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Will We Have to Wait for a 21st Century Peasants’ Revolt Before Seeing Any Real Change?
While everyone from Tony Blair to Nouriel Roubini is debating whether or not bankers should be hung, the Wall Street Journal and Bloomberg provide some fascinating historical context.
The journal's Jason Zweig reports:
Financial criminals throughout history have been beaten, tortured and even put to death, with little evidence that severe punishments have consistently deterred people from misconduct that could make them rich.
The history of drastic punishment for financial crimes may be nearly as old as wealth itself.
The Code of Hammurabi, more than 3,700 years ago, stipulated that any Mesopotamian who violated the terms of a financial contract – including the futures contracts that were commonly used in commodities trading in Babylon – “shall be put to death as a thief.” The severe penalty doesn’t seem to have eradicated such cheating, however.
In medieval Catalonia, a banker who went bust wasn’t merely humiliated by town criers who declaimed his failure in public squares throughout the land; he had to live on nothing but bread and water until he paid off his depositors in full. If, after a year, he was unable to repay, he would be executed – as in the case of banker Francesch Castello, who was beheaded in 1360. Bankers who lied about their books could also be subject to the death penalty.
In Florence during the Renaissance, the Arte del Cambio – the guild of mercantile money-changers who facilitated the city’s international trade – made the cheating of clients punishable by torture. Rule 70 of the guild’s statutes stipulated that any member caught in unethical conduct could be disciplined on the rack “or other corrective instruments” at the headquarters of the guild.
But financial crimes weren’t merely punished; they were stigmatized. Dante’s Inferno is populated largely with financial sinners, each category with its own distinctive punishment: misers who roll giant weights pointlessly back and forth with their chests, thieves festooned with snakes and lizards, usurers draped with purses they can’t reach, even forecasters whose heads are wrenched around backward to symbolize their inability to see what is in front of them.
Counterfeiting and forgery, as the historian Marvin Becker noted in 1976, “were much less prevalent in Florence during the second half of the fourteenth century than in Tuscany during the twentieth century” and “the bankruptcy rate stood at approximately one-half [the modern rate].”
In England, counterfeiting was punishable by death starting in the 14th century, and altering the coinage was declared a form of high treason by 1562.
In the 17th century, the British state cracked down ferociously on counterfeiters and “coin-clippers” (who snipped shards of metal off coins, yielding scraps they could later melt down or resell). The offenders were thrown into London’s notorious Newgate prison. The lucky ones, after being dragged on planks through sewage-filled streets, were hanged. Others were smeared with tar from head to toe, tied or shackled to a stake, and then burned to death.
The British government was so determined to stamp out these financial crimes that it put Sir Isaac Newton on the case. Appointed as warden of the Royal Mint in 1696, Newton promptly began uncovering those who violated the financial laws of the nation with the same passion he brought to discovering the physical laws of the universe.
The great scientist was tireless and merciless. Newton went undercover, donning disguises to prowl through prisons, taverns and other dens of iniquity in search of financial fraud. He had suspects brought to the Mint, often by force, and interrogated them himself. In a year and a half, says historian Carl Wennerlind, Newton grilled 200 suspects, “employing means that sometimes bordered on torture.”
When one counterfeiter begged Newton to save him from the gallows – “O dear Sr no body can save me but you O God my God I shall be murderd unless you save me O I hope God will move your heart with mercy and pitty to do this thing for me” – Newton coldly refused.
The counterfeiter was hanged two weeks later.
Until at least the early 19th century, it remained commonplace for counterfeiters and forgers to be put to death; between 1792 and 1829, for example, notes Wennerlind, 618 people were convicted of counterfeiting British paper currency, and most of them were hanged. Many were women.
Bloomberg provides details of one "peasant revolt" stemming from a Libor-like currency manipulation scheme:
During the “Good Parliament” of 1376, public discontent over [manipulation of currency exchange rates similar to the current Libor scandal] came to a head. The Commons, represented by the speaker, Peter de la Mare, accused leading members of the royal court of abusing their position to profit from public funds.
