are doomed to be wage slaves or risk homelessness? I think the Boomer generation, which is mine, is the first to have their homes appropriated as something they don't deserve, leading to 'You will own nothing and be ... happy?'
Great interview and discussion – thank you Tereza and Jeff.
I will just repeat the comment I posted to Jeff – a series of triggered thoughts (slightly edited):
[…]
“DEMOCRACY: it is controlled by capitalist ownership and control of the media, grants from tax-free foundations and favoured press coverage for favoured political candidates. Wide franchise to vote is given to the people to make them easier to control by making them think that “the people” are responsible for the inevitable distortions and negative consequences of the policies the super-rich mattoids impose in order to serve their selfish interests. Democracy separates authority from responsibility, this making it virtually impossible for the voters to reform the system. Those in authority (the mattoids) have no responsibility. Those responsible (the politicians) have no authority except that which is lent to them by their controllers.“
Source:
W. A. Carto. May 20, 2003 in “Populism vs Plutocracy: The Universal Struggle” and cited in ”Publisher’s Note” in “The Third Rome: Holy Russia, Tsarism and Orthodoxy” by Matthew Raphael Johnson (first published 2003 – Third Edition 2010)
---
Atwill was mentioned – here is an interview Acharya S (Dorothy Milne Murdock, author of “Did Moses Exist? The Myth of the Israelite Lawgiver” and other topical books)
Part 1
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pOAZ1L-0hgs
Part 2
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QrBFwhBMgz8
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Incidentally, speaking of Economics, I just read Michael Hudson’s “Super Imperialism” with the aid of the very superb audio reading by Chet Ozmun …
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vc9kF-TPubo&list=PL8R-uen6FfFzJl-ja3MZiE3qMcWnA5a7i&index=1
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In passing, I have only scanned David Astle’s “The Babylonian Woe - A Study of the Origin of Certain Banking Practices”
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And I will just add this … the first minute and a half of “Europa: The Last Battle” featuring James O’Keefe:
• EUROPA: The Last Battle - Part one (opening with James O’Keefe)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f6QNO4Z_tuQ
The transcript is worth saving.
Looking forward to reading this more in depth, Julius. Thanks for all the good research.
This is a super interview with lots for me to learn. My questions about China and Asia will follow soon.
As I think you know already I believe the problem we are discussing here stems from prehistory. I published a complex view of recent synthesis of anthropology and genetics.
- The bottom line was that in Europe people called the Anatolian Farmers invaded. In doing so they wiped out the Neolithic population - but inadvertently since they "mated" with the women. Women still carry a lot of Neolithic DNA in the mitochondrial DNA (handed down in an unbroken line to offspring coming only from the eggs of women). Our actual nuclear DNA carries less as it is diluted over the eons.
- The other main point is that agriculture changes fundamental human relationships, requires a "civilized" lifestyle requiring more and more land to be obtained. Growing and eating grains weakens a population - causing tooth decay and more. Populations of hunter gatherers are thought to be much healthier than their farmer cousins.
- The weakened populations became susceptible to the plague. And of course rodent populations explode with human populations and carry the fleas which carry the plague.
It is obvious these changes took place all over the world - throughout Asia as well.
- The real biggie is that this spread of farming did not take place as much in the Americas. After the conquest of the Americas even the once comparatively Native Americans became weakened by the same forces at work. Where farming and civilizational-based did occur in the Americas we see the same weakening and collapse.
If you have a chance, KW, check out The Dawn of Everything. Graeber provides some anthropological evidence that people 'played' at farming and the domestication of animals without becoming dependent on it or letting it weaken them. I find it interesting that the same things not good for our bodies--grains, sugars--aren't good for the world. I'm not a purist but I like this synchronicity. And slave agriculture that ruined the land and moved on, certainly was destructive for people and planet.
Sure. All are possible. I will send you the post I wrote or the lecture which helped inspire it. Lot's of prehistory but wonder how much any of our ideas may count among this run away freight change. Please email me at dreamcatcherowl2050@proton.me
Although there is a ton of disagreement about these theories there is a great deal of worthwhile history here:
https://youtu.be/bxTVSwt-jsU
I believe we have only begun to decipher our prehistory for the world and for the Americas. But it always seems to be far more complex and nuanced than we are prepared to deal with.
