m of care – oct 5 23
collapse of antiquity part 2 – THE ORIGINS OF MODERN DEBT POLITICS IN GREECE AND ROME – READING MICHAEL HUDSON’S “THE COLLAPSE OF ANTIQUITY” PART 2 – [https://museum.care/events/the-origins-of-modern-debt-politics-in-greece-and-rome-reading-michael-hudson-s-the-collapse-of-antiquity-part-2/]:
In the second session we pull back the camera and look at the overall story of the book and how its lessons on debt in antiquity apply to today.
Suggested reading are chapters two and three.
The goal is to have a lively discussion – bring your favorite passage!
Reading materials and more are available in the “The Origins of Modern Debt Politics ing Greece & Rome” room. The link is on the right or otherwise closeby depending on the size of your screen.
notes/quotes from meeting:
christian: reading ‘seems to be no war w/o coinage..’ from mh’s intro.. how did these happen.. another quote ‘free for alls.. liberated from authority.. similar term.. free to make own associations’
but not (yet/ever) deep enough for legit free ‘associations’.. ie: imagine if we ness
christian: tyrannis = demogogy = the people… tyrannical was use of power to redistribute wealth (he’s still reading all this).. they had a term for wealth addiction.. hudson frames coinage as (good.. used to equalize).. problem is not money but money lending
christian: what we think of when we hear the word tyranny is very much like what mh would call an oligarchy.. what he says is that in 6-7th cent greece.. debt crisis started to happen.. driver was the ruling class.. the oligarchy.. who monopolized everything.. to break this power you needed the tyrant..
christian: as you loose your freedom.. the power lies w those who lend money
nika: tyrant was just like a bodyguard who removed the bady guy
christian: outcome.. if now w current crisis in african country.. had someone in power.. military steps in and removes.. was this a single fam? rather than a class.. think of us.. whole class.. so oligarchy.. other guy might be like a tyrant.. if existing power structure removed.. small amt of people step in and improve for all people.. if just change dictator.. then not good.. if want change.. we have diff outcome in mind.. for majority of people.. that would be positive tyrant
still makes no diff (majority vs minority et al).. has to be all of us for the dance to dance..
stas in chat: benevolent king
nika: so mh is saying what we call democracy is oligarchy.. so does he mean that always..
christian: i think what he means is that for most of us .. democracy is oligarchy.. his ie: china.. lifted 400m out of poverty..
christian: all diff org economically.. but all went down same route..t
yeah.. always will.. as long as any form of m\a\p
oikos (the economy our souls crave).. ‘i should say: the house shelters day-dreaming, the house protects the dreamer, the house allows one to dream in peace.’ – gaston bachelard, the poetics of space
nika: if i understand mh is saying diff forms of org.. and how people feel from it
christian: if look thru lens of david’s theories.. ie: econ.. hierarchy.. each according to needs.. .. all these establish permanent connections.. then you have exchange.. happens once then everybody walks away.. when intor debt.. you fix it in place.. as long as debt xists.. can’t walk away
stas in chat: debt is a reinventions of hierarchy on top of exchange
yeah.. i don’t think so.. think once exchange.. can’t walk away.. (rather.. just perpetuating ongoing sea world).. 10 day care center ness et al
graeber exchange law: ‘the very principle of exchange emerged largely as an effect of violence‘ david graeber .. p 478 in debt book
marsh exchange law et al
christian: on christian wars.. mh says coinage and war not linked.. while david says they are.. big diff betwen him and david.. t
yeah.. huge..
graeber violence/quantification law et al
christian: this is what david meant by slavery/military industrial complex
nika: debt in china.. david on not having anything to exchange to get stuff from china.. so silver.. way mined.. similar to war machine.. there’s a diff between these 2 arrangements.. chinese and ancient greece and rome.. probably much diff story.. probably can’t say all coin is for war..
but it is .. maybe not ‘war’ we think of .. but war with legit freedom.. war with the human spirit.. et al
michael: daivd mixes in anthro w historical work.. ie: how dm is done in those societies.. how to do consensus if no coercion.. t.. etal.. how that happens w/o coercion hard to find in history books.. good question for mh
yeah.. i think we have no ie’s to date of non coercion.. ie: public consensus always oppresses someone(s)
how to do consensus ness is a cancerous distraction.. need curiosity (itch in the soul) over decision making
ie: need means (nonjudgmental expo labeling) to undo hierarchical listening as global detox so we can org/gather around legit needs/freedom
christian: basically have 3 forms: hierarchy, exchange and baseline communism.. what is missing here is baseline communism..
