Nimrodists
Black Nobility Bringers of Usury against Gods Law.
Variation IX (Adagio) "Nimrod"[edit]
The name of the variation refers to Augustus J. Jaeger, who was employed as a music editor by the London publisher Novello & Co. He was a close friend of Elgar's, giving him useful advice but also severe criticism, something Elgar greatly appreciated. Elgar later related how Jaeger had encouraged him as an artist and had stimulated him to continue composing despite setbacks. Nimrod is described in the Old Testament as "a mighty hunter before the Lord", Jäger (which can also be spelt Jaeger) being German for hunter.
In 1904 Elgar told Dora Penny ("Dorabella") that this variation is not really a portrait, but "the story of something that happened".[8] Once, when Elgar had been very depressed and was about to give it all up and write no more music, Jaeger had visited him and encouraged him to continue composing. He referred to Ludwig van Beethoven, who had a lot of worries, but wrote more and more beautiful music. "And that is what you must do", Jaeger said, and he sang the theme of the second movement of Beethoven's Piano Sonata No. 8 Pathétique. Elgar disclosed to Dora that the opening bars of "Nimrod" were made to suggest that theme. "Can't you hear it at the beginning? Only a hint, not a quotation."
This variation has become popular in its own right and is sometimes used at British funerals, memorial services, and other solemn occasions. It is always played at the Cenotaph, Whitehall in London at the National Service of Remembrance. A version was also played during the Hong Kong handover ceremony in 1997, at the opening ceremony of the London 2012 Olympic Games, and during the 2022 BBC Proms after the season was cut short due to the death of Queen Elizabeth II. The "Nimrod" variation was the final orchestral composition (before the national anthem) played by the Greek National Orchestra in a televised June 2013 concert, before the 75-year-old Athenian ensemble was dissolved in the wake of severe government cutbacks to televised programming.[9]
An adaptation of the piece appears at the ending of the 2017 film Dunkirk in the score by Hans Zimmer.[10][11]
Imperial hubris (goeth before a fall); final panic in City of London?
"I want to take it back to the 1840s, to the real roots of hegemony, which is Great Britain. Never was there a hegemon with such ambition and such a curious view of the world. But Britain wanted to run the world in the 19th century and taught America everything it knows. Recently, I read a fascinating book by a historian named J.H. Gleason, published by Harvard University Press in 1950. It's an incredibly interesting book called 'The Genesis of Russophobia in Great Britain.' The question is, where did England's hate of Russia come from? Because it's actually a little surprising. Britain has HATED Russia since the 1840s and launched the Crimean War that was a war of choice in modern Parliament—a war of choice by Palmerston in the 1850s—because it hated Russia. So, this author tries to understand where this hate came from, because it was the same kind of iterative hate that we have now. And by the way, we hated the Soviet Union because it was Communist, but we hated Russia afterwards when it wasn't communist. It doesn't matter. So, it's a deeper phenomenon, and he tries to trace where this hatred came from. The fascinating point is, Russia and Britain were on the same side in the Napoleonic Wars from 1812 to 1815, from the Battle of Moscow in Russia to Napoleon's defeat in Waterloo. They were on the same side, and in fact, for many years, the relations weren't great, but they were kind of normal. So, this historian reads every snippet of the newspapers, what's written, of the speeches, to try to understand where the hatred arose. The key point is there was no reason for it. There was nothing that Russia did. Russia didn't behave in some perfidious way. It wasn't Russian evil; it wasn't that the tsar was somehow off the rails. There wasn't anything except a self-fulfilling lather built up over time because Russia was a big power and therefore an affront to British hegemony. This is the same reason why the US hates China: not for anything China actually does but because it's big. It's the same reason, until today, that the United States and Britain hate Russia—because it's big. So, the author comes to the conclusion that the hate really arose around 1840 because it wasn't instantaneous, and there was no single triggering event. The British got it into their crazy heads that Russia was going to invade India through Central Asia and Afghanistan—one of the most bizarre, phony, wrongheaded ideas imaginable—but they took it quite literally. And they told themselves this: 'We're the imperialists. How dare Russia presume to invade India?' when it had no intention of doing so. So, my point is, it's possible to have hate to the point of war and now to the point of nuclear annihilation for no fundamental reason. Talk to each other."
It is the Nimrodists who have been a plague on humanity, their seat of Government just happened to move to the city of London in 1698, when the Whig Junto installed the Bank.
The Same Nimrodists have corrupted the US constitution.
What The Nimrodists Hate is religious Orthodoxy, they are literally Men who would be Gods.
The Preferred method of controlling World Trade has been through Money and it is the Mistake of Usury which has got in the way of Prosperity and peace between the various Tribal peoples of the world.
What would the Law of peace and prosperity look like?
Carey the late 19th Century US Economist knew this .
https://cec.cecaust.com.au/pubs/pdfs/cv7n6_part2of2.pdf
The Animus of the British Nimrodist against Russia is that of a Calvanist view of Unconditional Election butting heads with the Eastern Orthodox Church This goes back to the Council of Nicea through to the Split between the Church of Rome and The Eastern Orthodox Church. The Reason is that Usury could not gain traction in any of the Orthodox Traditions following Gods Law against Usury.
The same injunction against Usury came down through the Ages and is found in Aristotles Ethics and Even in Adam Smiths Writing, Read Benthams In Defence of Ussury to see how he tried to Get Smith on Side.
The Nimrodists and the East is a special case the history of which is written in the Ancient Ratio between Silver and gold and The Arbitrage Exploited first aginst The Roman Republic when it forsoke Copper as specie instead replacing Gold and Silver which had never monitised before.
Anyway suffice to say I think the Analysis given in your Link is shooting well wide of the well wide of the mark.
Best
https://grubstreetinexile.substack.com/p/quod-erat-demonstrandum-doubling
Rog
See link from understanding the Ratio
Nimrod is described in the Old Testament as "a mighty hunter before the Lord",
Biblical account[edit]
The first biblical mention of Nimrod is in the Table of Nations.[6] He is described as the son of Cush, grandson of Ham, and great-grandson of Noah; and as "a mighty one in the earth" and "a mighty hunter before the Lord". This is repeated in the First Book of Chronicles 1:10, and the "Land of Nimrod" used as a synonym for Assyria or Mesopotamia, is mentioned in the Book of Micah 5:6:
And they shall waste the land of Assyria with the sword, and the land of Nimrod in the entrances thereof: thus shall he deliver us from the Assyrian, when he cometh into our land, and when he treadeth within our borders.
Genesis says that the "beginning of his kingdom" (reshit mamlakhto) were the towns of "Babel, Erech, Akkad and Calneh in the land of Shinar" (Mesopotamia) (Gen 10:10)—understood variously to imply that he either founded these cities, ruled over them, or both. Owing to an ambiguity in the original Hebrew text, it is unclear whether it is he or Ashur who additionally built Nineveh, Resen, Rehoboth-Ir and Calah (both interpretations are reflected in various English versions). Sir Walter Raleigh devoted several pages in his History of the World (1614) to reciting past scholarship regarding the question of whether it had been Nimrod or Ashur who built the cities in Assyria.[7]
A poem in Three Voices for added 4th part Harmony.
Synthesis Speaks to introduce, And Thesis, Anti Thesis and Synthesis dialogue
The conversation revolves and we find
Revolution plagiarizes past mistakes.
In Consensus the three Voices resolve and entreat your contribution dear reader for a fourth part, shall we harmonIse.
Synthesis.
Start here with your own experience. Bring here your
open mind and trust your instinctive feeling for truth.
As resolution of discord demands a return to the tonic. The Tonic for our dissonant condition is a harmonic resolution to the Chord of Nature.
∲6/8 bb :
This post gets to the heart of the Matter, Frances Leaders post compendium on the Black Nobility is what you seek.
"When you refer to the Jesuits/Black Nobility, I take it that stands for the Sabbatian Frankist Freemasonic Crypto-Jewish cabal.... right?" asked a friend, confused after reading one of my articles.
I replied:
No, I do not refer to Crypto Jews.
I mean the Roman Empire and its Catholic Church plus all its globalist totalitarian aristocratic backers.
“The Zionists are Nimrodists and are the arch enemy of the Jews”.
00:20:00 In this section, the speaker discusses the background of the ancient Canaanite region, the Pharaoh Merneptah who was known as the "binder of Gaza," and the inscriptions found on a monument commemorating his victories. The discussion then turns to the descendants of Ham, who founded the Canaanite region, and how they inherited the garments made for Adam and Eve before they were expelled from the Garden of Eden. The speaker goes on to mention Nimrod, the founder of Babylon and Nineveh, who had a symbol of evil and founded Freemasonry. Therefore, the State of Israel is in contention over these ancient events.
00:25:00 In this section, the speaker discusses the biblical figure Nimrod and his significance in the story of Abraham. Nimrod, a descendant of Ham, hid Abraham as a baby to protect him from being killed, but later discovered him and ordered him to worship fire. When Abraham refused, Nimrod threw him into the fire. The speaker goes on to discuss the importance of Nimrod in the occult and how he introduced the practice of genocide and cannibalism to the world. He also mentions that Nimrod was responsible for the name "cannibal," which is derived from the combined names of his uncle Kanan and the demon God Baal. Finally, the speaker discusses the fall of Nimrod, citing George Josephus as saying that Nimrod's grandson Nimrod was beheaded by Shem after Nimrod's brazen tower came into conflict with God's will. He also states that the priests of Babylon hid the pieces of Nimrod's body as relics and conducted their forbidden orgies in secret. The speaker concludes by mentioning the ongoing struggle between the descendants of Shem and the descendants of Ham throughout history, and notes that this struggle is often hidden or obscured in historical records.
And thus the Spectre spoke: Wilt thou still go on to destruction? 10 Till thy life is all taken away by this deceitful Friendship? He drinks thee up like water! like wine he pours thee Into his tuns: thy Daughters are trodden in his vintage He makes thy Sons the trampling of his bulls, they are plow'd And harrowd for his profit, lo! thy stolen Emanation Is his garden of pleasure! 15 all the Spectres of his Sons mock thee Look how they scorn thy once admired palaces! now in ruins Because of Albion! because of deceit and friendship! For Lo! Hand has peopled Babel & Nineveh: Hyle, Ashur & Aram: Cobans son is Nimrod: his son Cush is adjoind to Aram, 20 By the Daughter of Babel, in a woven mantle of pestilence & war.
To the Jews
Jerusalem the Emanation of the Giant Albion! Can it be? Is it a Truth that the Learned have explored? Was Britain the Primitive Seat of the Patriarchal Religion? If it is true: my title-page is also True, that Jerusalem was & is the Emanation of the Giant Albion. It is True, and cannot be controverted. Ye are united O ye Inhabitants of Earth in One Religion. The Religion of Jesus: the most Ancient, the Eternal: & the Everlasting Gospel—The Wicked will turn it to Wickedness, the Righteous to Righteousness. Amen! Huzza! Selah!
“All things Begin & End in Albions Ancient Druid Rocky Shore.”
Your Ancestors derived their origin from Abraham, Heber, Shem and Noah, who were Druids: as the Druid Temples (which are the Patriarchal Pillars & Oak Groves) over the whole Earth witness to this day.
You have a tradition, that Man anciently containd in his mighty limbs all things in Heaven & Earth: this you recieved from the Druids.
“But now the Starry Heavens are fled from the mighty limbs of Albion”
Albion was the Parent of the Druids; & in his Chaotic State of Sleep Satan & Adam & the whole World was Created by the Elohim.
The fields from Islington to Marybone,
To Primrose Hill and Saint John's Wood:
Were builded over with pillars of gold,
And there Jerusalems pillars stood.
5Her Little-ones ran on the fields
The Lamb of God among them seen
And fair Jerusalem his Bride:
Among the little meadows green.
Pancrass & Kentish-town repose
10Among her golden pillars high:
Among her golden arches which
Shine upon the starry sky.
The Jews-harp-house & the Green Man;
The Ponds where Boys to bathe delight:
15The fields of Cows by Willans farm:
Shine in Jerusalems pleasant sight.
She walks upon our meadows green:
The Lamb of God walks by her side:
And every English Child is seen,
20Children of Jesus & his Bride,
Forgiving trespasses and sins
Lest Babylon with cruel Og,
With Moral & Self-righteous Law
Should Crucify in Satans Synagogue!
25What are those golden Builders doing
Near mournful ever-weeping Paddington
Standing above that mighty Ruin
Where Satan the first victory won.
Where Albion slept beneath the Fatal Tree
30And the Druids golden Knife,
Rioted in human gore,
In Offerings of Human Life
They groan'd aloud on London Stone
They groand aloud on Tyburns
35Albion gave his deadly groan,
And all the Atlantic Mountains shook
Albions Spectre from his Loins
Tore forth in all the pomp of War!
Satan his name: in flames of fire
40He stretch'd his Druid Pillars far.
Jerusalem fell from Lambeth's Vale,
Down thro Poplar & Old Bow;
Thro Malden & acros the Sea,
In War & howling death & woe.
45The Rhine was red with human blood:
The Danube rolld a purple tide:
On the Euphrates Satan stood:
And over Asia stretch'd his pride.
He witherd up sweet Zions Hill,
50From every Nation of the Earth:
He witherd up Jerusalems Gates,
And in a dark Land gave her birth.
He witherd up the Human Form,
By laws of sacrifice for sin:
55Till it became a Mortal Worm:
But O! translucent all within.
The Divine Vision still was seen
Still was the Human Form, Divine
Weeping in weak & mortal clay
60O Jesus still the Form was thine.
And thine the Human Face & thine
The Human Hands & Feet & Breath
Entering thro' the Gates of Birth
And passing thro' the Gates of Death
65And O thou Lamb of God, whom I
Slew in my dark self-righteous pride:
Art thou return'd to Albions Land!
And is Jerusalem thy Bride?
Come to my arms & never more
70Depart; but dwell for ever here:
Create my Spirit to thy Love:
Subdue my Spectre to thy Fear,
Spectre of Albion! warlike Fiend!
In clouds of blood & ruin roll'd:
75I here reclaim thee as my own
My Selfhood! Satan! armd in gold.
Is this thy soft Family-Love
Thy cruel Patriarchal pride
Planting thy Family alone
80Destroying all the World beside.
A mans worst enemies are those
Of his own house & family;
And he who makes his law a curse,
By his own law shall surely die.
85In my Exchanges every Land
Shall walk, & mine in every Land,
Mutual shall build Jerusalem:
Both heart in heart & hand in hand.
If Humility is Christianity; you O Jews are the true Christians; If your tradition that Man contained in his Limbs, all Animals, is True & they were separated from him by cruel Sacrifices: and when compulsory cruel Sacrifices had brought Humanity into a Feminine Tabernacle, in the loins of Abraham & David: the Lamb of God, the Saviour became apparent on Earth as the Prophets had foretold? The Return of Israel is a Return to Mental Sacrifice & War. Take up the Cross O Israel & follow Jesus.
Blake's poem
And did those feet in ancient time,
Walk upon Englands[b] mountains green:
And was the holy Lamb of God,
On Englands pleasant pastures seen!
And did the Countenance Divine,
Shine forth upon our clouded hills?
And was Jerusalem builded here,
Among these[c] dark Satanic Mills?
Bring me my Bow of burning gold:
Bring me my Arrows of desire:
Bring me my Spear: O clouds unfold:
Bring me my Chariot of fire!
I will not cease from Mental Fight,
Nor shall my Sword sleep in my hand:
Till we have built Jerusalem,
In Englands green & pleasant Land.
Beneath the poem Blake inscribed a quotation from the Bible:[10]
"Would to God that all the Lords[d] people were Prophets"
Numbers XI. Ch 29.v[9]
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/And_did_those_feet_in_ancient_time
A Possible Scenario for the Future ( Written in 2007)
In the future, we may see the following scenario unfold as the forces of internationalism seek to bring about a "new Imperial System" that will rival the old Roman Empire. Russia must control the Middle East in order to secure control of this region and the oil fields in the Arab nations. The Arab world will be guided further into the Russian camp. The Arab hatred for the Israelis will be carefully nurtured and promoted. The heated debate over Judea and Samaria will serve as the catalyst for the eventual election of strong conservative forces in the Israeli government. These leaders will take a bold stance both diplomatically and militarily against the Palestinians. The Arab world and Russia will invade the nation of Israel. Russia will cut off oil to the West. There will be a severe crisis in Europe, Japan and the United States and other parts of the world. Anarchy will reign. The people of the world will turn against Israel and demand it surrender to the Russian and Arab forces. The people of the Western world will call for their leaders to end the crisis. The people will be told that the only way to end this terrible conflict will be to accept a system of global governance under the "new Imperial System." The war in the Middle East creates economic chaos throughout the world. The elite face intense pressure from the conflict in the Middle East and they begin to war among themselves. Military conflicts break out all over the world. The international financial, economic and trading systems of the elite financial oligarchy collapse. Every stock market on earth crashes in a single day. Nuclear weapons are launched by various nations and World War III is underway. The horrors of war, pestilence and plague create unbelievable havoc throughout the nations of the earth. Billions of people are slain.
A Possible Scenario for the Future
·
MAY 15
´´Let those that deny the educational significance of the Bible, that declare it has outlived its usefulness, invent such a book, such stories, such explanations of the phenomena of nature, either from general history or from imagination, which should have such a recap- ion as the Bible ones have, and then we will agree that the Bible is superannuated .
Pedagogy serves as a verification of many, many vital phenomena, of social and abstract questions.Materialism will have the right to proclaim itself as victorious only when the bible of materialism shall have been written, and childhood shall have been educated according to this bible. Owen’s experiment cannot be regarded as a proof of such a possibility, any more than the growth of a lemon tree in a Moscow greenhouse is proof that it could grow without the open sky and the sun.I repeat it, my conviction, drawn perhaps from a one- sided experiment, is that the development of a child and a man is as unthinkable without the Bible as it would have been in Greek society without
Homer. The Bible is the only book for the elementary education of the young. The Bible, both in its form and in its con- tent, ought to serve as the model for all children’s manuals and reading books. A simple popular translation of the Bible would be the most popular of all books. The appearance of such a translation in our day would make an epoch in the history of the Russian people ´´ (YASNAYA POLYANA SCHOOL 253, Tolstoy, https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Yasnaya_Polyana_School)
August 9, 2022
CHREMATISTICS TO CARBON CREDITS. THE NEW MONETARY SYSTEM, THE CARBON CREDIT “GOLD STANDARD”
Capitalism & the Illusion of Money – David Korten
In considering such calls it is as well to remember the words from Kipling’s Poem Dane Geld.
"We never pay any-one Dane-geld,
No matter how trifling the cost;
For the end of that game is oppression and shame,
And the nation that pays it is lost!"Danegeld video
Original Blog Started Here from 25th May 2017
This Blog is by way of explication of the Video
entitled COBRA, The PoliticalClass, Islamicist political terrorism,
William Blake, “You read Black I read White”.
Recent events in Manchester and a wider debate regarding Rape
Culture and grooming gangs,
in many UK communities have been conflated into a single issue.
Albeit that there are common themes and characteristics the
two distinct categories need to be considered separately
to seek solutions to each.
Many grooming gangs have been found to be of
Somali and Pakistani heritage and these cultural
identifiers have been conflated with the Moslem faith common to those National
identities.
Terrorism and Sexual predation are two different categories of
Violence. Those engaging in either activity may seek justification
through various artifices; “there was a voice in my head”,
they were asking for it” or, “God told me too, or says it’s OK
to do it to them because they are not like us”.
Suicide Bombing is a terroristic tactic of political warfare
and some perpetrators claim justification either from the Quran
or from Hadith. It is a small minority of Islamic scholarship that claims
legitimacy for such acts.
Paedophilia and Grooming Rape Gangs are sometimes accorded
Claims that the Torah and the Quran and teachings in Kabala or
Hadith sources excuse Sexual acts with other than
those who are from the faithful community. Talmudic Scholars
and Islamic Scholars almost unanimously disavow such interpretations of the
religious sources although Justification is offered by some scholars who one
might call sophists for other political ends.
I mention the Talmud and Torah as often Nazi Apologists and
Anti-Semites seek to paint Jewish victims of the Shoa
in Nazi Germany and Jews in general as complicit in
and condoning of various abhorrent and immoral behaviour
sexually or related to acts of their justified religious violence.
the propagandistic element of these memes is often encouraged
in times of war for political propaganda purposes.
https://judaism.stackexchange.com/questions/65726/does-the-talmud-promote-pedophilia
We conclude from all the evidence cited above that Aisha (may Allah be pleased with her) was nineteen years old when she joined the Holy Prophet as his wife in the year 2 A.H., the nikah or betrothal having taken place five years previously.
Esoteric writing is common in Religous texts, so much so that
Maimonides wrote a text called the Guide for the perplexed
to help the faithful with understanding the different levels of
meaning that might be found in the Talmud or Torah,
His guide works equally well for the Quran, Hadith sources and
indeed the King James Bible.
In The Guide for the Perplexed, amongst the seven causes of contradiction, this is the seventh.The other six will be found at this
link.
http://letthemconfectsweeterlies.blogspot.se/2017/05/authentic-discourses-on-decisions-to-act.html
Seventh cause: It is sometimes necessary to introduce such metaphysical matter as may partly be disclosed, but must partly be concealed: while, therefore, on one occasion the object which the author has in view may demand that the metaphysical problem be treated as solved in one way, it may be convenient on another occasion to treat it as solved in the opposite way. The author must endeavour, by concealing the fact as much as possible, to prevent the uneducated reader from perceiving the contradiction.
In William Blakes Poem, The Everlasting Gospel this is what he means when he states that
“Both read the Bible day & nightBut thou readst black where I read white”
The works of William Blake, poetic, symbolic and critical/2/The Everlasting Gospel
Mr. Rossetti’s sense of propriety, guided by his entire lack of mental companionship with Blake, has led him to sup- press two lines about the nose in the dedication of the poem he professes to publish in full for the first time. It should run: —
“The Vision of Christ that thou dost see,
[ Page 33 ]
The Vision of Christ that thou dost see
Is my Visions Greatest Enemy
Thine has a great hook nose like thine
Mine has a snub nose like to mine5Thine is the Friend of All Mankind
Mine speaks in parables to the Blind
Thine loves the same world that mine hates
Thy Heaven doors are my Hell Gates
Socrates taught what Melitus10Loathd as a Nations bitterest Curse
And Caiphas was in his own Mind
A benefactor of Mankind
Both read the Bible day & night
But thou readst black where I read white
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cabinet_Office_Briefing_Room
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Civil_Contingencies_Committee
http://isc.independent.gov.uk/
http://isc.independent.gov.uk/committee-members
Exegesis Hermeneutics Flux Capacitor of Truthiness
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May 25, 2017
LAST NIGHT IN LAMBETH. TERRORISM , RAPE, POLITICS AND RELIGION. A GUIDE FOR THE PERPLEXED.(LONDON BRIDGE AND BOUROUGH MARKET MURDERS)
Last Night in Lambeth there was another terrorist attack perpetrated by Islamicist Terrorists, whilst no claims were made immediately for responsibility it is clear that this Attack was claimed for the extremist Wahhabi Islamist Jihadist ideology, which is exported from Saudi Arabi via proxy´s in several North African and Middle Eastern wars.
Shortly after the first news reports started to emerge
the Telegraph newspaper and several celebrities whose accounts are monitored by the BBC´s Live News Feed team
called for a postponement of the General Election on the
8th of June.
November 30, 2019
NOTHING TO SEE HERE, MOVE ALONG. LONDON BRIDGE 2 , THE SEQUEL. #COBRA #BRENDANCOX #PEAJACKETS #PEASINAPOD.#TWOFINGERS2BRINO @WIKI_BALLOT #4PAMPHLETEERS @GRUBSTREETJORNO @SURVATION @WIKI_BALLOT @FINANCIALEYES #WIKIBALLOTPICK #IABATO #SAM #GE2019 ROGER LEWIS ( PORTHOS) @JOEBLOB20
On London Bridge. It was noticeable that 3 of the Civilian Heroes are actually wearing Military issue Pea Jackets, there is an air of Death on the Rock in the demeanour of several of the Alarmingly calm gentlemen around the fringes. The Para-Military Police Guys Obviously had a Job to do. What though were either The SBS or SAS doing there?