Reading Graeber, btw.
I'm certainly no purist either. But much of the combined genetic and anthropology studies do seem to indicate an actual link between farming and a physiological weakening present throughout Europe, exacerbated by repeated attacks of plague from 5000 years ago.
Yes there are examples of groups even today who only farm a little to round out their diets. But those waves of European farmers were perhaps more than playing in that they fought desperate battles for farm land, and raped and pillaged their way through subsequent history.
Here is some additional:
https://www.earth.com/news/violent-tribes-conquered-europe/
https://www.newscientist.com/article/mg24132230-200-story-of-most-murderous-people-of-all-time-revealed-in-ancient-dna/
Farming and rats do go together even today
https://www.npr.org/sections/goatsandsoda/2015/02/23/387772236/good-news-more-crops-bad-news-more-plague#:~:text=The%20rats%20of%20the%20forest,lives%20during%20the%20Middle%20Ages.
Thanks for all the links and info, KW. The relevance, I think, is in figuring out where to go from here if/ when we get the chance to redesign our economy. At a personal dietary level, pre-revolution, I'm in agreement with you that grains in particular, don't seem to be what our bodies are designed to digest in the large measures they're foisted on us. We might agree that a return to hunting is not likely. So the way forward, I think, is with regenerative ag that combines animal husbandry with rotational grazing and sees meadows as the crop. I'd also see communal farming on the outskirts of cities as beneficial, and kitchen gardens and chickens where space allows. I don't really see another way that people could feed themselves, but I'm open to your thoughts.
Tereza, RE: HEALTHY DIETS include many tree foods including nuts, seeds etc. not just the false choice between grains & meat.
KW Norton thankfully provided a web-link in this Comment chain to Toward a New European prehistory: genes, archaeology & language by Kristian Kristiansen March2023 1h5m45s https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bxTVSwt-jsU
I've written a supporting comment from my own 60 years research to understand the lens of pre-7000 year old Oligarch Anatolian (Turkiye) exogenous' agricultural invasion of Europe. Healthy human Primate diet is largely based in the Polyculture Orchard, where nuts, particularly the white Oak acorn (sweet edible without much processing) are the primary source of excellent protein, complex-carbohydrate, deeply-mineralized, high vitamin & enzyme foods. Acorns once were the primary indigenous Polyculture-Orchard of pre-European conquest California. Some scant Oak & such as Pinion Pine nut orchards are still to be found. Acorn flour is delicious made into pancakes, breads etc. available from many Middle-eastern & Palestinian stores.
POLYCULTURE-ORCHARD once continental average 100 year old Oak tree in an area of 50 square metres produces some 3 tonnes (3,000 kilograms) of acorns per year, if properly nourished with human & community leavings. First Nations used two of the half-circles of the tipi cloth, as a catchment cloth under the Oak & other nut trees. Most people of Turtle-Island lived in permanent homes & used the tipi for gathering huge concentrations of food from their regions.
The same area of 2-D 'Agriculture' (L. 'ager' = 'field') if lucky produces only 3 kilograms of grains per year & only after massive human labour & resource investments into Cutting, Ploughing, Seeding, Weeding, mechanical harvesting over 1000 times the same area, winnowing, de-husking, drying, centralized guard-secured storage etc.