but still wouldn’t be enough.. would still perpetuate same song.. as long as any form of m\a\p
christian: on sparta.. they were pretty much self sufficient.. warlike and preparing for fight.. but mainly police action.. other cities like ateens had colonies.. et al.. to keep things quiet (in sparta).. laws.. so keep social calm.. people still in theory equal.. but some had more than others.. just don’t show it.. quote: ‘love of money will destroy sparta.. nothing else’.. this is definitely how the story ends.. they banned trade.. we have what we need.. ‘we want to keep ourselves pure’.. mh: ‘sparta a rentee state.. w/o being financed.. manage to have bad stuff w/o coins/debts’
christian: david said.. first conquer people.. then turn it into rape.. accounting ness.. et al (para)
christian: ‘seeming irony.. most warlike people never ready for war (ie: sparta)’.. spartans won because accepted others’ money.. so paid more for people to fight for them.. now won.. and can institute military govt’s that exploit population and gather more money.. power now based on money.. rather than land ownership.. then rome takes everything and that’s the end of sparta (in brief)
nika: fascism and democracy .. two words everyone is using with diff meanings..
christian: umberto eco wrote about what fascism means [https://www.faena.com/aleph/umberto-eco-a-practical-list-for-identifying-fascists]
christian: now have unequaled union activity.. but think if got rid of (authority) don’t think people would go for (legit freedom)
yeah.. need global detox
ie: need means (nonjudgmental expo labeling) to undo hierarchical listening as global detox so we can org around legit needs
christian: for sparta .. system worked out as long as stayed away from rest of world.. which ended up being thru means of war.. that didn’t work any more.. so then co opted out of tradition/honorable way of life.. and in end money destroyed sparta
yeah.. but they were never (no one to date has yet been) legit free
michael: on david saying.. really just diff degrees of free ness.. not (legit free)
yeah that
michael: so yeah.. definitely seems to be connection between coins and war..
michael: yeah.. good question for mh
nika: so maybe one more session then invite michael.. i think we can add comments to your page now christian.. so we can write questions there..
christian: when open this up to michael’s people (lots of them).. may become one sided.. can post questions in doc itself.. then would match with context.. i’d rather have it in one place.. so mh in dec.. i’ll update google doc tomorrow and add new stuff in 10-15 days.. then recording stopped mid sentence.. (nika apologies.. christian says.. i think i got all the important stuff said)
michael: often times important stuff is said after recording stops..
_______________
notes/quotes from summary doc [https://docs.google.com/document/d/1BrkeryoR_-gqstFs0WlIBhAFj3pzPwocS4HZBEcGtFI/edit#heading=h.w2moevko3u3z]:
There are, of course, differences between MH and DG. We will encounter some: maybe “the need for an authority from outside or above the market to restore balance….” On page X. Something I hope we can talk about.
There are, of course, differences between MH and DG. We will encounter some: maybe “the need for an authority from outside or above the market to restore balance….” On page X. Something I hope we can talk about.
needs to be sans any form of m\a\p
This is something DG also said in chapter 5, we tend to see the past through the eyes of the present.
doesn’t matter.. as long as we’re still in sea world.. history ness et al
Reformers, poets, dramatists and philosophers warned that wealth addiction and pleonexia, “the desire to have more,” were leading to hubris.
need means (nonjudgmental expo labeling) to undo hierarchical listening as global detox so we can org around legit needs
Viewing commerce and moneylending as society’s main destabilizing force by leading to wealth addiction (money-love)—considered to be a symptom of corrupt alien influence—Sparta’s “Lycurgan” ethic rejected the drive for pecuniary chrēmatismos (money making) and barred the hoplite homoioi from “having anything to do with vulgar trades.” “Why, then,cshould money-making be a preoccupation in a state where the pains caused by its possession exceed the pleasures it gives?” Xenophon asked (Lak. Pol. 7.6). That was in line with Greek moral philosophy viewing commercial gain-seeking as injuring the body politic by fostering hubris. An oft-cited Delphic oracle warned: “Love of money [φιλοχρηματία, philochrēmatia] will destroy Sparta, nothing else.”
rather.. any form of m\a\p as destabilizing.. marsh exchange law et al
-Credit did not become a serious form of exploitation until the 3rd century.
any form of m\a\p.. serious form of exploitation.. since forever.. not about the love of money.. that’s a symptom.. about missing pieces.. again.. need means (nonjudgmental expo labeling) to undo hierarchical listening as global detox so we can org around legit needs
notes/quotes from ch 2 & 3 of 481 pg pdf via museum of care and counterpunch:
59
part 1 – greece
61
2 – Reformers Cancel Debts and Redistribute Land, 7th and 6th Centuries
Walter Donlan has shown that what seemed to be closed family kinship clans controlling political life actually were “follower groups” that “originated in the early Dark Age as loosely organized political/military associations.”3 They had to be open, as success lay in attracting new members and supporters, as Rome’s early kings did so successfully.