It may well be that Intelligence put our best guys on the spot and thank goodness for that, the show biz aspects of it do however speak to a PR opportunity to COnvene the COBRA committee. More to See here I think To Wit.
More footage from the #LondonBridge knife attack.
The public took him down before police arrived.
He is shot. pic.twitter.com/BwPWtkd9F5
— Darren of Plymouth (@DarrenPlymouth) November 29, 2019
March 28, 2020
SAME DAMN TRICKS IN THE SAME DAMN WAY, IN SOME CASES WITH THE SAME DAMN PEOPLE . GWYNETH TODD WW111 #COVIDPURPOSE #CRASHCOURSE #GOVTLIESWHOKNEW? #COVID2019 A ROCKERFELLER OPERATION
https://www.bitchute.com/video/pIm0Iv0xxscr/
What Are “Assad Apologists”? Are They Like Those “Saddam Apologists” Of 2002?
caitlinjohnstone (71)
in #syria • 2 years ago (edited)
Isn’t it fascinating how western journalists are suddenly rallying to attack the dangerous awful and horrifying epidemic of “Assad apologists” just as the western empire ramps up its longstanding regime change agenda against the Syrian government? Kinda sorta exactly the same way they began spontaneously warning the world about “Saddam apologists” around the time of the Iraq invasion?
same damn tricks in the same damn way, in some cases with the same damn people . Gwyneth Todd WW111 https://t.co/41v4eCSKsy #BitChute #CovidPurpose
— GrubStreetJournal (@GrubStreetJorno) March 28, 2020
https://twitter.com/GrubStreetJorno/status/1243920114115850241
Patrick Clawson Responds to Questions, Full Video – 9/21/2012 #FalseFlag #LongList
Tonefreqhz Patrick Clawson Responds to Questions, Full Video – 9/21/2012 #FalseFlag #LongList https://www.bitchute.com/video/pXpouMhfvgjP/
#BitChute #CovidPurpose #BoycottGogle
Tonefreqhz Mendacity and Duplicity Soldiers of War. Truth The first Casualty. FairGame WMD’s https://www.bitchute.com/video/7wADroAPc7no/
Tonefreqhz Noble Lie, Oaklahoma City Bombing 1995 https://www.bitchute.com/video/96YJDqcZm0hf/
Tonefreqhz persecuted by Big Pharma for developing & producing an EXTREMELY EFFECTIVE CANCER TREATMENT https://www.bitchute.com/video/Pz7LQI0bvQqR/
Tonefreqhz Part 3: Timothy McVeigh, Th Jon Ronson, A conspiracy about conspiracies.Secret Rulers of Brexit https://www.bitchute.com/video/IoHtqGoAa4Dt/
Tonefreqhz Miele mouths words, Ian Bone calls out Harman (Left) Vaisey (RIght) On Iraq War Hypocrisy. https://www.bitchute.com/video/d70WuaQfWxle/
Tonefreqhz Secret City – A film about the City of London, the Corporation that runs it. https://www.bitchute.com/video/4WXeiHEoMmGd/
#CovidPurpose #BoycottGoogle @2013Boodicca
SECRET CITY - A FILM ABOUT THE CITY OF LONDON, THE CORPORATION THAT RUNS IT.
https://www.bitchute.com/video/4WXeiHEoMmGd/
(August 2015) -Click here to support the follow up to Secret City
https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/mo...
http://secretcity-thefilm.com/
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https://twitter.com/SecretCityDoc
A film about the City of London, the Corporation that runs it, and its role in the economic crisis. By Michael Chanan and Lee Salter. See www.secretcity-thefilm.com
IT'S ALMOST A YEAR since anti-capitalist protestors, intending to set up camp in front of the London Stock Exchange in Paternoster Square under the banner of Occupy LSX, were ejected from the square and parked themselves instead in front of St Paul's Cathedral. The result was one of the starting points for this film: a highly public debate about capitalism and the Church.
But there was also another power acting in the shadows to eventually eject the Occupiers - the City of London Corporation. An ancient body which dates back before William the Conqueror, before there was a parliament in Westminster, which zealously guards its autonomy and privileges to this day.
This is our subject: a secret state within a state, with deleterious effects on democracy, politics and economics in London, the country, and the world, for the City is joint headquarters with Wall Street of global finance capital. In short, 'Secret City' isn't just a film for Londoners - especially in these times of crisis, the role of the City concerns everyone everywhere.
'Secret City' is a minimal budget film by Michael Chanan and Lee Salter which investigates the history and contemporary role of the City of London Corporation. We tell the story though interviews with politicians, academics, writers, activists and campaigners, counterpointed with unfamiliar archive footage and a musical score by Simon Zagorski-Thomas taken from the nursery rhyme 'Oranges and Lemons'.
Dissent This
Exposing those who see the World as their Fiefdom and Humanity as Livestock - Recorded at the AV9 Conference, May 2018.
This talk provides a diachronic (i.e. over-time) view of the progress and status of evil in mankind over the millennia.
Alex Thomson focuses on a series of seminal decades in human history when wickedness broke cover in significantly new ways and reached major milestones in its manifestation within religions, philosophies and technologies.
We see that every social evil that has surfaced in the past generation is not unprecedented but is merely a revisiting of the preoccupations of the mystery religions of antiquity (refined in Egypt and Babylon and documented in Greece and Rome), in which an illuminated (gnostic) sacerdotal caste, relying upon semi-initiated mercantilist underlings, regards the world as its fiefdom and humanity as livestock. The key battleground will be seen to be the human psyche.
Since history means ‘inquiry’, this talk will be given for the benefit of today’s inquirer and will end with a section focusing on the cabals which implanted themselves in the world’s most advanced countries as Late Modernity dawned, which concern themselves with the thieving of intellectual property, the dominance of the legal system, the hoarding of precious commodities and the maintenance of a global war economy, whose next development is the nuclear war for which this cabal longs.
Bio:
After learning what today’s British Establishment was all about at Rugby School and Cambridge, Alex Thomson served in a Christian mission in the former Soviet Union witnessing the planned destruction of a region of the world, before spending the rest of his twenties as a GCHQ officer.
He moved to the Netherlands aged thirty in 2009 and has spent the last decade more quietly as a translator and interpreter and a researcher of networked evil. For the past five years, he has presented his emerging findings via UK Column and the British Constitution Group, where his specialisms are geopolitics, religious history and comparative constitutionalism.
La Commune (Peter Watkins, 2000)
Since the time of the 1966 banning by the BBC of my film The War Game (which dealt with the consequences of using nuclear weapons) I have been concerned with the increasing ‘dumbing down’ of the MAVM (mass audiovisual media) and the development of what I now refer to as ‘the media crisis’. Key elements in this crisis include the heavily circumscribed agendas of the MAVM, the forced development of the media popular culture, the standardisation of the audiovisual form resulting in the creation of an increasingly hierarchical and manipulative relationship with the audience (the public), and education systems which are largely compliant with this system.
Guide for the Perplexed, Contradiction.
A sort of guide for the perplexed.
Newsfeeds in the corporate media have become esoteric these days and consulting Maimonides is not such a bad idea.
Maimonides
Introductory Remarks. [ON METHOD] THERE are seven causes of inconsistencies and contradictions to be met within a literary work.
The first cause arises from the fact that the author collects the opinions of various men, each differing from the other, but neglects to mention the name of the author of any particular opinion. In such a work contradictions or inconsistencies must occur, since any two statements may belong to two different authors.
Second cause: The author holds at first one opinion which he subsequently rejects: in his work., however, both his original and altered views are retained.
Third cause: The passages in question are not all to be taken literally: some only are to be understood in their literal sense, while in others figurative language is employed, which includes another meaning besides the literal one: or, in the apparently inconsistent passages, figurative language is employed which, if taken literally, would seem to be contradictories or contraries.
Fourth cause: The premises are not identical in both statements, but for certain reasons they are not fully stated in these passages: or two propositions with different subjects which are expressed by the same term without having the difference in meaning pointed out, occur in two passages. The contradiction is therefore only apparent, but there is no contradiction in reality.
The fifth cause is traceable to the use of a certain method adopted in teaching and expounding profound problems. Namely, a difficult and obscure theorem must sometimes be mentioned and assumed as known, for the illustration of some elementary and intelligible subject which must be taught beforehand the commencement being always made with the easier thing. The teacher must, therefore, facilitate, in any manner which he can devise, the explanation of those theorems, which have to be assumed as known, and he must content himself with giving a general though somewhat inaccurate notion on the subject. It is, for the present, explained according to the capacity of the students, that they may comprehend it as far as they are required to understand the subject. Later on, the same subject is thoroughly treated and fully developed in its right place.
Sixth cause: The contradiction is not apparent, and only becomes evident through a series of premises. The larger the number of premises necessary to prove the contradiction between the two conclusions, the greater is the chance that it will escape detection, and that the author will not perceive his own inconsistency. Only when from each conclusion, by means of suitable premises, an inference is made, and from the enunciation thus inferred, by means of proper arguments, other conclusions are formed, and after that process has been repeated many times, then it becomes clear that the original conclusions are contradictories or contraries. Even able writers are liable to overlook such inconsistencies. If, however, the contradiction between the original statements can at once be discovered, and the author, while writing the second, does not think of the first, he evinces a greater deficiency, and his words deserve no notice whatever.
Seventh cause: It is sometimes necessary to introduce such metaphysical matter as may partly be disclosed, but must partly be concealed: while, therefore, on one occasion the object which the author has in view may demand that the metaphysical problem be treated as solved in one way, it may be convenient on another occasion to treat it as solved in the opposite way. The author must endeavour, by concealing the fact as much as possible, to prevent the uneducated reader from perceiving the contradiction.
Anekāntavāda (Sanskrit: अनेकान्तवाद, “many-sidedness”) refers to the Jain doctrine about metaphysical truths that emerged in ancient India.[1] It states that the ultimate truth and reality is complex and has multiple aspects.[2] Anekantavada has also been interpreted to mean non-absolutism, “intellectual Ahimsa”,[3] religious pluralism,[4] as well as a rejection of fanaticism that leads to terror attacks and mass violence.[5] Some scholars state that modern revisionism has attempted to reinterpret anekantavada with religious tolerance, openmindedness and pluralism.[6][7]
1. Affirmation: syād-asti—in some ways, it is,
2. Denial: syān-nāsti—in some ways, it is not,
3. Joint but successive affirmation and denial: syād-asti-nāsti—in some ways, it is, and it is not,
4. Joint and simultaneous affirmation and denial: syād-asti-avaktavyaḥ—in some ways, it is, and it is indescribable,
5. Joint and simultaneous affirmation and denial: syān-nāsti-avaktavyaḥ—in some ways, it is not, and it is indescribable,
6. Joint and simultaneous affirmation and denial: syād-asti-nāsti-avaktavyaḥ—in some ways, it is, it is not, and it is indescribable,
7. Joint and simultaneous affirmation and denial: syād-avaktavyaḥ—in some ways, it is indescribable.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Integral_theory_(Ken_Wilber)
http://www.lietaer.com/images/Integral_Money.pdf
AQUAL Integral Approach
Holons[edit]
Main article: Holon (philosophy)
Holons are the individual building blocks of Wilber’s model. Wilber borrowed the concept of holons from Arthur Koestler’s description of the great chain of being, a mediaeval description of levels of being. “Holon” means that every entity and concept is both an entity on its own, and a hierarchical part of a larger whole. For example, a cell in an organism is both a whole as a cell, and at the same time a part of another whole, the organism. Likewise a letter is a self-existing entity and simultaneously an integral part of a word, which then is part of a sentence, which is part of a paragraph, which is part of a page; and so on. Everything from quarks to matter to energy to ideas can be looked at in this way. The relation between individuals and society is not the same as between cells and organisms though, because individual holons can be members but not parts of social holons.[26]
In his book Sex, Ecology, Spirituality: The Spirit of Evolution, Wilber outlines twenty fundamental properties, called “tenets”, that characterize all holons.[27] For example, they must be able to maintain their “wholeness” and also their “part-ness;” a holon that cannot maintain its wholeness will cease to exist and will break up into its constituent parts.
Holons form natural “holarchies”, like Russian dolls, where a whole is a part of another whole, in turn part of another whole, and so on.
Quadrants[edit]
Each holon can be seen from within (subjective, interior perspective) and from the outside (objective, exterior perspective), and from an individual or a collective perspective.[28]
Each of the four approaches has a valid perspective to offer. The subjective emotional pain of a person who suffers a tragedy is one perspective; the social statistics about such tragedies are different perspectives on the same matter. According to Wilber all are needed for real appreciation of a matter.
Wilber uses this grid to categorize the perspectives of various theories and scholars, for example:
• Interior individual perspective (upper-left quadrant) include Freudian psychoanalysis, which interprets people’s interior experiences and focuses on “I”
• Interior plural perspective (lower-left) include Gadamer’s philosophical hermeneutics which seeks to interpret the collective consciousness of a society, or plurality of people and focuses on “We”
• Exterior individual perspective (upper-right) include B. F. Skinner’s behaviorism, which limits itself to the observation of the behavior of organisms and treats the internal experience, decision making or volition of the subject as a black box, and which with the fourth perspective emphasizes the subject as a specimen to examine, or “It”.
• Exterior plural perspective (lower-right) include Marxist economic theory which focuses upon the behavior of a society (i.e. a plurality of people) as functional entities seen from outside, e.g. “They”.
According to Wilber, all four perspectives offer complementary, rather than contradictory, perspectives. It is possible for all to be correct, and all are necessary for a complete account of human existence. According to Wilber, each by itself offers only a partial view of reality.
According to Wilber modern western society has a pathological focus on the exterior or objective perspective. Such perspectives value that which can be externally measured and tested in a laboratory, but tend to deny or marginalize the left sides (subjectivity, individual experience, feelings, values) as unproven or having no meaning. Wilber identifies this as a fundamental cause of society’s malaise, and names the situation resulting from such perspectives, “flatland”.
Notes[edit]
1. ^ Jump up to:a b Piaget’s theory of cognitive development,[29] Kohlberg’s stages of moral development, Erikson’s stages of psychosocial development, and Jane Loevinger’s stages of ego development.
2. ^ This interpretation is at odds with structural stage theory, which posits an overall follow-up of stages, instead of variations over several domains.
3. ^ This too is wildly at odds with structural stage theory, but in line with Wilber’s philosophical idealism, which sees the phenomenal world as a concretisation, or immanation, of a “higher,” transcendental reality, which can be “realized” in “religious experience.”
4. ^ The Madhyamaka Two Truths Doctrine discerns two epistemological truths, namely conventional and ultimate. Conventional truth is the truth of phenomenal appearances and causal relations, our daily common-sense world. Ultimate truth is the recognition that no-“thing” exists inherently; every”thing” is empty, sunyata of an unchanging “essence.” It also means that there is no unchanging transcendental reality underlying phenomenal existence. “Formless awareness” belongs to another strand of Indian thinking, namely Advaita and Buddha-nature, which are ontological approaches, and do posit such a transcendental, unchanging reality, namely “awareness” or “consciousness.” Wilber seems to be mixing, or confusing, these two different approaches freely, in his attempt to integrate “everything” into one conceptual scheme.
5. ^ For example:
◦ Freudian drives, Jungian archetypes, and myth are pre-personal structures.
◦ Empirical and rational processes are at the personal level.
◦ Transpersonal entities include, for example, Aurobindo’s Overmind, Emerson’s Oversoul, Plato’s Forms, Plotinus’ nous, and the HinduAtman, or world-soul.
6. ^ Note that Wilber presents Aurobindo’s level of Being as developmental stages, whereas Aurobindo describes higher development as a Triple Transformation, which includes “psychicisation” (Wilber’s psychic stage), the turn inward and the discovery of the psychic being; spiritualisation, the transformation of the lower being through the realisation of the psychic being, and involves the Higher Mind; and “supramentalisation,” the realisation of Supermind, itself the intermediary between Spirit or Satcitananda and creation. A correct table would include Aurobindo’s Triple Transformation and the Three Beings:
Comparison of the models of Wilber and Aurobindo; differentiating between Aurobindo’s levels of being and Aurobindo’s developmental stages.
7. ^ In his book Integral Spirituality, Wilber identifies a few varieties of states:
◦ The three daily cycling natural states: waking, dreaming, and sleeping.
◦ Penomenal states such as bodily sensations, emotions, mental ideas, memories, or inspirations, or from exterior sources such as our sensorimotor inputs, seeing, hearing, touching, smelling, tasting.
◦ Altered states, is divided into two groups:
◦ Exogenous or induced states: psychedelic and other drug-induced states; hypnosis and hypnotherapy; psycho-therapeutic techniques; gestalt therapy; psychodrama; voice dialoguetechniques; biofeedback states; forms of guided imagery;
◦ Endogenous or trained states: performance enhancement techniques in sports therapy; meditative training which work on calming, relaxation, equanimity states; and mental imaging and visualization such as tonglen meditation.
◦ Some techniques, such as Neuro-linguistic Programming, work with both endogenous and exogenous types.
◦ Spontaneous or peak states: unintentional or unexpected shifts of awareness from gross to subtle or causal states of consciousness.[36]
https://chat.alexandria.io
April 6, 2020
“ONLYFOLLOWING ORDERS.” #5GKILLGRID #COVIDPURPOSE NOT THE GRUB STREET JOURNAL. #TWOFINGERS2BRINO @WIKI_BALLOT #4PAMPHLETEERS @GRUBSTREETJORNO @SURVATION @FINANCIALEYES #WIKIBALLOTPICK #IABATO #SAM #GE2019 ROGER LEWIS ( PORTHOS) @JOEBLOB20 #COVIDBOLLOCKS #CODSWALLOP
https://off-guardian.org/2020/04/06/feudal-japan-edo-and-the-us-empire/#comment-140591
FEUDAL JAPAN EDO AND THE US EMPIRE
HIROYUKI HAMADA
At 72.05
1
here Prof Victor Etimove describes how we find ourselves Divided between two Lies. In the Broadest Philosophical context that is the Aristotelian Lie on the one Hand and the Platonic Lie on the Other.
Well described by Alex Thompson in this Lecture.
2.
In his Essay Relativistic Dialectics Georges Metanomski On the 50’th Anniversary of the Liberation of Auschwitz . Said this,
“According to the Jewish law is Jew who has a Jewish mother, or who has been converted by a Jewish rabbin. However, in order to be sure that my mother is Jewish, I have to ascertain that she had herself a Jewish mother, or had been converted by a Jewish rabbin. The same holds of course for the converting rabbin. A clear case of a vicious circle.
Consequently, the absolute concept “Jew” is empty and, as such, may get any arbitrary meaning. Heidrich understood it perfectly when he declared: “Wer Jude ist, entscheide ich” – “It’s me who decides who is a Jew”.
It is but a short step now to “I was only following Orders” The testing Regime and Inoculation regime to come will determine “Who is Clean” and the new Commisars of propaganda will declare “It is I who will decide who is Immune”
This last point relates to the number of False positives in the test for “Covid19” Coronaviruses are ubiquitous in the body and similar to testing for Hiv there are many false positives and the “other factors” such as diagnosing based upon Symptoms are a clue to the Linguistic Kafkaesque summersaults being put in place here.
14.07 in this film positively false makes the point.
https://www.bitchute.com/video/g3RKU3KDc7av/
POSITIVELY FALSE (FULL MOVIE)
Positively False - Birth of a Heresy traces the challenge over the past 25 years to the scientific orthodoxy which maintains that HIV is the cause of AIDS. Joan Shenton reaches back to 1987 through her extensive archive of broadcast and non-broadcast video material and combines it with current footage. She shows how dissident scientists, journalists and activists have voiced their concerns about the way the infectious hypothesis for AIDS took over from the toxic one and highlights the impact the dogma surrounding a viral cause for AIDS has had on people's lives. The film travels through Africa, Europe and the United States revealing the way plague terror, financial objectives and scientific skullduggery have led to tragic examples of toxicity and death from antiviral drugs, social stigma, broken families, fear of sex, homophobia and imprisonment.
Positively False - Birth of a Heresy is produced by Meditel Productions Ltd and The Immunity Resource Foundation in association with Yellow Productions.
http://www.immunity.org.uk/videos/
November 29, 2019
SHOW PONIES AND STALKING HORSES, CHICKEN SHIT ECONOMICS AND #CLIMATECHANGEIDOCRACY AN INFORMAL CONVERGENCE / ALEX THOMPSON) #GE2019STALKING HORSES, SHOW PONIES AND GROOMS OF TINA’S STOOLS. #TWOFINGERS2BRINO @WIKI_BALLOT #4PAMPHLETEERS @GRUBSTREETJORNO @SURVATION @WIKI_BALLOT @FINANCIALEYES #WIKIBALLOTPICK #IABATO #SAM #GE2019 ROGER LEWIS ( PORTHOS) @JOEBLOB20 #NHS #WASPI
AV9.1 –
Alex Thomson – An Infernal Convergence At AV 9.1, the speakers exposed the course of the plans which broke surface in the 1970’s, to sell off all public assets and to replace common-law representative democracy with the corporatist and third-sector stitch-up of “participational democracy”. In his contribution, building on his AV9 talk on the history of cabals and cartels, Alex Thomson will outline his understanding of how we reached this nadir and how not one but two major streams of élitists are responsible. Inspired loosely by the philosophies of Aristotle and of Plato respectively, these two persuasions of purloining bloodline élitists and their technocratic hangers-on have been wrestling over the juicy prize of Britain and our diaspora for at least three centuries. (In a nutshell, the Aristotelians justify their rule by reference to religious notions and the Platonists do so by promising prosperity.) Or this From Frankie Goes to Hollywood.
The more I look at the unfolding Jamboree the more I am Convinced that Knowingly or not both Bojo and Jezzer are Stalking horses for the Establishments preferred Democratic Show Ponies, The Likes of Ummana, Hunt and David Milliband. Always bearing in mind the Puppet Master Sedwill.
https://www.bitchute.com/video/J4qMaIvuBpLV/
Sir Mark Sidwell UK Dictator & PM Sets out his EU United Military Policy to the Atlantic Council https://t.co/AKIlQ5RVFW #BitChute
— Wiki_Ballot (@wiki_ballot) November 29, 2019
Regarding Green Fascism, this article is very good, Beware thought crime ahead.
https://cec.cecaust.com.au/pubs/pdfs/cv7n6_part2of2.pdf
“A beastly ambition, which the gods grant thee t’ attain to! If thou wert the lion, the fox would beguile thee; if thou wert the lamb, the fox would eat three: if thou wert the fox, the lion would suspect thee, when peradventure thou wert accused by the ass: if thou wert the ass, thy dullness would torment thee, and still thou livedst but as a breakfast to the wolf: if thou wert the wolf, thy greediness would afflict thee, and oft thou shouldst hazard thy life for thy dinner: wert thou the unicorn, pride and wrath would confound thee and make thine own self the conquest of thy fury: wert thou a bear, thou wouldst be killed by the horse: wert thou a horse, thou wouldst be seized by the leopard: wert thou a leopard, thou wert german to the lion and the spots of thy kindred were jurors on thy life: all thy safety were remotion and thy defence absence. What beast couldst thou be, that were not subject to a beast? and what a beast art thou already, that seest not thy loss in transformation!” ― William Shakespeare, Timon of Athens
This article appears in the September 17, 2010 issue of Executive Intelligence Review.
THE INTER-ALPHA GROUP
Nation-Killers for Imperial Genocide
by John Hoefle
"What did not change significantly with that shift from the Mediterranean to the Atlantic, was the essential role acquired by Venice. Venice, once established as a power, remained the center of the organization of monetary power, while the outer husk of monetarist power, the Anglo-Dutch maritime interest, became the political and military capital of the Empire. Venice never gave up that role; it simply transferred some of its functions to the newly constituted London branch, all as a part of the adjustment to the shift from the Mediterranean to the Atlantic field of leading action."