'INDIGENOUS' 3-D POLYCULTURE ORCHARDs of all humanity's worldwide 'indigenous' ancestors: a) 3-D Polyculture's 92-98% photosynthesis is based in trees on multiple levels, bushes, vines, herbs, vegetables, mushrooms etc spanning many 10s of metres tall powered by the incredible solar energy efficient bio-technology of the tree leaf. Just one hundred year old white oak tree produces some 3 tonnes of nuts per year in an area of about 50 square metres. White Oak acorns are, easily harvested & directly edible or may be dried & stored with very little transformation if at all. Acorns, other nuts are protein & essential oil rich. With > 95% photo-absorption of solar energy, then a continental energy vacuum is created, which draws warm-moist Ocean winds inland. 60% of moisture transfer it through condensation of these moist winds on quadrillions of square kilometres of fractal leaf & bark surfaces. Only 40% of ocean to continent moisture transfer is through rain & snow & only if winds are drawn inland. The same 50 sq. M. of Agriculture is lucky to produce 3 kilograms of grains, but only after massive human labours of: cutting, ploughing, seeding, watering, weeding, labour or machine heavy harvesting, then winnowing, drying & centralized storage needing security personnel. 2-D 'agriculture' (L 'ager' = 'field') only photosynthesis 2-8% of solar energy. >95% of solar energy is reflected back into the troposphere pushing winds from hot dry continents towards the sea creating permanent desert. Agriculture roots only descend short centimetres into the substrate leaving many 10s of metres hard-packed & lifeless. After destruction of Polyculture, barren fields were/are all settlers & 1st Nations had/have left to 'farm' (French 'ferme' = 'contract of servitude by the peasant imposed by the armed aristocrat') after violent Oligarch commanded cutting. Some of the cutting is for violent Oligarch established colonies to starve indigenous & 1st Nation peoples so they do not return to their homes & Polyculture. b) Deep Polyculture roots descending many 10s of metres into the substrate mining minerals, pumping water, developing extensive nutrient colonies etc. being 100 times = 10,000% more productivity than agriculture. Depth of the roots meant indigenous Polyculture stewards really never had to move because the surface soil was constantly being renewed. Hence permanent housing with stable peoples over 10s of 1000s of years. https://sites.google.com/site/indigenecommunity/b-ecological-design/1-indigenous-welcome-orchard-food-production-efficiencies
KW Norton, Thank you for your many insights. I believe we are on the same Anthropological path. I respond here to your link above to: Thank you Professor Kristian Kristiansen for this research on what you refer to as New European prehistory. I will here, put your data through the lens of Anthropologist Henry F. Dobyns in his 1970s pioneering work 'Their Number Become Thinned' on the numerous 110,000,000 'indigenous' (Latin 'self-generating') peoples of the Americas, being forced after invasion to succumb to 'exogenous' (L. 'other-generated') Oligarch commanded colonial 'exogeny'. Dobyns' analysis centres in detail on the Timucua peoples of North Florida, Georgia & the Carolinas. The problem of Anthropology & Anthropology has been in these exogenous institutionally indoctrinated & grant-subvention dependent Anthropologists. Unfortunately these regime dependent professionals do not take into account that: they are for the most part studying Colonial forced Refugees often far from their ancient indigenous homes. Anatolia itself represents > 7000 years, while the Timucua represent >500 years of destabilization. Yes people moved particularly during the 7-8,000 'exogenous' years, but all human8ity's indigenous ancestors were quite stable with massive decentralized distributed massively productive 3-D Polyculture Orchards. I support Dr. Dobyns from my own 60 years of solidarity work with 1st Nations & indigenous people worldwide, living & working in these community milieu.
