FOREWORD
“For money has been the ruin of many and has
misled the minds of Kings.”
Ecclesiacticus 8, Verse 2.
When I originally approached my study as best as
I might, dealing with the growth in pre-antiquity and antiquity of what is
known as the International Money Power, and the particular derivative of the
money creative activities of such International Money Power that might be
defined as the Life Alternative Factor, I did so with some diffidence.
Perhaps I was overly conscious of what seemed to
be the inadequateness of my preliminary training in these matters and that
in no way could I describe myself as deeply conversant with the languages of
ancient times, or, in the case of Mesopotamia, their scripts.
However, in my preliminary studies involving checking through the indices of
a number of those standard books of reference dealing with the ancient
civilizations, I soon found that any feelings of inferiority in so far as
the adequacy of my scholarship relative to my particular subject was
concerned were unwarranted, and that qualms in these respects were by no
means justified...
In almost all of such books of reference, except those that classified
themselves as economic or monetary histories, was practically no clear
approach to the subject of money and finance, or to those exchange systems
that must have existed in order that the so-called civilizations might come
to be. In the odd case where the translations of the texts might reveal some
key clue, no more special emphasis was placed herein than might have been
placed on the mention of a gold cup, a ring, a seal, or some exquisite piece
of stone work.
In Jastrow's Assyria there was no reference to money at all; in Breasted's
History of Egypt a volume of six hundred pages or so, only brief mention on
pages 97-98. In A History of Egypt by Sir William M. Flinders-Petrie, in the
records of Sir John Marshall and E.J.C. McKay in respect to the diggings at
Mohenjo-Daro, and in the writings of Sir Charles L. Woolley and others on
their findings from their studies of the exhumed archives of the city states
of ancient Mesopotamia, little enough information exists on the matters
referred to above.
In Christopher Dawson who wrote widely on
ancient times, particularly in the Age of the Gods which dealt with most
cultures until the commencement of that period known as antiquity, there is
only one reference to money, casual and not conveying much to the average
reader; this reference to be found on page 131... In King's History of
Babylon there was practically nothing on these matters.
Thus in almost all of the works of the great archaeologists and scholars
specializing in the ancient civilizations, there is a virtual silence on
that all important matter, the system of distribution of food surpluses, and
surpluses of all those items needed towards the maintenance of a good and
continuing life so far as were required by climate and custom.
In all the writings of these great and practical scholars, the workings of
that mighty engine which injects the unit of exchange amongst the peoples,
and without which no civilization as we know it can come to be, is only
indicated by a profound silence.
Of the systems of exchanges, of the unit of
exchange and its issue by private individuals, as distinct from its issue as
by the authority of sovereign rule, on this all important matter governing
in such totality the conditions of progression into the future of these
peoples, not a word to speak of...
While it is true that the average archaeologist, in being primarily
concerned with the results of the forces that gave rise to the human
accretions known as civilizations, has little enough time to meditate on
these forces themselves, especially since so little evidence exists of what
created them, or of how they provided guidance to men in the earlier days,
the widespread character of this omission borders on the mystifying.
Virtual failure to speculate on those most
important matters of all: the structure of the machinery of the systems of
exchanges which undoubtedly had given rise to the ancient city
civilizations, and the true nature of the energy source by which such
machinery was driven, whether by injections of money as known this last
three thousand years or so, or by injections of an exchange medium of which
little significant evidence or memory remains, is cause for concern.
The truth of the lines as quoted herein from
Boeckh's Public Economy of Athens (p.ii, present work) is immediately clear
to all and that the physical force underlying all civilizations must have
been the system whereby surpluses were allocated to the people according to
their place in the pyramid of life and to their need; thus, when being
controlled by the benevolent law of a dedicated ruler, maintaining at all
times the true and natural order of life.
It must not be supposed, therefore, that there is lack of understanding of
the importance of these matters; nor that there is any special conspiracy of
silence, even though there might indeed be temptation to arrive at such a
conclusion. (1)
Rather it were better to accept things as they
appear, and assume that these scholars merely present the fragments of fact
as they unearth them; leaving speculation of the true significance of such
fragments of fact in relation to the weft and warp of life, to those
considered to be particularly specialized in the various fields represented.
In the case of money and finance, the scholars concerned would be classified
as economic or monetary historians.
Thus little enough seems to be available on the subject of money and finance
in ancient days.