—Lyndon H. LaRouche, Jr.[1]
The Inter-Alpha Group of Banks is an instrument of genocide. It was formed for the explicit purpose of destroying not only the existence, but the very concept, of national sovereignty—with the United States as its primary target—as a way of permanently reducing the population of the planet. The Inter-Alpha Group has played a crucial role in the destruction of the industrial base of the United States, and the subsequent transformation of our economy into a giant, and hopelessly bankrupt, casino. When that casino imploded in 2007, the Inter-Alpha Group and the forces behind it moved to complete the task of destroying the U.S.A., by organizing the biggest theft of public money in history, via those still-continuing, un-Constitutional, and blatantly criminal operations known collectively as "the bailout." The result is a nation which is not only unable to meet the physical needs of its people, but is also rapidly destroying its own currency through hyperinflation.
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POSTED INUNCATEGORIZED
Free Trade vs Free Market , Careys American System vs Ricardo-Malthusian system. Monopoly vs Free Market Competition
ROGERGLEWIS APRIL 9, 2023 LEAVE A COMMENT
Essay on the Rate of Wages, with an Examination of the Differences in the Condition of the Laboring Population throughout the World.
Essay on the Rate of Wages, with an Examination of the Differences in the Condition of the Laboring Population throughout the World.
Henry Charles Carey
Rejection of free trade[edit]
Following the Panic of 1837 and the perceived success of the protectionist Tariff of 1842, Carey became an open critic of free trade.
Carey’s newfound skepticism was based on his empirical observation of tariff history and his belief that some economic law must exist to explain prosperity under protection and bankruptcy under free trade. By Carey’s own account, he initially expected the 1842 tariff would prolong the recession; when it did not, he sought an explanation and became convinced “as with a flash of lightning, that the whole Ricardo-Malthusian system is an error and that with it must fall the system of British free trade.”[12] Subsequent scholars have challenged Carey’s claim of a sudden change of heart by pointing to his earlier citations of the English occupations of Ireland and India and of Friedrich List‘s advocacy for the German Zollverein.[12] His change of heart may have also been influenced by his own personal experience; between 1837 and 1840, he invested a portion of his publishing wealth in a paper mill that became completely bankrupt.[12] By the end of 1843, Carey was engaged in a public debate with former Vice President John C. Calhoun, a leading advocate for tariff reduction.[12][2] In 1845, in a pamphlet entitled Commercial Associations in France and England, Carey began to reject wholesale the “British” economics of Thomas Malthus and David Ricardo altogether and sought to develop a critique of their underlying assumptions.[2] At the same time in England, the Manchester school of liberal capitalism reached the apex of its influence with the repeal of the Corn Laws.
Over the course of ninety days in 1848, Carey expanded on this view by writing Past, Present, and Future,[2] which he said was “designed to demonstrate the existence of a simple and beautiful law of nature, governing man in all his efforts for the maintenance and improvement of his condition… which, nevertheless, has hitherto remained unnoticed.” The work argued in favor of a marriage of industry with capital and the necessity of maintaining domestic markets to promote prosperity; it was met with derision from Manchester school economists.[12] The same year, while living in Burlington, New Jersey,[12] Carey founded The Plough, the Loom, and the Anvil, a periodical journal of economic development, with John Stuart Skinner serving as its publisher. Selections of Carey’s writings in the journal were compiled into his next work, The Harmony of Interests.[13]
Keep Dancing til the Music Stops, or Don’t stop til you’ve had enough, Riffing on the Levellers. Globalism and Internationalism are different ideologies, and how the Sovereignty of people’s at a national level is irreconcilable with transnational interests.
1979 “Don’t Stop ‘Til You Get Enough” was the first short film of Michael Jackson’s…
In Defence or In defiance of Globalisation. Michael Morrison ( TheLevelling ) Vs Iain Davis ( Pseudopandemic: New Normal Technocracy)
France's #Hollande admits to the pranksters that the EU knew a war was coming in…
#SCADS special , #InfoWars special edition . The targetting of Richard A Hall , Rich Planet. Do ‘disaster trolls’ believe the conspiracy theories they promote? By Marianna Spring, Social Media correspondent #BBCDisinformation
https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-65201949 Iain Davis The real purpose of the fake pandemic. A new monetary and control…
€STR, SOFR, SONIA One Night Last Stands with the enemy. Its the end of Petro Dollar Hegemony not the reserve status Stupid. #GoingDirect #TINA #ExorbitantPrivilege #NorwegianBlue
U.S. Exorbitant Privilege At Risk?! Like what would be the metric for saying “the US…
Ein Svie Sofr, Sonia , Libor . 610 Trillion Derivatives market ready for a remark to Market moment? Bets on Bets on the Market. #GoingDirect In Munich is the Hofbräuhaus: Duetsche Bank
Edward Elgar was not the first composer to think about setting John Henry Newman's poem "The Dream of Gerontius". Dvořák had considered it fifteen years earlier, and had discussions with Newman, before abandoning the idea.[1] Elgar knew the poem well; he had owned a copy since at least 1885, and in 1889 he was given another as a wedding present. This copy contained handwritten transcriptions of extensive notes that had been made by General Gordon, and Elgar is known to have thought of the text in musical terms for several years.[2] Throughout the 1890s, Elgar had composed several large-scale works for the regular festivals that were a key part of Britain's musical life. In 1898, based on his growing reputation, he was asked to write a major work for the 1900 Birmingham Triennial Music Festival.[3] He was unable to start work on the poem that he knew so well until the autumn of 1899, and did so only after first considering a different subject.[4]
The Dream of Gerontius (poem)
The Dream of Gerontius is an 1865 poem written by John Henry Newman, consisting of the prayer of a dying man, and angelic and demonic responses. The poem, written after Newman's conversion from Anglicanism to Roman Catholicism,[1] explores his new Catholic-held beliefs of the journey from death through Purgatory, thence to Paradise, and to God. The poem follows the main character as he nears death and reawakens as a soul, preparing for judgment, following one of the most important events any human can experience: death.[2]
Fourth Phase
The soul of Gerontius and the Angel arrive at "the judgment-court" where demons have assembled. The court is an old region that Satan used to run and used the court to attack people like Job. Satan's legions now run this area in hopes of "gathering souls for hell".
They overhear the demons talking and laughing about Jesus' death. The demons mock those afraid of hell for being cowards because they turn to religion not because of love of the Lord but because of fear of the unknown. The soul of Gerontius asks the Angel why all of his senses still work except sight, "All has been darkness since I left the earth; Shall I remain thus sight-bereft all through my penance-time?" The Angel explains that his soul now exists in a world where he does not need senses but on the day of resurrection he will regain "all thou hast lost, new made and glorified". As for his sight he will remain blind through purgatory because purgatory “Is fire without its light.” The soul takes this in stride, "I am not worthy e'er to see again/The face of day". Despite being blind, Gerontius is told that he will see God for a split second during judgment.
Part II[edit]
In a complete change of mood, Part II begins with a simple four-note phrase for the violas which introduces a gentle, rocking theme for the strings. This section is in triple time, as is much of the second part. The Soul's music expresses wonder at its new surroundings, and when the Angel is heard, he expresses quiet exultation at the climax of his task. They converse in an extended duet, again combining recitative with pure sung sections. Increasingly busy music heralds the appearance of the demons: fallen angels who express intense disdain of men, mere mortals by whom they were supplanted. Initially the men of the chorus sing short phrases in close harmony, but as their rage grows more intense the music shifts to a busy fugue, punctuated by shouts of derisive laughter.[35]
Gerontius cannot see the demons, and asks if he will soon see his God. In a barely accompanied recitative that recalls the very opening of the work, the Angel warns him that the experience will be almost unbearable, and in veiled terms describes the stigmata of St. Francis. Angels can be heard, offering praises over and over again. The intensity gradually grows, and eventually the full chorus gives voice to a setting of the section that begins with Praise to the Holiest in the Height. After a brief orchestral passage, the Soul hears echoes from the friends he left behind on earth, still praying for him. He encounters the Angel of the Agony, whose intercession is set as an impassioned aria for bass. The Soul's Angel, knowing the long-awaited moment has come, sings an Alleluia.[35]
The Soul now goes before God and, in a huge orchestral outburst, is judged in an instant. At this point in the score, Elgar instructs "for one moment, must every instrument exert its fullest force." This was not originally in Elgar's design, but was inserted at the insistence of Jaeger, and remains as a testament to the positive musical influence of his critical friendship with Elgar. In an anguished aria, the Soul then pleads to be taken away. A chorus of souls sings the first lines of Psalm 90 ("Lord, thou hast been our refuge") and, at last, Gerontius joins them in Purgatory. The final section combines the Angel, chorus, and semichorus in a prolonged song of farewell, and the work ends with overlapping Amens.[35]
End Notes.
I think I have proposed a currency as valuable as gold and for all purposes of a circulating medium, better than gold...But what I desire is that the currency shall not be redeemable in gold and silver...In other words the value of the currency of this country, its volume, its stability, the values of all property of the country, shall no longer be at the mercy of the panics, the caprice, the speculations, or the needs of the bankers of Europe or the traders of Asia...
‘“My...proposition is to take from the national banks all power to issue notes to circulate as money, leaving them as they are now banks of deposit, loans and discounts, but not of issue.”
Butler’s general proposal for a permanent greenback system followed:
“The government shall issue an amount equal to its taxes, say $350 million of certificates of value of convenient denomination...which shall be lawful money and legal tender for all debts, public and private, which by the law creating them are not made payable in coin and shall be receivable for all taxes...of every kind whatsoever, to be re-issued at pleasure...and which shall be receivable for all public loans made to the United States...
“We have divested our government of every trait of the despotism, every attribute of the monarchies, and every vestige of the slaveries of the Old World, save one, and that is the all controlling, and all absorbing power by which masses of the people of all nations of the earth have ever been enslaved - coined money...
“Our patriot fathers, founding a government for themselves on this continent carefully eliminated from its framework every attribute of monarch and aristocracy, the divine right of kings...all save one: they retained whether for good or evil, the precious metals...as the standard by which to measure the property and industry of the new Republic...
“We marvel that they saw so much but they saw not all things.
“T stand here therefore for inconvertible paper money, the greenback which has fought our battles and saved our country...I stand here for a currency by which the business transactions of 40 million people are safely and successfully done...that money which saved the country in war and has given it prosperity and happiness in peace...I stand for that money therefore which is by far the better agent and instrument of exchange of an enlightened and free people than gold or silver, the money alike of barbarian and despot.”34
This is one of the outstanding speeches of American political history.
Our research confirms Butler’s view of the monetary enslavement of societies, and noting the historical connection between money and the temple organizations of the past as well as the religious organizations after the Civil War, we hypothesize a step further into the moral sphere: the oriental enslaving tendency of using precious metals, or private banker created money, pretending to set up a measuring scale for economic values, is one side of a double edged sword. The other indispensable side of that sword of enslavement is religious; the influence of the Eastern cults on Western life, pretending to set up a scale of moral values. It is probable that neither edge of the sword can exist for long without the other.
The Civil War crisis quickly exposed the weakness of a money system based on bankers promises; as almost any crisis does. The war also highlighted a system that functions in or out of crisis - a money system controlled by our government. The Greenbacks demonstrated that government-issued fiat money served the commercial, industrial and fiscal needs of the nation even in the middle of warfare. Once again our government limited the issues to the authorized amounts, in contrast to the bankers’ capricious issue of their paper notes.
Against this excellent record, the English school complains that gold temporarily rose against the Greenbacks! But tracing the action of various prices, rents and wages we obtain a truer picture of their good performance.
Bankers, professors and ministers joined in a concerted attack against the Greenbacks, looking to their own interest rather than that of the country. Especially noteworthy was the great concern the bankers demonstrated to remove this example of government money from circulation, where it gave the public a daily lesson in sound “monetary theory”.
Notes to Chapter 17 | J. G. Randall, The Civil War and Reconstruction, edit. D. David, (Boston: Heath & Co, 1937, 2"4 edition 1961), pp. 3-11. * Studenski & H. E. Kroos, Financial History Of The U.S., (New York: McGraw Hill, 1952), pp. 137-8. 3. J. Wilbur and E. P. Eastman, Money - A Treatise on Counterfeit, Altered, and Spurious Bank Notes, (Poughkeepsie: Eastman Business College, 1865), pp. 19-20. * Randall, cited above, pp. 12-17. > Randall, cited above, p. 81. °T. P. Kettle, Southern Wealth and Northern Profits, (1860, Univ. of Alabam
478 The Lost Science Of Money
G. & J. Wood, 1965).
7 Randall, cited above, pp. 81-90.
8 E. G. Spaulding, A Resource of War, (repr., CN: Greenwood, 1971), p. 37.
9 Spaulding, cited above, p. 108.
10 James Garfield , The Currency Conflict, Atlantic Monthly, vol. 37, p. 220.
'! The Collected Works of Abraham Lincoln, edit., R. Basler, (Springfield: Rutgers Univ. Press, Abraham Lincoln Assoc., 1953).
12 William Graham Sumner, History of the American Currency, (New York: Holt, 1874), pp.196, 202.
13 Sumner, cited above, pp. 221, 226.
14 Charles J. Bullock, Monetary History of the U.S., (New York: Macmillan, 1900), quoting Sydney G. Fisher’s 1863 article in the North American Review. 'S Bullock, cited above, quoting Henry C. Carey.
16 Wilber & Eastman, cited above.
7 Wesley Mitchell, Gold Prices and Wages Under the Greenback System, (Berkeley: Univ. Press, 1908).
'8 Randall, cited above, p. 354.
19 Davis Rich Dewey, Financial History of the United States, (New York: Longmans Green, 1903), p. 283.
20 Studenski & Kroos, cited above, p. 148.
2! Randall, cited above, p. 260.
22 Eugene M. Lerner, in Milton Friedman’s Studies in the Quantity Theory of Money, (Univ. of Chicago Press, 1956). Lerner’s estimates are now considered high. 23 See Richard H. Timberlake, The Origin of Central Banking in the United States, (Harvard Univ. Press, 1978), pp. 90-105.
24 Lerner, cited above.
2° Charles Arthur Conant, A History of Modern Banks of Issue, (NY: Putnam, 1909). *6 Dewey, cited above, p. 324.
27 as quoted by Irwin Unger, The Greenback Era, (Princeton Univ Press, 1964). *8 D. S. Tewksbury, The Founding of American Colleges and Universities Before the Civil War, (NY: Teachers College, Columbia Univ., 1965), pp. 50-57. 9 Randall, cited above, quoting Adelaide Lyons, Religious Defense of Slavery in the North, (Durham: Trinity College Historical Society Papers, 1919), p. 5. 30 Unger, cited above, pp. 123, 125, 126.
31 Kampschulte, 1, as quoted by Hartman Grisar in Martin Luther, trans]. FJ. Eble, (Newman Press, 1955, please see details in our bibliography), p. 430.
32 Lyman E. Dewolf, Money - its Use and Abuse, (Chicago: Pigott Webster, 1869), pp. 33, 170.
33 Alexander Campbell, The True Greenback..., (Chicago, 1868).
34 All Butler quotes from speech to House of Representatives, Congressional Globe, 40th congress, 3rd session, 303 ff.
Page 254
Most discussions of English monetary history focus on the 17th century goldsmith/bankers and how they supposedly invented banking and paper money and were taken advantage of by an immoral Monarch. This chapter examines that history from a very different perspective to gain a deeper understanding of the forces at work. With additional research and corroboration, this chapter, with Chapter 11, should provide the structure for a book-length work.
Page 476
“Our patriot fathers, founding a government for themselves on this continent carefully eliminated from its framework every attribute of monarch and aristocracy, the divine right of kings...all save one: they retained whether for good or evil, the precious metals...as the standard by which to measure the property and industry of the new Republic...
DISAPPEARANCE OF THE TEMPLAR TREASURY
Just before the 1307 raid the Knights at the Paris preceptory’s treasury had left with many pack horses. They embarked on the Templars’ 18 ships and vanished completely with their vast treasure. Baigent and Leigh believe that they found refuge at Kilmarten in Scotland, whose leader Bruce was already excommunicate of the Papacy. Their disguised assistance to him in the battle of Bannockburn in 1313 produced a surprise defeat of the English. Bruce founded the Stuart line, which ruled Great Britain until 1688.
The Templars’ finding refuge there may explain why Scotland was later the origin of so many banking innovations and schemers, such as William Paterson, John Law and others. Even Adam Smith assembling The Wealth of Nations in a Scottish village, from 1773-1776, wrote that “Scottish Banking” was dominating the world. It would be in Scotland that the mutual fund was first invented or made public.
It was through the Templars that the “Holy Grail” romances came into being. They served as an example of chivalry in action. Their theme of the infirm ruler, a land laid waste and the Knight in search of the Grail - the sacred object with the power to set things aright - still provides a pattern formula for heroic action.
The Templars later surfaced in some of the Freemason lodges. The Papacy continued to hound them and Clement XII’s 1738 Bull (In Eminenti) banned freemasonry and excommunicated Catholics who participated in it. But it continued to flourish and in 1740 a Papal bull making membership in Freemasonry punishable by death had little effect. Freemasons were to have a strong influence on world developments.
Their world-view was summed up in the “Oration” of the Jacobite Freemason Ramsay:
“The world is nothing but a huge Republic of which every Nation is
5 CRUSADES END BYZANTIUM’S MONETARY DOMINATION 149
a family and every individual a child.” This view point is quite different from the kind of one-worldism being peddled now. In today’s version, nations are impotent and International “financiers” rule. The rest may “survive” as corporate drones, and slaves.
The Knights Templar were an important factor in the Magna Carta, England’s great document of liberty of the 13th century. Their descendants, the Freemasons, were important in the French Revolution; in the unification of Italy; and most importantly in the American Revolution.
Benjamin Franklin was America’s best known Freemason, being the Grand Master of Pennsylvania from 1734. “Of 56 signatories to the Declaration of Independence, 9 were definitely Freemasons, and perhaps 10 more...Of 74 general officers in the Continental Army, 33 were Freemason,’ wrote Baigent & Leigh. “It was largely through the lodges that they learned of that lofty premise called the rights of man. It was through the lodges that they learned the concept of the perfectibility of Society.’
Many of the British officers they faced in battle were also Freemasons. Ernst Troelstch, the great historian of the Reformation, agrees that while the rights of the individual came from America: “The influence of the literature of European IJ]luminism is unmistakable.”
These ennobling influences do not preclude the possibility that there are divisions within international Freemasonry, where some traditions with less lofty ideals have also taken root.
The great Voltaire wrote that “The only fruit of the Christians in their barbarous Crusades was the extermination of other Christians.” But as we have just seen, he was wrong.
(The Old Testament references to usury are : Deut. 15:7-10; Psalms 14:5; Exodus 22:25; Leveticus 25:35-37; Amos 8:4-6 and Ezekial 18:8. The New Testament is mostly silent on usury.) The Scholastics were looking upon all mankind as brothers.
Other codes restricting usury include:
*The Senchus Mor, the ancient Celtic law book; *The Code Of Hammurabi (2130-2088 BC) limited usury to 33%;
*Lycurgus’ Constitution, gth century BC and Solon’s Reforms, 594 BC;
*Hindoo Law - Damdupat - when interest reached the full amount of the loan no further interest could be charged;
*Roman Law for over 1,500 years limited interest to 4 to 12%. Cato’s work on agriculture - De re Rustica gave the Roman view of usury:
“It would be advantageous to seek profit from commerce if it were not hazardous, or by usury if that were honest; but our ancestors ordained that whilst a thief should forfeit double the sum he had stolen, the usurer should forfeit quadruple what he had taken...”
*The 6th century Roman Code Of Justinian reduced the 12 1/2% limit of Constantine the Great down to 4-8% and accumulated interest could not exceed principal:
“The Code of Justinian dominated the subsequent span of Byzantine history. From time to time all interest was prohibited but subsequently the laws of Justinian were re-installed,” wrote Sydney Homer.’
*The Koran totally forbade usury.
*The laws of Charlemagne flatly forbade usury in 806 AD. He also gave a broader definition of usury: “Where more is asked than is given.”
*The Magna Carta limited usury. *Most States of the United States enforced usury limits until 1981.
ARGUMENTS FROM AUTHORITY
St. Ambrose of Milan (340-397) had opened the usury door by allowing it against enemies, but St. Jerome (340-420) preached that the usury ban to brothers was universalized in the Church. Pope Leo the Great (440-461) had categorically forbidden church clerics from taking usury and condemned laymen for it. This was the cornerstone of later Christian usury laws.
7 THE SCHOLASTICS - THE MORAL ECONOMISTS 183
In 850 the Synod of Paris excommunicated all usurers. The 2"4 Lateran Council (1139) declared that unrepentant usurers were condemned by both the Old and New Testaments.® In 1185-87 Pope Urban III’s citation of the words of Christ : “lend freely, hoping nothing thereby” (Luke 6:35) had a strong impact.
But it was in the area of natural law - arguments from principle and observations of the evil effects of usury, that the Scholastics made their most powerful arguments. Logical reasoning, the Scholastics’ main tool, is particularly applicable to such moral questions, as well as to mathematics, and to law.
THE CONCENTRATION OF WEALTH
St. Bernardine of Siena (1380-1444) noted that public usurers were usually foreigners, often Jews, and they drain the wealth of the city into other lands. Usury concentrates the money of the community into the hands of the few:
“It is a contagious disease, for now all men are usurers.””?
William of Auxerre (1160-1220) eloquently wrote that usury was against natural law and was innately sinful, yet men pursue it “as if it were a business and a way of living... The usurer injures all creatures, even the stones; whence if men were silent against the usurers, the stones would cry out, if they could...” It was the sinfulness of selling time,
which only God can give.!°
MISDIRECTION AND ABANDONMENT OF INDUSTRY
Pope Innocent ['V (1250-1261) “Said usury is prohibited because of the evil consequences that follow from the practice. If usury were permitted, all rich persons would rather put their money safely in a usurious loan than invest in agriculture. Only the poor would be left to do the farming and then they would not possess the animals and tools with which to farm. Famine would result. “Innocent’s argument it might be added may seem naive or exaggerated at first, but the experiences of agricultural communities, such as ancient Greece, or China throughout most of its history offer considerable corroboration,” wrote Noonan.!!
Henri Pirenne, in Medieval Cities, remarked: “The scourge of debts, which in Greek and Roman antiquity so sorely afflicted the people, was
spared the social order of the Middle Ages and it may be that the Church
contributed to that happy result.”!¢
THE RELIGIOUS UNDERMINING OF THE MONARCHY
Thomas Hobbes, the renowned 17th century theorist on government power, provides rare insight on the destruction of the monarchy in his major, though suppressed work, Behemoth (not Leviathan!). In Socratic dialogue style, Hobbes has a participant in the discussion pose questions, which we underline:
“(Charles I, 1600-49] A man that wanted no virtue, either of body or mind, nor endeavored anything more than to discharge his duty towards God, in the well governing of his subjects...But the people were corrupted generally...
“But how came the people to be so corrupted? And what kind of people were they that did so seduce them?”
“The seducers were of divers sorts. One sort was the ministers, ‘Ministers of Christ’ (as they called themselves)...and sometimes ‘Gods Ambassadors’ (commonly called Presbyterians)
“(others) were papists...independents for religious freedom, Anabaptists...Fifth Monarchy Men...Quakers, Adamites, etc. “And these were the enemies which arose against his majesty from the private interpretation of the scripture, which had been exposed to every man’s scanning in his mother tongue.”
“For after the Bible was translated into English every man, - nay every boy and wench that could read English, - thought they spoke with God almighty...and every man became a Judge of religion and an interpreter of the scripture for himself.”
“But you have not told m what art, and what ees they (th preachers) became so strong.”
“They had the concurrence of a great many gentlemen. These by continually extolling of liberty and inveighing against tyranny...draw people to a dislike of the Church, government, canons and common prayer book.”
“They did never in their sermons, or but lightly, inveigh against the lucrative vices of men of trade or handicraft; such as are feigning, lying, cozening (cheating, fraud, deceit), hypocrisy, or other uncharitableness, except want of charity to their pastors and to the faithful; which was a great ease to the generality of citizens and the inhabitants of market towns.”
“They did with great earnestness and severity inveigh against carnal lusts and vain swearing...but the common people were thereby inclined to believe that nothing else was sin, but which is forbidden in the 3rd and the 7th commandments...for men are not ordinarily said to lust after another man’s cattle, or other goods or possessions, and therefore never made much scruple of the acts of fraud and malice.”