COMPASSIONATE HEALTH: You will be surprised to learn how all humanity's worldwide indigenous ancestors fared quite well upon exposure to the exogenous domestic animal confine-generated diseases. At first colonists would turn to indigenous Medicine People for holistic & plant-based healing. Its only after the forced migrations of such as the millions of indigenous people violently forced to leave their permanent homes & Polyculture Orchard livelihood, as Refugees en route that; disease took hold. Personally at 71 years old I'm vegetarian for 52 years & vegan now for 37 years, being familiar with the advantages of easy to source, plant based nutrients. https://sites.google.com/site/indigenecommunity/b-ecological-design/2-responsible-compassionate-health
ECONOMIC MEMORY The best analogy of indigenous societies worldwide is to compare their functioning to the Autonomous Function of the body's genes, cells, tissue, organs working in harmony across continents. Our social, economic & political system should really be, like the 'indigenous' (Latin 'self-generating') system, a reflection of the gene, cell, tissue & organ Autonomy of the human body with the expert memory retention, decision-making & implementation of each part. The brain’s only one of several Nexus-of-communication for facts & actions, mostly after they’ve already happened. We know for example now how the digestive system contains many times more memory & implementation neurons than the brain. Distributed 'ECONOMIC' (Greek 'oikos' = 'home' + 'namein' = 'care-&-nurture') MEMORY is core to the holistic function of the body. Our bodies as our guides to good living, is the Neural Science of today. https://sites.google.com/site/indigenecommunity/d-participatory-structure/3-economic-memory
BIOSPHERE HUMANITY'S 7-8,000 YEAR TRANSFORMATON FROM INDIGENY TO EXOGENY
SYLVALIZATION (Latin 'sylva' = 'tree'), wherein Biosphere based 'indigenous' (L 'self-generating') Polyculture-Orchard 'communities' (L 'com' = 'together' + 'munus' = 'gift-or-service') live in harmony for many 10s of 1000s of years, giving & receiving with the massive productivity of nature. Imposition of fake metal-coin 'money' (Greek 'mnemosis' = 'memory') empowers Oligarch violent command destruction of Sylvalization in Babylon, 7-8,000 years ago. Babylonian money changers flee the destruction they've created to re-centre metal-coin money minting & issue in Assyria, Levant, Egypt, Greece, Rome etc. Oligarchs destroying each people & biosphere in their hierarchal process. As each successive hierarchal empire, such as the Assyrians of Anatolia are turned to desert from 2-D agriculture, exogenous' (L 'other-generated') amnesic centralized control moves its center of armed violence to the next Polyculture to be extracted & destroyed. As empires spread, hungry in artificial Oligarch commanded scarcity, fear, dread, fraternal violence & war for such as hardwood Oak for weapons of war, forts, arms, ships etc., then huge swaths of 3-D Polyculture Orchards are destroyed. Polyculture is 100 times or 10,000% more productive of: Food, Materials, Energy & Water-Cycle. Agriculture's minus 100 fold scarcity is used by Oligarch colonial empire for command & control of subject peoples. There is massive 100 fold (10,000%) productivity loss in the remnant 2-D 'agriculture'.
RELATIONAL ECONOMY: Before Metal-coin amnesic 'money', all humanity cultivated real memory on Time-based, Equivalency Accounting on the STRING-SHELL VALUE SYSTEM (eg. Wampum on Turtle-Island/N. America, Quip in S. America & Cowrie in indigenous Celtic-Slavic Europe, Asia, Africa, Australia & all islands. From the bottom up organized into specialized Production-Society-Guilds each professional is issued String-shell for time & tasks performed. As people worked in periods roughly equivalent to hours, they were according to their labour or task contract issued String-shell beads (about one centimetre long by 3 mm wide with a hole drilled down the centre. White Wampum for example was worth the base value, while blue at twice this value. String-shell accounting integrates: 1) 'Capital' (L 'cap' = 'head' = 'collective-intelligence'), 2) 'Currency' ('flow' compensation), 3) 'Condolence' (Social-security'), 4) Collegial mentored-apprentice 'education' (L 'educare' = 'to-lead-forth-from-within') Credit, 5) time-math Communication, 6) professional Costume & more. People were identified for their professional expertise & would vote at meetings in their specialized Production-Society-Guilds with their Wampum in fathom lengths of accumulated beads. https://sites.google.com/site/indigenecommunity/c-relational-economy
