Guest Post by Martin Armstrong
Society historically moves through these great advancements. As an empire rises, civilization expands where coming together means the sum is greater than the individual or small bands of tribes. The oldest known city, discovered in Turkey, shows advanced houses with wall paintings and modern advancements. Coming together created more jobs where someone artistic could then create paintings in houses rather than tilling the soil. Civilization becomes the key to advancement.
What then happens is the government becomes corrupt and greedy. Once you reach that stage, people begin to leave the main centers. In the case of Rome, it peaked around 180 AD with a population of about 1 million and it collapsed to just 15,000. As people fled the cities due to corruption, society then moved back to fragmentation and into the feudal age. People then worked as serfs, tilling the soil for the landowner, and received free lodging along with 20% of the crop.
Then the Black Death came and wiped out 50% of the population during the 14th century. Suddenly, there was a shortage of labor so landlords began to pay wages on top of the free lodging and food deals. Government smelled the money and began to tax. This led to the first tax rebellions during the 1300s. The first peasant tax uprising over taxation was in France during 1358. This was followed by a similar uprising against taxation in England led by Wat Tyler in 1381 that was a bloody affair.
With the invention of the steam engine, the industrial revolution began. Trains became the 19th-century version of the internet. This gave birth to mail order. Suddenly, companies like Sears could publish a catalog and it was distributed around the country by trains. People would go to a local general store and order from the catalog and Sears would then ship the order by train. It is the very same business model as we see today with Amazon, it is just more instant now with the internet. This time, there is no need to go to the general store to order. You do that online, so now the modern business model replaces the general store.
Governments have relied upon consumer taxes, so as stores vanish, they will go after sellers on the internet which creates a question of jurisdiction legally. How can a state punish a company who is not located in their state? How can they demand they pay taxes when there is no right to representation in that state? Sounds familiar – NO TAXATION WITHOUT REPRESENTATION!
The bottom line is always the same. The taxation and rule of law have collapsed and moved into the same position that threatens the break-up of nations, once again, as has every empire to date. In this regard, the internet is not merely the next advancement in society so children should be looking at technology for the future and not the old traditional jobs. The various governments will collapse for they have abused their power and are unsustainable. Society will have to go through a readjustment on a major scale.
It is not all doom and gloom. This is also a fantastic opportunity to hit the control-alt-delete button and begin anew.
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Imagine for a moment that one generation decided walking was, say racist or elitist and they raise their kids up in, say um, wheel chairs yeah wheel chairs. Now those children grow up biased and do the same to their kids. The great grand kids and everyone all look at 85 year old great grand dad, the one who was so open minded, progressive and started this wheel chair thing, well now he is hated and called a racist, elitist, etc etc. Progressivism is regression. . Eventually he dies. And now everyone is in a wheel chair living on earth. The 5th generation doesn’t know nor has seen any living person ever and never will see them, walk. Eventually nobody knows how to walk nor can even teach how to walk after say 7 generations. Around 10 generations the pictures and historical items, to abide the narratives, refuse to even mention humans ever walked. Media refuses to show standing humans.
Now imagine this with growing shit, yeah dude like farming. Imagine if people start believing there is something called a spaghetti tree. Noodles come from them. Imagine if society viewed dirty, religious, poor, hardworking farmers in a negative manner. Either the corps want to sell you soylent green sludge, i mean mcdonalds, instead of you understanding plants need water to grow. Imagine if politicians make organic a quasi crime, targeted for harassment by authorities at least. Eventually growing things is a crime because you may have a plant that has a fungus and someone, just one person on earth may, just may be allergic to that fungus. They have a right to life and pleasure and you just may disrupt that life so no you cannot grow shit. Hold my drink, i need to help my girlfriend have her 3rd abortion this year be right back. What was i saying? Oh yeah that one persons life is soooo important the world must not grow anything just in case he is allergic. What? No. No. No that organic blob was not my kid, had no right to life. And felt no pain. Anyways it was a danger to my girlfriends life,,,,lifestyle. She likes to party dude, like every weekend dude and waiting 9 months is a lifestyle drain dude so we fixed dat, stat. Hey man, you gonna go vote today for bernie, like cool beans man. Its like his 5th election since he get his brain transplant. Wow its election time again, like dude 20 years flies by since we had a vote last. He you gonna bring your 5 year old neighbors kid? It will be cool watching him vote the first time. Nah, i gotta go by the cemetery and get a death certifica t stamp so my older brother can vote, because if he were alive i know how he would have voted and he wanted what i want so he always votes with me. You got time for a starbucks, green soylent goo? Im buyin. Hell yeah. Lets go.
Commenting like this is the reason I read The Burning Platform. It has more meat than the article. If you read Armstrong’s article in a sort of ‘meta’ mood here’s what he is saying, “Some people in Turkey painted on their walls. Then a whole bunch of shit happened and the government got involved and here we are today.” This is why people who do not respect history should not talk about it. His article is total bullshit and your comment actually makes sense.
Globalism was the apogee of the division of labor. It was (for those living in the USA) the definition of living in Plenitude, where everything you could want was at your fingertips.
It made Americans complacent to the point of caricature. The parasites and predators came out of the woodwork to attack us (hence the growth of the political state, AKA government, and its managers’ predilection for stealing from everyone to give to everyone (while taking a massive rake off the top for themselves.)
All roads lead toward a collapse in living standards. Just what kinds of social turmoil (things like collective violence of pandemic disease) accompany that is the most important question.
The Federal Government only consumed 2% of GDP as late as the 1920s, so not sure what the rest of Other consisted of…But Government increases, as in Rome, until it destroys everything else and collapses…we’re seeing it.
I am not well versed in the history that Martin espouses, but I am a bit interested in archeology based in part on my watching of Time Team on you tube. It took me quite a while to find Catalhoyuk, which is a real dig and was a real place but it was not called Catal Huyuk and it is not as depicted in the picture at the end of the post. Here is where the real dig is, and I invite you to dig a little deeper into the history, it is interesting.
37°39’58.94″ N 32°49’43.95″ E
Paste these coordinates into google earth search.
The next major shift is an exodus out of large, expensive, noisy, polluted, congested, overly regulated and high-tax cities to villages, small towns and small cities plus rural areas which offer the opportunity to enjoy healthy food and clean air and water, and build the type of community that you want. This has already started and when the bubbles-to-infinity implode and real estate crashes, the exodus will accelerate. After all, with modern technology you don’t have to sit in some crowded and expensive office in New York, LA or Toronto. Get out of the hellholes before the rush to the exits becomes a stampede.