Timing?
Sunday Summaries are a brief bi-weekly summation of the chapters I am reading in Michael Hudson’s ‘The Collapse of Antiquity.’ Right now (this afternoon) I am reading the section on the rise of the Roman Empire. It’s interesting—the foundation myth of Romulus and Remus, the suckling at the Wolf’s teat and the anthropological history of the area around the Tiber River and the development of the city of Rome itself. There was a constant back and forth, tension, between the role and responsibility of the monarchy, or chieftain, and the aristocracy/ elite, or the landowners as the society evolved.
Like in the history of Greece and the rise of ‘tyrants’ which betrays the reforms they enacted, Rome’s earliest kings were also reformers and battled the elite over land redistribution. Whether or not conquered lands were OWNED by conquerers or REDISTRIBUTED to military soldiers serving the monarch and conquered slaves/ natives.
Original kings and chieftains were all against DEBT SERVITUDE.
Coincidentally, CBC had this interesting article on RIBA: https://www.cbc.ca/news/business/halal-investments-for-muslims-1.7062041
Bringing Eastern banking practices, here.
And, preventing the growth of DEBT SERVITUDE from which almost of us are suffering…
RIBA is the Eastern Law against charging interest: https://islamic-relief.org/interest-riba/. Going out on a limb, pretty sure compound interest is just evil in the practice .
Hudson wrote an earlier book ‘And Forgive Them Their Debts…’ explaining how DEBT JUBILEES occurred to erase the growth of exponential interest and the rise of DEBT SERVITUDE.
RIBA is basically the same, but different.
Trying hard to not get into religion but Temples (long, long time ago) were the first banks and money authenticators, a lot of religious leaders subsequently sought relief from DEBT for people. Hence, were killed or mocked.
Conversely, a lot of religious leaders have justified interest payments in an appeasement to the elite. And, enabled the growth of a wealthy oligarchy. Interesting how some narratives are twisted.
I just found it interesting, a lot ideas all developed independently, to converge. Timing or what?
Hudson argues the Greek and Roman Empires collapsed because of DEBT—basically, oligarchies developed and took so much from the poor, they inhibited the society from thriving, growing, developing. Self-interest at the cost of everyone else? Sound familiar? Interesting? Timing?