A particular target was the London financier Richard Lyons ....
Initially the government bowed to public pressure. Lyons was imprisoned in the Tower of London and his properties and wealth were confiscated. Other leading courtiers implicated in these abuses, such as Latimer and the king’s mistress, Alice Perrers, were banished from court.
Once parliament had dissolved and the public outcry had died down, however, the king’s eldest son, John of Gaunt, acted to reverse the verdicts of the Good Parliament. Latimer and Perrers soon reappeared at the king’s side and Lyons was released from the Tower and recovered his wealth, while the “whistleblower” de la Mare was thrown in jail. The government also sought to appease the wealthy knights and merchants that dominated parliament by imposing a new, regressive form of taxation, a poll tax paid by everyone rather than a tax levied on goods. This effectively passed the burden of royal finance down to the peasantry.
It seemed as though everything had returned to business as normal and Lyons appeared to have gotten away with it. In 1381, however, simmering discontent over continuing suspicions of government corruption and the poll tax contributed to a massive popular uprising, the Peasants’ Revolt, during which leading government ministers, including Simon of Sudbury (the chancellor and archbishop of Canterbury) and Robert Hales (the treasurer) were executed by the rebels. This time, Lyons did not escape; he was singled out, dragged from his house and beheaded in the street.
If the King had followed the rule of law - and kept Lyons and the boys in jail - everything would have calmed down. The monarchy - just like the present-day government - chose to ignore the rule of law, and protect the thieves and punish the whistleblowers.
We have argued for years that the best way to avoid violence is to reinstate the rule of law.
The Bloomberg article - written by a professor of the history of finance and a professor of finance at the ICMA Centre, Henley Business School, University of Reading - ends on a similar note:
The question now is whether public outrage at the Libor scandal and other financial misdeeds will lead to fundamental reforms of the financial sector -- such as the separation of retail and investment banking or legislation to regulate the “bonus culture” -- or just more cosmetic changes that fail to address the structural issues.
Will we have to wait for a 21st century peasants’ revolt before seeing any real change?
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Your right JMK.It must be gurilla warfare.Showing ones self,your toast.Underground,deep underground.That requires organization.Get out of city shit asap.
Empires all operate the same.
Governor Tarken
"The regional governors now have direct control over their territories. FEAR will keep the local systems in line. FEAR of this battle station."
or FEAR of seal team six, who you seem to think is comprised of people other than americans?
JMK are you afraid of dying? Afraid your wife will get your money ,your kids will spend it unwisely?
Man up or shut up
You can kiss my ass. I am more ready for civil disorder than 98% of the rest of you but in a way that will dramatically improve the odds of surviving the debacle. It certainly doesn't include designer camos and fucking goat skin gloves. HA! You pull your head out of your ass and man up -- better still just wake up!!
Good list PZ - but I'd ditch the camo fatigues - when we're all targets, the camos paint a big bright bulls eye on the wearer.
Also, combat boots are another give away and are less comfortable than some back-packing boots/shoes from REI.
One more thing, the BOB or GHB (get home bag) should NOT be camo but look like a school bag (ie black, brown, dark blue).
Blend in, don't stick out, don't be a target. We'll need all good hands at the final charge.
Just my inflation-adjusted 2 cents.
The thing is my area is full of woods. If you bug out or bug in, it would be to your advantage to wear camo and take position in the woods. I'm not urban.
You are right, if you're in the woods and aren't caught up in, or transiting from the city.
I should have prefaced my comments with this.
Thanks for giving a very good list.
Fellow Pennswoodsman.
Best disguise is a burka.
Gotta respect those minority rights ;o)
GW Excellent!! You are on a roll. Asking the questions that need to get asked, that won't get asked otherwise.
Oliver Cromwell MP's speech on the dissolution of the Rump of the Long Parliament, given to the House of Commons, 20 April 1653
It is high time for me to put an end to your sitting in this place, which you have dishonored by your contempt of all virtue, and defiled by your practice of every vice.