The collective Domestic (mostly women) 'Economy' (Greek 'oikos' = 'home' + 'namein' = 'care-&-nurture') in the ~100 (50-150) person MULTIHOME-DWELLING-COMPLEX (eg. Longhouse-apartment, Pueblo-townhouse & Kanata-village) is the core economy with Industry & Commerce (mostly men) as subset Relational Economies. Multihomes are intimate, intergenerational, female-male, interdisciplinary, critical-mass, economies-of-scale. Women have a tendency to organize essential goods & services of food, shelter, clothing, warmth, health for children, handicapped, injured, ill, elderly etc. at the core of organizing human & physical resources, supported by men. With women & some men organized into their specialized Production Society Guilds, deciding a range of community policy, many exogenous outsiders mistook indigenous societies for being Matriarch ruled. https://sites.google.com/site/indigenecommunity/c-relational-economy/1-extending-our-welcome-participatory-multihome-cohousing
'INDIGENOUS' 3-D POLYCULTURE ORCHARDs of all humanity's worldwide 'indigenous' ancestors,:
a) 3-D Polyculture's 92-98% photosynthesis is based in trees on multiple levels, bushes, vines, herbs, vegetables, mushrooms etc spanning many 10s of metres tall powered by the incredible solar energy efficient bio-technology of the tree leaf. Just one hundred year old white oak tree produces some 3 tonnes of nuts per year in an area of about 50 square metres. White Oak acorns are, easily harvested & directly edible or may be dried & stored with very little transformation if at all. Acorns & other nuts are protein & essential oil rich. With > 95% photo-absorption of solar energy, then a continental energy vacuum is created, which draws warm-moist Ocean winds inland. 60% of moisture transfer it through condensation of these moist winds on quadrillions of square kilometres of fractal leaf & bark surfaces. Only 40% of ocean to continent moisture transfer is through rain & snow & only if winds are drawn inland.
The same 50 sq. M. of Agriculture is lucky to produce 3 kilograms of grains, but only after massive human labours of: cutting, ploughing, seeding, watering, weeding, labour or machine heavy harvesting, then winnowing, drying & centralized storage needing security personnel.
2-D 'agriculture' (L 'ager' = 'field') only photosynthesis 2-8% of solar energy. >95% of solar energy is reflected back into the troposphere pushing winds from hot dry continents towards the sea creating permanent desert. Agriculture roots only descend short centimetres into the substrate leaving many 10s of metres hard-packed & lifeless. After destruction of Polyculture, barren fields were/are all settlers & 1st Nations had/have left to 'farm' (French 'ferme' = 'contract of servitude by the peasant imposed by the armed aristocrat') after violent Oligarch commanded cutting. Some of the cutting is for violent Oligarch established colonies to starve indigenous & 1st Nation peoples so they do not return to their homes & Polyculture.
b) Deep Polyculture roots descending many 10s of metres into the substrate mining minerals, pumping water, developing extensive nutrient colonies etc. being 100 times = 10,000% more productivity than agriculture. Depth of the roots meant indigenous Polyculture stewards really never had to move because the surface soil was constantly being renewed. Hence permanent housing with stable peoples over 10s of 1000s of years. https://sites.google.com/site/indigenecommunity/b-ecological-design/1-indigenous-welcome-orchard-food-production-efficiencies
Super comment and thank you for the abundant generous information. And yes I am also inspired by the work of the geneticists and anthropologists in the vein of "New European prehistory" .
And also understand the reluctance in the Americas to understand the real anthropological history - which faithfully keeps pushing back the boundaries of our oh so limited and circumscribed understanding.
It is considered heresy to believe the indigenous people might have had some of the best cultural systems and a healthy diverse and inspired way of living.
Funny as the founding fathers of America lifted some of the indigenous peoples cultural or governmental practices for our own constitution.
And yes I feel the indigenous people - those who apparently have been the first to be subjected to genocide - are healthier for quite obvious reasons. And unfortunately represented perhaps our finest gene pool to draw from.
I personally have had to return to a carnivore diet due to widespread allergies to plants. I have children who are dedicated vegans.
I on the other hand would like to see our prairies restored ecologically and the large ungulates such as buffalo restored.
It appears the area we may not agree on is the value of a plant based diet .
On the other hand we appear to agree on holistic and plant-based - or ecologically natural sources of healing - which our indigenous ancestors excelled at.
It is all a very important and critically relevant subject for our times.
KW Norton, Thank you for introducing me to Kristian Kristiansen!