62
Ambitious leaders gain supporters and power by reforming closed aristocracies
same song.. reform ness as cancerous distraction
Almost no records exist to explain how the early problematic debts came into being, but most of the surviving history of this early period is about the debt revolts and demands for land redistribution that extended down through Solon’s reforms in Athens in 594. The leaders who brought reforms were called “tyrants.” By the 4th century the word had come to imply an autocratic policy, yet, as recent scholarship has emphasized, the tyrants set in motion the reforms that led to democracy.
on m of care – sept 7 23.. saying we need a good ‘tyrant’ et al
Synchronized fighting tactics were said to have paved the way for democratic representation as soldiers demanded a share of power to reflect the organization of hoplites into phalanx formations.
oi.. any form of democratic admin.. cancerous distraction
63
Private ‘armies’ of allies and retainers, attempts to seize power by force, assassinations, exiles, and property appropriation accordingly proliferated …” Backed by such force, the elites wielded their power above all as creditors holding their clients in debt. The “Age of the Tyrants” was one of revolution against such predatory elites. Many populist leaders were low-ranking aristocrats, often from the minor branches of the leading families, who “took the demos into their camp,” as Aristotle put it.. Athenian elites feared that the revolts occurring all around them (including earlier in their own city) would redistribute their land if they did not at least end the threat of debt slavery
64
“The disparity between rich and poor reached such a high point, and the city was in an altogether perilous condition, that it seemed as if the only way to restore order and stop the turmoil was to establish a tyranny.”.. Socrates described tyrants as arising when people “with the least” gathered around a leader promising to redistribute land and cancel the peoples’ debts. Survival as a viable society required unseating the most recalcitrant elites and replacing them with a new political system of government.
65
The early 7th-century poet Archilochus used the word turannis ..The word soon was applied to outsiders
who replaced entrenched dynasties. The term is best translated as “demagogy,” which retains the populist demos root. But history is written by the victors—..They gave the word “tyrant” a negative connotation, and writers unsympathetic to democracy gave an autocratic meaning to the word. What subsequent oligarchies found so “tyrannical” was the assertion of public power restraining the privileges of the wealthy by driving the dominant families into exile and, much as Near Eastern rulers had done, redistributing their land and cancelling the debts that had deprived many clients of their liberty.66
“It was through tyranny that most Greek states had their first taste of radical policies,” Snodgrass has summarized, “and, conversely, there were few leading progressive states which had not passed through a phase of tyranny at some stage in the Archaic period, ..“writers observ[ing] that the tyrants brought about praiseworthy social and economic reforms, developed agriculture, industry, commerce, and colonization, encouraged literature and the fine arts, contributed to the development of a Pan-Hellenic spirit through the reverence for the great shrines and oracles, and saved Hellenism in Sicily.” Noting that the era of Peisistratus (ruler of Athens for most of 561-527) was considered to be Athens’ “golden age,” .. Debt cancellation and land redistribution as the common denominators of reforms
68
Cypselus ruled without bodyguards, but his son Periander revived the practice, although he was credited with a perhaps apocryphal saying that the best protection was the support of the people, not bodyguards.
actually gershenfeld something else law
Restructuring politics and voting systems
Matters would have regressed if reformers had not extended citizenship to a broader segment of the population than just elders of the leading family lineages and landholders. “In several cities,” Snodgrass summarizes, “the tyrant’s desire to increase the numbers of his adherents may have led him to extend citizenship more widely—to the landless, to the disenfranchised, to foreigners.”.. Lewis Henry Morgan’s Ancient Society (1877) found this allocation of an expanded citizen body into standardized tribes to be the essence of civilization’s urban revolution, forming the basis for civic duties, tax obligations and political rights.69
Coinage helped bring justice by standardizing taxes, fees and remuneration rates for civic investment and employment. . the term nomisma points to the political function of coinage, either as a means of effecting redistributive justice or as an institution of consensus.”
justice? consensus? oi
70
Civic coinage thus was invented not by individuals bartering, but by reformers who took control of trade and finance away from the autocratic families.
