Renewable Revolution

Tao Jonesing,

I'll check that abolitionist out. Certainly, human nature is what it is, BUT, the industrial revolution allowed an oligarch to garner wealth for 10,000 while he had been previously limited to lording it over a handful of serfs and slaves while sparring with the other small time tyrants throughout history. As to the North and the South, I have read that the different areas in the UK that they came from predicated their behavior patterns before they stepped off the boat (four distinct areas I believe).

One of the things about the US constitution is that it was a rhetorical masterpiece because it applied to a VERY tiny group of men excluding, in practice, everyone but landed white men while claiming "all men were created equal". It was breathtaking in its hypocrisy. A free black who built his own clock out of hardwood parts, became an astronomer and computed the ephemeris used by mariners in the day wrote to Jefferson demanding that Jefferson stop insisting that blacks were mentally inferior to whites and offerred to debate him and have a mathematical contest. Jefferson flat refused to even acknowledge him. Jefferson was a great writer but a ruthless opportunist, as were all the founding fathers. The constitution has never, even to this day, been applied across the land and I am fully aware of the Calvinist doctrine in the US after the civil war that maintained that "The people must be kept poor so they will remain obedient". IF the industrial revolution had improved the lives of everyone across the board as was promised, we would have a different world. But, no the people with access to capital deliberately made life worse for the poor and used divide and conquer tactics to create Jim Crow strife to sucker the poor whites into not looking at who was REALLY impoverishing them. All this is as old as human nature. For that reason I tend to look with a jaundiced eye at any claim to greatness or foresight by the founding fathers.

I continue to believe the force multiplier of the industrial revolution increased the power of these oligarchs and decreased, in an equal proportion, the small amount of democracy we had. I know how England and Europe operated in those days. They wanted everything not made in England (machinery and crafted goods) to have zero competition and everything coming from the colonies to be agrarian goods (commodities). The North and South had a different spin on how to make a buck but they were both equally complicit (at the elite level) in fostering tyranny for profit.

I was generalizing when I said the "1%". I realize the main decision makers involve a smaller percentage and the 99% suffer from a serious infusion of fecal coliforms in their glial cells resulting in their amygdalas colonizing their prefrontal cortex. IOW they are being continuously brainwashed with bullshit so their base urges are amplified and their critical thinking skills destroyed. But nevertheless, I see more virtue and hope in the 99% than the souless reptiles in the catbird seat.

Quote from: agelbert on July 19, 2012, 02:44:13 am

Certainly, human nature is what it is, BUT, the industrial revolution allowed an oligarch to garner wealth for 10,000 while he had been previously limited to lording it over a handful of serfs and slaves while sparring with the other small time tyrants throughout history.

But what did the oligarchs do to create the conditions for the industrial revolution?  The conditions did not arise naturally but were created by state intervention.  Here's a link to an article that discusses Perelman's book, cited above:

http://exiledonline.com/recovered-economic-history-everyone-but-an-idiot-knows-that-the-lower-classes-must-be-kept-poor-or-they-will-never-be-industrious/

Quote

I continue to believe the force multiplier of the industrial revolution increased the power of these oligarchs and decreased, in an equal proportion, the small amount of democracy we had. I know how England and Europe operated in those days.

I don't disagree.