Personally I believe very strongly that there are so many factors (such as the allergies you experience) in diet that each person should listen to their own body's senses, such as you do with your Carnivore diet. One size or way does not fit all. I'm happy with my own Vegetarian & Vegan choice over these 52 years. My choice isn't perfect, but works pretty well for my day to day energy & health. I also applaud your own body calibrated choice & experience, as well as those of your Vegan children. Food is a main connection with the biosphere, of which there are many 10s of 1000s of choices in both plant & animal base. It's key that we both listen to ourselves but as well take note of the experiences of others around us towards a greater synthesis & alignment with nature. The Mayan 'Inlakesh' meaning, "I am another you, you are another me, together we are one." A friend shot these 3 films on gardening with me. https://sites.google.com/site/indigenecommunity/b-ecological-design/1-how-to-grow-your-own-raw-vegan-food-garden
Isn't Kristian Kristiansen great! Happy to share.
Yes it is always about the freedom to make our own choices. Scientifically I believe the hunter gatherer diet of seasonal wild foods may be optimal. But we must make our way through the food ways of this big bad culture of which we are a part.
I love gardening and we do a lot of it - no room for buffalo ranching here.
I agree with you about harvesting some portion of Wild Foods, so have done so regularly over 1/2 a century, because of the super nutrients therein. The Buffalo, considered, pre-invasion, to number 55 million plus 100 million other free-range Ungulates (Cariboo, Deer, Moose, Antelope, grouse, wild duck, goose etc) across the Great-Plains of the US & Canada lived in the Tall (3-5 metres) Grass.
After Oligarch commanded colonial invasion these same lands have only supported 35 million heads of Beef cattle typically locked up in Feed-Barns & dependent upon most of the remaining Prairie under industrial agriculture. Similarly confined chicken, pig & other animals are no where near their wild abundance & particularly inherent food health. 'Dorothy' & Frank Baum (called for the genocide of 1st Nations) of the Wizard of Oz never realized how they, their families & themselves caused the Tornado of the story. Now Hurricanes travel up the Mississippi & other rivers of the region. They destroyed the photosynthesis of the Tall-Grass & hugely reduced food, materials, energy & water-cycle productivity.
MISANTHROPY: Many have adversarial beliefs against nature & people as deficits in supposed overpopulation. We ignore the balance of non-consumptive work & play, which children & just hanging out with friends, freely provide. https://sites.google.com/site/indigenecommunity/e-history/7-work-play-overpopulation
I'm experienced in mainstream Grain (Wheat, Buckwheat) combine farming, fruit orcharding. But as well as cultivating, nourishing & gathering from the Oak, Hazelnut, Butternut, Almond, Carob, Horse-Chestnut (for soap) & many other Tree-foods over 5 decades of my 71 years. These past couple of weeks our trees are providing abundant Maple-Sap for drinking & cooking.
The uninformed concept of "scrounging" associated with "Gathering" is totally wrong. I live in a 20 foot by 20 foot 2 story + basement rented Townhouse with gardens about 20 feet out on 3 sides. I constantly nourish my Apple, Cherry, Pear, Plum, Sumac, trees, Grape-vines, Rose-hips, Black-currents etc, last year with 510 garbage bags full of leaves from the development around, 15 tonnes of branch chips from my son, the Arborist, grass-clippings, Compost & all sorts of other biological material. I'm still eating tomatoes, dried apples, Staghorn Sumac lemonade, dried mints & much more from 2023.
Polyculture Orchards can be progressively added to mainstream field food production in such as planting or creating quick-growing hazelnut & other valuable food hedgerows. A colleague Dag has converted his 50 acre once agriculture exhausted soil property into huge abundance with now 90,000 oak, butternut & other Polyculture. Dag had local city Landscape Contractors bring their truckloads of Fall-Leaves, Branch-chips, Grass-Clippings, Barn-cleanings to distribute on ~10 acres. Dag's squirrels, groundhogs & blue-jays set to work planting the 90,000 nut trees over 45 years ago. Creeks are running year round, Beaver have dammed 2 creeks & planted valuable Aqua-culture plants.
