Fwd: AtD translation: "trains of history" and "multiples"
Joseph Tracy
brook7 at sover.net
Sat Jul 3 17:25:52 UTC 2021
> Begin forwarded message:
>
> From: Joseph Tracy <brook7 at sover.net>
> Subject: Re: AtD translation: "trains of history" and "multiples"
> Date: July 2, 2021 at 10:55:34 PM EDT
> To: Mike Jing <gravitys.rainbow.cn at gmail.com>
>
> Victor M is there to consider the purchase of an ostensibly very powerful weapon equivalent to the force of time that kills all living things. Later he says ”With aTime-weapon you could become the most feared person in history. So the quote below( “Everywhere… multiples" is his self introduction. He is a dealer of power within a “spectrum of need”. The spectrum of need is the perceived need 1) of some organizations to resist those who would oppress them and seize more power for themselves and 2) the perceived need of governments to get what they want and prevent backlash. Both may see themselves as” trains of history not fully run”. He is saying powerful weapons generate a willingness to spend money that multiplies as fear of a perceived enemy increases. This silly imaginary weapon appears in an historical context in which its attraction is enormous. Victor M and other arms merchants show up but are too late.
>
> The actual stench and muddiness of trench warfare that will actually come from the pursuit of the high tech weapons at this time is thus contrasted with the zanier and friendlier origins of the weapon in the world of mathematicians, inventors and explorers.
>
> Trains in this book and in this period of actual history were about supply lines of aggression, the return on capital investments, and extending larger systemic control over areas rural, local and relatively autonomous/independent. They also function in revolutions in Mexico. So for me the marxist angle is just one aspect of the role of trains. They are both revolutionary and conservative.
>
> In my mind the real point of the passage and the character is to show the kind of dark but thorough and all too realistic calculations that fuel arms dealers.
>
>
>> On Jun 30, 2021, at 10:41 PM, Mike Jing <gravitys.rainbow.cn at gmail.com> wrote:
>>
>> P557.7-14 “Everywhere one finds a spectrum of need, from bludgeons and
>> machetes to submarines and poison gases—trains of history not fully run,
>> Chinese tongs, Balkan komitadji, African vigilantes, each with its
>> attendant population of widows-to-be, often in geographies barely sketched
>> in pencil on the back of some envelope or waybill. One glance at any
>> government budget anywhere in the world tells the story—the money is always
>> in place, already allocated, the motive everywhere is fear, the more
>> immediate the fear, the higher the multiples.”
>>
>> What kind of "multiples" are we talking about exactly? I assume it has to
>> do with profits, but more details will be welcome.
>>
>> The wiki says "Karl Marx, in Das Kapital, referred to wars as the 'express
>> trains of history' ", but I couldn't find such reference in either the
>> English or the Chinese edition of Das Kapital. However, in his Class
>> Struggles in France 1848 to 1850, Marx did say "Revolutions are the
>> locomotives of history", a quote known to many Chinese who lived through
>> the Mao era. Can anyone confirm or deny the claim in the wiki?
>> --
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