MDMD(4) (Re: gallows, slavery, ect)

[andrew at cee.hw.ac.uk]

> 108.26    "for Commerce without Slavery is unthinkable, whilst Slavery
> must ever include, as an essential Term, the Gallows,--Slavery without
> the Gallows being as hollow and Waste a Proceeding, as a Crusade without
> the Cross."

I think the missing term in this analogy is the Christianity/the
Church which stands in apposition to Commerce as Slavery to Crusades
and the Gallows to the Cross. Recall where the word Crusade comes
from, cross being its very root. The Crusades were an attempt to wrest
control of the Holy Land from the Infidel restoring the rule of the
Church. The Cross was the standard behind which the Crusaders rallied.
More than anything else the Cross is a symbol of Salvation for the
Christian Elect, Jesus dying that all men's sins might be forgiven,
and, consequently, Damnation for the Infidel. Through Jesus suffering
and death on the cross this forgiveness and consequent resurrection
into eternal life in heaven are made possible.

So, if the analogy is to hold then Slavery is a means to install the
rule of Commerce, a guarantee of Righteous Salvation for the
Commercial Elect and Just Damnation for Preterite Underclass. The
suffering and, where necessary, death sacrifice of slaves on the
gallows is what makes this salvation possible.

I don't see this as a specifically C18th comment. The problems of
poverty, unemployment and slavery have not been cured in the so-called
developed world. Instead they have been to a large degree exported,
just as the poor and unemployed were exported to America in the early
C18th, subsequently to be replaced by slaves when the economics of the
case made this a more attractive proposition than indentured
labourers.  Even when slavery was officially abolished the economics
of commerce ensured its continuation in all but name. It only departed
America (and Europe) because the pyramid had to grow taller which
means most (not all) of the population of the developed world were
co-opted into the system to sustain its growth.  But the base also had
to grow wider to sustain this rise and now the problem has merely been
globalized. Most of the us are part of the Commercial Elect, still
living off economic slavery and behind that, as ultimate sanction and
goad, the gallows. And, like those good Christian crusaders, we still
regard this suffering from which we so casually pluck our ease and
intellectual freedom as necessary to fuel the `progress' on which we
pin our hopes and delusions. It's the same old pyramid scam, the same
old Us and Them route to a fast buck at other people's expense, and
the arithmetic still doesn't total no matter how much you scale things
up.


Andrew Dinn
-----------
We drank the blood of our enemies.
The blood of our friends, we cherished.