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Yves right here. In a departure from our ordinary programming, under is the promotional materials for Michael Hudson’s latest ebook, The Collapse of Antiquity. Get pleasure from!
The Collapse of Antiquity, the sequel to Michael’s “…and forgive them their money owed,” is the second and newest ebook in his trilogy on the historical past of debt. It describes how the dynamics of interest-bearing debt led to the rise of rentier oligarchies in classical Greece and Rome, inflicting financial polarization, widespread austerity, revolts, wars and finally the collapse of Rome into serfdom and feudalism. That collapse bequeathed to subsequent Western civilization a pro-creditor authorized philosophy that has led to right now’s creditor oligarchies.
In telling this story, The Collapse of Antiquity reveals the eery parallels between the collapsing Roman world and right now’s debt-burdened Western economies.
Endorsements
“On this monumental work, Michael Hudson overturns what most of us have been taught about Athens and Sparta, Greece and Rome, Caesar and Cicero, certainly about kings and republics. He exposes the roots of recent debt peonage and crises within the greed and violence of antiquity’s oligarch-creditors, embedded of their legal guidelines, which ultimately destroyed the civilizations of classical antiquity.”
– James Okay. Galbraith, writer of Welcome to the Poisoned Chalice: The Destruction of Greece and the Way forward for Europe.
“On this fascinating ebook, Hudson explores the rise of the predatory rentier oligarchies of classical Greece and Rome. He makes an enchanting and persuasive case that the entice of debt led to the destruction of the peasantry, the states and finally even these civilizations.”
– Martin Wolf, Chief Economics Commentator, Monetary Occasions.
“Michael Hudson is an old-fashioned, Nineteenth-century classical economist who places reality earlier than concept. To learn his new ebook, The Collapse of Antiquity, is to be taught why and the way it has come to go that we reside in a world through which the cash owns the individuals, not the individuals who personal the cash. The readability of Hudson’s thought is like water in a desert, his historical past lesson subsequently a tragic story that could be a pleasure to learn.”
– Lewis Lapham, editor of Lapham’s Quarterly.
Scope
The Collapse of Antiquity is huge in its sweep, masking:
- the transmission of interest-bearing debt from the Historical Close to East to the Mediterranean world, however with out the “security valve” of periodic royal Clear Slate debt cancellations to revive financial steadiness and stop the emergence of creditor oligarchies;
- the rise of creditor and landholding oligarchies in classical Greece and Rome;
- classical antiquity’s debt crises and revolts, and the suppression, assassination and finally failure of reformers;
- the position performed by greed, money-lust (wealth-addiction) and hubris, as analysed by Socrates, Plato, Aristotle and different historic writers;
- Rome’s “Finish Time” collapse into serfdom and pro-creditor oligarchic legacy that continues to form the West;
- the transformation of Christianity because it grew to become Rome’s state faith, supporting the oligarchy, dropping the revolutionary early Christian requires debt cancellation and altering the that means of the Lord’s Prayer and “sin,” from a concentrate on the financial sphere to the private sphere of particular person egotism;
- how pro-creditor ideology distorts current financial interpretations of antiquity, exhibiting growing sympathy with Rome’s oligarchic insurance policies.
From Backcover
Rome’s collapse was the forerunner of the debt crises, financial polarization and austerity brought on by subsequent Western oligarchies. The West’s pro-creditor legal guidelines and beliefs inherited from Rome make repeated debt crises transferring management of property and authorities to monetary oligarchies inevitable. Classical antiquity’s nice transition to the fashionable world lay in changing kingship not with democracies however with oligarchies having a pro-creditor authorized philosophy. That philosophy permits collectors to attract wealth, and thereby political energy, into their very own fingers, with out regard for restoring financial steadiness and long-term viability as occurred within the Historical Close to East by way of Clear Slates. Rome’s legacy to subsequent Western civilization is thus the construction of creditor oligarchies, not democracy within the sense of social buildings and insurance policies that promote widespread prosperity.
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