The western Roman Empire was progressively conquered by the Franks who subjugated the local christian populations thus creating their feudal system. They manufactured a christianity not on the basis of the experience of the Church Fathers as a whole but the writing of one man, Augustine, who, though recognized as a saint, was in no way a Father as many of his writings were condemned by the Church such as his doctrine of predestination, a doctrine which is at the heart of the radical racism and slave producing ideologies of much of western thinking, doctrines resurrected by Calvin and Luther.
From an Orthodox perspective the first crusade was in fact against Britain. In 1009, after a few centuries of back and forth, Rome was once and for all conquered by the Franks/Normans. Immediately after the schism the Pope gave his blessing to William the Bastard to conquer England. Why would an already Christian Britain need to be reconquered by Rome? Because England had not been subjugated to the Frankish innovations in Christianity. They were still Orthodox. Orthodoxy is a decentralized Church, our unity is not under a man but the Resurrected Christ, thus allowing for enormous diversity. Our Trinitarian doctrine balances all human false dilemmas like the one and the many (papism/protestanism, totalitarianism/anarchy, collectivism/individualism, communism/capitalism, etc) being and becoming, transcendent/immanent, object/subject and more…. [Robin Hood was most probably an Orthodox Anglo-Saxon rebelling against the Norman barbarians that conquered his land.] Slavery ended in Byzantium and wage labor was anathema. Feudalism did not exist. Laborers were share holders. Money was not essential for survival. Byzantium was not an empire in a western sense but evolved into a cosmopoly - a federation of city-states. [Democracy did not end in ancient Athens but evolved and developed as Christianity turned selfish love to selfless love…]. Somehow we managed for a thousand plus years. The English of the 11th century were not ignorant of these things. A historical analysis that understands the distinctions between Orthodoxy and Papism is vital to understanding England’s subsequent trajectory.
Excellent essays Sir. Much of this history was well known to me, but you put it into a financial context which finally makes much better sense of it all. The Accepted Historical Narrative is pretty well forged, but the cracks in it are very apparent if you look closely. These financial essays piece together many lose ends into a coherent argument that needs to be addressed for a full understanding of what has actually transpired in our past, and deeply affects our present. Thank you for your illuminating series!
Henry the VIII was the man, kicking out of England the Roman Catholic Church and their military order of Knights. Unfortunately, Hospitallers/Templars escaped across the border into Scotland. From here they organised themselves, and now linked with the Jesuits, became a strong influence in the Scottish Presbyterian Church and Parliament. They also had very strong links with the Dutch House of Orange. It appears to be no accident that what followed was actually a well-designed plan to take control of the parliaments and royalty of England and Scotland. It is possible James II was well aware of the issues and tried to stop them before it got out of hand, but if so, he failed.
Gotta look to Henry, summon up the Wyvern and keep fighting these parasites.
"Albert Pike had promised his Masonic allies in Europe that they would have three world wars to consolidate the world power of the Canaanites. We have now seen two of those world wars, and, as promised, the first world war was to set up a Communist regime, the second world war was to raise it to the status of a world power, and the third world war is planned to destroy both Communism and Christianity in a great orgy of annihilation. This coming war is intended to be the final death knell of the people of Shem; after its conclusion the Canaanites will reign unchallenged throughout the world."
I've had a chance to properly think about your thesis and think it's a powerful one, although I would choose a different main protagonist. I would pick the Dutch over Rome as the authors of our misfortune. At face value, this might seem absurd- the Dutch were less mercantilist than the British. However, the Dutch had a long history of dealing with the mercantilist restrictions of the Hansa, and they were only more 'free trade' than British as a matter of expedience and relative power realpolitik. As soon as they had the chance to exercise mercantilism in distant seas and lands, for example, through the Dutch East India company, they did.
And, if course the English learned all the Dutch bad habits, and innovated a few of their own. Scottish free banking was actually better, created longer periods of sustained growth, greater prosperity, better pay for labour, and was generally superior in almost every respect. Little wonder the Bank of England insisted on getting rid of it.
The Dutch were the first to innovate with bonds. This was actually good idea- it was the reason why the British beat the French, because they outspent Napoleon. However, to use an analogy, what began as a mild and unrefined cocaine quickly became concentrated into crack. They and everyone who followed suit simply couldn't help themselves.