“What have we then gotten by our deliverance from the Pope’s tyranny, if these petty men succeed in the place of it, that have nothing in them that can be beneficial to the public, except their silence? For their learning, it amounts to no more than an imperfect knowledge of Greek and Latin and an acquired readiness in the Scripture language, with a gesture and tone suitable thereunto; but of justice and charity, the manners of religion, they have neither knowledge nor practice, as is manifest in the stories I have already told you: nor do they distinguish between the Godly and the ungodly, but by conformity of design in men of Judgment, or by repetitions of their sermons in the common sort of people.” !3
Hobbes had little respect for the Papacy. He loved women, and lived to 93 with mistresses until near the end. Observing how the Church attempted to create guilt for even enjoying looking at a beautiful woman, something Hobbes considered automatic, he summed up the Catholic Church’s position in one phrase: “God! A monopoly of women!”
The degree to which morality became separated from law under Protestantism is evident in the error that even Hobbes made about contracts:
“Covenants entered into by fear...are obligatory...If I be forced to
redeem myself from a thief by promising him money, I am bound to pay it, till the civil law discharge me.”!4
Reading Hobbes’ Behemoth, the author is struck by similarities to
the present day religious undermining of American democracy.
EXPULSION OF THE JEWS FROM ENGLAND
The Jews had lived in England as moneylenders sanctioned by the English Crown during the 12 and 13 centuries. Their situation throughout Europe had grown ever more tenuous as centralized Roman power had declined:
“By the 8" century their legal status as Roman citizens under the Theodosian Code had ceased to give them any protection,” wrote James Parkes in his definitive work The Jew in the Medieval Community.'>
Chapter 5 noted the dominant Jewish role in the European slave
The massacres of 1190 didn’t end the problem. In 1215 AD, the Magna Carta’s 10th and 11th clauses contained mild provisions limiting Jewish usury. In 1218 Jews in England were forced to wear a prescribed mark on their outer garment.
In 1194 AD the English Crown had established an Exchequer to oversee Jewish matters and collect the tallages they were required to pay to the Crown. According to Professor Roth these totaled 250,000 marks of silver from 1227 to 1259:
“In order to support these constant calls upon their purse, they were compelled to exercise still greater acquisitiveness in their business affairs, grinding desperately out of their clients the amounts that they would be compelled so inexorably to surrender to the Crown.”*+
Parkes admitted that there was a mutual responsibility for most anti-Jewish incidents?> but laid the blame for this constant friction upon the society’s intellectual leadership:
“The main responsibility not merely for Jewish usury, but for all medieval usury, must lie with the intellectual leaders of the age, who made no proper provision for a universal social want.”*°
At the bottom of this failure - then and now - was the error in their concept of money: viewing it as a commodity, failing to recognize the legal nature of money, and to act upon that knowledge and set up honest money systems based in law. Even today one anticipated side effect of healthy monetary reform would be a meaningful reduction in the still continuing tension between Jewish and non Jewish communities.
If one now finds it important to determine on which side the greater blame lay, in fairness one would have to weigh who had the greater understanding of money and of the results of usury (especially if that knowledge was being obscured), with who had greater freedom of choice.
THE CROWN TAKES ACTION AGAINST USURY AND COIN CLIPPING
Problems with coin clipping were endemic in England:
“In 1205 King John decried [demonetized] all the clipped coins over 1/8 clipped. He threatened all clippers, especially the Jews who he thought were the chief offenders,” wrote Del Mar.?’
As elsewhere in Europe, the Jews in England were under protection of the King, who made heavy financial demands upon them. They in
The Jewish charters'®
The Jews were often considered as the property of the Prince, and in some times and places, when they died their property went to the Prince.
The charters licensed the Jews to practice usury except against Church property as collateral, in order to minimize friction with the clergy. The Jews were to sue and be sued in the Royal courts, but at some times and places they refused to appear in ecclesiastical courts, setting off skirmishes between the Princes and the Bishops. For example, around 1220 AD the Archbishop of Canterbury and the Bishop of Lincoln tried to enforce their authority by forbidding Christians to sell food to Jews who had refused to appear in Church courts. The Crown countered by ordering any such Christians to be imprisoned.!’
Kings and Princes generally protected “their” Jews in order to protect the substantial revenues they got from them. When Pope Alexander IV added usury to the activities prosecuted by the Inquisition in 1257, James II of Aragon informed the Inquisition that his Jews were not to be tried for heresy. Around 1293 Philip the Fair of France forbade the Inquisitors from acting in matters that affected his Jews,!® but in 1306 he would expel them. The Jews were re-admitted to France in 1315, expelled again in 1322, readmitted in 1361 and again expelled in 1395. The Jews were banished from Spain in 1492, from Sicily in 1493 and from Portugal in 1496. For a time only the region that became Poland was open to them.
The charters set the Jews in opposition to the general populace
Parkes pointed out that:
““...as chartered royal usurers their interests were likely to be diametrically opposed to those of the rest of the population.”!9
The Charters of the towns of Worms and Speyer had an especially discordant provision: goods stolen by Christians from Jews were to be
10 THE TRANSFER OF CAPITALISM TO ENGLAND 259
replaced at double value, however, if Jews possessed stolen goods the Jews were to be re-imbursed the amount that they swore they had paid for them. Christians holding stolen property simply had to give it up. This provision would appear to encourage the Jews to act as “fences” for stolen goods, setting them at odds with the community. At the request of Jewish leadership, in 1236 AD, Frederick II extended the charter of Worms to all the Jews in Germany.?°
Such “mistakes” guaranteed an adversarial relation between Jewish and Christian communities. They bring to mind Harwood’s view of the motivation of the Torah’s final editor known to Bible scholars as the “Priestly” author, or “P” (perhaps Ezzra, around 434 BC). He instituted an abundance of religious rules during the Babylonian captivity, Harwood believes, in order to stop the assimilation of the Jews into Babylon.
“The Priestly author instituted his policy of planned incompatibility...” wrote Harwood.*!
Medieval England’s Usury Rates
The going interest rate with good collateral was 2 pence per pound per week, making it 43 1/2 % per year. Without good collateral it was double - 87% per year.
By the late 12th century the harmful concentrating effects of usury were being severely felt. Professor Cecil Roth in his study History of the Jews of England wrote that:
“When he died in 1185, Aaron of Lincoln (a Jewish moneylender) was probably the wealthiest person in England, in liquid assets.” And
“In 1188...the Jewish capital was estimated to constitute more than one-third the mobile wealth of the nation - certainly an exaggeration, yet at the same time indicative of their relative importance to the exchequer” ..and inevitably:
“In 1190 anti Jewish feeling was intense. It was popular, not from above.””*
Apparently it was worst in York, where Aaron of Lincoln’s operations had been centered.
“A century of such a system was more than any community could stand and the story of Jewish usury is a continuous alternation of invitation, protection, protestation and condemnation. Jewish money lending reached important proportions in England in the middle of the 12" century; in 1189 and 1190 there were massacres throughout the country...the rioters often (sought) out and
10 THE TRANSFER OF CAPITALISM TO ENGLAND 261
tun got the money from the people through a royal license to practice usury. But coin clipping wasn’t considered part of the bargain.
The clippers would proceed gradually, clipping perhaps 5 to 10% of acoin. With large numbers of coins passing through the moneylenders hands, eventually all of the coinage ended up 10% clipped (lighter). Then the clipped coins are clipped another ten percent, etc. Time and again, England’s coinage ended up 50% clipped.
In 1275 Edward I issued his Statutum Judaico, revoking the Jewish license to practice usury:
“The King has observed that over the years a great many honest men have lost their entire inheritances because of the usurious practices of the Jews. Indeed many sins have been committed as a result of these practices. Thus despite the fact that the Jews have been very profitable to the King and his predecessors, the King now ordains for the honor of God and for the general welfare of the people that Jews shall no longer practice usury in any form.”
“The King also grants that they may conduct business as merchants, or live by their own labor...the liberty to buy houses...in the cities in which they live...those who are not skillful in business and cannot live
by their labor may rent lands on which to farm.”28
Tovey wrote that the Jewish reaction was bitter: “They soon began to speak out openly against Christianity itself for permitting such inhumanity and they vilified our savior and his apostles with such outrageous blaspheming that...Edward was eventually forced to put a stop to them. He issued a proclamation threatening death or dismemberment if they
continued.”
/0b. A 13th century English silver penny of the type that would end up 50% clipped. The clipping of this coinage led to the 350 year expulsion of
the Jews from England by Edward F* in 1290 AD.
The Balance between One Central Power a King or the Rule of an oligarchy of Barons, What power base is it easier for a People to keep honest?
This is an interesting question. The Nimrodists have form in playing both sides against the middle and care little about “ Democracy” “Justice , or ideals of Fairness.
Those long passages skirt around the point when I recall exactly where I read it Words to this effect I recall.
Magna Charte provided the Barons with a charter against King John, the Treasury corrupted and outside the oversight of a representitive of the people
Thus lead to an erosion of the welfare and fair share of the ordinary people .
Whetehr a Republic or a monarchy one has to avoid Ususry excercised for private interests.
When it comes to me where that is said much better I will post it here.
The Reeds of Runnymede
At Runnymede, at Runnymede What say the reeds at Runnymede? The lissom reeds that give and take, That bend so far, but never break, They keep the sleepy Thames awake With tales of John at Runnymede. At Runnymede, at Runnymede, Oh, hear the reeds at Runnymede:-- "You mustn't sell, delay, deny, A freeman's right or liberty. It wakes the stubborn Englishry, We saw 'em roused at Runnymede! "When through our ranks the Barons came, With little thought of praise or blame, But resolute to play the game, They lumbered up to Runnymede; And there they launched in solid time The first attack on Right Divine-- The curt, uncompromising 'Sign!' That settled John at Runnymede. "At Runnymede, at Runnymede, Your rights were won at Runnymede! No freeman shall be fined or bound, Or dispossessed of freehold ground, Except by lawful judgment found And passed upon him by his peers. Forget not, after all these years, The Charter Signed at Runnymede." And still when Mob or Monarch lays Too rude a hand on English ways, The whisper wakes, the shudder plays, Across the reeds at Runnymede. And Thames, that knows the moods of kings, And crowds and priests and suchlike things, Rolls deep and dreadful as he brings Their warning down from Runymeade.
https://longhairedmusings.wordpress.com/?s=meet+the+fuggers
Aristotle, Politics
And a king wishes to be a guardian, [1311a] [1] to protect the owners of estates from suffering injustice and the people from suffering insult, but tyranny, as has repeatedly been said, pays regard to no common interest unless for the sake of its private benefit; and the aim of tyranny is what is pleasant, that of royalty what is noble. Hence even in their requisitions money is the aim of tyrants but rather marks of honor that of kings; and a king's body-guard consists of citizens, a tyrant's of foreign mercenaries. And it is manifest that tyranny has the evils of both democracy and oligarchy; it copies oligarchy in making wealth its object （for inevitably that is the only way in which the tyrant's body-guard and his luxury can be kept up） and in putting no trust in the multitude （which is why they resort to the measure of stripping the people of arms, and why ill-treatment of the mob and its expulsion from the city and settlement in scattered places is common to both forms of government, both oligarchy and tyranny）, while it copies democracy in making war on the notables and destroying them secretly and openly and banishing them as plotting against it and obstructive to its rule. For it is from them that counter-movements actually spring, some of them wishing themselves to rule, and others not [20] to be slaves. Hence comes the advice of Periander to Thrasybulus,106 his docking of the prominent cornstalks, meaning that the prominent citizens must always be made away with.
Exegesis Hermeneutics Flux Capacitor of Truthiness
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February 25, 2024
QED POST CLIMATE CHANGE, LAND USE AND MONETARY POLICY, THE NEW TRIFECTA.
COUNSEL FOR THE PEOPLE CHARGE USURY OF ITS CRIMES.
This baron abstract that claims fruit.
This heavy invisible burden,
a yoke. Fashioned in language,
felt but never seen.
inflicting scars as deep as any lash,
claiming lives as real as any canon.
This nightmare device of imagination.
Who are the slayers of this mythical dragon?
Coleridge saw beauty in nature where sweet amaranths bloom. And Shakespeare compared his summers day.
What of this hamlets ghost of a spectre?
something is rotten in the danegeld,
many more promises are written than can be kept.
So much nectar strained from thin broth,
which bargains can be made?
When the music stops and the dancers
sit down. Chairs are our metaphor for the real.
Always too few.
Rascals become clothed in robes
and honesty is reduced to rags.
Elisabeth lease had a purchase on truth.
”When people starve how can overproduction stand charged. It is money promises, kept short in supply that causes starvation. The consumption in the lungs of the community, is the usurers confection.
A counterfeit Nobel laureate, theres an irony.
Denies that in money there can be a place that gertrude stein called there, home once but no longer there , there in Oakland. A precursor to some sub prime heritage.
A speaker of truth to power could follow Pauli ´Das ist nicht nur nicht richtig, es is nicht einmal falsh!
Not even wrong, not even there.
All counterfeit, yet to counterfeit the counterfeit? a crime.
The courtiers of the Exchequer address the king;
We economists beholden as we are to the princes of usury and the false prophets of usury fit the horse foot to the shoe that suits us best it matters not that the horse becomes lame and less furlongs are ploughed. As we deny the posion in our own usurious medium we also deny that what ills our patient could be from any panacea concocted in our own alchemists crucible.
”Money is usually defined
from a functional perspective as a “unit of account, store of value
and medium of exchange.” However, this definition does not take into account the quintessential attribute of money that money always trades at par on demand and the institutional arrangements that underpin this attribute. Money claims are also hierarchical (see Mehrling, 2012),
in the sense that not all money claims are equally strong in their par on demand promise in all states of the world, and that always and everywhere money is something different for central banks, banks, shadow banks and all other participants in the financial ecosystem.
The irony of reading Plutarch
Posted on 24/01/2012 | 4 Comments
I read a short essay by Plutarch yesterday. It’s 2.000-year-old text against the notion of borrowing. “Against borrowing money” is the essay’s title and it’s part of his book on Morals.
Plutarch (c. 46 – 120 AD)
Of course he wasn’t an economist so you won’t find financial doctrines in it. But the simple fact of reading a Greek ancestor who has written simple ideas on the notion of borrowing/lending makes it, well, ironic if not tragic.
And then we go back to our news channels and our dear government and we listen things like “we didn’t know” or “there was no alternative”.
Go on, give it a try, it’s long but not too much.
Sec. I. Plato in his Laws [881] does not permit neighbours to use one another’s water, unless they have first dug for themselves as far as the clay, and reached ground that is unsuitable for a well. For clay, having a rich and compact nature, absorbs the water it receives, and does not let it pass through. But he allows people that cannot make a well of their own to use their neighbour’s water, for the law ought to relieve necessity. Ought there not also to be a law about money, that people should not borrow of others, nor go to other people’s sources of income, until they have first examined their own resources at home, and collected, as by drops, what is necessary for their use? But nowadays from luxury and effeminacy and lavish expenditure people do not use their own resources, though they have them, but borrow from others at great interest without necessity. And what proves this very clearly is the fact that people do not lend money to the needy, but only to those who, wanting an immediate supply, bring a witness and adequate security for their credit, so that they can be in no actual necessity of borrowing. [882]
Sec. II. Why pay court to the banker or trader? Borrow from your own table. You have cups, silver dishes, pots and pans. Use them in your need. Beautiful Aulis or Tenedos will furnish you with earthenware instead, purer than silver, for they will not smell strongly and unpleasantly of interest, a kind of rust that daily soils your sumptuousness, nor will they remind you of the calends and the new moon, which, though the most holy of days, the money-lenders make ill-omened and hateful. For those who instead of selling them put their goods out at pawn cannot be saved even by Zeus the Protector of Property: they are ashamed to sell, they are not ashamed to pay interest on their goods when out at pawn. And yet the famous Pericles made the ornament of Athene, which weighed forty talents of fine gold, removable at will, for “so,” he said, “we can use the gold in war, and at some other time restore as costly a one.” So should we too in our necessities, as in a siege, not receive a garrison imposed on us by a hostile money-lender, nor allow our goods to go into slavery; but stripping our table, our bed, our carriages, and our diet, of superfluities, we should keep ourselves free, intending to restore all those things again, if we have good luck.
Sec. III. So the Roman matrons offered their gold and ornaments as first-fruits to Pythian Apollo, out of which a golden cup was made and sent to Delphi; [883] and the Carthaginian matrons had their heads shorn, and with the hair cut off made cords for the machines and engines to be used in defence of their country. [884] But we being ashamed of independence enslave ourselves to covenants and conditions, when we ought to restrict and confine ourselves to what is useful, and dock or sell useless superfluities, to build a temple of liberty for ourselves, our wives, and children. The famous Artemis at Ephesus gives asylum and security from their creditors to debtors, when they take refuge in her temple; but the asylum and sanctuary of frugality is everywhere open to the sober-minded, affording them joyful and honourable and ample space for much ease. For as the Pythian Priestess told the Athenians at the time of the Median war that the god had given them wooden walls, [885] and they left the region and city, their goods and houses, and took refuge in their ships for liberty, so the god gives us a wooden table, and earthenware plate, and coarse garments, if we wish to live free. Care not for fine horses or chariots with handsome harness, adorned with gold [886] and silver, which swift interest will catch up and outrun, but mounted on any chance donkey or nag flee from the hostile and tyrannical money-lender, not demanding like the Mede land and water, [887] but interfering with your liberty, and lowering your status. If you pay him not, he duns you; if you offer the money, he won’t have it; if you are selling anything, he cheapens the price; if you don’t want to sell, he forces you; if you sue him, he comes to terms with you; if you swear, he hectors; if you go to his house, he shuts the door in your face; whereas if you stay at home, he billets himself on you, and is ever rapping at your door.
Sec. IV. How did Solon benefit the Athenians by ordaining that debtors should no longer have to pay in person? For they are slaves to all money-lenders, [888] and not to them only, what would there be so monstrous in that? but to their slaves, who are insolent and savage barbarians, such as Plato represents the fiery torturers and executioners in Hades who preside over the punishment of the impious. For they make the forum a hell for wretched debtors, and like vultures devour and rend them limb from limb, “piercing into their bowels,” [889] and stand over others and prevent their tasting their own grapes or crops, as if they were so many Tantaluses. And as Darius sent Datis and Artaphernes to Athens with manacles and chains in their hands for their captives, so they bring into Greece boxes full of bonds and agreements, like fetters, and visit the towns and scour the country round, sowing not like Triptolemus harmless corn, but planting the toilsome and prolific and never-ending roots of debts, which grow and spread all round, and ruin and choke cities. They say that hares at once give birth and suckle and conceive again, but the debts of these knaves and barbarians give birth before they conceive; for at the very moment of giving they ask back, and take up what they laid down, and lend what they take for lending.
Sec. V. It is a saying among the Messenians, that “there is a Pylos before Pylos, and another Pylos too.” So it may be said with respect to these money-lenders, “there is interest before interest, and other interest too.” Then of course they laugh at those natural philosophers who say that nothing can come of nothing, for they get interest on what neither is nor was; and they think it disgraceful to farm out the taxes, though the law allows it, while they themselves against the law exact tribute for what they lend, or rather, if one is to say the truth, defraud as they lend, for he who receives less than he signs his name for is defrauded. The Persians indeed think lying a secondary crime, but debt a principal one, for lying frequently follows upon debt, but money-lenders tell more lies, for they make fraudulent entries in their account-books, writing down that they have given so-and-so so much, when they have really given less. And the only excuse for their lying is covetousness, not necessity, not utter poverty, but insatiable greediness, the outcome of which is without enjoyment and useless to themselves, and fatal to their victims. For neither do they farm the fields which they rob their debtors of, nor do they inhabit their houses when they have thrust them out, nor use their tables or apparel, but first one is ruined, and then a second is hunted down, for whom the first one serves as a decoy. For the bane spreads and grows like a fire, to the destruction and ruin of all who fall into their clutches, for it consumes one after another; and the money-lender, who fans and feeds this flame to ensnare many, gets no more advantage from it but that some time after he can take his account-book and read how many he has sold up, how many turned out of house and home, and track the sources of his wealth, which is ever growing into a larger pile.
Sec. VI. And do not think I say this as an enemy proclaiming war against the money-lenders,
“For never did they lift my cows or horses,” [890]
but merely to prove to those who too readily borrow money what disgrace and servitude it brings with it, and what extreme folly and weakness it is. Have you anything? do not borrow, for you are not in a necessitous condition. Have you nothing? do not borrow, for you will never be able to pay back. Let us consider either case separately. Cato said to a certain old man who was a wicked fellow, “My good sir, why do you add the shame that comes from wickedness to old age, that has so many troubles of its own?” So too do you, since poverty has so many troubles of its own, not add the terrible distress that comes from borrowing money and from debt; and do not take away from poverty its only advantage over wealth, its freedom from corroding care. For the proverb that says, “I cannot carry a goat, put an ox on my shoulder,” has a ridiculous ring. Unable to bear poverty, are you going to put on your back a money-lender, a weight hard to carry even for a rich man? How then, will you say, am I to maintain myself? Do you ask this, having two hands, two legs, and a tongue, in short, being a man, to love and be loved, to give and receive benefits? Can you not be a schoolmaster or tutor, or porter, or sailor, or make coasting voyages? Any of these ways of getting a livelihood is less disgraceful and difficult than to always have to hear, “Pay me that thou owest.”
Sec. VII. The well-known Rutilius went up to Musonius at Rome, and said to him, “Musonius, Zeus Soter, whom you imitate and emulate, does not borrow money.” And Musonius smilingly answered, “Neither does he lend.” For you must know Rutilius, himself a lender, was bantering Musonius for being a borrower. What Stoic inflatedness was all this! What need was there to bring in Zeus Soter? For all nature teaches the same lesson. Swallows do not borrow money, nor do ants, although nature has given them no hands, or reason, or profession. But men have intellect in excess, and so ingenious are they that they keep near them horses, and dogs, and partridges, and jackdaws. Why then do you despair, who are as impressible as a jackdaw, have as much voice as a partridge, and are as noble as a dog, of getting some person to befriend you, by looking after him, winning his affections, guarding him, fighting his battles? Do you not see how many opportunities there are both on land and sea? As Crates says,
“Miccylus and his wife, to ward off famine
In these bad times, I saw both carding wool.”
And King Antigonus asked Cleanthes, when he saw him at Athens after a long interval, “Do you still grind, Cleanthes?” And he replied, “I do, O king, but for my living, yet so as not to desert philosophy.” Such was the admirable spirit of the man who, coming from the mill and kneading-trough, wrote with the hand that had baked and ground about the gods, and the moon, and stars, and the sun. But those kinds of labour are in our view servile! And so that we may appear free we borrow money, and flatter and dance attendance on slaves, and give them dinners and presents, and pay taxes as it were to them, not on account of our poverty (for no one lends money to a poor man), but from our love of lavish expenditure. For if we were content with things necessary for subsistence, the race of money-lenders would be as extinct as Centaurs and Gorgons are; it is luxury that has created them as much as goldsmiths, and silversmiths, and perfumers, and dyers in bright colours. For we do not owe money for bread and wine, but for estates, and slaves, and mules, and dining-rooms, and tables, and for our lavish public entertainments, in our unprofitable and thankless ambition. And he that is once involved in debt remains in it all his time, like a horse bitted and bridled that takes one rider after another, and there is no escape to green pastures and meadows, but they wander about like those demons who were driven out of heaven by the gods who are thus described by Empedocles:–
“Into the sea the force of heaven thrusts them,
The sea rejects them back upon the land;
To the sun’s rays th’ unresting earth remits them;
The sun anon whirls them to heaven again.”
1689 - Absolute monarchy takes power over the bank
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Charles XI introduced absolute monarchy and decided that the royal powers would have the last word on all matters. This also applied to the Bank of the Estates of the Realm (Sveriges Riksbank).
When the Bank of the Estates of the Realm (Sveriges Riksbank) was founded in 1668, the estates decided that the royal powers should not be involved. But Charles XI also wished to control the bank and even renamed it so that, for a time, it was known as His Royal Majesty’s State Bank.