"Jeff: Yeah. You tied this back to the slavery economic model—giving your labor to have a place to live is not much different than being a slave. And I guess that’s where we get the term wage slaves.
Tereza: I think of that more as being servants because slaves don’t have other slaves. Right now, we in the US are able to get the products of other people’s labor—which is the legal fiction money is—without giving them any of our own labor in return. And that’s the paradigm that I think is coming to an end quickly."
Serfdom is the word I prefer to call it.
While it's true that no one's hands are truly clean under the current system, as everyone in the Global North has some level of non-trivial "slavery footprint", it is really more a matter of degree. Slavery is a negative sum game that the we in the North don't really benefit from on balance either, not when you take into account that it hollows out our own economy and depresses our wages as well via competition against much cheaper outsourced labor abroad. It is really the oligarchs who truly benefit on net from it all. (Some Degrowthers may disagree.)
Not that a trade deficit is always a bad thing, as Rodger Malcolm Mitchell notes. It can indeed be mutually beneficial if the game is not utterly rigged as it is now.
There are a number of nuances and gray areas here.
But the specious idea that "you will work for every crumb" to merely live on the planet on which one is born is the real root of all of this madness I believe.
Interesting, Ajax, and I'm looking forward to reading KW's post. I write in my book about the Civil War as another misrepresentation we've been fed. It should also be seen as the industrialists in the North wanting to destroy the autarky of the South, and make their economies dependent.
I am certainly no fan of the Confederacy, and I believe that the abolition of slavery was ultimately a good thing on balance, but yes there is a lot of nuance that gets glossed over in regards to the horrible War Between the States. The North was hardly run by saints, to put it mildly.
And what became of all the freedmen after emancipation, with no plan and no social safety net for them? Severe unemployment and wage slavery resulted, and sometimes even starvation to death. The Black/White unemployment gap eventually narrowed over the decades, but widened once again during the Great Depression and the exclusion of Black people from labor unions. And the Black unemployment remains twice as high as the White unemployment rate to this very day, regardless of how the economy is doing.
Hi Tereza, I was looking to buy a copy of your "How to Dismantle an Empire" but I don't like supporting amazon. Is there any other way I could get it?
Regards, Waldemar
If so, my email is waldemar00070@proton.me
Hi, Waldemar. I definitely share your desire to not support Amazon. For a good year after the book was finished, I printed up copies and put them in local bookstores I knew, and kept asking about an alternative venue for distribution. For self-published authors, it doesn't really exist. In fact, I asked Russell Brand on a zoom call--when he said I should post where to get my book--if I should put it on Amazon and dance with the devil. His answer was "Dance with the devil but don't go home with him." Believe me, neither Bezos nor I am making a fortune from it.
More's the pity; if I had influence I'd push more of the $ fiction to writers as yourself.
Irony is, we see it for the sham it is, yet 'dance' to it nevertheless.
In any case I'll check to see if a copy may be available locally (Edmonton). If not, oh well; poor old bezos gets his cut : )
BTW, thanks for the prompt reply.
Regards,
Waldemar
You may like a post I put together on the American Civil War and subsequent growth of wage slavery.
https://open.substack.com/pub/kwnorton/p/the-fourth-american-civil-war?r=boqs0&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web
Interesting, and very well-written. Thanks. :)
"Yeah, yeah. It’s crazy now. It goes all the way back to the Rothschilds and how they got the Bank of England which was basically a bunch of private bankers just like the Federal Reserve fomenting wars and imperial expansion, getting the government to borrow money from them, paying interest on it. And it’s a heck of a deal."
So true. The big bankers and oligarchs still run the world.
Looks like a great interview thanks. It is going to take me more times to read. I will email questions later.
Thanks, KW, and please feel free to post questions. You always have a nuanced perspective that others will appreciate as well.
Hey thanks. i will post them then. Once I make certain I understand enough to formulate them, lol. Instant enlightenment is not always possible.
The privately-owned FERAL Reserve needs to be fully nationalized, the power of national money creation needs to be returned to the Treasury with the consent of Congress, usury needs to be abolished, interest rates need to be parked at zero, and the reserve requirements for private banks need to be gradually raised to 100% so only the federal government and public banks can create new dollars out of thin air. And we need some sort of debt jubilee as well. Problem solved, at least at the national level.
