II. BRAKING THE SEARCH FOR GAIN

2. Braking the search for gain

SEEKING PROFIT SAPS 
 THE COLLECTIVE EFFORT THAT ALLOWS SURVIVAL,
SO PRE-CAPITALIST SOCIETIES CONTAIN IT

Historians ignore a priority
that transforms the meaning of institutions and events.

This chapter explains why containing profit
-- that is, limiting growth --
was necessary, and how it took place

Egyptian painting 

• One can't bring in the harvest alone   

• The origin of supernaturally-backed authority 

• The grandiose destruction of wealth

• Practices whose logic escapes us 

• Read accounts like detective stories

• Were (are) economic reasons recognized? 

• Growth's explosive consequences

*      *      *

Next,
One can't bring in the harvest alone 

ONE CAN'T BRING IN THE HARVEST ALONE...

OR FISH WITH LARGE NETS 
OR HUNT BIG ANIMALS

So unmechanized work must be collective --
think of the Harrison Ford film Witness,
where Amish meet to build a barn

Noon by Pieter Breugel the Elder, about 1550

Pursuing individual gain weakens the community.

Worse, communal lands become privately owned.
Then many leave --
"He went off to seek his fortune"

A few become merchants in the growing towns -- that's how a middle class grows up -- but most finish as vagabonds, mercenaries or brigands. 

Those who remain become sharecroppers or serfs. 

That menace explains the universal brakes on gain,
which villagers begin and centralized power extends.  

*      *      *

Next,
When chiefs become kings 

WHEN CHIEFS BECOME KINGS

CHIEFS APPEAR

WHEN PROFIT-SEEKING OVERWHELMS VILLAGE DYKES

With further growth they yield to kings,

whom sacred power reinforces 

• In traditional Africa,

a newly-rich man is admired 

if he shares his wealth,

tolerated if he spends it 

and sanctioned if he keeps it

Les cahiers d'Afrique / Internet

Griots -- traditional singers -- follow him, chanting praises that turn into mockery of his servile origins unless he gives the tip they expect: that is, unless he siphons off resources to reinforce the social order.

Expecting immigrants to bring gifts when they return to the village, and pestering them if they don't distribute enough, makes the same point.

• Kings control more complex societies
and magic reinforces them.
In France

° Sanctification at Reims
gives them magic power

The central panel of Joan's story as shown at the Panthéon, by Jules Lepneveu, end 19th century

The height of Joan of Arc's epic is persuading the Crown Prince to make the journey through English-held territory and be crowned at Reims.

Cavalcade of Louis XV after the sanctification, October 16, 1722 by Martin le Jeune

Sanctification lasts several days: vigil, ceremony, banquet, cavalcade.

Henri II's Book of Hours, about 1540

Then the king cures scrofula by his touch. 

-- The classic study:

 The royal touch: monarchy and miracles in France and England

by Marc Bloch, 1923

Monarchs are mediators with the ancestors,
divine rulers or representatives of God:
They maintain the cosmic harmony.

Translation
(since they can't influence nature): 
They maintain the social harmony
by containing what threatens it --
notably the search for profit. 

  
*      *      *

Next,

The grandiose destruction of wealth

THE GRANDIOSE DESTRUCTION OF WEALTH

 THE SIMPLEST WAY TO CONTAIN GROWTH: 
ELIMINATE WEALTH
BEFORE IT CAN BE INVESTED

Making  it spectacular to draws in the public,
and so reinforces authority. 
As by:

  • Competition

This 1914 movie filmed the last match, which anthropologists know a "potlatch."

When the Kwaktiul Indians of the North Pacific obtain goods by barter with whites (from about 1850) the clans that control the trade compete by throwing them into the sea. The clan that destroys most wins. 

The community watches from the shore.

• Ostentation

A royal army on the march,16th-century tapestry (detail), Renaissance Museum

European nobles disperse their income on accoutrements that they show off around the king. People come from miles to watch processions that break the routine.

Dispersing wealth with panache is part of nobles' prestige: King Arthur cares "not for gold or silver, but for honor alone," says a Roman envoy whom Arthur treats with a feast described for a full page.

-- La morte d'Arthur

• Funerals

By Richard Fleisher with Kirk Douglas, Tony Curtis and Janet Leigh, 1958

 The film shows the majesty of the destruction.

When a Viking chief dies a boat is filled with treasure and burnt.

Everyone watches from the shore.

 • Monuments 

Internet, AirPanu.RU

Ancient Egypt remains essentially unchanged for 3,000 years. Imagine -- 3000. 

Because the pharaohs neutralize investible income with monuments so huge that the term "pharaonic" applies to any construction that is over the top? 