T h i s r o u s e d t h e K i n g , w h o w r o t e t o t h e b o a r d o f d i r e c t o r s i n 1 6 8 8 , e x - p l a i n i n g t h a t a l l t h e C r o w n ’ s p r o m i s e s t o t h e B a n k w o u l d b e k e p t b u t a d d i n g a fa r - r e a c h i n g r e s e r v a t i o n : i f t h e p r e s e n t o r e a r l i e r d i r e c t o r s m a d e d e c i s i o n s o f w h i c h t h e K i n g d i s a p p r o v e d a n d w h i c h , m o r e o v e r , c o n t r a v e n e d r u l e s a n d r e g u l a t i o n s ‘ t h a t We h a v e fo u n d g o o d ’ , t h e K i n g c o u l d n o t a l l o w e i t h e r t h e E s t a t e s o r a n y o n e e l s e t o m a k e s u c h d e c i s i o n s ‘ b e c a u s e t o U s a l o n e i s t h e p o w e r a n d a u t h o r i t y i n O u r r e a l m a s s i g n e d a n d d u e , a n d e v e r y t h i n g t h a t i s d o n e w i t h o u t O u r g r a c i o u s w i l l , k n o w l e d g e a n d a p p r o v a l i s o f i t s e l f i m p o t e n t a n d r a t e d e n t i r e l y i n v a l i d ’
n 1 7 1 5 t h e K i n g h a d i n i t i a t e d t h e m i n t i n g o f t o k e n c o i n s ( my n tt e c k e n ) t h a t w e r e p o p u l a r l y k n o w n a s ‘ G ö r t z ’ g o d s ’ ( t h o u g h t h e y w e r e p r o b a b l y n o t t h e H o l s t e i n e r ’ s o w n i d e a ) . T h e s e l o o k e d l i k e o r d i n a r y c o p p e r c o i n s b u t w e r e s t r u c k w i t h a fa c e v a l u e o f 1 d sm , w h i c h w a s fa r m o r e t h a n t h e i r m e t a l l i c v a l u e . T h e y c o r r e s p o n d e d i n p r a c t i c e t o c r e d i t n o t e s : t h e C r o w n i s s u e d a fo r m o f m o n e y w i t h o u t b a c k i n g – i t s v a l u e d e p e n d e d o n p u b l i c c o n fi d e n c e . O v e r 3 4 m i l l i o n o f t h e s e c o i n s w e r e m i n t e d a l l t o l d a n d a l m o s t 2 5 m i l l i o n o f t h e m w e r e s t i l l c i r c u l a t i n g w h e n K a r l X I I m e t h i s d e a t h i n N o v e m b e r 1 7 1 8 . I n 1 7 1 6 t h e C r o w n s t a r t e d t o u s e E s t a t e s b o n d s ( s tän d e rn as o b l iga t i o n e r , i n d e n o m i n a t i o n s o f 1 0 , 0 0 0 , 5 , 0 0 0 , 1 , 0 0 0 a n d 1 0 0 d sm ) a s w e l l a s c u r r e n c y n o t e s ( my n ts e d l a r , i n d e n o m i n a t i o n s o f 2 5 , 1 0 a n d 5 d sm ) . T h e l a t t e r w e r e i s s u e d b y t h e a g e n c y t h e K i n g h a d s e t u p i n 1 7 1 2 t o c o l l e c t t h e n e w w e a l t h t a x ; t h e y w e r e i s s u e d fo r a t o t a l o f a l m o s t 1 8 m i l l i o n d sm , o f w h i c h o v e r G e o r g H e i n r i c h v o n G ö r t z ( 1 6 6 8 – 1 7 1 9 ) w a s K a r l X I I ’ s c l o s e s t a d v i s e r i n t h e k i n g ’ s fi n a l y e a r s . C o n t e m p o r a r y c a r i c a t u r e . 7 0 5 m i l l i o n w a s i n c i r c u l a t i o n a t t h e b e g i n n i n g o f 1 7 1 9 . I n a d d i t i o n , m a n y o ffi c e r s a n d o ffi c i a l s w e r e p a i d i n l ön i ngss e dla r , a k i n d o f i n t e r e s t - b e a r i n g p r o m i s s o r y n o t e , i s s u e d fo r a t o t a l o f o v e r 1 m i l l i o n d sm . L i n d e g r e n ( 2 0 0 5 ) n o t e s t h a t G ö r t z h a d m e t t h e i n n o v a t i v e S c o t t i s h fi n a n c i e r J o h n L aw i n P a r i s a n d a r g u e s t h a t h e h i t o n a ‘ g e n i a l s o l u t i o n ’ t o t h e fi n a n c i a l d i ffi c u l t i e s s h o r t l y b e fo r e t h e K i n g d i e d : t a x a t i o n w o u l d i n d u c e s o c i e t y ’ s e l i t e t o i n v e s t s u r p l u s fu n d s i n b o n d s . I n s t e a d , p e o p l e t r u s t e d n e i t h e r t h e R o m a n g o d s o n t h e c o i n s n o r t h e n o t e s a n d b o n d s . L a g e r b r i n g ( 1 7 7 8 ) s t a t e s t h a t t h e y a c c e p t e d a fa i r l y m o d e s t d i s c o u n t o f 4 – 5 p e r c e n t t o b e g i n w i t h b u t ‘ a s s o o n a s t h e r e w e r e r u m o u r s o f c o m p u l s o r y l o a n s a g a i n s t g o v e r n m e n t b o n d s a n d t h e s e w o u l d t h u s b e i n c r e a s e d , t h e i r c r e d i t fe l l i m m e d i a t e l y a n d p e o p l e b e g a n t o s p u r n b o t h t h e t o k e n c o i n s a n d t h e c u r r e n c y n o t e s , s o t h a t w h e n s o m e o n e w a n t e d t o b u y a n a ln ( ≈ 4 5 i n c h e s ) o f fi n e c l o t h t h a t c o u l d b e o b t a i n e d fo r 4 D a l e r S : m t g o o d c o i n , t h e y w e r e a s k e d fo r 5 0 D a l e r i f p a y m e n t w a s t o b e i n t o k e n c o i n s ’ . T h e C r o w n i n s t i t u t e d h e a v y fi n e s o n s e l l e r s a s w e l l a s b u y e r s w h o m a d e a d i s t i n c t i o n b e t w e e n t h e t o k e n c o i n s a n d o r d i n a r y c o i n s , b u t i t w a s n o t e n o u g h . E a r l y i n 1 7 1 6 i t w a s r u m o u r e d t h a t e v e r y o n e w o u l d b e o b l i g e d t o a c - c e p t t o k e n c o i n s a t t h e i r fu l l v a l u e fo r d e p o s i t s . D e p o s i t o r s i n t h e e x c h a n g e b a n k h u r r i e d t o w i t h d r aw t h e i r p l a t e m o n e y a n d t h e K i n g h a d t o a s s u r e t h e m t h a t t h e B a n k w o u l d n e i t h e r a c c e p t n o r h a n d o u t t o k e n c o i n s . N e x t y e a r t h e r e w a s a n o t h e r r u n o n t h e B a n k w h e n K a r l X I I h a d t h e E n g l i s h e n v o y i n S t o c k h o l m a p p r e h e n d e d a ft e r t h e S w e d i s h a m b a s s a d o r i n L o n d o n h a d b e e n i m p r i s o n e d i n c o n n e c t i o n w i t h a c o n s p i r a c y i n s u p p o r t o f t h e e x i l e d S t u a r t s . S o m e m o n t h s l a t e r , h o w e v e r , t h e r e v e r s e o c c u r r e d w h e n t h e K i n g c a l l e d i n a l l p l a t e m o n e y t o b e r e - s t a m p e d a t t w o - t h i r d s o f i t s c u r r e n t v a l u e ; p l a t e m o n e y i n t h e B a n k ’ s v a u l t s w a s e x e m p t , s o p e o p l e h a s t e n e d t o d e p o s i t w h a t t h e y h a d . O n 4 A u g u s t 1 7 1 8 t h e b o a r d o f d i r e c t o r s w a s o r d e r e d t o i s s u e a p r o c l a - m a t i o n m a k i n g t h e l o a n c e r t i fi c a t e s i r r e d e e m a b l e ; i n fu t u r e , n o t h i n g b u t i n t e r e s t w o u l d b e p a i d . I n s t e a d o f p a y i n g fu l l i n t e r e s t o n a n d r e p a y i n g i t s l o a n s fr o m t h e B a n k , t h e C r o w n w o u l d p a y o n l y a s m u c h a s w a s n e e d e d t o c o v e r t h e i n t e r e s t o n t h e o u t s t a n d i n g l o a n c e r t i fi c a t e s . T h e E s t a t e s a n d t h e b o a r d o f d i r e c t o r s w e r e b r u s h e d a s i d e a s t h e K i n g t r e a t e d t h e B a n k l i k e a n o r d i n a r y a g e n c y o f t h e C r o w n . T h e s e m e a s u r e s w o u l d i n fr i n g e t h e B a n k ’ s r i g h t s i n r e l a t i o n t o t h e C r o w n , a s w e l l a s d e p o s i t o r s ’ r i g h t s v i s - à - v i s t h e ‘ G ö r t z ’ g o d s ’ , e m e r g e n c y c o i n s m i n t e d u n d e r K a r l X I I , w e r e s o o n w o r t h m u c h l e s s t h a n t h e r e g u l a r c u r r e n c y , d i a m . 2 4 m m . 7 2 Bank. The directors protested to the Exchequer but the King simply ordered this institution to carry out the order without delay. On 30 November, however, Karl XII met his end while besieging the Norwegian fortress of Fredrikshald. The Bank of His Majesty’s Estates reverted to being the Bank of the Estates of the Realm. The Great Northern War placed severe strains on the Bank’s independence from the government, on public confidence in the Bank, and on the Bank’s ability to manage the huge war loans. At the same time, the need to maintain his subjects’ confidence modified the King’s autocracy and strengthened the board of directors in its confrontations with Görtz. The fact that the Bank weathered the crisis affected its future. By standing up to Karl XII, it confirmed its position as the agency of the Estates. Its notes and certificates continued to circulate – albeit often at a discount – as a form of money and investment, which meant that it still had some credibility on which to build.
Swedish Central Bank Propaganda?
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But the actual overthrow of both constitutional governments and aristocracies is mostly due to a departure from justice in the actual framework of the constitution. For what starts it in the case of a constitutional government is that it does not contain a good blend of democracy and oligarchy; and in the case of an aristocracy it is the lack of a good blend of those two elements and of virtue, but chiefly of the two elements （I mean popular government and oligarchy）, for both constitutional governments and most of the constitutions that are called aristocracies aim at blending these. For this76 is the point of distinction between aristocracies and what are called constitutional governments, and it is owing to this that some of them77 are less and others more stable; for the constitutions inclining more towards oligarchy men call aristocracies and those inclining more to the side of the multitude constitutional governments, owing to which those of the latter sort are more secure than the others, for the greater number is the stronger, and also men are more content when they have an equal amount, whereas the owners of wealthy properties, if the constitution gives them the superior position, [20] seek to behave insolently and to gain money. And speaking broadly, to whichever side the constitution leans, that is the side to which it shifts as either of the two parties increases its own side—a constitutional government shifts to democracy and an aristocracy to oligarchy, or to the opposite extremes, that is, aristocracy to democracy （for the poorer people feeling they are unjustly treated pull it round to the opposite） and constitutional governments to oligarchy （for the only lasting thing is equality in accordance with desert and the possession of what is their own）. And the change mentioned78 came about at Thurii, for because the property-qualification for honors was too high, the constitution was altered to a lower property-qualification and to a larger number of official posts, but because the notables illegally bought up the whole of the land （for the constitution was too oligarchical, so that they were able to grasp at wealth） . . .79 And the people having been trained in the war overpowered the guards, until those who were in the position of having too much land relinquished it.
And constitutions are kept secure not only through being at a distance from destroyers but sometimes also through being near them,82 for when they are afraid the citizens keep a closer hold on the government; hence those who take thought for the constitution must contrive causes of fear, in order that the citizens may keep guard and not relax their vigilance for the constitution like a watch in the night, and they must make the distant near. Again, they must also endeavor to guard against the quarrels and party struggles of the notables by means of legislation, and to keep out those who are outside the quarrel before they too have taken it over; since to discern a growing evil at the commencement is not any ordinary person's work but needs a statesman. And to deal with the revolution from oligarchy and constitutional government that arises because of the property-qualifications, when this occurs while the rates of qualification remain the same but money is becoming plentiful, it is advantageous to examine the total amount of the rated value of the community as compared with the past amount, in states where the assessment is made yearly, over that period, [1308b] [1] and three years or five years ago in the larger states, and if the new total is many times larger or many times smaller than the former one at the time when the rates qualifying for citizenship were fixed, it is advantageous that there should be a law for the magistrates correspondingly to tighten up or to relax the rates, tightening them up in proportion to the ratio of increase if the new total rated value exceeds the old, and relaxing them and making the qualification lower if the new total falls below the old. For in oligarchies and constitutional states, when they do not do this, in the one case83 the result is that in the latter an oligarchy comes into existence and in the former a dynasty, and in the other case84 a constitutional government turns into a democracy and an oligarchy into a constitutional government or a government of the people.
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[1301a] [19]
1Almost all the other subjects which we intended to treat [20] have now been discussed. There must follow the consideration of the questions, what are the number and the nature of the causes that give rise to revolutions in constitutions, and what are the causes that destroy each form of constitution, and out of what forms into what forms do they usually change, and again what are the safeguards of constitutions in general and of each form in particular, and what are the means by which the safeguarding of each may best be put into effect.2
And we must first assume the starting-point, that many forms of constitution have come into existence with everybody agreeing as to what is just, that is proportionate equality, but failing to attain it （as has also been said before）. Thus democracy arose from men's thinking that if they are equal in any respect they are equal absolutely （for they suppose that because they are all alike free they are equal absolutely）, oligarchy arose from their assuming that if they are unequal as regards some one thing they are unequal wholly （for being unequal in property they assume that they are unequal absolutely）; and then the democrats claim as being equal to participate in all things in equal shares, while the oligarchs as being unequal seek to have a larger share, for a larger share is unequal. All these forms of constitution then have some element of justice, but from an absolute point of view they are erroneous; and owing to this cause, when each of the two parties has not got the share in the constitution which accords with the fundamental assumption that they happen to entertain, faction ensues. And of all men those who excel in virtue would most justifiably stir up faction, though they are least given to doing so; [1301b] [1] for they alone can with the fullest reason be deemed absolutely unequal. And there are some men who being superior in birth claim unequal rights because of this inequality; for persons who have ancestral virtue and wealth behind them are thought to be noble.
These then roughly speaking are the starting-points and sources of factions, which give rise to party strife （and revolutions due to this take place in two ways: sometimes they are in regard to the constitution, and aim at changing from the one established to another, for instance from democracy to oligarchy, or to democracy from oligarchy, or from these to constitutional government and aristocracy, or from those to these; but sometimes the revolution is not in regard to the established constitution, but its promoters desire the same form of government, for instance oligarchy or monarchy, but wish it to be in their own control. Again it may be a question of degree; for instance, when there is an oligarchy the object may be to change to a more oligarchical government or to a less, or when there is a democracy to a more or to a less democratic government, and similarly in the case of the remaining constitutions, the aim may be either to tighten them up or to relax them. Or again the aim may be to change a certain part of the constitution, for example to establish or abolish a certain magistracy, as according to some accounts Lysander [20] attempted to abolish the kingship at Sparta and the king Pausanias the ephorate3; and also at Epidamnus the constitution was altered in part, for they set up a council instead of the tribal rulers, and it is still compulsory for the magistrates alone of the class that has political power to come to the popular assembly when an appointment to a magistracy is put to the vote; and the single supreme magistrate was also an oligarchical feature in this constitution）. For party strife is everywhere due to inequality, where classes that are unequal do not receive a share of power in proportion （for a lifelong monarchy is an unequal feature when it exists among equals）; for generally the motive for factious strife is the desire for equality. But equality is of two kinds, numerical equality and equality according to worth—by numerically equal I mean that which is the same and equal in number or dimension, by equal according to worth that which is equal by proportion4; for instance numerically 3 exceeds 2 and 2 exceeds 1 by an equal amount, but by proportion 4 exceeds 2 and 2 exceeds 1 equally, since 2 and 1 are equal parts of 4 and 2, both being halves. But although men agree that the absolutely just is what is according to worth, they disagree （as was said before5） in that some think that if they are equal in something they are wholly equal, and others claim that if they are unequal in something they deserve an unequal share of all things. Owing to this two principal varieties of constitution come into existence, democracy and oligarchy; for noble birth and virtue are found in few men, but the qualifications specified6 in more: [1302a] [1] nowhere are there a hundred men nobly born and good, but there are rich men7 in many places. But for the constitution to be framed absolutely and entirely according to either kind of equality is bad. And this is proved by experience, for not one of the constitutions formed on such lines is permanent. And the cause of this is that it is impossible for some evil not to occur ultimately from the first and initial error that has been made. Hence the proper course is to employ numerical equality in some things and equality according to worth in others. But nevertheless democracy is safer and more free from civil strife than oligarchy; for in oligarchies two kinds of strife spring up, faction between different members of the oligarchy and also faction between the oligarchs and the people, whereas in democracies only strife between the people and the oligarchical party occurs, but party strife between different sections of the people itself does not occur to any degree worth mentioning. And again the government formed of the middle classes is nearer to the people than to the few, and it is the safest of the kinds of constitution mentioned.
And since we are considering what circumstances give rise to party factions and revolutions in constitutions, we must first ascertain their origins and causes generally. They are, speaking roughly, three in number,8 which we must first define in outline separately. [20] For we must ascertain what state of affairs gives rise to party strife, and for what objects it is waged, and thirdly what are the origins of political disorders and internal party struggles.
Now the principal cause, speaking generally, of the citizens being themselves disposed in a certain manner towards revolution is the one about which we happen to have spoken already. Those that desire equality enter on party strife if they think that they have too little although they are the equals of those who have more, while those that desire inequality or superiority do so if they suppose that although they are unequal they have not got more but an equal amount or less （and these desires may be felt justly, and they may also be felt unjustly）; for when inferior, people enter on strife in order that they may be equal, and when equal, in order that they may be greater. We have therefore said what are the states of feeling in which men engage in party strife.
The objects about which it is waged are gain and honor, and their opposites, for men carry on party faction in states in order to avoid dishonor and loss, either on their own behalf or on behalf of their friends.
And the causes and origins of the disturbances which occasion the actual states of feeling described and their direction to the objects mentioned, according to one account happen to be seven in number, though according to another they are more. Two of them are the same as those spoken of before although not operating in the same way: the motives of gain and honor also stir men up against each other not in order that they may get them for themselves, as has been said before, [1302b] [1] but because they see other men in some cases justly and in other cases unjustly getting a larger share of them. Other causes are insolence, fear, excessive predominance, contempt, disproportionate growth of power; and also other modes of cause9 are election intrigue, carelessness, pettiness, dissimilarity. Among these motives the power possessed by insolence and gain, and their mode of operation, is almost obvious; for when the men in office show insolence and greed, people rise in revolt against one another and against the constitutions that afford the opportunity for such conduct; and greed sometimes preys on private property and sometimes on common funds. It is clear also what is the power of honor and how it can cause party faction; for men form factions both when they are themselves dishonored and when they see others honored; and the distribution of honors is unjust when persons are either honored or dishonored against their deserts, just when it is according to desert. Excessive predominance causes faction, when some individual or body of men is greater and more powerful than is suitable to the state and the power of the government; for such are the conditions that usually result in the rise of a monarchy or dynasty. Owing to this in some places they have the custom of temporary banishment,10 as at Argos and Athens; yet it would be better to provide from the outset that there may be no persons in the state [20] so greatly predominant, than first to allow them to come into existence and afterwards to apply a remedy. Fear is the motive of faction with those who have inflicted wrong and are afraid of being punished, and also with those who are in danger of suffering a wrong and wish to act in time before the wrong is inflicted, as the notables at Rhodes banded together11 against the people because of the law-suits that were being brought against them. Contempt is a cause of faction and of actual attacks, upon the government, for instance in oligarchies when those who have no share in the government are more numerous （for they think themselves the stronger party）, and in democracies when the rich have begun to feel contempt for the disorder and anarchy that prevails, as for example at Thebes the democracy was destroyed owing to bad government after the battle of Oenophyta,12 and that of the Megarians was destroyed when they had been defeated owing to disorder and anarchy,13 and at Syracuse before the tyranny14 of Gelo, and at Rhodes15 the common people had fallen into contempt before the rising against them. Revolutions in the constitutions also take place on account of disproportionate growth; for just as the body16 is composed of parts, and needs to grow proportionately in order that its symmetry may remain, and if it does not it is spoiled, when the foot is four cubits long and the rest of the body two spans, and sometimes it might even change into the shape of another animal if it increased disproportionately not only in size but also in quality,17 so also a state is composed of parts, [1303a] [1] one of which often grows without its being noticed, as for example the number of the poor in democracies and constitutional states. And sometimes this is also brought about by accidental occurrences, as for instance at Tarentum when a great many notables were defeated and killed by the Iapygians a short time after the Persian wars a constitutional government was changed to a democracy, and at Argos when those in the seventh tribe18 had been destroyed by the Spartan Cleomenes the citizens were compelled to admit some of the surrounding people, and at Athens when they suffered disasters by land the notables became fewer because at the time of the war against Sparta the army was drawn from a muster-roll.19 And this happens also in democracies, though to a smaller extent; for when the wealthy become more numerous or their properties increase, the governments change to oligarchies and dynasties.20 And revolutions in constitutions take place even without factious strife, owing to election intrigue, as at Heraea21 （for they made their magistrates elected by lot instead of by vote for this reason, because the people used to elect those who canvassed）; and also owing to carelessness, when people allow men that are not friends of the constitution to enter into the sovereign offices, as at Oreus22 oligarchy was broken up when Heracleodorus became one of the magistrates, who in place of an oligarchy [20] formed a constitutional government, or rather a democracy. Another cause is alteration by small stages; by this I mean that often a great change of institutions takes place unnoticed when people overlook a small alteration, as in Ambracia the property-qualification was small, and finally men hold office with none at all, as a little is near to nothing, or practically the same. Also difference of race is a cause of faction, until harmony of spirit is reached; for just as any chance multitude of people does not form a state, so a state is not formed in any chance period of time. Hence most of the states that have hitherto admitted joint settlers or additional settlers23 have split into factions; for example Achaeans settled at Sybaris24 jointly with Troezenians, and afterwards the Achaeans having become more numerous expelled the Troezenians, which was the Cause of the curse that fell on the Sybarites; and at Thurii Sybarites quarrelled with those who had settled there with them, for they claimed to have the larger share in the country as being their own, and were ejected; and at Byzantium the additional settlers were discovered plotting against the colonists and were expelled by force of arms; and the people of Antissa25 after admitting the Chian exiles expelled them by arms; and the people of Zancle26 after admitting settlers from Samos were themselves expelled; and the people of Apollonia on the Euxine Sea after bringing in additional settlers fell into faction; and the Syracusans after the period of the tyrants27 [1303b] [1] conferred citizenship on their foreign troops and mercenaries and then faction set in and they came to battle; and the Amphipolitans having received settlers from Chalcis were most of them driven out by them.28
（And in oligarchies civil strife is raised by the many, on the ground that they are treated unjustly because they are not admitted to an equal share although they are equal, as has been said before, but in democracies it begins with the notables, because they have an equal share although they are not equal.）29
Also states sometimes enter on faction for geographical reasons, when the nature of the country is not suited for there being a single city, as for example at Clazomenae30 the people near Chytrum are in feud with the inhabitants of the island, and the Colophonians and the Notians31; and at Athens the population is not uniformly democratic in spirit, but the inhabitants of Piraeus are more so than those of the city. For just as in wars the fording of watercourses, even quite small ones, causes the formations to lose contact, so every difference seems to cause division. Thus perhaps the greatest division is that between virtue and vice, next that between wealth and poverty, and so with other differences in varying degree, one of which is the one mentioned.32
Factions arise therefore not about but out of small matters; but they are carried on about great matters. And even the small ones grow extremely violent when they spring up among men of the ruling class, [20] as happened for example at Syracuse in ancient times. For the constitution underwent a revolution as a result of a quarrel that arose33 between two young men, who belonged to the ruling class, about a love affair. While one of them was abroad the other who was his comrade won over the youth with whom he was in love, and the former in his anger against him retaliated by persuading his wife to come to him; owing to which they stirred up a party struggle among all the people in the state, enlisting them on their sides. On account of this it is necessary to guard against such affairs at their beginning, and to break up the factions of the leaders and powerful men; for the error occurs at the beginning, and the beginning as the proverb says is half of the whole, so that even a small mistake at the beginning stands in the same ratio34 to mistakes at the other stages. And in general the faction quarrels of the notables involve the whole state in the consequences, as happened at Hestiaea35 after the Persian wars, when two brothers quarrelled about the division of their patrimony; for the poorer of the two, on the ground that the other would not make a return of the estate and of the treasure that their father had found, got the common people on his side, and the other possessing much property was supported by the rich. And at Delphi the beginning of all the factions that occurred afterwards was when a quarrel arose out of a marriage; [1304a] [1] the bridegroom interpreted some chance occurrence when he came to fetch the bride as a bad omen and went away without taking her, and her relatives thinking themselves insulted threw some articles of sacred property into the fire when he was performing a sacrifice and then put him to death as guilty of sacrilege. And also at Mitylene36 a faction that arose out of some heiresses was the beginning of many misfortunes, and of the war with the Athenians in which Paches captured the city of Mitylene: a wealthy citizen named Timophanes left two daughters, and a man who was rejected in his suit to obtain them for his own sons, Doxander, started the faction and kept on stirring up the Athenians, whose consul he was at Mitylene. And among the Phocians when a faction arising out of an heiress sprang up in connection with Mnaseas the father of Mnason and Euthykrates the father of Onomarchus,37 this faction proved to be the beginning for the Phocians of the Holy War. At Epidamnus also circumstances relating to a marriage gave rise to a revolution in the constitution38; somebody had betrothed his daughter, and the father of the man to whom he had betrothed her became a magistrate, and had to sentence him to a fine; the other thinking that he had been treated with insolence formed a party of the unenfranchised classes to assist him. And also revolutions to oligarchy and democracy and constitutional government arise from the growth in reputation or in power of some magistracy or some section of the state; [20] as for example the Council on the Areopagus having risen in reputation during the Persian wars was believed to have made the constitution more rigid, and then again the naval multitude, having been the cause of the victory off Salamis and thereby of the leadership of Athens due to her power at sea, made the democracy stronger; and at Argos the notables having risen in repute in connection with the battle against the Spartans at Mantinea took in hand to put down the people; and at Syracuse the people having been the cause of the victory in the war against Athens made a revolution from constitutional government to democracy; and at Chalcis the people with the aid of the notables overthrew the tyrant Phoxus39 and then immediately seized the government; and again at Ambracia similarly the people joined with the adversaries of the tyrant Periander in expelling him and then brought the government round to themselves.40 And indeed in general it must not escape notice that the persons who have caused a state to win power, whether private citizens or magistrates or tribes, or in general a section or group of any kind, stir up faction; for either those who envy these men for being honored begin the faction, or these men owing to their superiority are not willing to remain in a position of equality. And constitutions also undergo revolution when what are thought of as opposing sections of the state become equal to one another, [1304b] [1] for instance the rich and the people, and there is no middle class or only an extremely small one; for if either of the two sections becomes much the superior, the remainder is not willing to risk an encounter with its manifestly stronger opponent. Owing to this men who are exceptional in virtue generally speaking do not cause faction, because they find themselves few against many. Universally then in connection with all the forms of constitution the origins and causes of factions and revolutions are of this nature.