Local complementary and alternative currencies are fine to have in addition, of course. Including, but not limited to, the caret system for those localities who choose to do so.
Well, just to provide a counterpoint in logistics but agree with you in principle: nationalizing the Fed would take all the concentration of dollars that have been amassed and legitimize them. Interest rates at zero would make savings into a zero-sum game. YES on the reserves for private banks but why do that gradually? You could declare the right for anyone but gov'ts to lend what they don't have illegal tomorrow. It was never a right that was granted, it was usurped. Debt jubilee would reward those with high debt, make lending obsolete so everything could only be bought by the rich, and punish those who'd lived within their earnings, often with sacrifice.
If dollars are back by the mortgages and you abolish all debts, all you're doing is setting the clock for the next round of the rich owning everything and getting us all to work for them. IMO.
Here is my logic, with all due respect:
Nationalizing the Fed at least takes those dollars out of the control of the private banks.
Savings already is a zero-sum game in practice.
Raising the reserve requirement gradually (over several years) to 100% rather than suddenly overnight will prevent the financial system from seizing up and causing a potential financial crisis.
A one-off debt jubilee, if done right and within reason, would be no more perverse than what the ancient Israelites did every 49 years. And the distributional impacts would be progressive, as the rich are more likely to be creditors, while the non-rich are more likely to be debtors. Not only the stereotypical profligates and students, but also responsible people like small business owners too. And also things like medical debt as well.
There is no perfect solution, only less imperfect ones.
Respect taken and given back, Ajax. These are tricky issues to think through. But hear out the ones I spent the last decade working through, as I researched all the problems as they exist currently for my book. As I say there: leave the money, take the assets--like leave the gun, take the cannoli. The money will just shoot you in the foot. If nearly all the money is owned by the .000001% and you do a one-time absolution of mortgages and student loans (and credit card debt?) what then? The super-rich just use that money to buy up the properties, since no one can bid against them without debt, and we're back to "You will own nothing and be ... dependent."
If you make it where those dollars can't buy the properties, because you're pricing them in carets and it takes twice as many dollars to buy them as carets, what do you care who owns the dollars? And you're making it where they can't profit from owning them because any rents that are extracted in dollars have a 50% tax. And if they're destructive or monopolizing, you can use eminent domain to buy them back.
You can obliterate inflation, in fact reverse it. You can give Social Security a 7% interest rate, stabilize the mortgage rate at 5% (possible because you're lending up to 10X your reserves) and give long-term savings a 3% interest rate. You want to encourage people to save for their own retirement and bring the cost of living down to match it. Your solution for your community doesn't need to match mine but I don't see any reason there can't be one that's pretty darn good if not perfect.
True, with the mortgage issue there would have to be more nuance to that I suppose.
Fun fact: "mortgage" comes from Old French for "dead pledge", lol.
Death-grip was how I've heard it. Some people try to explain that as 'once it's repaid the debt is dead' but come on. There are old Grange songs from 100 yrs ago on "Do Not Mortgage the Farm."
Excellent question. And does a home make you rich? Certainly not while it's a living asset to the family, during which time it's a black hole for money and energy. I'm typing this as plumbers are rerouting pipes for a new washer/ dryer, the old one of which had exposed wires hanging out and sounded like a helicopter had landed.
Does the sale of a home now make the Boomer rich? In my parents' era, only the men worked and earned a pension with adequate healthcare, so with a bit of savings they could retire without losing the house. Now, the house is lost to the family in divorce or they downsize when the kids move out so there's no family center to return to.
The costs of elder care make sure to wipe out any money made from the sale of the house, and Medicaid will lay claim to it so there's no inheritance. And what parent will count themselves as rich when their children are doomed to be wage slaves or risk homelessness? I think the Boomer generation, which is mine, is the first to have their homes appropriated as something they don't deserve, leading to 'You will own nothing and be ... happy?'