Nor seems to exist examination of the
significance of such money and finance relative to the progress about which
so much has been written in modern times. Apart from that of Alexander Del
Mar who wrote in relatively recent days, and apart from that of the
philosophers of antiquity such as Plato, Aristotle, Socrates, Zeno, etc.,
almost no speculation seems to be available from scholarly sources in
regards to the unprejudiced PHILOSOPHY of money, in ancient times.
On the all important subject of the consequences
of the creation and issuance of money by private persons as opposed to its
creation and issuance according to the will of a benevolent, instructed and
dedicated ruler, almost no speculation seems to exist in ancient or in
modern times.
Of those forces that sought throughout history
to undermine any ruler who may have been firmly in the saddle because of his
exercise of that prerogative which is the foundation of the State Power or
God-Will of which he is the living evincement, insomuch as he maintained
firm control of the original issuance of money and its injection into
circulation amongst the people as against State expenditures, almost nothing
seems to be known. Very little information is available of the means those
forces employed towards this purpose through injection into circulation
amongst the peoples of silver and gold, and of instruments indicating
possession of the same.
Practically no information seems to exist of the growth of private money
creation in the days of the ancient city states of Mesopotamia, of which,
because of their records being preserved on fire-baked clay, more is known
than of more recent civilizations; and the gap must necessarily be filled by
a certain amount of speculation.
Little is known of the beginnings of the
fraudulent issuance by private persons of the unit of exchange, as in
opposition to the law of the gods from whom kings in ancient times claimed
to derive their divine origin; nor is there any information on the
significance of such practice relative to the continued stability of the
natural order of life in which obtained that system wherein the fount of all
power was the God; such power descending to man by way of king and
priesthood and directing him as he proceeded about his everyday affairs,
content that God's in His Heaven and all's right with the world.
The use of tools of hardened iron in the mining industry about the beginning
of the first millennium B.C., together with a changed attitude towards slave
labour in which the slave, so far as mining was concerned, was assessed at
cost per life, must have brought relatively a very flood of silver into the
circulation of the cities of the Near East.
Such flood of silver injected into the circulation largely by private
business houses who no doubt controlled the mines, however distant,
especially after the institution of coinage in which a piece of silver of
known weight and fineness passed from hand to hand, must finally and forever
have broken that control of exchanges previously exercised by the god of the
city through priest king, and priest.
Thus all, priest-kings and priests, came to forget that the foundations of
the power given to them from on High towards the maintenance of the right
living and tranquil procession through life, of their peoples, were the laws
of distribution of surpluses as written on the scribes tablet; laws
instituted by the god himself each ordering a specified dispensation from
the surpluses in his warehouses in the Ziggurat, to the holder of the
tablet.
They too fell into the error of believing that
silver with value created as a result of its being used as a balancing
factor in international exchange could become a perpetual storehouse of
value... They themselves became consumed in the scramble for this gleaming
metal, so conceding it, through its controllers the power to set itself up
in opposition to the law of the gods; to raise itself up in its own right,
god in itself.
In its exercise, the fiat of the internationally minded group of merchants
or bullion brokers that arbitrarily dictated the exchange value of such
silver, being in actuality determination internationally of the value of
money, placed such groups controlling silver exchanges above and beyond
local law and the law of the local god, and indeed conferred on them the
power to influence kingly appointment.
It made of them the servants of a one god, a god
above all gods; thereby somewhat relegating the god whose order on the state
warehouses as inscribed on clay by scribe or priest, had been the law
governing exchanges, to the place of their servant, the instrument...
"I have however, kept before me as a guiding
principle, in this as other historical works I have written, the maxim
that the complexity of life should never be forgotten, and that no
single feature should be regarded as basic and decisive", (2)
wrote Professor Rostovtsev, scholar and Economic Historian of renown.
It is true that while no single feature in the
progression of history might be regarded as basic and decisive, it is
certain that neither money nor treasure will protect the weak and disarmed
in the face of a brutal and determined conqueror beyond whose successful
achievements, can be no decision more final.
It is also certain that the money accumulation
mania injected by fame into the minds of the people as a replacement to
their concern with those natural qualities endeavoring to color the current
of human life through time, amongst which are numbered virtue, honor, and
godliness, destroys equally as any other debilitating disease, and will
surely and speedily drag any people down to degeneracy and decay... A great
army could not be more efficient in its power of destruction.