The means used to cause revolutions of constitutions are sometimes force and sometimes fraud. Force is employed either when the revolutionary leaders exert compulsion immediately from the start or later on—as indeed the mode of using fraud is also twofold: sometimes the revolutionaries after completely deceiving the people at the first stage alter the constitution with their consent, but then at a later stage retain their hold on it by force against the people's will: for instance, at the time of the Four Hundred,41 they deceived the people by saying that the Persian King would supply money for the war against the Spartans, and after telling them this falsehood endeavored to keep a hold upon the government; but in other cases they both persuade the people at the start and afterwards repeat the persuasion and govern them with their consent.
Speaking generally therefore in regard to all the forms of constitution, the causes that have been stated are those from which revolutions have occurred.
But in the light of these general rules we must consider the usual course of events [20] as classified according to each different kind of constitution. In democracies the principal cause of revolutions is the insolence of the demagogues; for they cause the owners of property to band together, partly by malicious prosecutions of individuals among them （for common fear brings together even the greatest enemies）, and partly by setting on the common people against them as a class. And one may see this taking place in this manner in many instances. In Cos the democracy was overthrown42 when evil demagogues had arisen there, for the notables banded themselves together; and also in Rhodes,43 for the demagogues used to provide pay for public services, and also to hinder the payment of money owed44 to the naval captains, and these because of the lawsuits that were brought against them were forced to make common cause and overthrow the people. And also at Heraclea45 the people were put down immediately after the foundation of the colony because of the people's leaders; for the notables being unjustly treated by them used to be driven out, but later on those who were driven out collecting together effected their return and put down the people. And also the democracy at Megara was put down in a similar manner46; the people's leaders in order to have money to distribute to the people went on expelling many of the notables, until they made the exiles a large body, and these came back and defeated the people in a battle and set up the oligarchy. And the same thing happened also at Cyme [1305a] [1] in the time of the democracy which Thrasymachus put down47, and in the case of other states also examination would show that revolutions take place very much in this manner. Sometimes they make the notables combine by wronging them in order to curry favor, causing either their estates to be divided up or their revenues by imposing public services, and sometimes by so slandering them that they may have the property of the wealthy to confiscate. And in old times whenever the same man became both leader of the people and general, they used to change the constitution to a tyranny; for almost the largest number of the tyrants of early days have risen from being leaders of the people. And the reason why this used to happen then but does not do so now is because then the leaders of the people were drawn from those who held the office of general （for they were not yet skilled in oratory）, but now when rhetoric has developed the able speakers are leaders of the people, but owing to their inexperience in military matters they are not put in control of these, except in so far as something of the kind has taken place to a small extent in some places. And tyrannies also used to occur in former times more than they do now because important offices were entrusted to certain men, as at Miletus a tyranny48 arose out of the presidency （for the president had control of many important matters）. And moreover, because the cities in those times were not large but the common people lived on their farms [20] busily engaged in agriculture, the people's champions when they became warlike used to aim at tyranny. And they all used to do this when they had acquired the confidence of the people, and their pledge of confidence was their enmity towards the rich, as at Athens Pisistratus made himself tyrant by raising up a party against the men of the plain, and Theagenes at Megara by slaughtering the cattle of the well-to-do which he captured grazing by the river, and Dionysius49 established a claim to become tyrant when he accused Daphnaeus and the rich, since his hostility to them caused him to be trusted as a true man of the people. And revolutions also take place from the ancestral form of democracy to one of the most modern kind; for where the magistracies are elective, but not on property-assessments, and the people elect, men ambitious of office by acting as popular leaders bring things to the point of the people's being sovereign even over the laws. A remedy to prevent this or to reduce its extent is for the tribes to elect the magistrates, and not the people collectively.
These then are the causes through which almost all the revolutions in democracies take place.
Oligarchies undergo revolution principally through two ways that are the most obvious. One is if they treat the multitude unjustly; for anybody makes an adequate people's champion, and especially so when their leader happens to come from the oligarchy itself, like Lygdamis at Naxos, who afterwards actually became tyrant of the Naxians. [1305b] [1] Faction originating with other people also has various ways of arising. Sometimes when the honors of office are shared by very few, dissolution originates from the wealthy themselves,50 but not those that are in office, as for example has occurred at Marseilles,51 at Istrus,52 at Heraclea,53 and in other states; for those who did not share in the magistracies raised disturbances until as a first stage the older brothers were admitted, and later the younger ones again （for in some places a father and a son may not hold office together, and in others an elder and a younger brother may not）. At Marseilles the oligarchy became more constitutional, while at Istrus it ended in becoming democracy, and in Heraclea the government passed from a smaller number to six hundred. At Cnidus also there was a revolution54 of the oligarchy caused by a faction formed by the notables against one another, because few shared in the government, and the rule stated held, that if a father was a member a son could not be, nor if there were several brothers could any except the eldest; for the common people seized the opportunity of their quarrel and, taking a champion from among the notables, fell upon them and conquered them, for a party divided against itself is weak. Another case was at Erythrae,55 where at the time of the oligarchy of the Basilidae in ancient days, although [20] the persons in the government directed affairs well, nevertheless the common people were resentful because they were governed by a few, and brought about a revolution of the constitution.
On the other hand, oligarchies are overthrown from within themselves both56 when from motives of rivalry they play the demagogue （and this demagogy is of two sorts, one among the oligarchs themselves, for a demagogue can arise among them even when they are a very small body,—as for instance in the time of the Thirty at Athens, the party of Charicles rose to power by currying popularity with the Thirty, and in the time of the Four Hundred57 the party of Phrynichus rose in the same way,—the other when the members of the oligarchy curry popularity with the mob, as the Civic Guards at Larisa58 courted popularity with the mob because it elected them, and in all the oligarchies in which the magistracies are not elected by the class from which the magistrates come but are filled from high property-grades or from political clubs while the electors are the heavy-armed soldiers or the common people, as used to be the case at Abydos, and in places where the jury-courts are not made up from the government59—for there members of the oligarchy by courting popular favor with a view to their trials cause a revolution of the constitution, as took place at Heraclea on the Euxine60; and a further instance is when some men try to narrow down the oligarchy to a smaller number, for those who seek equality are forced to bring in the people as a helper.） And revolutions in oligarchy also take place when they squander their private means by riotous living; for also men of this sort seek to bring about a new state of affairs, and either aim at tyranny themselves or suborn somebody else [1306a] [1] （as Hipparinus put forward Dionysius61 at Syracuse, and at Amphipolis62 a man named Cleotimus led the additional settlers that came from Chalcis and on their arrival stirred them up to sedition against the wealthy, and in Aegina the man who carried out the transactions with Chares attempted to cause a revolution in the constitution for a reason of this sort63）; so sometimes they attempt at once to introduce some reform, at other times they rob the public funds and in consequence either they or those who fight against them in their peculations stir up faction against the government, as happened at Apollonia on the Black Sea. On the other hand, harmonious oligarchy does not easily cause its own destruction; and an indication of this is the constitutional government at Pharsalus, for there the ruling class though few are masters of many men64 because on good terms with one another. Also oligarchical governments break up when they create a second oligarchy within the oligarchy. This is when, although the whole citizen class is small, its few members are not all admitted to the greatest offices; this is what once occurred in Elis, for the government being in the hands of a few, very few men used to become members of the Elders,65 because these numbering ninety held office for life, and the mode of election was of a dynastic type66 and resembled that of the Elders at Sparta.
Revolutions [20] of oligarchies occur both during war and in time of peace— during war since the oligarchs are forced by their distrust of the people to employ mercenary troops （for the man in whose hands they place them often becomes tyrant, as Timophanes did at Corinth,67 and if they put several men in command, these win for themselves dynastic power）, and when through fear of this they give a share in the constitution to the multitude, the oligarchy falls because they are compelled to make use of the common people; during peace, on the other hand, because of their distrust of one another they place their protection in the hands of mercenary troops and a magistrate between the two parties, who sometimes becomes master of both, which happened at Larisa in the time of the government of the Aleuadae led by Simus,68 and at Abydos in the time of the political clubs of which that of Iphiades was one. And factions arise also in consequence of one set of the members of the oligarchy themselves being pushed aside by another set and being driven into party strife in regard to marriages or law-suits; examples of such disorders arising out of a cause related to marriage are the instances spoken of before, and also the oligarchy of the knights at Eretria was put down69 by Diagoras when he had been wronged in respect of a marriage, while the faction at Heraclea and that at Thebes arose out of a judgement of a law-court, when the people at Heraclea justly but factiously enforced the punishment against Eurytion on a charge of adultery [1306b] [1] and those at Thebes did so against Archias; for their personal enemies stirred up party feeling against them so as to get them bound in the pillory in the market-place. Also many governments have been put down by some of their members who had become resentful because the oligarchies were too despotic; this is how the oligarchies fell at Cnidus70 and at Chios. And revolutions also occur from an accident, both in what is called a constitutional government and in those oligarchies in which membership of the council and the law-courts and tenure of the other offices are based on a property-qualification. For often the qualification first having been fixed to suit the circumstances of the time, so that in an oligarchy a few may be members and in a constitutional government the middle classes, when peace or some other good fortune leads to a good harvest it comes about that the same properties become worth many times as large an assessment, so that all the citizens share in all the rights, the change sometimes taking place gradually and little by little and not being noticed, but at other times more quickly.
Such then are the causes that lead to revolutions and factions in oligarchies （and generally, both democracies and oligarchies are sometimes altered not into the opposite forms of constitution but into ones of the same class, for instance [20] from legitimate democracies and oligarchies into autocratic ones and from the latter into the former）.
In aristocracies factions arise in some cases because few men share in the honors （which has also been said71 to be the cause of disturbances in oligarchies, because an aristocracy too is a sort of oligarchy, for in both those who govern are few—although the reason for this is not the same in both—since this does cause it to be thought that aristocracy is a form of oligarchy）. And this is most bound to come about when there is a considerable number of people who are proud-spirited on the ground of being equals in virtue （for example the clan called the Maidens' Sons72 at Sparta—for they were descended from the Equals—whom the Spartans detected in a conspiracy and sent away to colonize Tarentum）; or when individuals although great men and inferior to nobody in virtue are treated dishonorably by certain men in higher honor （for example Lysander by the kings73）; or when a person of manly nature has no share in the honors （for example Cinadon,74 who got together the attack upon the Spartans in the reign of Agesilaus）. Faction in aristocracies also arises when some of the well-born are too poor and others too rich （which happens especially during wars, and this also occurred at Sparta at the time of the Messenian War—as appears from the poem of Tyrtaeus entitledLaw and Order; [1307a] [1] for some men being in distress because of the war put forward a claim to carry out a re-division of the land of the country）. Also if a man is great and capable of being yet greater, he stirs up faction in order that he may be sole ruler （as Pausanias who commanded the army through the Persian war seems to have done at Sparta, and Hanno75 at Carthage）.
But the actual overthrow of both constitutional governments and aristocracies is mostly due to a departure from justice in the actual framework of the constitution. For what starts it in the case of a constitutional government is that it does not contain a good blend of democracy and oligarchy; and in the case of an aristocracy it is the lack of a good blend of those two elements and of virtue, but chiefly of the two elements （I mean popular government and oligarchy）, for both constitutional governments and most of the constitutions that are called aristocracies aim at blending these. For this76 is the point of distinction between aristocracies and what are called constitutional governments, and it is owing to this that some of them77 are less and others more stable; for the constitutions inclining more towards oligarchy men call aristocracies and those inclining more to the side of the multitude constitutional governments, owing to which those of the latter sort are more secure than the others, for the greater number is the stronger, and also men are more content when they have an equal amount, whereas the owners of wealthy properties, if the constitution gives them the superior position, [20] seek to behave insolently and to gain money. And speaking broadly, to whichever side the constitution leans, that is the side to which it shifts as either of the two parties increases its own side—a constitutional government shifts to democracy and an aristocracy to oligarchy, or to the opposite extremes, that is, aristocracy to democracy （for the poorer people feeling they are unjustly treated pull it round to the opposite） and constitutional governments to oligarchy （for the only lasting thing is equality in accordance with desert and the possession of what is their own）. And the change mentioned78 came about at Thurii, for because the property-qualification for honors was too high, the constitution was altered to a lower property-qualification and to a larger number of official posts, but because the notables illegally bought up the whole of the land （for the constitution was too oligarchical, so that they were able to grasp at wealth） . . .79 And the people having been trained in the war overpowered the guards, until those who were in the position of having too much land relinquished it.
Besides, as all aristocratic constitutions are inclined towards oligarchy, the notables grasp at wealth （for example at Sparta the estates are coming into a few hands）; and the notables have more power to do what they like, and to form marriage connections with whom they like （which was the cause of the fall of the state of Locri, as a result of the marriage with Dionysius,80 which would not have taken place in a democracy; nor in a well-blended aristocracy）. [1307b] [1] And aristocracies are most liable to undergo revolution unobserved, through gradual relaxation, just as it has been said in what has gone before about all forms of constitution in general, that even a small change may cause a revolution. For when they give up one of the details of the constitution, afterwards they also make another slightly bigger change more readily, until they alter the whole system. This occurred for instance with the constitution of Thurii. There was a law that the office of general could be held at intervals of four years, but some of the younger men, becoming warlike and winning high repute with the mass of the guards, came to despise the men engaged in affairs, and thought that they would easily get control; so first they tried to repeal the law referred to, so as to enable the same persons to serve as generals continuously, as they saw that the people would vote for themselves with enthusiasm. And though the magistrates in charge of this matter, called the Councillors, at first made a movement to oppose them, they were won over, believing that after repealing this law they would allow the rest of the constitution to stand; but later, though they wished to prevent them when other laws were being repealed, they could no longer do anything more, but the whole system of the constitution was converted into a dynasty of the men who had initiated the innovations.
And constitutions of all forms [20] are broken up some times from movements initiating from within themselves, but sometimes from outside, when there is an opposite form of constitution either near by or a long way off yet possessed of power. This used to happen in the days of the Athenians and the Spartans; the Athenians used to put down oligarchies everywhere and the Spartans democracies.
We have then approximately stated the causes that give rise to revolutions in the constitutions of states and to party factions.
The next thing to speak about is security both in general and for each form of constitution separately. First then it is clear that if we know the causes by which constitutions are destroyed we also know the causes by which they are preserved; for opposites create opposites, and destruction is the opposite of security. In well-blended constitutions therefore, if care must be taken to prevent men from committing any other breach of the law, most of all must a small breach be guarded against, for transgression of the law creeps in unnoticed, just as a small expenditure occurring often ruins men's estates; for the expense is not noticed because it does not come all at once, for the mind is led astray by the repeated small outlays, just like the sophistic puzzle, ‘if each is little, then all are a little.’81 This is true in one way but in another it is not; for the whole or total is not little, but made up of little parts. One thing therefore that we must guard against is this beginning; and the next point is that we must not put faith in the arguments strung together for the sake of tricking the multitude, [1308a] [1] for they are refuted by the facts （and what sort of constitutional sophistries we refer to has been said before）. And again we must observe that not only some aristocracies but also some oligarchies endure not because the constitutions are secure but because those who get in the offices treat both those outside the constitution and those in the government well, on the one hand by not treating those who are not members of it unjustly and by bringing their leading men into the constitution and not wronging the ambitious ones in the matter of dishonor or the multitude in the matter of gain, and on the other hand, in relation to themselves and those who are members, by treating one another in a democratic spirit. For that equality which men of democratic spirit seek for in the case of the multitude is not only just but also expedient in the case of their compeers. Hence if there are a greater number in the governing class, many of the legislative enactments of a democratic nature are advantageous, for example for the offices to be tenable for six months, to enable all the compeers to participate in them; for the compeers in this case are as it were the people （owing to which demagogues often arise even among them, as has been said already）, and also oligarchies and aristocracies fall into dynasties less （for it is not so easy to do wrongs [20] when in office for a short time as when in for a long time, since it is long tenure of office that causes tyrannies to spring up in oligarchies and democracies; for either those who are the greatest men in either sort of state aim at tyranny, in the one sort the demagogues and in the other the dynasts, or those who hold the greatest offices, when they are in office for along time）. And constitutions are kept secure not only through being at a distance from destroyers but sometimes also through being near them,82 for when they are afraid the citizens keep a closer hold on the government; hence those who take thought for the constitution must contrive causes of fear, in order that the citizens may keep guard and not relax their vigilance for the constitution like a watch in the night, and they must make the distant near. Again, they must also endeavor to guard against the quarrels and party struggles of the notables by means of legislation, and to keep out those who are outside the quarrel before they too have taken it over; since to discern a growing evil at the commencement is not any ordinary person's work but needs a statesman. And to deal with the revolution from oligarchy and constitutional government that arises because of the property-qualifications, when this occurs while the rates of qualification remain the same but money is becoming plentiful, it is advantageous to examine the total amount of the rated value of the community as compared with the past amount, in states where the assessment is made yearly, over that period, [1308b] [1] and three years or five years ago in the larger states, and if the new total is many times larger or many times smaller than the former one at the time when the rates qualifying for citizenship were fixed, it is advantageous that there should be a law for the magistrates correspondingly to tighten up or to relax the rates, tightening them up in proportion to the ratio of increase if the new total rated value exceeds the old, and relaxing them and making the qualification lower if the new total falls below the old. For in oligarchies and constitutional states, when they do not do this, in the one case83 the result is that in the latter an oligarchy comes into existence and in the former a dynasty, and in the other case84 a constitutional government turns into a democracy and an oligarchy into a constitutional government or a government of the people. But it is a policy common to democracy and oligarchy [and to monarchy],85 and every form of constitution not to raise up any man too much beyond due proportion, but rather to try to assign small honors and of long tenure or great ones quickly86 （for officials grow corrupt, and not every man can bear good fortune）, or if not, at all events not to bestow honors in clusters and take them away again in clusters, but by a gradual process; and best of all to try so to regulate people by the law that there may be nobody among them specially pre-eminent in power due to friends or wealth, or, failing this, to cause their periods out of office to be spent abroad. [20] And since men also cause revolutions through their private lives, some magistracy must be set up to inspect those whose mode of living is unsuited to the constitution—unsuited to democracy in a democracy, to oligarchy in an oligarchy, and similarly for each of the other forms of constitution. And also sectional prosperity in the state must be guarded against for the same reasons; and the way to avert this is always to entrust business and office to the opposite sections （I mean that the respectable are opposite to the multitude and the poor to the wealthy）, and to endeavor either to mingle together the multitude of the poor and that of the wealthy or to increase the middle class （for this dissolves party factions due to inequality）. And in every form of constitution it is a very great thing for it to be so framed both by its laws and by its other institutions that it is impossible for the magistracies to make a profit. And this has most to be guarded against in oligarchies; for the many are not so much annoyed at being excluded from holding office （but in fact they are glad if somebody lets them have leisure to spend on their own affairs） as they are if they think that the magistrates are stealing the common funds, but then both things annoy them, exclusion from the honors of office and exclusion from its profits. And indeed the sole way in which a combination of democracy and aristocracy is possible is if someone could contrive this arrangement87; [1309a] [1] for it would then be possible for the notables and also the multitude both to have what they want; for it is the democratic principle for all to have the right to hold office and the aristocratic one for the offices to be filled by the notables, and this will be the case when it is impossible to make money from office; for the poor will not want to hold office because of making nothing out of it, but rather to attend to their own affairs, while the wealthy will be able to hold office because they have no need to add to their resources from the public funds; so that the result will be that the poor will become well-off through spending their time upon their work, and the notables will not be governed by any casual persons. Therefore to prevent peculation of the public property, let the transfer of the funds take place in the presence of all the citizens, and let copies of the lists be deposited for each brotherhood,88 company89 and tribe; and to get men to hold office without profit there must be honors assigned by law to officials of good repute. And in democracies it is necessary to be sparing of the wealthy not only by not causing properties to be divided up, but not incomes either （which under some constitutions takes place unnoticed）, and it is better to prevent men from undertaking costly but useless public services like equipping choruses and torch-races90 and all other similar services, even if they wish to; [20] in an oligarchy on the other hand it is necessary to take much care of the poor, and to allot to them the offices of profit, and the penalty if one of the rich commits an outrage against them must be greater than if it is done by one of themselves,91 and inheritance must not go by bequest but by family, and the same man must not inherit more than one estate, for so estates would be more on a level, and more of the poor would establish themselves as prosperous. And it is expedient both in a democracy and in an oligarchy to assign to those who have a smaller share in the government—in a democracy to the wealthy and in an oligarchy to the poor—either equality or precedence in all other things excepting the supreme offices of state; but these should be entrusted to those prescribed by the constitution exclusively, or to them for the most part.
