II.3. THE GRANDIOSE DESTRUCTION OF WEALTH

THE SIMPLEST WAY TO CONTAIN PROFIT: GET RID OF IT

Spectacular destructions draw in the public, which reinforces authority at the same time. As by:

• Competition: 

This 1914 movie filmed the last match.

When the Kwakiutls, people of the North Pacific, toward 1850 obtain goods by barter with Whites, the clans that control the trade compete by throwing the wares into the sea. The clan that destroys most wins. The community watches from the shore. Then all celebrate with a feast and dancing.

Trailer

Pictures from the movie, that is, of the real ceremony

The return

• Ostentation: 

       A Royal Army on the March,16th-century tapestry (detail), Renaissance Museum

Medieval nobles disperse their income in horses, accoutrements and arms to show off in processions that accompany important people, notably the king. People come from miles around to watch processions that break the routine.

Dispersing wealth with panache is part of prestige: King Arthur cares "not for gold or silver, but for honor alone," says a Roman envoy whom Arthur has treated with a feast that a full page describes.

-- La morte d'Arthur

• Funerals: 

The  Vikings by Robert Fleisher with Kirk Douglass, Tony Curtis and Janet Leigh, 1958.

 Considered ethnographically excellent

When a Viking chief dies his body is placed in a boat is filled with treasure, put to sea and burnt. Everyone watches from the shore..

 The movie shows the majesty of the destruction.

• Monuments:    

           The Great Pyramid of Giza /  zoom

Ancient Egypt remained essentially unchanged for 3,000 years. Imagine — 3000. 

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

That immensity was a constant show of power.

•  Squandering: 
  

 Zoom

The emperor holds a huge gold nugget in this European map of his time. 

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

takes place in countless ways

 and throws new light
on customs and events.

*     *     *

Next,

II.4.

Elders, chiefs and kings