Ye are a factious crew, and enemies to all good government.
Ye are a pack of mercenary wretches, and would like Esau sell your country for a mess of pottage, and like Judas betray your God for a few pieces of money.
Is there a single virtue now remaining amongst you? Is there one vice you do not possess?
Ye have no more religion than my horse. Gold is your God. Which of you have not bartered your conscience for bribes? Is there a man amongst you that has the least care for the good of the Commonwealth?
Ye sordid prostitutes have you not defiled this sacred place, and turned the Lord's temple into a den of thieves, by your immoral principles and wicked practices?
Ye are grown intolerably odious to the whole nation. You were deputed here by the people to get grievances redressed, are yourselves become the greatest grievance.
Your country therefore calls upon me to cleanse this Augean stable, by putting a final period to your iniquitous proceedings in this House; and which by God's help, and the strength he has given me, I am now come to do.
I command ye therefore, upon the peril of your lives, to depart immediately out of this place.
Go, get you out! Make haste! Ye venal slaves be gone! So! Take away that shining bauble there, and lock up the doors.
In the name of God, go!
"What about sanctimonious Cromwell and his ironsides that put the women and children of Drogheda to the sword with the bible text God is love pasted round the mouth of his cannon?" - Ulysses, James Joyce
It is more noteworthy that Cromwell's zionist sucessors repackaged the Irish genocide as their own, and have for the last century claimed themselves the victims.
Nice. Like Robspierre, Cromwell turned out to be a meglomaniac, but that's what happens when you release the dogs.
My two favorite parts -
o Which of you have not bartered your conscience for bribes?
o I command ye therefore, upon the peril of your lives, to depart immediately out of this place.
"I would advise you, therefore, not to attempt unchaining the tiger, but to burn this piece before it is seen by any other person; whereby you will save yourself a great deal of mortification from the enemies it may raise against you, and perhaps a great deal of regret and repentance. If men are so wicked as we now see them with religion, what would they be without it." - Benjamin Franklin
Less wicked? For sure less prone to genocidal hegemony.
rofl.
Unless you count statism as a religion, and I do absolutely (the largest participation rate on the planet, the greatest fairy tale of them all, the belief that you can erase all negative aspects of human nature by checking off someone's name on a piece of paper a few million times, that you can legislate away society's problems like a three year old child, etc.), the numbers are just not riding history in your favor.
Those 30,000 deaths during the crusades are just so staggering compared to the, what, one hundred MILLION murders by governments in just the last 100 years alone.
Hegemony. This word. I do not think it means what you think it means.
Religion is an institution that is entered into voluntarily by individuals. They can also leave voluntarily. If it becomes a violent monopoly that can enforce its mandates or moralisms (positive "rights" and such) at the point of guns or swords, it is no longer a religious institution - it is a state. Hegemony requires threats of violence in order to actually be called hegemony - it requires domination. If you can just walk away from it and all you get is ostracization from people you've already walked away from (who are well within their rights to choose who and what they want to associate with, and how that association is defined (or not)), that sounds more like a non-coercive, voluntary institution to me. Which is fully compatible with true, negative human rights.
Religion is the root of all current systems of mind control. Including expecially the intense, gradual indoctrination called 'formal education'.
To teach a false history is to extend, supplement and replace actual tribal history in order to provide preferred (synthetic) stock answers and meanings... values. To control an individual's values is to define a range of acceptable behaviors. Once programmed, the individual performs like a trained monkey, and also propagates and reinforces their conditioning. If you catch them young, you own them for life.
As it is more dynamic MSM has almost completely replaced religion as the control delivery mechanism.
Prove me wrong. FC!
Taunting innuendo. Fallacious definitions, rambling verbosity. faulty connotations, bogus causality, fallacious composition. hasty, sweeping, accidental generalization and blatant lies - in print, which means others can verify this. You can't deny it. Did you write this on your hand? You really suck at debunking. A is A. Work on it.