There are some three qualities which those who are to hold the supreme magistracies ought to possess, first, loyalty to the established constitution, next, very great capacity to do the duties of the office, and third, virtue and justice—in each constitution the sort of justice suited to the constitution （for if the rules of justice are not the same under all constitutions, it follows that there must be differences in the nature of justice also）. It is a difficult question how the choice ought to be made when it happens that all these qualities are not found in the same person; [1309b] [1] for instance, if one man is a good military commander but a bad man and no friend of the constitution, and the other is just and loyal, how should the choice be made? It seems that two things ought to be considered, what is the quality of which all men have a larger share, and what the one of which all have a smaller share? Therefore in the case of military command one must consider experience more than virtue, for men have a smaller share of military experience and a larger share of moral goodness; but in the case of a trusteeship or a stewardship the opposite, for these require more virtue than most men possess, but the knowledge required is common to all men. And somebody might raise the question, why is virtue needed if both capacity and loyalty to the constitution are forthcoming, as even these two qualities will do what is suitable? May not the answer be, because those who possess these two qualities may possibly lack self-control, so that just as they do not serve themselves well although they know how to and although they love themselves, so possibly in some cases they may behave in this way in regard to the community also? And broadly, whatever provisions in the laws we describe as advantageous to constitutions, these are all preservative of the constitutions, and so is the supreme elementary principle that has been often stated, that of taking precautions that the section desirous of the constitution shall be stronger in numbers than the section not desirous off it. And beside all these matters one thing must not be overlooked which at present is overlooked by the, deviation-forms92 of constitution—the middle party; [20] for many of the institutions thought to be popular destroy democracies, and many of those thought oligarchical destroy oligarchies. But the adherents of the deviation-form, thinking that this form is the only right thing, drag it to excess, not knowing that just as there can be a nose that although deviating from the most handsome straightness towards being hooked or snub nevertheless is still beautiful and agreeable to look at, yet all the same, if a sculptor carries it still further in the direction of excess, he will first lose the symmetry of the feature and finally will make it not even look like a nose at all, because of its excess and deficiency in the two opposite qualities （and the same is the ease also in regard to the other parts of the body）, so this is what happens about constitutions likewise; for it is possible for an oligarchy and a democracy to be satisfactory although they have diverged from the best structure, but if one strains either of them further, first he will make the constitution worse, and finally he will make it not a constitution at all. Therefore the legislator and the statesman must not fail to know what sort of democratic institutions save and what destroy a democracy, and what sort of oligarchical institutions an oligarchy; for neither constitution can exist and endure without the well-to-do and the multitude, but when an even level of property comes about, the constitution resulting must of necessity be another one, [1310a] [1] so that when men destroy these classes by laws carried to excess they destroy the constitutions. And a mistake is made both in democracies and in oligarchies—in democracies by the demagogues, where the multitude is supreme over the laws; for they always divide the state into two by fighting with the well-to-do, but they ought on the contrary always to pretend to be speaking on behalf of men that are well-to-do, while in democracies the oligarchical statesmen ought to pretend to be speaking on behalf of the people, and the oligarchics ought to take oath in terms exactly opposite to those which they use now, for at present in some oligarchies they swear, “And I will be hostile to the people and will plan whatever evil I can against them,”93 but they ought to hold, and to act the part of holding, the opposite notion, declaring in their oaths, “I will not wrong the people.” But the greatest of all the means spoken of to secure the stability of constitutions is one that at present all people despise: it is a system of education suited to the constitutions. For there is no use in the most valuable laws, ratified by the unanimous judgement of the whole body of citizens, if these are not trained and educated in the constitution, popularly if the laws are popular, oligarchically if they are oligarchical; for there is such a thing as want of self-discipline in a state, as well as in an individual.But to have been educated [20] to suit the constitution does not mean to do the things that give pleasure to the adherents of oligarchy or to the supporters of democracy, but the things that will enable the former to govern oligarchically and the latter to govern themselves democratically. But at present in the oligarchies the sons of the rulers are luxurious, and the sons of the badly-off become trained by exercise and labor, so that they are both more desirous of reform and more able to bring it about; while in the democracies thought to be the most democratic the opposite of what is expedient has come about. And the cause of this is that they define liberty wrongly （for there are two things that are thought to be defining features of democracy, the sovereignty of the majority and liberty）; for justice is supposed to be equality, and equality the sovereignty of what ever may have been decided by the multitude, and liberty doing just what one likes. Hence in democracies of this sort everybody lives as he likes, and ‘unto what end he listeth,’ as Euripides94 says. But this is bad; for to live in conformity with the constitution ought not to be considered slavery but safety.
This therefore, speaking broadly, is a list of the things that cause the alteration and the destruction of constitutions, and of those that cause their “security and continuance.”
It remains to speak of monarchy, the causes that destroy it and the natural means of its preservation. [1310b] [1] And the things that happen about royal governments and tyrannies are almost similar to those that have been narrated about constitutional governments. For royal government corresponds with aristocracy, while tyranny is a combination of the last form of oligarchy95 and of democracy; and for that very reason it is most harmful to its subjects, inasmuch as it is a combination of two bad things, and is liable to the deviations and errors that spring from both forms of constitution. And these two different sorts of monarchy have their origins from directly opposite sources; royalty has come into existence for the assistance of the distinguished against the people, and a king is appointed from those distinguished by superiority in virtue or the actions that spring from virtue, or by superiority in coming from a family of that character, while a tyrant is set up from among the people and the multitude to oppose the notables, in order that the people may suffer no injustice from them. And this is manifest from the facts of history. For almost the greatest number of tyrants have risen, it may be said, from being demagogues, having won the people's confidence by slandering the notables. For some tyrannies were set up in this manner when the states had already grown great, but others that came before them arose from kings departing from the ancestral customs and aiming at a more despotic rule, [20] and others from the men elected to fill the supreme magistracies （for in old times the peoples used to appoint the popular officials96 and the sacred embassies97 for long terms of office）, and others from oligarchies electing some one supreme official for the greatest magistracies. For in all these methods they had it in their power to effect their purpose easily, if only they wished, because they already possessed the power of royal rule in the one set of cases and of their honorable office in the other, for example Phidon in Argos98 and others became tyrants when they possessed royal power already, while the Ionian tyrants99 and Phalaris100 arose from offices of honor, and Panaetius at Leontini and Cypselus at Corinth and Pisistratus101 at Athens and Dionysius102 at Syracuse and others in the same manner from the position of demagogue. Therefore, as we said, royalty is ranged in correspondence with aristocracy, for it goes by merit, either by private virtue or by family or by services or by a combination of these things and ability. For in every instance this honor fell to men after they had conferred benefit or because they had the ability to confer benefit on their cities or their nations, some having prevented their enslavement in war, for instance Codrus,103 others having set them free, for instance Cyrus,104 or having settled or acquired territory, for instance the kings of Sparta and Macedon and the Molossians.105 And a king wishes to be a guardian, [1311a] [1] to protect the owners of estates from suffering injustice and the people from suffering insult, but tyranny, as has repeatedly been said, pays regard to no common interest unless for the sake of its private benefit; and the aim of tyranny is what is pleasant, that of royalty what is noble. Hence even in their requisitions money is the aim of tyrants but rather marks of honor that of kings; and a king's body-guard consists of citizens, a tyrant's of foreign mercenaries. And it is manifest that tyranny has the evils of both democracy and oligarchy; it copies oligarchy in making wealth its object （for inevitably that is the only way in which the tyrant's body-guard and his luxury can be kept up） and in putting no trust in the multitude （which is why they resort to the measure of stripping the people of arms, and why ill-treatment of the mob and its expulsion from the city and settlement in scattered places is common to both forms of government, both oligarchy and tyranny）, while it copies democracy in making war on the notables and destroying them secretly and openly and banishing them as plotting against it and obstructive to its rule. For it is from them that counter-movements actually spring, some of them wishing themselves to rule, and others not [20] to be slaves. Hence comes the advice of Periander to Thrasybulus,106 his docking of the prominent cornstalks, meaning that the prominent citizens must always be made away with.
Therefore, as was virtually stated,107 the causes of revolutions in constitutional and in royal governments must be deemed to be the same; for subjects in many cases attack monarchies because of unjust treatment and fear and contempt, and among the forms of unjust treatment most of all because of insolence, and sometimes the cause is the seizure of private property. Also the objects aimed at by the revolutionaries in the case both of tyrannies and of royal governments are the same as in revolts against constitutional government; for monarchs possess great wealth and great honor, which are desired by all men. And in some cases the attack is aimed at the person of the rulers, in others at their office. Risings provoked by insolence are aimed against the person; and though insolence has many varieties, each of them gives rise to anger, and when men are angry they mostly attack for the sake of revenge, not of ambition. For example the attack on the Pisistratidae took place because they outraged Harmodius's sister and treated Harmodius with contumely （for Harmodius attacked them because of his sister and Aristogiton because of Harmodius, and also the plot was laid against Periander the tyrant in Ambracia108 because when drinking [1311b] [1] with his favorite he asked him if he was yet with child by him）,and the attack on Philip by Pausanias109 was because he allowed him to be insulted by Attalus and his friends, and that on Amyntas the Little110 by Derdas because he mocked at his youth, and the attack of the eunuch on Evagoras of Cyprus was for revenge, for he murdered him as being insulted, because Evagoras's son had taken away his wife. And many risings have also occurred because of shameful personal indignities committed by certain monarchs. One instance is the attack of Crataeas on Archelaus111; for he was always resentful of the association, so that even a smaller excuse became sufficient, or perhaps it was because he did not give him the hand of one of his daughters after agreeing to do so, but gave the elder to the king of Elimea when hard pressed in a war against Sirras and Arrabaeus, and the younger to his son Amyntas, thinking that thus Amyntas would be least likely to quarrel with his son by Cleopatra; but at all events Crataeas's estrangement was primarily caused by resentment because of the love affair. And Hellanocrates of Larisa also joined in the attack for the same reason; for because while enjoying his favors Archelaus would not restore him to his home although he had promised to do so, he thought that the motive of the familiarity that had taken place [20] had been insolence and not passionate desire. And Pytho and Heraclides of Aenus made away with Cotys112 to avenge their father, and Adamas revolted from Cotys because he had been mutilated by him when a boy, on the ground of the insult. And also many men when enraged by the indignity of corporal chastisement have avenged the insult by destroying or attempting to destroy its author, even when a magistrate or member of a royal dynasty. For example when the Penthilidae113 at Mitylene went about striking people with their staves Megacles with his friends set on them and made away with them, and afterwards Smerdis when he had been beaten and dragged out from his wife's presence killed Penthilus. Also Decamnichus took a leading part in the attack upon Archelaus, being the first to stir on the attackers; and the cause of his anger was that he had handed him over to Euripides the poet to flog, Euripides being angry because he had made a remark about his breath smelling. And many others also for similar reasons have been made away with or plotted against. And similarly also from the motive of fear; for this was one of the causes we mentioned in the case of monarchies, as also in that of constitutional governments; for instance Artapanes114 killed Xerxes fearing the charge about Darius, because he had hanged him when Xerxes had ordered him not to but he had thought that he would forgive him because he would forget, as he had been at dinner. And other attacks on monarchs have been on account of contempt, [1312a] [1] as somebody killed Sardanapallus115 when he saw him combing his hair with his women （if this story told by the narrators of legends is true—and if it did not happen with Sardanapallus, it might quite well be true of somebody else）, and Dion attacked the younger Dionysius116 because he despised him, when he saw the citizens despising him and the king himself always drunk. And contempt has led some even of the friends of monarchs to attack them, for they despise them for trusting them and think they will not be found out. And contempt is in a manner the motive of those who attack monarchs thinking that they are able to seize the government; for they make the attempt with a light heart, feeling that they have the power and because of their power despising the danger, as generals commanding the armies attack their monarchs; for instance Cyrus attacked Astyages117 when he despised both his mode of life and his power, because his power had waned and he himself was living luxuriously, and the Thracian Seuthes attacked Amadocus118 when his general. Others again attack monarchs for more than one of these motives, for instance both because they despise them and for the sake of gain, as Mithridates119 attacked Ariobarzanes.120 And it is men of bold nature and who hold a military office with monarchs who most often make the attempt for this reason; for courage possessing power is boldness, [20] and they make their attacks thinking that with courage and power they will easily prevail. But with those whose attack is prompted by ambition the motive operates in a different way from those spoken of before; some men attack tyrants because they see great profits and great honors belonging to them, but that is not the reason that in each case leads the persons who attack from motives of ambition to resolve on the venture; those others are led by the motive stated, but these attack monarchs from a wish to gain not monarchy but glory, just as they would wish to take part in doing any other uncommon deed that makes men famous and known to their fellows. Not but what those who make the venture from this motive are very few indeed in number, for underlying it there must be an utter disregard of safety, if regard for safety is not to check the enterprise; they must always have present in their minds the opinion of Dion, although it is not easy for many men to have it; Dion marched with a small force against Dionysius, saying that his feeling was that, whatever point he might be able to get to, it would be enough for him to have had that much share in the enterprise—for instance, if it should befall him to die as soon as he had just set foot in the country, that death would satisfy him.
And one way in which tyranny is destroyed, as is each of the other forms of constitution also, is from without, [1312b] [1] if some state with an opposite constitution is stronger （for the wish to destroy it will clearly be present in such a neighbor because of the opposition of principle, and all men do what they wish if they have the power）—and the constitutions opposed to tyranny are, on the one hand democracy, which is opposed to it as （in Hesiod's phrase121） ‘potter to potter,’ because the final form of democracy is tyranny, and on the other hand royalty and aristocracy are opposed to tyranny because of the opposite nature of their constitutional structure （owing to which the Spartans put down a very great many tyrannies, and so did the Syracusans at the period when they were governed well.） But one way is from within itself, when the partners in it fall into discord, as the tyranny of the family of Gelo122 was destroyed, and in modern times123 that of the family of Dionysius124—Gelo's, when Thrasybulus the brother of Hiero paid court to the son of Gelo and urged him into indulgences in order that he himself might rule, and the son's connections banded together a body of confederates in order that the tyranny might not be put down entirely but only Thrasybulus, but their confederates seizing the opportunity expelled them all; Dionysius was put down by Dion, his relative, who got the people on to his side and expelled him, but was afterwards killed. There are two causes that chiefly lead men to attack tyranny, hatred and contempt; the former, hatred, [20] attaches to tyrants always, but it is their being despised that causes their downfall in many cases. A proof of this is that most of those that have won tyrannies have also kept their offices to the end, but those that have inherited them almost all lose them at once; for they live a life of indulgence, and so become despicable and also give many opportunities to their attackers. And also anger must be counted as an element in the hatred felt for them, for in a way it occasions the same actions. And often it is even more active than hatred, since angry men attack more vigorously because passion does not employ calculation （and insolence most frequently causes men to be led by their angry tempers, which was the cause of the fall of the tyranny of the Pisistratidae and many others）, but hatred calculates more; for anger brings with it an element of pain, making calculation difficult, but enmity is not accompanied by pain. And to speak summarily, all the things that we have mentioned as causing the down fall of unmixed and extreme oligarchy and of the last form of democracy must be counted as destructive of tyranny as well, since extreme oligarchy and democracy are in reality divided125 tyrannies. Royal government on the other hand is very seldom destroyed by external causes, so that it is long-lasting; but in most cases its destruction arises out of itself. And it is destroyed in two ways, [1313a] [1] one when those who participate in it quarrel, and another when the kings try to administer the government too tyrannically, claiming to exercise sovereignty in more things and contrary to the law. Royal governments do not occur any more now, but if ever monarchies do occur they are rather tyrannies, because royalty is government over willing subjects but with sovereignty over greater matters, but men of equal quality are numerous and no one is so outstanding as to fit the magnitude and dignity of the office; so that for this reason the subjects do not submit willingly, and if a man has made himself ruler by deception or force, then this is thought to be a tyranny. In cases of hereditary royalty we must also set down a cause of their destruction, in addition to those mentioned, the fact that hereditary kings often become despicable, and that although possessing not the power of a tyrant but the dignity of a king they commit insolent outrages; for the deposition of kings used to be easy, since a king will at once cease to be king if his subjects do not wish him to be, whereas a tyrant will still be tyrant even though his subjects do not wish it.
These causes then and others of the same nature are those that bring about the destruction of monarchies.
On the other hand it is clear that monarchies, speaking generally, are preserved in safety as a result of the opposite causes to those by which they are destroyed. But taking the different sorts of monarchy separately—royalties are preserved by bringing them [20] into a more moderate form; for the fewer powers the kings have, the longer time the office in its entirety must last, for they themselves become less despotic and more equal to their subjects in temper, and their subjects envy them less. For this was the cause of the long persistence of the Molossian royalty, and that of Sparta has continued because the office was from the beginning divided into two halves, and because it was again limited in various ways by Theopompus,126 in particular by his instituting the office of the ephors to keep a check upon it; for by taking away some of the kings' power he increased the permanence of the royal office, so that in a manner he did not make it less but greater. This indeed as the story goes is what he said in reply to his wife, when she asked if he felt no shame in bequeathing the royal power to his sons smaller than he had inherited it from his father: “Indeed I do not,” he is said to have answered, “for I hand it on more lasting.”
Tyrannies on the other hand are preserved in two extremely opposite ways. One of these is the traditional way and the one in which most tyrants administer their office. Most of these ordinary safeguards of tyranny are said to have been instituted by Periander127 of Corinth, and also many such devices may be borrowed from the Persian empire. These are both the measures mentioned some time back to secure the safety of a tyranny as far as possible—the lopping off of outstanding men and the destruction of the proud,—and also the prohibition of common meals and club-fellowship and education and all other things of this nature, [1313b] [1] in fact the close watch upon all things that usually engender the two emotions of pride and confidence, and the prevention of the formation of study-circles and other conferences for debate,128 and the employment of every means that will make people as much as possible unknown to one another （for familiarity increases mutual confidence）; and for the people in the city to be always visible and to hang about the palace-gates （for thus there would be least concealment about what they are doing, and they would get into a habit of being humble from always acting in a servile way）; and all the other similar devices of Persian and barbarian tyranny （for all have the same effect）; and to try not to be uninformed about any chance utterances or actions of any of the subjects, but to have spies like the women called ‘provocatrices’ at Syracuse and the ‘sharp-ears’ that used to be sent out by Hiero wherever there was any gathering or conference （for when men are afraid of spies of this sort they keep a check on their tongues, and if they do speak freely are less likely not to be found out）; and to set men at variance with one another and cause quarrels between friend and friend and between the people and the notables and among the rich. And it is a device of tyranny to make the subjects poor, so that a guard129 [20] may not be kept, and also that the people being busy with their daily affairs may not have leisure to plot against their ruler. Instances of this are the pyramids in Egypt and the votive offerings of the Cypselids,130 and the building of the temple of Olympian Zeus by the Pisistratidae131 and of the temples at Samos, works of Polycrates132 （for all these undertakings produce the same effect, constant occupation and poverty among the subject people）; and the levying of taxes, as at Syracuse （for in the reign of Dionysius133 the result of taxation used to be that in five years men had contributed the whole of their substance）. Also the tyrant is a stirrer-up of war, with the deliberate purpose of keeping the people busy and also of making them constantly in need of a leader. Also whereas friends are a means of security to royalty, it is a mark of a tyrant to be extremely distrustful of his friends, on the ground that, while all have the wish, these chiefly have the power. Also the things that occur in connection with the final form of democracy134 are all favorable to tyranny—dominance of women in the homes, in order that they may carry abroad reports against the men, and lack of discipline among the slaves, for the same reason; for slaves and women do not plot against tyrants, and also, if they prosper under tyrannies, must feel well-disposed to them, and to democracies as well （for the common people also wishes to be sole ruler）. Hence also the flatterer is in honor with both—with democracies the demagogue （for the demagogue is a flatterer of the people）, and with the tyrants those who associate with them humbly, which is the task of flattery. [1314a] [1] In fact owing to this tyranny is a friend of the base; for tyrants enjoy being flattered, but nobody would ever flatter them if he possessed a free spirit—men of character love their ruler, or at all events do not flatter him. And the base are useful for base business, for nail is driven out by nail, as the proverb goes.135 And it is a mark of a tyrant to dislike anyone that is proud or free-spirited; for the tyrant claims for himself alone the right to bear that character, and the man who meets his pride with pride and shows a free spirit robs tyranny of its superiority and position of mastery; tyrants therefore hate the proud as undermining their authority. And it is a mark of a tyrant to have men of foreign extraction rather than citizens as guests at table and companions, feeling that citizens are hostile but strangers make no claim against him.136 These and similar habits are characteristic of tyrants and preservative of their office, but they lack no element of baseness. And broadly speaking, they are all included under three heads; for tyranny aims at three things, one to keep its subjects humble （for a humble-spirited man would not plot against anybody）, second to have them continually distrust one another （for a tyranny is not destroyed until some men come to trust each other, owing to which tyrants also make war on the respectable, as detrimental [20] to their rule not only because of their refusal to submit to despotic rule, but also because they are faithful to one another and to the other citizens, and do not inform against one another nor against the others）; and the third is lack of power for political action （since nobody attempts impossibilities, so that nobody tries to put down a tyranny if he has not power behind him）. These then in fact are the three aims to which the wishes of tyrants are directed; for all the measures taken by tyrants one might class under these principles—some are designed to prevent mutual confidence among the subjects, others to curtail their power, and others to make them humble-spirited.
