PLUTOCRACY AND WAR
Currently I am hard at work on the second book which is why I have posted so little recently. You should be hearing more in the coming days.
In the meantime, I would like to share with you some of the great prophetic voices of the past long forgotten or buried by the “Idea Syndicate” that ever and always sponsors and promotes sophistry in place of truth.
Written in 1898 for Arena Magazine, this article highlights the relationship between Shylock, a reference to a Shakespearean character who is a "relentless and vengeful moneylender" and the politcal parties in his efforts to promote and profit from war.
In this period of “quiet” between the great wars of the 18th century and the coming wars of the 19th century, Ridpath’s insights are spot on and highly relevant to our times. The war machine has been a money making endeavor for certain segments of the population for a long time.
Making the audio version available (thanks to eleven labs technology) will hopefully spead the message further than the longer written versions alone.
Knowing history is the best BS detector there is… get smart while driving to work. :)
I’d love to hear your comments on the article itself and whether the format is beneficial.
Blessings to all in the New Year!
The following is the full article. Use the link above for the podcast which is 15 minutes long.
Article By John Clark Ridpath rom the Arena Magazine v. 19 (1898: Jan- June) pp. 97-103
Debt is the only begotten and dearly beloved son of war; the offspring is more dangerous and more cruel than the progenitor.
The total bonded indebtedness arising out of civil and international conflicts—eating away day and night at the vitals of the great leading powers of the world—is already about twenty thousand millions of dollars. Reflect for an hour upon the appalling aggregate; consider the pressure of this intolerable incubus; try to estimate the horror of this hell; weigh the woe and anguish of them who rest under it, and then—despair and die.
Twenty thousand millions of dollars! Statesmen, philanthropists, philosophers, preachers, journalists, mouthpieces of civilization, one and all of you, how do you like the exhibit? Does it not suffice? Who is going to pay the account? The people. Who, without lifting a hand or turning in their downy beds, will gather this infamous harvest during all the twentieth century? The plutocracy.
It has been the immemorial policy of the Money Power to foment wars among the nations; to edge on the conflict until both parties pause under the shadow of impending bankruptcy; to buy up the prodigious debt of both with a pailful of gold; to raise the debt to par; to invent patriotic proclamations for preserving the National Honor; and finally to hire the presses and pulpits of two continents to glorify the crime!
And now comes a marvelous revolution. The war-debt gamblers of the world have suddenly and silently changed their game. They are no longer the fomenters of war. Each and several they have turned about and become the champions of order and pacification. The Baron Rothschild, philanthropist and benefactor, has joined the Society of Friends!1 The Morgan syndicate, following his example, has enlisted under the banner of the Peace Society! Lombard Street in Wall Street have opened headquarters for the dissemination of the principles of the Gospel; and the Stock Exchange has become the chief auxiliary of the Salvation Army. This turn in human affairs is not only wonderful; it is miraculous!
The powerful conversion of the chief plutocrats of two continents to the principles of William Penn is an event not to be passed without a note of admiration. It is only once in a while that the malevolent powers of this world get a conscience in them and so fall in love with the human race! Such a thing is well calculated to excite suspicion; it requires at least to be explained.
Hitherto the money autocracy of the world has always been anxious for war. It was by war indeed that the money power came into being, and by that agency it has mounted to the throne of the nations. Battle has been to the plutocratic empire the one beautiful and inspiring fact in history. War has always demanded resources. War has to be supported with what orators call “the sinews” of war. War must be fed and supplied and strengthened at an expenditure that would be appalling to the human imagination if it were not so glorious. Hence when war begins, borrowing begins. The bond office is established, and for Shylock2 the bond office is the open gate into the boulevards of Elysium.
It is by this method that the great war-debts of the world have been created. They have been created for the benefit of plutocracy at the expense of the toiling millions. To this extent the scheme of war has harmonized perfectly with the purposes of Shylock. The war god and the god of gold have been a pair of noble brothers. Their dominion has been extended and confirmed until at last every great nation of the earth owns their sway. That the god of gold should here at the close of the nineteenth century suddenly dissolve his partnership with the god of war and join the Society of Friends is, we repeat, a thing so marvelous as to arouse even a philosopher in his reverie. Albeit, it is a good thing to belong to the Society of Friends, if one is sincere in his acceptance of the Sermon on the Mount.