Will We Have to Wait for a 21st Century Peasants’ Revolt Before Seeing Any Real Change?
As long as there are food stamps and 50 inch plasma screen TVs -- No! Give the proles bread and circuses and they will sleep.
"So you talk about mobs and the working classes as if they were the question. You've got that eternal idiotic idea that if anarchy came it would come from the poor. Why should it? The poor have been rebels, but they have never been anarchists; they have more interest than anyone else in there being some decent government. The poor man really has a stake in the country. The rich man hasn't; he can go away to New Guinea in a yacht. The poor have sometimes objected to being governed badly; the rich have always objected to being governed at all. Aristocrats were always anarchists, as you can see from the barons' wars." - GK Chesterton
As you see, the 1% are performing a flanking maneuver. Welcome to Oz.
dp
With all this talk about revolution and hangings it won't be long untill ZeroHedge will be shut down by "the authorities" and writers and posters are incarcerated "for the common good".
Revolutions are more often than not messy and bloody affairs so don't get involved unless you are willing to make huge sacrifices.
Saying that a revolution is long overdue. The current PTB are more corrupt and insane than King George III was.
How can Americans parrot the MSM and still call themselves patriots?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=14fl2hVHI7Q&feature=youtu.be&a
Nice idea. Guess what happens when more and more people would use solver coins and other things of real value, ignoring the Fed and the fiat-currency?
Using honest money is patriotic and honest. All things considered, it is possible to do a pretty good job of avoiding, ignoring the Fed.
The peasants have been revolting against the empire since at least Vietnam, Cuba, and Nicaragua,
but until joined in common cause by the urban folk,
the global syndicate and their legions will remain.
FIGHT ORGANIZED CRIME! RE-ELECT NO ONE!
Wolverines!
Do you really think that States are going to give much of a shit what USFedGovt. wants if the money stops flowing from DC?
Them State fellers are easy to get your hands on too. They know it, and will act accordingly.
Power was more decentralized and as a result more difficult to buy wholesale when the US Senate was appointed by state legislatures. The Founding Fathers understood the banksters and tried to make a system difficult for them, but somehow we dropped the hand-off.
Beheading these criminals is too humane, disembowelment would be more appropriate.
Criminals beheaded by other criminals, who are even more sancimonious than the first?
Sure, that'll solve everything.
What scares the owners? Not death. not torture. What scares them is being like us.
Having to do physical work,having someone else telling them what they can and can not do. Trying to figure out how they are going to pay for healthcare if they get sick, Driving their own car and worrying about getting a speeding ticket because they are running late for work. How much money they can spend for lunch at McDonald's or Wendys during the work week. Cleaning their own house,going to the grocery store to buy their weeks worth of food, cooking their own food, getting a week's vacation after a year of SERVITUDE, 2 weeks after two years, 3 weeks after 5 , 4 weeks after 10, 5 weeks after 20, 6 weeks after 30, Then they can retire on what they have managed to save after working 35 fucking years. Since they are not stealing it they might actually be able to save enough to retire on. Let them live off 75k a year if they can find a job that will pay them that much. But I doubt it because they lack all skills needed to survive in the world they created for themselves to do what they do.
Death would be too easy for them it is not punishment it shows no mercy. Strip them of the assets which they have conned and stolen, leave them penniless. let them know what its like being on the other side. THAT'S WHAT THEY FEAR more than death.
The Staple Singers Respect Yourself Live Filmed Performance 1972
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=endscreen&v=oab4ZCfTbOI&NR=1
A revolt cannot be successful if the main motive behind it is money...there need to be a solidarity between people because money can buy a lot of uprising people and turn the revolt to be a failure
gunbroker.com
I think this time will be a Moms revolt... a minivan mania flash mob at the mall on black Friday.
www.tradewithdave.com
Aint bankers,investors ect put in jail?
As far i have read,Bernie Madoff,got 100+some years for his Ponzi Scheme!