Such then is the nature of one method by which security is obtained for tyrannies. The other tries to operate in a manner almost the opposite of the devices mentioned. And it can be ascertained from considering the downfall of royal governments. For just as one mode of destroying royalty is to make its government more tyrannical, so a mode of securing tyranny is to make it more regal, protecting one thing only, its power, in order that the ruler may govern not only with the consent of the subjects but even without it; for if he gives up this, he also gives up his position as tyrant. But while this must stand as a fundamental principle, all the other measures he may either adopt or pretend to adopt by cleverly acting the royal part. The first step is to be careful of the public funds, [1314b] [1] not squandering presents such as the multitudes resent, when tyrants take money from the people themselves while they toil and labor in penury and lavish it on mistresses and foreigners and craftsmen, and also rendering account of receipts and expenditure, as some tyrants have done already （for this careful management would make a ruler seem a steward of the state and not a tyrant, and he need not be afraid of ever being at a loss for funds while he is master of the state; on the contrary, for those tyrants who go abroad on foreign campaigns this is actually more expedient than to leave their money there collected into one sum, for there is less fear of those guarding it making an attempt on power; since for tyrants campaigning abroad the keepers of the treasury are more to be feared than the citizens, for the citizens go abroad with him but the others stay at home）. Secondly he must be seen to collect his taxes and benevolences for purposes of administration and to meet his occasional requirements for military emergencies, and generally must pose as guardian and steward as it were of a public fund and not a private estate. And his bearing must not be harsh but dignified, and also such as to inspire not fear but rather respect [20] in those who encounter him, though this is not easy to achieve if he is a contemptible personality; so that even if he neglects the other virtues he is bound to cultivate military valor, and to make himself a reputation as a soldier. And further more not only must he himself be known not to outrage any of his subjects, either boy or girl, but so also must everybody about him, and also their wives must similarly show respect towards the other women, since even the insolences of women have caused the fall of many tyrannies. And in regard to bodily enjoyments he must do the opposite of what some tyrants do now （for they not only begin their debaucheries at daybreak and carry them on for many days at a time, but also wish to be seen doing so by the public, in order that people may admire them as fortunate and happy）, but best of all he must be moderate in such matters, or if not, he must at all events avoid displaying his indulgences to his fellows （for not the sober man but the drunkard is easy to attack and to despise, not the wakeful man but the sleeper）. And he must do the opposite of almost all the things mentioned some time back, for he must lay out and adorn the city as if he were a trustee and not a tyrant. And further he must be seen always to be exceptionally zealous as regards religious observances （for people are less afraid of suffering any illegal treatment from men of this sort, [1315a] [1] if they think that their ruler has religious scruples and pays regard to the gods, and also they plot against him less, thinking that he has even the gods as allies）, though he should not display a foolish religiosity. And he must pay such honor to those who display merit in any matter that they may think that they could never be more honored by the citizens if they were in dependent; and honors of this kind he should bestow in person, but inflict his punishments by the agency of other magistrates and law-courts. And it is a protection common to every sort of monarchy to make no one man great, but if necessary to exalt several （for they will keep watch on one another）, and if after all the ruler has to elevate an individual, at all events not take a man of bold spirit （for such a character is most enterprising in all undertakings）; and if he thinks fit to remove somebody from his power, to do this by gradual stages and not take away the whole of his authority at once. And again he should carefully avoid all forms of outrage, and two beyond all, violent bodily punishments and outrage of the young. And this caution must especially be exercised in relation to the ambitious, for while to be slighted in regard to property annoys the lovers of wealth, slights that involve dishonor are what men of honorable ambition and high character resent. [20] Hence the tyrant should either not consort with men of this kind, or appear to inflict his punishments paternally and not because of contempt, and to indulge in the society of the young for reasons of passion, not because he has the power, and in general he should buy off what are thought to be dishonors by greater honors. And among those who make attempts upon the life of a ruler the most formidable and those against whom the greatest precaution is needed are those that are ready to sacrifice their lives if they can destroy him. Hence the greatest care must be taken to guard against those who think that insolent outrage is being done either to themselves or to those who happen to be under their care; for men attacking under the influence of anger are reckless of themselves, as Heraclitus137 also observed when he said that anger was hard to combat because it would buy revenge with a life. And since states consist of two parts, the poor people and the rich, the most important thing is for both to think that they owe their safety to the government and for it to prevent either from being wronged by the other, but whichever class is the stronger, this must be made to be entirely on the side of the government, as, if this support for the tyrant's interests is secured, there is no need for him to institute a liberation of slaves or a disarming of the citizens, for one of the two parts of the state added to his power will be enough to make him and them stronger than their attackers. But to discuss each of such matters separately is superfluous; for the thing to aim at is clear, [1315b] [1] that it is necessary to appear to the subjects to be not a tyrannical ruler but a steward and a royal governor, and not an appropriator of wealth but a trustee, and to pursue the moderate things of life and not its extravagances, and also to make the notables one's comrades and the many one's followers. For the result of these methods must be that not only the tyrant's rule will be more honorable and more enviable because he will rule nobler subjects and not men that have been humiliated, and will not be continually hated and feared, but also that his rule will endure longer, and moreover that he himself in his personal character will be nobly disposed towards virtue, or at all events half-virtuous, and not base but only half-base.
Nevertheless oligarchy and tyranny138 are less lasting than any of the constitutional governments. For the longest-lived was the tyranny at Sicyon, that of the sons139 of Orthagoras and of Orthagoras himself, and this lasted a hundred years.140 The cause of this was that they treated their subjects moderately and in many matters were subservient to the laws, and Cleisthenes because he was a warlike man was not easily despised, and in most things they kept the lead of the people by looking after their interests. At all events it is said that Cleisthenes placed a wreath on the judge who awarded the victory away from him, and some say that the statue [20] of a seated figure in the market-place is a statue of the man who gave this judgement. And they say that Pisistratus141 also once submitted to a summons for trial before the Areopagus. And the second longest is the tyranny at Corinth, that of the Cypselids,142 for even this lasted seventy-three and a half years, as Cypselus was tyrant for thirty years, Periander for forty-four,143 and Psammetichus son of Gordias for three years. And the reasons for the permanence of this tyranny also are the same: Cypselus was a leader of the people and continuously throughout his period of office dispensed with a bodyguard; and although Periander became tyrannical, yet he was warlike. The third longest tyranny is that of the Pisistratidae at Athens, but it was not continuous; for while Pisistratus144 was tyrant he twice fled into exile, so that in a period of thirty-three years he was tyrant for seventeen years out of the total, and his sons for eighteen years, so that the whole duration of their rule was thirty-five years. Among the remaining tyrannies is the one connected with Hiero and Gelo145 at Syracuse, but even this did not last many years, but only eighteen in all, for Gelo after being tyrant for seven years ended his life in the eighth, and Hiero ruled ten years, but Thrasybulus was expelled after ten months. And the usual tyrannies have all of them been of quite short duration.
The causes therefore of the destruction of constitutional governments and of monarchies and those again of their preservation have almost all of them been discussed. [1316a] [1]
The subject of revolutions is discussed by Socrates in the Republic,146 but is not discussed well. For his account of revolution in the constitution that is the best one and the first does not apply to it particularly. He says that the cause is that nothing is permanent but everything changes in a certain cycle, and that change has its origin in those numbers ‘whose basic ratio 4 : 3 linked with the number 5 gives two harmonies,’—meaning whenever the number of this figure becomes cubed,—in the belief that nature sometimes engenders men that are evil, and too strong for education to influence—speaking perhaps not ill as far as this particular dictum goes （for it is possible that there are some persons incapable of being educated and becoming men of noble character）, but why should this process of revolution belong to the constitution which Socrates speaks of as the best, more than to all the other forms of constitution, and to all men that come into existence? and why merely by the operation of time, which he says is the cause of change in all things, do even things that did not begin to exist simultaneously change simultaneously? for instance, if a thing came into existence the day before the completion of the cycle, why does it yet change simultaneously with everything else? And in addition to these points, what is the reason why the republic changes from the constitution mentioned into the Spartan form147? For all constitutions more often change into the opposite form than into the [20] one near them. And the same remark applies to the other revolutions as well. For from the Spartan constitution the state changes, he says, to oligarchy, and from this to democracy, and from democracy to tyranny. Yet revolutions also occur the other way about, for example from democracy to oligarchy, and more often so than from democracy to monarchy. Again as to tyranny he does not say whether it will undergo revolution or not, nor, if it will, what will be the cause of it, and into what sort of constitution it will change; and the reason for this is that he would not have found it easy to say, for it is irregular; since according to him tyranny ought to change into the first and best constitution, for so the process would be continuous and a circle, but as a matter of fact tyranny also changes into tyranny, as the constitution of Sicyon148 passed from the tyranny of Myron to that of Cleisthenes, and into oligarchy, as did that of Antileon149 at Chalcis, and into democracy, as that of the family of Gelo150 at Syracuse, and into aristocracy, as that of Charilaus151 at Sparta [and as at Carthage].152 And constitutions change from oligarchy to tyranny, as did almost the greatest number of the ancient oligarchies in Sicily, at Leontini to the tyranny of Panaetius,153 at Gelo to that of Cleander, at Rhegium to that of Anaxilaus,154 and in many other cities similarly. And it is also a strange idea that revolutions into oligarchy take place because the occupants of the offices are lovers of money and engaged in money-making, [1316b] [1] but not because owners of much more than the average amount of property think it unjust for those who do not own any property to have an equal share in the state with those who do; and in many oligarchies those in office are not allowed to engage in business, but there are laws preventing it, whereas in Carthage, which has a democratic government,155 the magistrates go in for business, and they have not yet had a revolution. And it is also a strange remark156 that the oligarchical state is two states, one of rich men and one of poor men. For what has happened to this state rather than to the Spartan or any other sort of state where all do not own an equal amount of wealth or where all are not equally good men? and when nobody has become poorer than he was before, none the less revolution takes place from oligarchy to democracy if the men of no property become more numerous, and from democracy to oligarchy if the wealthy class is stronger than the multitude and the latter neglect politics but the former give their mind to them. And although there are many causes through which revolutions in oligarchies occur, he mentions only one—that of men becoming poor through riotous living, by paying away their money in interest on loans—as if at the start all men or most men were rich. But this is not true, but although when some of the leaders have lost their properties they stir up innovations, when men of the other classes are ruined nothing strange happens; [20] and even when such a revolution does occur it is no more likely to end in a democracy than in another form of constitution. And furthermore men also form factions and cause revolutions in the constitution if they are not allowed a share of honors, and if they are unjustly or insolently treated, even if they have not run through all their property . . .157 because of being allowed to do whatever they like; the cause of which he states to be excessive liberty. And although there are several forms of oligarchy and of democracy, Socrates speaks of the revolutions that occur in them as though there were only one form of each.
Tyranny, Democracy, and the Polity: Aristotle’s Politics
We’ve written before about why Plato matters. What about Aristotle?
The Greek philosopher Aristotle believed that questions of the state, how it should be organized, and how it should pursue its ends, were fundamental to the achievement of happiness. His text Politics is an exploration of different types of state organizations and tries to describe the state which will ultimately lead to the most fulfilled citizens.
Forms of Government
Aristotle argued that there were six general ways in which societies could be organized under political rule, depending on who ruled, and for whom they ruled.
Those in the first row he referred to as “true forms” of government, while those in the second row were the “defective and perverted forms” of the first three.
Aristotle also foreshadowed modern ideals by linking the middle class to virtue itself: A great democratic system should govern in their interests, cultivating a happy medium.
This is one of the key characteristics of the polity.
The happy life is the life according to unimpeded virtue, and that virtue is a mean (average), then the life which is in a mean, and in a mean attainable by every one, must be the best.
[…]
Thus it is manifest that the best political community is formed by citizens of the middle class, and that those states are likely to be well-administered, in which the middle class is large, and larger if possible than both the other classes (rich and poor).
[…]
Great then is the good fortune of a state in which the citizens have a moderate and sufficient property; for where some possess much, and the other nothing, there may arise an extreme democracy, or a pure oligarchy; or a tyranny may grow out of either extreme … but it is not so likely to arise out of a middle and nearly equal condition.
Larger middle classes produce more stable states. Thus, the middle class is key in the establishment and maintenance of a polity. Because they are not in extreme need nor extreme wealth, their assessment of the common interest will produce the greatest benefit for all members.
https://regiogeld.org/documenten/money_syndrome_01.pdf
Exegesis Hermeneutics Flux Capacitor of Truthiness
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August 10, 2019
THE ISSUING POWER SHOULD BE TAKEN FROM THE BANKS AND RESTORED TO THE PEOPLE, TO WHOM IT PROPERLY BELONGS.” . . . “PAPER IS POVERTY. IT IS THE GHOST OF MONEY AND NOT MONEY ITSELF.”– THOMAS JEFFERSON, 1743-1826 “WALL STREET WALL STREET UBER ALES”.
“IF THE AMERICAN PEOPLE EVER ALLOW PRIVATE BANKS TO CONTROL THE ISSUE OF THEIR CURRENCY, FIRST BY INFLATION, THEN BY DEFLATION, THE BANKS…WILL DEPRIVE THE PEOPLE OF ALL PROPERTY UNTIL THEIR CHILDREN WAKE-UP HOMELESS ON THE CONTINENT THEIR FATHERS CONQUERED…. THE ISSUING POWER SHOULD BE TAKEN FROM THE BANKS AND RESTORED TO THE PEOPLE, TO WHOM IT PROPERLY BELONGS.” . . . “PAPER IS POVERTY. IT IS THE GHOST OF MONEY AND NOT MONEY ITSELF.”– THOMAS JEFFERSON, 1743-1826
Exegesis Hermeneutics Flux Capacitor of Truthiness
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October 6, 2019
ON DEBT JUBILEES, THE RELIGIOUS LANGUAGE OF DEBT FORGIVENESS @GRUBSTREETJOURNAL #QUANTA @WIKI_BALLOT
I am not a great fan of blowing smoke up the arse of anyone, see my reservations on Steve Keen, Richard Murphy and also myself. Ingroup Bias is the enemy of intellectual discovery.
SO in the spirit of advancing the discussion here goes nothing!
“This process, however it is carried out, destroys value.”
The SEEDS 20 version of the model calculates the scope for “value destruction” at $320tn. Not all of this is potential default, of course, as it includes a slump in the values of assets, and other reductions in “assumed wealth”.
In the matter of Debt default when you say “Value” is destroyed what do you mean?
Value is but an abstract upon an abstract. Wes Free and I had a very long and productive discussion back in the spring over the course of several weeks regarding Wes’s #Quanta and #Big Apple plan.
Wes and I have discussed seeds at length and feel that the Flaw in Dr. Morgan’s presentation of seeds is a tendency to fall at the last hurdle conflating Financialised notions of Political economy with Energy-based Ground up notions of a true energy-based Unit of account. The distinction is subtle yet critical.
I have extracted some of the exchanges between Wes and me, which have not been published by either of us and which I have as yet not found the time to turn into an essay, which I can get Wes to approve the aspects referring to the His, Wes’s #Quanta. At this point, I must add that #Quanta is a body of work which is likely in conjunction with SEEDs analysis to show the Human Fly the way out of the #Debtcredit Bottle When Wes does Publish the #BigApplePlan I have no doubt it will represent an Intellectual revolution into the new Post Growth Paradigm.
I have not been able to contact Wes the past few months and I am sufficiently troubled by this that I will try and contact him by Telephone today as all web-based methods are not working presently, I am rather worried at this point.
https://drive.google.com/file/d/19eeU4brtNFps63VlHvvZSydD6Z2AhZOG/view
The Problem of Monopoly.
“The rights of men, that is to say, the natural rights of mankind, are indeed sacred things; and if any public measure is proved mischievously to affect them, the objection ought to be fatal to that measure, even if no charter at all could be set up against it. If these natural rights are further affirmed and declared by express covenants, if they are clearly defined and secured against chicane, against power, and authority, by written instruments and positive engagements, they are in a still better condition: they partake not only of the sanctity of the object so secured but of that solemn pub∣lic faith itself, which secures an object of such importance. Indeed this formal recognition, by the sovereign power, of an original right in the subject, can never be subverted, but by rooting up the holding radical principles of government, and even of society itself. The charters, which we call by distinction great, are public instruments of this nature; I mean t
he charters of King John and King Henry the Third. The things secured by these instruments may, without any deceitful ambiguity, be very fitly called the chartered rights of men.
These charters have made the very name of a charter dear to the heart of every Englishman—But, Sir, there may be, and there are charters, not only different in nature but formed on principles the very reverse of those of the great charter. Of this kind is the charter of the East India Company. Magna charta is a charter to restrain power and to destroy monopoly. The East India Charter is a charter to establish monopoly and to create power. Political power and commercial monopoly are not the rights of men; and the rights to them derived from charters, it is fallacious and sophistical to call "the chartered rights of men." These chartered rights, (to speak of such charters and of their effects in terms of the greatest possible moderation) do at least suspend the natural rights of mankind at large; and in their very frame and constitution are liable to fall into a direct viola
tion of them.”
https://www.gutenberg.org/files/2173/2173-h/2173-h.htm
So far as to the first opinion, that the doctrine is right and needs no alteration. 2nd. The next is, that it is wrong, but that we are not in a condition to help it. I admit, it is true, that there are cases of a nature so delicate and complicated, that an Act of Parliament on the subject may become a matter of great difficulty. It sometimes cannot define with exactness, because the subject-matter will not bear an exact definition. It may seem to take away everything which it does not positively establish, and this might be inconvenient; or it may seem vice versâ to establish everything which it does not expressly take away. It may be more advisable to leave such matters to the enlightened discretion of a judge, awed by a censorial House of Commons. But then it rests upon those who object to a legislative interposition to prove these inconveniences in the particular case before them. For it would be a most dangerous, as it is a most idle and most groundless, conceit to assume as a general principle, that the rights and liberties of the subject are impaired by the care and attention of the legislature to secure them. If so, very ill would the purchase of Magna Charta have merited the deluge of blood, which was shed in order to have the body of English privileges defined by a positive written law. This charter, the inestimable monument of English freedom, so long the boast and glory of this nation, would have been at once an instrument of our servitude, and a monument of our folly, if this principle were true. The thirty four confirmations would have been only so many repetitions of their absurdity, so many new links in the chain, and so many invalidations of their right.
You cannot open your statute book without seeing positive provisions relative to every right of the subject. This business of juries is the subject of not fewer than a dozen. To suppose that juries are something innate in the Constitution of Great Britain, that they have jumped, like Minerva, out of the head of Jove in complete armour, is a weak fancy, supported neither by precedent nor by reason. Whatever is most ancient and venerable in our Constitution, royal prerogative, privileges of parliament, rights of elections, authority of courts, juries, must have been modelled according to the occasion. I spare your patience, and I pay a compliment to your understanding, in not attempting to prove that anything so elaborate and artificial as a jury was not the work of chance, but a matter of institution, brought to its present state by the joint efforts of legislative authority and juridical prudence. It need not be ashamed of being (what in many parts of it at least it is) the offspring of an Act of Parliament, unless it is a shame for our laws to be the results of our legislature. Juries, which sensitively shrank from the rude touch of parliamentary remedy, have been the subject of not fewer than, I think, forty-three Acts of Parliament, in which they have been changed with all the authority of a creator over its creature, from Magna Charta to the great alterations which were made in the 29th of George II.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magna_Carta
The Leveller John Lilburne criticised Magna Carta as an inadequate definition of English liberties.
In 1621, a bill was presented to Parliament to renew Magna Carta; although this bill failed, lawyer John Selden argued during Darnell's Case in 1627 that the right of habeas corpus was backed by Magna Carta.[195][16] Coke supported the Petition of Right in 1628, which cited Magna Carta in its preamble, attempting to extend the provisions, and to make them binding on the judiciary.[196][197] The monarchy responded by arguing that the historical legal situation was much less clear-cut than was being claimed, restricted the activities of antiquarians, arrested Coke for treason, and suppressed his proposed book on Magna Carta.[16][17] Charles initially did not agree to the Petition of Right, and refused to confirm Magna Carta in any way that would reduce his independence as King.[198][199]
England descended into civil war in the 1640s, resulting in Charles I's execution in 1649. Under the republic that followed, some questioned whether Magna Carta, an agreement with a monarch, was still relevant.[200] An anti-Cromwellian pamphlet published in 1660, The English devil, said that the nation had been "compelled to submit to this Tyrant Nol or be cut off by him; nothing but a word and a blow, his Will was his Law; tell him of Magna Carta, he would lay his hand on his sword and cry Magna Farta".[201] In a 2005 speech the Lord Chief Justice of England and Wales, Lord Woolf, repeated the claim that Cromwell had referred to Magna Carta as "Magna Farta".[202]
The radical groups that flourished during this period held differing opinions of Magna Carta. The Levellers rejected history and law as presented by their contemporaries, holding instead to an "anti-Normanism" viewpoint.[203] John Lilburne, for example, argued that Magna Carta contained only some of the freedoms that had supposedly existed under the Anglo-Saxons before being crushed by the Norman yoke.[204] The Leveller Richard Overton described the charter as "a beggarly thing containing many marks of intolerable bondage".[205]
Both saw Magna Carta as a useful declaration of liberties that could be used against governments they disagreed with.[206] Gerrard Winstanley, the leader of the more extreme Diggers, stated "the best lawes that England hath, [viz., Magna Carta] were got by our Forefathers importunate petitioning unto the kings that still were their Task-masters; and yet these best laws are yoaks and manicles, tying one sort of people to be slaves to another; Clergy and Gentry have got their freedom, but the common people still are, and have been left servants to work for them."[207][208]
Exegesis Hermeneutics Flux Capacitor of Truthiness
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October 10, 2019
THE NEW WORLD ORDER PARADIGM SHIFT. #GRUBSTREETJOURNAL #HYPATIASEYEBROWSER #CONQUESTOFDOUGH THE END OF DEBT OR THE END OF DEMOCRACY?
Date: October 9, 2019Author: John Ward18 Comments
“HOW GREAT A MAN IS HE THAT HE WOULD LAY DOWN HIS COUNTRY FOR HIS LIFE?”
http://www.golemxiv.co.uk/2013/06/creating-money/
In this talk Noam Chomsky examines something of the purpose of the original or Origination of the American Constitution, a study of the Federalist papers and a good dose of Thomas Paine should lead one to an appreciation of the various interests that were considered back in 1777.
Going back further to Magna Carta and considering its purposes I was reminded the other day of the Charter of the forests, this was an interesting realisation which Michael Portillo examined in his series History we forgot to remember. The Charter of the forests was much more important to the mass of common men than Magna Carta.
Consider then again the Concepts of Primitive Accumulation and its modern analogue coercive aggregation. And the questions of Value in USE and Value in Exchange and further into the Labour Theory of Value.
The myths , fetishisms and the reification all lead to the necessary and efficient bamboozlement of those who do the work by those who would rule them our propensity to buy into the myths are I think tied up in our EGO´s, always remembering that Ego is our outward expression of how we would wish to be seen by others.
Put simply just from my own experience I believed in democracy until I realised that I had now become superfluous to its purpose in driving through the agenda of those for who a sort of democracy exists ( Chomsky calls it Polyarchy). That is not to say I ever counted what was important was that I thought I did and that view is what the myths encourage.When we believe in the myths we are afforded the roles of Trustees very much like in any prison population where there are Trustees and Snitches or indeed the Uncle Toms of Slavery.
The Money myth , the myth of prudence, savings, the Protestant work ethic and catholic guilt the semiotic manipulations that lead us to hark back to a golden age of democracy that never existed. The unquestioned assumptions such as that Capitalism would be fine if the money were clean.
Consider Ruskins signs attached to
wealth
— GrubStreetJournal (@GrubStreetJorno) October 10, 2019
Balkanization , demotion to 3rd world status for the large part of 1st world populations. In the new premier league of shiny Globalization make no mistake were all headed for the Nigerian Credit card system, the food stamps credit card system. We are not witnessing the end of democracy just the admission that it never existed and that what we once thought of as our money has in fact only been a stealthy form of Scrip.
http://letthemconfectsweeterlies.blogspot.se/2013/06/democracy-and-state.html
DEMOCRACY AND THE STATE.
rogerglewis Uncategorized June 5, 2013 4 Minutes
´´The Obeidience of fools and the guidance of wise men ´´ Oscar Wilde.
Emilio, Bachunin predicted that ;
”They [the Marxists] maintain that only a dictatorship—their dictatorship, of course—can create the will of the people, while our answer to this is: No dictatorship can have any other aim but that of self-perpetuation, and it can beget only slavery in the people tolerating it; freedom can be created only by freedom, that is, by a universal rebellion on the part of the people and free organization of the toiling masses from the bottom up.´´
—Mikhail Bakunin, Statism and Anarchism[36
YOUR TOP 10 GOLEM XIV POSTS – UPDATED
by Golem XIV on JANUARY 1, 2012 in LATEST
I have a favour to ask.
My friend Mark Tanner phoned me the other day to ask if I was going to enter the blog for the Orwell Prize. I said I hadn’t thought about it. There was a tolerant silence followed by a gentle suggestion that I do think about it. I have and …well, why not. I never win these things because there is pretty stiff competition but what’s the point in not even entering.
To enter you have to submit 10 blog posts from the last year. So my favour is to ask any of you who feel like it, to suggest your top 10 or top 5 or however many you think are worth submitting. If, between us, we can come up with 10 we feel are worth asking the judges to read, I’ll submit them. The entry has to be in – by email – by Jan 10th.
I will quite understand if you don’t have the time but I thought I’d ask which worked for you.
Thanks to all of you. For both the kind comments and your suggestions. I added up your votes for particular pieces, added one of my own and here they are.
Liars Lexicon – Mark to Market 1st Feb
Regulatory Arbitrage – What bankers don’t have to tell us 3rd March
The New Normal 15th May
How to Destroy the Web of Debt 26th May
World Wide Credulity Crunch 22nd September
Risk – tricky stuff 15th November
Debt or Taxes – the battle of our time 23rd November
The Hammer of Debt 5th December
Plan B – How to loot nations and their banks legally 15th Decmeber
The Miracle of Solvency 29th December
I would like to express both my sincerest apologies to Hawkeye for not being able to include any of his pieces and to thank him for his wonderful contributions to this blog. The conditions of the Orwell prize are that you can only submit your own work. Otherwise I would have definitely submitted both Wall Street Fiddles and Irresponsible Borrowing and irresponsible Lending.
A TRILOGY IN FOUR PARTS.
USURY HELL´S FUEL MANS OPPRESSOR
BOURGEOIS RESOLUTION AND
GLOBALISATION UN ENTANGLED.
https://theconquestofdough.weebly.com/