Thursday, February 11, 2016
In time of peace prepare for war
Another item from the Kansas State Historical Society archives. A couple pages from an 1889 Populist pamphlet called In Time of Peace Prepare For War by JM Graybill of Leavenworth.
Picture, cropped and sharpened:
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And as usual I've brought the text out of the image. I've disentangled some of Graybill's complex sentences but otherwise left the meaning alone.
The first paragraph is laying out a definition, which was true and uncontroversial in 1889, true and XENOPHOBIC BUFFOON KOCH KKK BUSHITLER RACIST SEXIST HOMOPHOBE TRANSPHOBE KOCH KOCH KOCH now.
By the term "natural inequalities in the fortunes of men" is meant all those differences in their inherited mental and physical capabilities; those conditions to which they are born, from which result all those differences of education, training and preparation for the acquisition of the necessities of life; and those differences in the condition of men which can be traced to the exertion of unrestrained power, the institution of despotic government, law of primogeniture, and church united with the State in past ages, from the results of which the moderns, even in free America, are not yet entirely disentangled.
In the second paragraph Graybill is arguing with a commonly agreed lie, which is still a commonly agreed lie now. The paragraph reads like a direct answer to some specified book, but I don't see a ref to the actual book.
With regard to the statement that "a protective tariff increases the natural inequalities in the fortunes of men", the history of the condition of communities, States or Nations will show and sustain the opposite view: that the extremes in the fortunes of men in free trade countries are greater, and with much less prospect of equalizing them. Free trade increases these inequalities.
England draws the substance of all unprotected countries to itself, which is the end, aim and object of all its treaties, armaments and policy. All those nations which have followed England's lead in adopting free trade have no manufactures, or if they have any left they are in a declining condition, and the people of such countries are therefore driven into the few occupations which are left, by reason of the destruction of their formerly more varied pursuits. Hence those diversified talents with which men are endowed are not developed but remain latent and unused, an incalculable detriment to the prosperity of their respective countries.
[China has now taken the 1889 role of England.]
Thus the people of unprotected countries are forced into the business
of transportation, merchandising, law, the church, or farming.
[DOES THIS SOUND FAMILIAR?]
This policy narrows and restricts the ordinary opportunities of men, and all pursuits are overdone, wages and returns are reduced, and poverty must and does ensue as the lot of the toiling millions.
The lawyer class and the trading class absorb the concentrated benefits of such nations, live well, are educated, and generally are enriched at the expense of the uneducated classes.
Travelers to Spain, Turkey, Ireland or India, and other countries that are well known to be "free trade nations", will, if they are honest, sustain the statement that the lower classes and substratum of poor farmers and laborers ... the latter being, of course, almost the entire population ... are very poor and degraded, neither possessing or knowing anything of those comforts considered quite ordinary in protected countries among the laboring people.
A nation which protects itself against competition from the outside world, in order that wages may enable its own people to exist in comfort, is in the line of duty, just as a man who follows the biblical injunction
to provide for his own family.
Or in other fucking words, BORDERS ARE PART OF NATURE.
= = = = = = = = = = = = =
And as usual I've brought the text out of the image. I've disentangled some of Graybill's complex sentences but otherwise left the meaning alone.
The first paragraph is laying out a definition, which was true and uncontroversial in 1889, true and XENOPHOBIC BUFFOON KOCH KKK BUSHITLER RACIST SEXIST HOMOPHOBE TRANSPHOBE KOCH KOCH KOCH now.
By the term "natural inequalities in the fortunes of men" is meant all those differences in their inherited mental and physical capabilities; those conditions to which they are born, from which result all those differences of education, training and preparation for the acquisition of the necessities of life; and those differences in the condition of men which can be traced to the exertion of unrestrained power, the institution of despotic government, law of primogeniture, and church united with the State in past ages, from the results of which the moderns, even in free America, are not yet entirely disentangled.
In the second paragraph Graybill is arguing with a commonly agreed lie, which is still a commonly agreed lie now. The paragraph reads like a direct answer to some specified book, but I don't see a ref to the actual book.
With regard to the statement that "a protective tariff increases the natural inequalities in the fortunes of men", the history of the condition of communities, States or Nations will show and sustain the opposite view: that the extremes in the fortunes of men in free trade countries are greater, and with much less prospect of equalizing them. Free trade increases these inequalities.
England draws the substance of all unprotected countries to itself, which is the end, aim and object of all its treaties, armaments and policy. All those nations which have followed England's lead in adopting free trade have no manufactures, or if they have any left they are in a declining condition, and the people of such countries are therefore driven into the few occupations which are left, by reason of the destruction of their formerly more varied pursuits. Hence those diversified talents with which men are endowed are not developed but remain latent and unused, an incalculable detriment to the prosperity of their respective countries.
[China has now taken the 1889 role of England.]
Thus the people of unprotected countries are forced into the business
of transportation, merchandising, law, the church, or farming.
[DOES THIS SOUND FAMILIAR?]
This policy narrows and restricts the ordinary opportunities of men, and all pursuits are overdone, wages and returns are reduced, and poverty must and does ensue as the lot of the toiling millions.
The lawyer class and the trading class absorb the concentrated benefits of such nations, live well, are educated, and generally are enriched at the expense of the uneducated classes.
Travelers to Spain, Turkey, Ireland or India, and other countries that are well known to be "free trade nations", will, if they are honest, sustain the statement that the lower classes and substratum of poor farmers and laborers ... the latter being, of course, almost the entire population ... are very poor and degraded, neither possessing or knowing anything of those comforts considered quite ordinary in protected countries among the laboring people.
A nation which protects itself against competition from the outside world, in order that wages may enable its own people to exist in comfort, is in the line of duty, just as a man who follows the biblical injunction
to provide for his own family.
Or in other fucking words, BORDERS ARE PART OF NATURE.
Labels: defensible spaces, Make or break
¶ 3:40 AM
