Recently, surfing through YouTube as is my wont (wonky word; love it!), I could not help but click the cursor on yet another illuminating interview with that economics eminence, professor Michael Hudson.
The man’s acumen and breadth of knowledge in the area of all things economics appears to have few peers. He’s written, at last count, 18 books, not to mention treatises on finance, geopolitics, macro economics, history of economics and banking, etc.
I have begun reading a few in an effort to gain a deeper understanding of economics and geopolitics, both fascinating topics, not to mention critical subjects if one wishes to navigate the modern world and get a firmer grasp on American policy, foreign and domestic.
In a recent interview, the good professor explained a theory of the origin of nation states and how they came about as a consequence of bankers’ schemes.
Once upon a time, kings and princes borrowed money to wage wars. Wars, soldiers and equipment cost money, lots of it. A scan at the headlines of how much the US “lends” to Ukraine in the US’ proxy war against Russia should shock the typical citizen. Billions to kill Russians and Ukrainians, but little, if anything, to shelter or feed the US’ homeless. Or even college educate our young adults. So much for national priorities.
But I digress.
Back in the 15th century the Pope encouraged bankers to lend to European monarchs so that, in turn, these monarchs would wage wars for the Church’s benefit against other churches in Christendom. Bankers expected repayment from the rent of lands seized, not to mention from treasures seized from defeated monarchs.
A problem would ensue when princes could or would not pay their loans, due to the fact that as individuals they did not own that much land which functioned as collateral.
Taking his cue from Italian communal city states, whose citizens voted in consensus to borrow from bankers and pledged their limited lands and even more limited incomes, the Pope encouraged city states to merge with other city states, to expand and unify into vast geographic domains. They unified to transform into “fiscal states,” nations.
Thus, with vast swaths of farmlands and hundreds of thousands of “citizens” lands and incomes — the wherewithal, real collateral — to pay off loans, “nations” came into existence. Square miles of fertile land, the extracted taxes from hundreds of thousands of citizens could now be pledged as collateral by a monarch and a grasping “representative” parliament. What a triumph for the monarch, not to mention a boon for the banking class!
What’s not to love about a geographically “expanded” nation state, its riches ready to be plucked for any reason the crown and elites and their banking allies desired?!
What’s not to love about this “new and improved” identity psychologically implanted inside the minds of millions upon millions of confused, puerile, identity-seeking individuals?!
See also
You’re no longer a Munichite, a Berliner, a Bavarian. You’re now a “German!” You’re no longer a Virginian, a Texan, a Calfornian. You are an “American.” You’re no longer a Brawleyite, a Calexican, a Holtvillite; you’re a “US citizen” and will pay off those loans “made in your name,” spent in who-knows-what dangerous project against your will because you never participated in such decisions …
And isn’t full participation in decision-making, the hallmark of equality, the hallmark of democracy? The true meaning of freedom?
So it goes.
Be well.
Carlos Acuña of El Centro is an attorney.