II. BRAKING THE SEARCH FOR GAIN

2. Braking the search for gain

SEEKING INDIVIDUAL PROFIT SAPS THE COLLECTIVE EFFORT THAT ALLOWS SURVIVAL...

  Zoom

Fresco in an ancient Egyptian tomb

  Gone from the web

In Ethiopia

        Witness by Peter Weir with Harrison Ford, 1985 / YouTube

Amish farmers build a barn

So pre-capitalist societies contain it. 

This chapter explains why containing profit  

— that is, limiting growth —

 was necessary, and how it took place.

• One can't bring in the harvest alone

• From chiefs to kings

• The grandiose destruction of wealth

• Behavior whose logic escapes us 

• Read accounts like detective stories

• Were (are) underlying economic motives recognized? 

• Explosive effects of the search for profit

*      *      *

Next,
One can't bring in the harvest alone