“Such radical measures as property-tax and the institution of circuit judges, as well as redistribution of land, are attributed to these rulers.” A major reform was to inscribe written laws that were the same for everyone, replacing the leeway for judges to indulge in arbitrary bias or favoritism.
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Moral philosophy warning against wealth addiction and hubris. Reformers, poets, dramatists and philosophers warned that wealth addiction and pleonexia, “the desire to have more,” were leading to hubris. The Delphic oracle warned Sparta that this was the only thing that would threaten its survival. No philosopher endorsed classical antiquity’s increasingly pro-creditor laws and oligarchic opposition to reform, and none viewed personal greed as an “incentive” to enterprise and progress.
Thrasybulus of Miletus (in Asia Minor, opposite the island of Samos) expressed the idea of “straight order”
hubris ness.. and maté addiction law et al
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The metaphor of cutting down sheaves of grain so that the field would be equal in height has been echoed through the ages as a response to the hubristic drive for wealth. Tracing the root of the word hubris to an overgrowth of plant life, Nick Fisher cites Aristotle’s description of “hybristai and arrogant (hyperephanoi), affected by the possession of wealth.” He finds that denunciations of hubris “form part of a sustained drive in a number of Greek archaic states to restrain the competitive tensions and
abuses of aristocrats through laws and community action. … in almost all of our texts hybris is seen as above all the fault of the rich and powerful,” specifically those who achieved their wealth by impoverishing the citizenry at large. In general, “the rich (‘fools blessed with fortune’) believe that their wealth gives them a claim to being treated as superiors, and the means to deal with any resistance (‘everything can be bought’), and hence treat others with hybris and contempt, leading them into injustices.” The role assigned to Zeus and other gods was “to punish hybris, and uphold dikē
and eunomia.”
oi oi oi
79
3 – Sparta’s Oligarchy Defers an Early Political Crisis, 6th Century BC Having left almost no monuments, inscriptions..
80
What made Sparta’s economy unique
Sparta’s citizens, who thus were able to avoid manual labor and devote their time to military practice (mainly to keep the helots subdued), as well as sports and leisure.. Called “Equals” (homoioi), each citizen had a similar public status, using crops from land farmed by the servile helot population to make standardized contributions to the common meals (syssitia) to reduce at least the appearance of inequality in everyday life. But Sparta did not restrict the acquisition of property by its oligarchy, whose wealthiest families protected their interests politically by controlling Sparta’s “upper house,” the gerousia…The result was that Sparta became an oppressive rentier state vis-à-vis
oi.. not unique
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The myth of equal land distribution
rather.. the myth of anything sans any form of m\a\p as equity ness
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Sparta’s rules discouraging conspicuous consumption were capped prior to 500 by the “public messes with their culture of regulated eating and drinking.”.. Minimizing wealth distinctions in these ways made Sparta superficially appear “a democracy because the regime has a number of democratic-looking traits,” noted Aristotle in the 4th century. “There is the educational system, to start with. The children of the rich are brought up like the children of the poor, and the kind of education that they are given is with.. It is not apparent who is rich and who is poor.” But display was prominent behind closed doors, and it was clear who was wealthy
oi.. sans any form of m\a\p.. otherwise same song
84
Rejecting commercial exchange and silver money
This self-sufficiency helped Sparta avoid the debt problems that plagued other Greek cities. Sparta’s self-sufficiency provided its homoioi hoplites with just enough to support themselves, although citizens lost their status and became “Inferiors” if they failed to make the prescribed contributions
85
Viewing commerce and moneylending as society’s main destabilizing force by leading to wealth addiction (money-love)—considered to be a symptom of corrupt alien influence—Sparta’s “Lycurgan” ethic rejected the drive for pecuniary chrēmatismos (money making) and barred the hoplite
homoioi from “having anything to do with vulgar trades.”
nah.. deeper.. missing pieces et al.. khan filling the gaps law et al
Credit did not become a serious form of exploitation until the 3rd century.
any form of m\a\p.. serious exploitation.. cancerous distraction.. since forever
90
Sparta’s postwar monetary inflow creates social instability
Sparta’s foreign wars required money, first to fight Persia and then Athens. Being self-sufficient in essentials, its domestic economy could get along with only an iron currency, but empires needed silver and gold (“money of general currency” with exchange value, koinon nomismatos) to wage war abroad94
Democratic revolts against oligarchies supported by Sparta
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be you. 