But why should Shylock become a man of peace? The reason is not far to seek. The reason is that the great game of making war for the benefit of national and international bondholders has come to its last play. The scheme is exhausted. Not another card can be cast without danger to the plutocratic gamblers who have so long gathered the har vests of the world with the bloody sickle of war. The process of making war-debts can go no further without crossing that line beyond which mankind, under intolerable injustice, will rise against their despoilers and reclaim their lost estate.
Whatever else Shylock is, he is not a fool. He knows when he has gone far enough. His wits have been sharpened by ages of ancestral experience and evolution. Heredity has made him the most cunning and the most discerning, as well as the most pliable, of all living creatures. As a vulpine philosopher he is the nonpareil of this world. He has present sight, hindsight, and foresight. He has pure vision and contrivance. He holds no relations to anything. He has no kindred and no country. Like death, he has all seasons for his own. All peoples, all conditions, all forms of society, all hopes and enterprises of the human race, are the crude mate rials of his art. With these he juggles and experiments, and out of them he deduces a wisdom which has been reinforced by hereditary experiences and made secure by the elimination of conscience.
Shylock perceives that he cannot further increase his holdings by the method of war; that is, he cannot further enlarge his bond without danger. He perceives that the very process by which he has amassed his unearned treasures is about to turn the other way. Gladly would he involve not only one nation or several nations, but all nations in bloody war, if he might safely get thereby another bond. Gladly would he see not only one people or several peoples, but all peoples, devastated and ruined, if he might sit on the throne of their desolation and build for himself out of their blood and wealth another temple and another treasure house. But he perceives at the present juncture of human affairs that he has played his game to the point of danger. A shadowy sharp sword has been drawn by the sinewy hand of mankind, and this sword is laid blade-wise across the face of Shylock; he sees it and fears it, and for this reason he turns peacemaker and says to the world: 'Mankind, I am your friend. I am a friend of humanity. I wish the nations to devote themselves to peaceable enterprises. I wish to see the 'business interests' of you all protected and enlarged. Nations should not fight any more. Peace is better than war. Peace promotes business and industry. I am for peace, and for this have I joined the Friends!"
After this deliverance, Shylock turns aside, and musing in the dim light of his office, says, sotto voce: "If they fight any more, the interest on my bonds cannot be paid. Besides, the insurgents will presently turn upon me and my tribe and destroy our business. I must keep my influence with these contemptible Christian nations, else they will cease to support me and my enterprises. My business is to live by the labor of others. This I have to get under the pretense of patriotic sacrifice. Pity it is that I cannot encourage war any longer; that I am obliged by the unfavorable state of my business to hold back these nations from continuing to cut one another's throats for my benefit; but such is the case."
The reverie of Shylock continues thus: "I note that reckless leaders in several countries, for the sake of holding their leadership, are appealing to the war spirit, and inciting their respective peoples to arms. They are fools. They seem not to know that they cannot make war without me. I will not let them fight; for it has become dangerous to the 'business interests' of the world. I will let the fool-patriots blow a little, for that is necessary in election years; but after a week or two of such oratorical exercises, I will pluck them by the tails of their coats, and say, 'Come down.' And they will come down!"
This situation is horribly amusing. It is enough to cause a shudder in the heart of humanity. The money power of the world is in alliance with the governments of the world. These governments think, not without reason, that without such alliance they cannot survive. In all of them that are conducted by party the money power is in league with the party, that is, with the dominant party. The dominant party subsidies by means of popular enthusiasm and plutocratic support. The party is obliged to kindle enthusiasm or perish. Even in monarchies, such as Great Britain and Germany, there must be a perpetual rally of the people to the standard of the party in power. The necessary enthusiasm is one of the products of war and of warlike agitation. The party is there fore for war. The party leaders of every country are anxious to promote at least the spirit of war in order to gain popular favor by the proclamation of sham patriotism. Hitherto this thing has been a method most pleasing to Shylock. He, as well as the party autocrat, has gone to his closet with thanks giving and praise at the close of every day which by its events has fanned the incipient flames of war. The fact is that there are not in the whole world any better friends naturally and historically than the party god and the god of gold—unless it should be the god of gold and his bedfellow, a wooden headed king.
The triune alliance of Demagogue, Shylock, and King has been broken in these last days by the secession of Shylock from the league. Shylock has always been the great genius in the international trading house of King, Party and Company. He has been the silent partner, and has done the thinking for the concern. As to principle, he does not know what that is. He always spells it principal! His interest lies that way. He has scented in recent years the oncoming conditions in the world, and has made up his mind to house himself against the portending storm. He is getting ready when the storm comes to drop, like a spectral larva, into his subterranean abode, and pull down the iron door over his head. He intends to leave the firm of King, Party and Company to adjust its liabilities as best it may!