The main discussion of the Artha-Sastra of Kautilya, Hindu classic
instructing kings and rulers as to their proper conduct towards good
government, was as to whether financial or military organization came first
of all as the root of strength and power in any organized state. (3)
Clearly in that day no less than in this day, financial organization
preceded military organization; therefore there is not much point really in
discussion of so obvious a fact and truth.
While an effete people, though money as it is known, is in their hands, soon
give way to vigor; nevertheless vigor, without strict organization of its
finances, which, while constituting strict organization of its labour, also
enables it to create, or to obtain by purchase from elsewhere the finest of
weapons, will not much avail... Thus, and it has been demonstrated through
history over and over again, it is clear there is one feature basic and
decisive in the progression of human life; certainly during the latter years
of which memory exists.
That feature, particularly in relatively modern
societies from the bronze age onwards, and during that period of the rapid
perfection of the mass production of weapons, is monetary organization, and
what precious metals are available for purposes of international exchange as
against.
The purchase of those finest of weapons and
essential materials of war only obtainable abroad, and as wages for the most
skilled men at arms from wherever obtainable, abroad or otherwise...
The gates of Egypt stand fast like
Inmutet
They open not to the Westerners
They open not to the Easterners
They open not to the Northerners
They open not to the Southerners
They open not to the enemy who dwells
within (4)
Much of history as we know it is the record of
civilizations to counter and evade destruction of themselves from without or
within, or is the record of their efforts to destroy other seemingly
competing civilizations or peoples attacking them from without or within.
War is as inevitable as is peace as the result of the exhaustion of war, and
there are few peoples that escape; but wars of the last three thousand years
have not been relatively infrequent occurrences, and have been an
incessantly recurring evil... It is no chance that; the growth of warfare
into a very cancer eating into the vitals of mankind, and more particularly
the white races is parallel to the growth of that other cancer which is
private, and therefore irresponsible, money creation and emission...
It seems that almost none of the scholars make any serious effort to throw
light on the real meaning of this matter of private monetary emission, and
the disastrous effects that it has had, and in finality, will have, towards
the defining of the remaining period of time of man upon this earth, as
being brief and uncertain.
Those strange decisions of kings signaling the opening of wars as frightful
and disastrous to the European peoples, as the last two so-called "World
Wars," decisions so abnegatory of self, but more than that, abnegatory of
the best interests of the peoples they represented before God, far from
being the directives of benevolent force, are the directives of a force
which cannot but be described in any way but as being wholly malevolent.
(5)
The great engine which is the international control of monetary emission and
regulation, driven as it was until recently by the catalytic fuel of gold
alone, is now almost world embracing in the scope of its operations. It
seems there is no change in the attitude of those its guides, nor any
admission of the folly of their misuse of this God-Power which they direct
towards the good of themselves and their friends.
Their obsession, despite ruin for all looming on
every horizon, seems to remain the same narrow vision of the day of their
own world supremacy wherein they will rule as absolute lords over all;
although by now it should be apparent to them, no less than to all thinking
people, that if this madness concealed within the much talked about
conception known as progress is not brought to a complete arrestment,
nothing remains but an end wherein shall be silence and no song, for indeed
there will be no singer, nor any to sing to . . .
As it looks today, it may be the end for the Indo-European peoples whose
diligent labours made so much of this world of today... It may be the end,
final and absolute for all men for that matter... it may be the end for this
our Earth, our only place and home and hope in the awful endlessness of
space and time...
It should be more than apparent that in the relatively recent day when
kingship and god-ship were one, so far as the simple souls were concerned,
and the god and his viceroy on earth, the priest-king, were creators and
controllers of the economic good, exchanges were created in order that the
people might live a fuller life, and not so much to benefit any secret
society or interlocked group standing aside from the main paths of mankind,
but to benefit all who kneeled humbly before the Almighty, each fully in
acceptance of himself as part of the god-wish, eternal and infinite; each
one in his time an integral unit carefully placed in the pyramid of life
itself.
History over these last three thousand years particularly, has largely been
the interweaving of both a witting, and an unwitting distortion of the
truth, with all the inevitable consequences which have been expected
(6) and now are but a little way ahead.
Kings largely became the mouthpiece and sword
arm of those semi-secret societies that controlled the material of money as
its outward and visible symbols came to be restricted to gold, silver, and
copper...
The fiat of the god in heaven which had been the
decisive force behind that which brought about an equitable exchange, was
replaced by the will of those classes controlling the undertones of
civilization, leaders of the world of slave drivers, caravaneers, outcasts,
and criminals generally, such as was to be discerned on the edges of the
ancient city civilizations, and followed the trade routes between them...