Debt is a form of money creation. This is fine if the debt/credit asset is being issued for the purposes of productive enterprise, but when governments are involved this is almost never the case. We should have stopped with bonds and IPOs, but most of finance is now a matter of rentier economics. I ran the numbers on how much of the UKs financial sectors profits are generated from housing. I imagine it won't surprise you to know that once one includes leveraging on mortgages as an asset class, lending for the construction sector, activities like land banking, and other investments, the figure quickly adds up to over 50%. Over 50% of the UKs finance sector, is rentier, effectively an exploit to monetise the artificial scarcity in the housing market created by government, our archaic planning laws, regulatory compliance costs, and the artificial scarcity this generates.
Our housing market is gamified. Not many OECD countries don't have this selfsame problem.
The Dutch learned bad habits from the Hansa and then the British. They were the first to have a speculative crash, with Tulip Mania- a sure sign they were the first to evolve this endemic financial corruption. Other Empires before did have the same problem, but it was a slower process mainly dependent upon currency debasement. As technology evolves, it's almost guaranteed humans will misuse it on a systemic and structural basis. It might be the case that new innovations which have similar properties to finance (almost exclusively resting in the ideal/intellectual realm, rather than the physical) might be inherently prone to empowering the bad actors to take over. This was certainly the case with Richard Thaler's libertarian paternalism technology, the 'Nudge'. Initially, there were a few projects which heralded optimism, but the ink was barely dry on the paper, when governments began opening up Nudge Units, principally charged with utilising fear to coercively manipulate their citizenry into unwanted behavioural change.
When I come across someone bright who has become disillusioned with capitalism I always tell them they need to read more and learn to distinguish between capitalism in general and finance specifically. As a power interest, finance has more lobbying power than all the other vested interests in DC or London combined. A while back physicists/mathematicians (2011 study by Stefania Vitali, James Glattfelder, and Stefano Battiston (ETH Zurich/Swiss) did a network analysis which looked at who really ran the world. They came up with 147 powers globally. They were all financial institutions, mainly located in the US and the UK, but also a few German interests and an increasing number of key nodes located in the Far East, particularly Hong Kong and a few other SE Asian cities.
Again, great article. I may not agree with you on all points, but it's rare to find analysis which is this insightful and historically literate. You're a real frontiersman in exploring the intellectual borders and undiscovered countries.
The western Roman Empire was progressively conquered by the Franks who subjugated the local christian populations thus creating their feudal system. They manufactured a christianity not on the basis of the experience of the Church Fathers as a whole but the writing of one man, Augustine, who, though recognized as a saint, was in no way a Father as many of his writings were condemned by the Church such as his doctrine of predestination, a doctrine which is at the heart of the radical racism and slave producing ideologies of much of western thinking, doctrines resurrected by Calvin and Luther.
From an Orthodox perspective the first crusade was in fact against Britain. In 1009, after a few centuries of back and forth, Rome was once and for all conquered by the Franks/Normans. Immediately after the schism the Pope gave his blessing to William the Bastard to conquer England. Why would an already Christian Britain need to be reconquered by Rome? Because England had not been subjugated to the Frankish innovations in Christianity. They were still Orthodox. Orthodoxy is a decentralized Church, our unity is not under a man but the Resurrected Christ, thus allowing for enormous diversity. Our Trinitarian doctrine balances all human false dilemmas like the one and the many (papism/protestanism, totalitarianism/anarchy, collectivism/individualism, communism/capitalism, etc) being and becoming, transcendent/immanent, object/subject and more…. [Robin Hood was most probably an Orthodox Anglo-Saxon rebelling against the Norman barbarians that conquered his land.] Slavery ended in Byzantium and wage labor was anathema. Feudalism did not exist. Laborers were share holders. Money was not essential for survival. Byzantium was not an empire in a western sense but evolved into a cosmopoly - a federation of city-states. [Democracy did not end in ancient Athens but evolved and developed as Christianity turned selfish love to selfless love…]. Somehow we managed for a thousand plus years. The English of the 11th century were not ignorant of these things. A historical analysis that understands the distinctions between Orthodoxy and Papism is vital to understanding England’s subsequent trajectory.
@Alex Krainer …
Excellent essays Sir. Much of this history was well known to me, but you put it into a financial context which finally makes much better sense of it all. The Accepted Historical Narrative is pretty well forged, but the cracks in it are very apparent if you look closely. These financial essays piece together many lose ends into a coherent argument that needs to be addressed for a full understanding of what has actually transpired in our past, and deeply affects our present. Thank you for your illuminating series!
Impressive! Thank you for the ongoing history lesson.
Great argument, steeped in history. Now I begin to see what you mean.