That immensity is a constant show of power.  

 • Squandering 

European map of Africa of the 14th century, a sign of expanding exchanges.

A 14th-century ruler of the Mali Empire spends so much gold on his pilgrimage to Mecca that its value drops for a decade, which hinders emerging producers.

Populations watch the extraordinary caravan pass and benefit from the largesse. 

 Deliberate destruction
 transforms the meaning of innumerable
customs and events:
We will come back to it many times.

*     *     *  

Next,
Behavior whose logic escapes us

BEHAVIOR WHOSE LOGIC ESCAPES US

WE TEND TO GLOSS OVER 
WHAT WE DON'T UNDERSTAND  

Take an explorer's mistake

"Grant dancing with Ukelema," Second visit to discover the sources of the Nile by John Speke, London, 1864

He contrasts Western dancing (on the right)

with that of "black devils" 

But dance unites the village -- the youths set off the chief's exploits as the population looks on. At other times men and women dance in separate lines, never touching, because social organization is collective, including by gender.

(Western dance too was collective, as with English and North American square dancing, the French village "bourrée" and court and salon dances. That changed in the early 19th century, when the waltz accompanied emphasis on the middle-class couple.) 

Since the explorer has the artist draw his partner's astonishment, he knows he's broken the rules. He thinks he's done the right thing -- showing Africans how to dance!   

Explorers, like historians,
confront worlds that they don't understand.
Instead of pointing out enigmas,
they amass data.

Sometimes an enlightening detail slips 
into their accounts.    

*     *     *

Next,
Read accounts like detective stories

READ ACCOUNTS LIKE DETECTIVE STORIES

"SHE HAD BEEN TRAINED 

TO LOOK FOR ANAMOLIES"

-- The silence of the lambs,
crime novel by Thomas Harris

Figuring out the past means acting like a detective,
pondering what seems odd. 

Clues can be customs or events that seem irrational 
 or tangible elements, 
like a painting placed too high for viewing, 
  places too vast for traffic, 
 a king replacing Jesus... 

Street art, Belleville

A detective, shadows, a clue...

...or they jump out from

the narratives of historians and explorers... 

A library's history shelves

Map at the Paris Mission Center ("Procure des Missions")

...although they are buried in data. 

*     *     *  

Next,
Were -- are? -- economic motivations recognized?

WERE -- ARE? -- ECONOMIC MOTIVATIONS RECOGNIZED?

So used to that invisible -- toqueville

YES, BECAUSE ONE INSTINCTIVELY KNOWS 

WHAT REINFORCES RULES OR BREAKS THEM

No, because thinking through customs
means viewing them from a distance

• Take a modern practice,

buying what one does not need

Window at the Galeries Lafayette department store, Richard Nahem, Eye Prefer Paris

"If I wore my favorite black dress on Tuesday in Cincinatti, I'd  see pictures on social media on Wednesday, and I couldn’t repeat the look in San Diego on Thursday ...or else ... people would think I had only one dress."

-- Woman preparing a book tour, New York Times

For women, changing outfits every day is a kind of tax. Asked why they do it, many will say out of habit, because they like shopping, or that if they don't do it, they'll seem to lack the means. This author mentions the pressure, but does not examine the reason for it. 

• Very few people say

"such purchases give an impression of liberty

but in fact are imposed,

because the economy depends on them."  

The next chapters show how 
social organization and beliefs
corresponded to practical needs, 
whether people were aware of it or not.

Usually not.

*     *     *

Next,
The search for profit's explosive consequences

PROFIT'S EXPLOSIVE CONSEQUENCES

PAGE  IN PREPARATION

https://truthout.org/articles/a-new-socialist-movement-must-oppose-both-capitalism-and-imperialism/

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/06/18/opinion/trump-2020-campaign.html?action=click&module=MoreInSection&pgtype=Article&region=Footer&contentCollection=Opinion

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/12/28/opinion/sunday/2019-best-year-poverty.html?action=click&module=Opinion&pgtype=Homepage
GLOBALIZATION MEANS THAT MILLIONS
LOSE LAND,  SOCIAL TIES AND AND  BELIEFS,
A CHANGE THAT SPEED MAKES STILL MORE VIOLENT
AND THAT THE ROSY PICTURE
OF IMPROVEMENT OMITS 

When buying stuff is the only replacement

for faiths that have been fervently held,

can one be surprised at a nihilism

that in Europe, the United States, the Middle East, India (...)

is basically the same?

Getty images

Showing the intensity
with which pre-industrial African and French societies
contained capitalism 
implies its destructiveness.   

End of this introduction.

*      *      *

Next,

V, 2.
Curbing growth: kings and ritualized warfare