RE: The Story of Money 4: Markets, Metals, Coins, and Military
In fact, the entire Roman empire, at its height, could be understood as a vast machine for the extraction of precious metals and their coining and distribution to the military— combined with taxation policies designed to encourage conquered populations to adopt coins in their everyday
transactions.
I think what is silently implied here ( correct me if I'm wrong) is the notion of legal tender.
Legal tender as a notion inclues enforcement. Without enforcement legal tender has no meaning thus when someone ( an emperor as in the case of Alexander ) sets the medium of settlements/ exchange he also has to enforce that this remains as one.
As a matter of fact, this enforcement doesn't have to be imposed on the whole of society but only a small part of it in order to propagate and have full effect ( the army, mercs etc ). You pictured the situation really well and I think it's a pretty straightforward line of thinking. The relation between money and power is a very strange one and there are aspects of it that haven't been explored yet or even fully understood. Perhaps there are vested interests that are actively hindering this attempt, thus the confusion regarding the roots of money. Thinking of today, I think that the real problem of this money-power relation lies to the fact that we have before ourselves a vast armaments industry that serves no other purpose other than promoting their products. And it's not your average bronze age blacksmith that makes swords when asked to but huge entities with vast resources that are forward planning and set a steady supply of ever evolving armaments ( remember Eisenhower's warning ).One final note here. In Greece as in Rome, attempts to solve the debt crisis through military expansion were always just ways of fending off the problem— and they only worked for a while. When expansion stopped, the system breaks down.
Or a war breaks out I'd like to add..
Great article mate! Take care!
MhmmmM!!!!! Yeah. That is at the essence of it isn't it. So if legal tender is enforcing that your currency gets used for your own taxes, debts, etc...is there a different word for say, the way that the US dollar is 'strongly encouraged' to be used in global petroleum transactions, and when people have tried to use their own currencies for this, they either end up with some chilling trade sanctions, or perhaps a full own invasion.
What was Eisenhower's warning? I don't think I know it.
Yeah unfortunately, that seems to be the more common result.
Sorry for taking that long to answer back, I was away at work for over a week and just returned today!
I think it's from his farewell speech when he left the office of president. I recommend watching it all in case you haven't, he raises some pretty interesting and important issues and it's still very very relevant today ( i'd dare to say more than ever )..
You are right about the petro dollar, I pretty much believe that also. If we also consider the overlapping interests between big oil and big arms we can get the whole picture. Just look at Saudi Arabia. They have an abyssmal human rights track record, they are most probably funding extremists and poison minds through their salafi / wahhabi indoctrination but they are considered a ''close'' ally of the US. Doesn't make much sense to me! When you add the $ in the equation though suddenly it does make ''sense''!