Henry the VIII was the man, kicking out of England the Roman Catholic Church and their military order of Knights. Unfortunately, Hospitallers/Templars escaped across the border into Scotland. From here they organised themselves, and now linked with the Jesuits, became a strong influence in the Scottish Presbyterian Church and Parliament. They also had very strong links with the Dutch House of Orange. It appears to be no accident that what followed was actually a well-designed plan to take control of the parliaments and royalty of England and Scotland. It is possible James II was well aware of the issues and tried to stop them before it got out of hand, but if so, he failed.
Gotta look to Henry, summon up the Wyvern and keep fighting these parasites.
Both HM Charles the I and HM James the II tried. The former was beheaded for it. The latter was deposed.
"Albert Pike had promised his Masonic allies in Europe that they would have three world wars to consolidate the world power of the Canaanites. We have now seen two of those world wars, and, as promised, the first world war was to set up a Communist regime, the second world war was to raise it to the status of a world power, and the third world war is planned to destroy both Communism and Christianity in a great orgy of annihilation. This coming war is intended to be the final death knell of the people of Shem; after its conclusion the Canaanites will reign unchallenged throughout the world."
Eustace Mullins
The Curse of Canaan
I've had a chance to properly think about your thesis and think it's a powerful one, although I would choose a different main protagonist. I would pick the Dutch over Rome as the authors of our misfortune. At face value, this might seem absurd- the Dutch were less mercantilist than the British. However, the Dutch had a long history of dealing with the mercantilist restrictions of the Hansa, and they were only more 'free trade' than British as a matter of expedience and relative power realpolitik. As soon as they had the chance to exercise mercantilism in distant seas and lands, for example, through the Dutch East India company, they did.
And, if course the English learned all the Dutch bad habits, and innovated a few of their own. Scottish free banking was actually better, created longer periods of sustained growth, greater prosperity, better pay for labour, and was generally superior in almost every respect. Little wonder the Bank of England insisted on getting rid of it.
The Dutch were the first to innovate with bonds. This was actually good idea- it was the reason why the British beat the French, because they outspent Napoleon. However, to use an analogy, what began as a mild and unrefined cocaine quickly became concentrated into crack. They and everyone who followed suit simply couldn't help themselves.
Debt is a form of money creation. This is fine if the debt/credit asset is being issued for the purposes of productive enterprise, but when governments are involved this is almost never the case. We should have stopped with bonds and IPOs, but most of finance is now a matter of rentier economics. I ran the numbers on how much of the UKs financial sectors profits are generated from housing. I imagine it won't surprise you to know that once one includes leveraging on mortgages as an asset class, lending for the construction sector, activities like land banking, and other investments, the figure quickly adds up to over 50%. Over 50% of the UKs finance sector, is rentier, effectively an exploit to monetise the artificial scarcity in the housing market created by government, our archaic planning laws, regulatory compliance costs, and the artificial scarcity this generates.
Our housing market is gamified. Not many OECD countries don't have this selfsame problem.
The Dutch learned bad habits from the Hansa and then the British. They were the first to have a speculative crash, with Tulip Mania- a sure sign they were the first to evolve this endemic financial corruption. Other Empires before did have the same problem, but it was a slower process mainly dependent upon currency debasement. As technology evolves, it's almost guaranteed humans will misuse it on a systemic and structural basis. It might be the case that new innovations which have similar properties to finance (almost exclusively resting in the ideal/intellectual realm, rather than the physical) might be inherently prone to empowering the bad actors to take over. This was certainly the case with Richard Thaler's libertarian paternalism technology, the 'Nudge'. Initially, there were a few projects which heralded optimism, but the ink was barely dry on the paper, when governments began opening up Nudge Units, principally charged with utilising fear to coercively manipulate their citizenry into unwanted behavioural change.
When I come across someone bright who has become disillusioned with capitalism I always tell them they need to read more and learn to distinguish between capitalism in general and finance specifically. As a power interest, finance has more lobbying power than all the other vested interests in DC or London combined. A while back physicists/mathematicians (2011 study by Stefania Vitali, James Glattfelder, and Stefano Battiston (ETH Zurich/Swiss) did a network analysis which looked at who really ran the world. They came up with 147 powers globally. They were all financial institutions, mainly located in the US and the UK, but also a few German interests and an increasing number of key nodes located in the Far East, particularly Hong Kong and a few other SE Asian cities.
Again, great article. I may not agree with you on all points, but it's rare to find analysis which is this insightful and historically literate. You're a real frontiersman in exploring the intellectual borders and undiscovered countries.
https://youtu.be/GOAFxooV3pQ?si=lErRJUpc8Fv-pw8F
Running 'game on these hoes