The instrument of this will was precious metal,
whose supply was controlled by the leaders of these classes through their
control of the slave trade, since mining was rarely profitable in the case
of the precious metals, except with slave labour, even after the development
of hardened iron tools and efficient methods of smelting.
The power of these men, indifferent and alien to most cities as they were,
relative to that power it was replacing, which was the will of the
benevolent god of the city, had been made absolute by sowing in the minds of
men over the thousands of years, the idea of such metals having a specially
high value relative to other goods and services being offered for exchange;
indeed that they were veritable store house of value.
The law of the ruler previously exercised towards the well being of the
people in that they might live a good and honorable life accordingly became
corrupted. It became merely a symbol raised before their gaze, in order that
they might not look down and see the evil gnawing away at the roots of the
Tree of Life itself, destroying all peace and goodness.
Nor could those semi-secret groups of persons be
seen who so often were the sources of such evil. In their contemptuous
indifference to the men of the state who found meaningfulness and
tranquility through life lived in natural order under the law of the King,
they constituted hidden force deeply inimical to the best interests of
mankind.
Through stealthy issue of precious metal commodity money into circulation
amongst the peoples, replacing that money which represented the fiat or will
of the god of the city and which was merely an order on the state warehouses
through his scribes, this internationally minded group from the secrecy of
their chambers were able to make a mockery of the faith and belief of simple
people.
The line of communication from god to man
through priest-king and priest was cut, being replaced by their own twisted
purposes such as they were; not however guiding mankind into the heaven that
could have been and where all would be life, and light. and hope, but into
such a hell as to escape from which men might gladly come to accept the idea
of Mass Suicide...
My sincere acknowledgements are due to :
-
Professor Fritz Heichelheim, and
Sijthoff International Publishing Company, Leyden, for their very
kind permission to use the short extracts from Professor
Heichelheim's work: An Ancient Economic History.
-
Professor W.F. Albright, and Cambridge
University Press for their very kind permission to use the short
extracts from Professor Albright's work The Amarna Letters from
Palestine; the same being found in Volume II of the Cambridge
Ancient History.
-
G.R. Driver and John C. Miles, and the
Clarendon Press, Oxford, for their very kind permission to use the
rendering of
Hammurabai's Law No. 7, as given by G.R. Driver and
John C. Miles in their joint work: Ancient Codes and Laws of the
Near East.
-
Dr. T.B.L. Webster and Messrs. Methuen
Publications for their very kind permission to use the short
extracts from Dr. Webster's work: From Mycenae to Homer.
-
Sir Charles Leonard Woolley and Messrs.
Faber & Faber Ltd. for their very kind permission to use the short
extracts from Sir Charles Leonard Woolley's work: Abraham.
-
Sir Charles Leonard Woolley and Messrs.
Ernest Benn for their very kind permission to use the short extracts
from Sir Charles Leonard Woolley's work: Excavations at Ur.
-
Christopher Dawson & John Murray
Publishing House for their kind permission to use an extract from
Christopher Dawson's work: The Age of the Gods.
-
Dr William Langer and The Houghton
Mifflin Company for their very kind permission to use the short
extracts from the Encyclopaedia of World History.
-
Dr. Charles Seltsman and the Associated
Book Publishers for their very kind permission to use the short
extracts from Greek Coins.
My sincere acknowledgements are also due to all
those friends and acquaintances who in any way have assisted me in the
present work.
References
1. According to Tragedy and Hope, the
important and compendious work of Dr. Carroll Quigley, an outstanding
scholar of liberal outlook, (as interpreted by the reviewer, W. Cleon
Skousen), such conspiracy certainly exists, and is vast in scope to say
the least.
2. Mikhail I. Rostovtsev: A Social and Economic History of the
Hellenistic World, p. viii, Vol. I. (Oxford; 1941).
3. Sarvepalli Radhakrishnan and Charles Moore: A Source Book in Indian
Philosophy, pp 219-220. Princeton; 1957.
4. Ancient Egyptian Poem; Christopher Dawson: The Age of the Gods, p.
148.
5. For example, the folly of Britain in letting itself and the Empire be
stamped into these last two so-called "Great" wars, may be compared to
that of the man described by the Emperor Augustus who goes fishing with
a golden hook; he has everything to lose and little to gain. (Suetonius:
the Twelve Caesars II,25)
6. Much of this was foretold in the Revelation of St. John the Divine.
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