So he sits at the money table of the nations. He has one hand on the table. In that hand he holds the strings of international journalism and oratory. With these strings he sounds the pean of universal battle. The notes of his music echo around the coasts of the world. The unsuspecting people stand with craned necks to hear—while his coupons ripen. But his other hand is under the table. In this hand he holds the strings of diplomacy and politics stretching from his office to the ends of the earth. And with this hand, whenever the dog of war is about to spring, he jerks him back and says, "Down, Cerberus!"
It is in the light of these facts and principles that the bellicose shoutings and fulminations of 1896, heard in the legislative halls and echoed from all the sounding boards of journal ism in Europe and America, are to be interpreted. These shoutings signify nothing at all; they are vox et praeterea nil, this for the reason that the cartridges used in the fusillade have no lead in them. They are blank. Shylock is very willing that the war agitation shall blow high and kindle to a certain stage; but he is on the alert to keep the fire under control and smother it whenever it portends a real conflagration.
It is in this sense that the nations have been going to war of late. France and Russia have been getting ready to crush Germany. England and Russia have been on the eve of hostilities. England and Germany have been about to try the decision of the sword. England and the United States have put on the panoply of battle. The United States and Spain have had a war about Cuba—in the newspapers and the Sen ate! So on to the end of the category of rumors and outgivings of imminent and universal war.
This clamor has amounted to nothing, for the simple and sole reason that Shylock will not support it. So far as party is concerned, the ruse of the war-trumpet has availed but little. Deep down in the bottom of the agitation and turmoil of the time has been the conservative vote of the peace-loving Shy lock, who knows full well that his bond is already as large as the world will carry. He knows when he has sufficiently strained the credit and the patience of mankind. He knows what will come if he attempts to renew the war-play among any of the great nations. He knows that France can bear no more; that Germany has enough; that Russia must quit for her own interest and for his; that England dare not add to her already intolerable burden; that even the party-ridden United States, with all her patriotism and democracy, is at the end of the journey of debt, and that any further addition to the American incubus will end either in the strangulation of liberty or in the insurrection of the people, or both.
It is for this reason that Shylock, philanthropist and benefactor, has changed his immemorial policy. It is for this reason that being the promoter of universal war, he has become the advocate of universal peace. His course is strictly logical. His defection from the international party of war and politics to the party of strict business is in perfect accordance with the noble principles by which he has ever been inspired. Shylock is for himself. He is all things to all men, if by any means he may gain some. To him it is a matter of perfect indifference whether he be Secretary of War or Secretary of the Peace Society. He joins the one or the other according to the rate of exchange and the extent and variety of his coupons!
It is for these reasons that Rothschild has become a Friend. His conversion is not at all inconsistent. He can perform the peace act as well as the war act. Indeed he can perform both parts at once. In the same day he subscribes for the building of an arsenal and for a new edition of Sumner's speech on The True Grandeur of Nations. To him it is all one whether the world blooms with gardens, ripens with oranges, smiles with harvests of wheat, or whether it is trodden into mire and blood under the raging charges of cavalry and the explosion of horrid shells; that is, it is all one to him if his coupons are promptly paid and his bond extended.
Shylock is now a member in good standing of the Society for the Promotion of Universal Peace. He has invited Morgan and Lazard Frères and Carnegie and Havemeyer and Rockefeller to join; the invitation to Pullman has lapsed! Shylock is doing good service. It is to his interest. He is willing to preach, and he preaches. The spirit moves him. He is firmly persuaded that nations should war no more. He does not intend that any shall fight, for the reason that that would make it necessary for him to lend them his gold. He cannot lend them any more gold, for fear he will never get it back again! His old policy of involving mankind in wars in order to have his moneys doubled by scarcity and usurious interest has exhausted itself, and times are hard! It only remains to see what new scheme Shylock will invent in his present character of philanthropist and secretary of the Yearly Meeting!
1 Society of Friends- Commonly known as The Quakers were nonviolent and rejected war in all froms Thier commitment to peace is described as a “testimony of peace” or a testimony against war”.
2 Shylock -The name Shylock is often used to refer to any "relentless and revengeful moneylender"; in fact, any relentless person.