I think,its about,voting in the right people,meening the ones,that aint bought and corrupted,by the Governance CEO,s,and we all know who they are,dont we Buffets Sorors Bauers Rockenfellers ect,did forget the Coce bross, Civil Agency Imbicils,oh sorry, bross.
And they aint to find, in any,any of the know old parties anymore!
Goes for Europe as goes for US as goes for the rest of the globe
I am following the C.P.I,in Brasil,the Brain?? Street Media,the Pulitzer hores, had an articel,the 40 people on charge is set to 3.750 years of prison,but not one will go to jail,i see this case"Mensalao, as classic"Damn to classic.
And to go back to Madoff,the others To Big To Jail,just pays fines,like a slap over the wrist,dont do it again,litle boy,next time,you,ll get an even bigger one,a saw the SEC=CPI Brasil( inquery,s) on C-span,and it was clear who runs the world,the Goldmen,said it was raining so said Corzine so said the damn Advocat,with the coce nose,from JP,but the smell wasnt rain,neither the color,and the ones who got weet,was The panel of the SEC!
And Revolution,as long as the, Tely is sending in H.D Seductive colors,the sheeps is glued to the screen!
Back to the coofee!
I detest class warfare, but it's been observed by a number of people that Madoff ripped off wealthy and connected people. Which explains the apparently swift justice.
Also explains why special laws, ie. Entitled the Ponzi Scheme Investor Protection Act of 2011, were written to steer tax-payer money to them via SPIC and no claw backs.
Bernie Madoff turned himself in! What do you expect them to do? If he had held an Obama fundraiser instead, he would still be rich, free and happy --- like Corzine.
Wake me up when the pepsi and pizza and dvds and arabian oil is gone.
Then you'll see the revolt, but it will be too late. People aren't going to be happy picking potatoes and fixing toilets.
Nobody is happy fixing toilets except plumbers.
That why you always pay big money when the poo spins but doesn't go away.
www.electanewcongress.com. Find a better plan with the means to make the change and I'll be happy to go with you. If not, this is it.
Watching from afar for many years, it seems like there have been like 1,000 other attempted grass-roots movements to change the US gov't, elect honest people and so on ...
Seems like nearly all of them amounted to just about nothing ... due to media ignoring them
The other year Karl Denninger thought he could lead a big 'movement' via the popularity of his blog ... He drove to Washington DC and held up a sign like a goofball for a couple days, then ranted how so few would join him
That always seems the story ... Not to mention the possibly rigged machines that count American votes
Have read Americans telling how a few hundred thousand people have gathered in Washington DC to 'protest', they have gotten almost no media coverage, a couple back-page paragraphs saying there were like one-tenth of the people actually there - big let-down for everyone
Am wondering how many of the Americans and ZHers feel who donated etc to Ron Paul ... So popular but his followers will get ZERO seats in the next US Congress because of the twisted Anglo voting systems (UK has the same problem)
Here in Continental Europe, radical groups with 5% or 10% of the vote are generally in Parliaments making noise ... at least we have that here, Parliaments with 10 or 13 parties screaming at each other ... Feels good even if not much gets accomplished
BGiB - all sound observations. All I can say about it is that when you have a system under pressure and no way to relieve that pressure, the final denoument can be extra, extra extraordinary.
The most pronounced problem with regard to the Twenty-First Century, bankers, and the application of jurisprudence thereunto, is the lack of a proper number of "corrective instruments."
I see what you meen,but aint it the same Corrective instruments,used on Madoff,just a question?
So they are there,but only in special cases,which shows how justice works?
The peasants are already thoroughly revolting. Have you been to a Walmart lately?
You said it, they stink on ice.
The answer to the title question is YES! Getting lame ass journalists and talking heads to acknowledge that there is massive fraud and corruption and treason going on and openly speaking about it would go a long ways to forestall blood running in the streets, but I fear the cancer has grown to such massive proportions that nothing but radical surgery and probably irradiation will do. Long live cockroaches.
Ya.
As long as OPEC only takes dollars for oil, no worries