Capitalism - a brief recap

East India Company (1600's - 1800's):

Special business entity established by England, Holland, and France in the seventeenth to nineteenth centuries for the trading and colonization of India/South East Asia. The British East India Company, for instance, created a trade monopoly and colonized India.

Opium War (1840-1842):

A war started by England against China's Qing dynasty because of China's ban on the trading of opium. The Qing dynasty enforced a strict ban on opium because opium addiction, along with the outflow of silver, became serious problems. England initiated the war to break the barriers of diplomacy and trade through the use of military force and won. The two countries signed the Nanking Treaty, giving way to the free trade system. Hong Kong was handed over to England and five ports, including Shanghai, were opened.

Te Tiriti – (The Treaty of Waitangi) - (1840) : 'nuff said.

Colonisation of NZ by the NZ Company – 1830’s:

While in prison Wakefield (Edward Gibbon) read a number of books on economics and social ideas, and worked out his theory on colonisation. In his writing he used language which some people say showed his remorse over his past behaviour, but which more likely was deliberately used so that he would be respectable again once he was released from prison.

In 1830 Wakefield and others formed the National Colonization Society to win official support for his colonisation theory.

He helped set up the New Zealand Association, which later became the New Zealand Company. The first organised attempt at settlement was of Wellington, under the leadership of his brother William, in1839.

After the death of his brother Arthur in the Wairau ‘affray’ of June 1843, Wakefield had to …

Wairau Massacre (1843) :

On 17 June 1843 a party of 50 Europeans, led by Arthur Wakefield, walked into the Wairau Valley from Nelson. They tried to arrest Te Rauparaha and another Maori chief, Rangihaeata, on a flimsy charge of arson from when a survey party had tried to survey disputed land in the Wairau Valley. The European claim to the land was based on a false deed of sale, which the Maori owners had been tricked into signing. …


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and, people they were only just getting started !!



[1] http://www.itoen.com/teainfo/history/history_europe.php

[3] http://library.christchurch.org.nz/Childrens/EarlyChristchurch/EdwardGibbonWakefield.asp

[4]
https://answers.google.com/answers/main?cmd=threadview&id=57805
http://www.promethea.org/Misc_Compositions/PrometheanCapitalism/Fascism.html

It goes right back to Caesar

As far as I can tell, this stuff goes all the way back to Julius
Caesar: sidelining of the democractic process, abrogation of the
constitution, institution of permanent war. Does any
of this ring a bell ?

How about violation of the Geneva convention, or
the scapegoating and persecution of a minority group?

We should know this stuff by now !

I mean. Hitler. Pinochet. World War II...

1984. A Brave New World. War and Peace - especially the war bit.

And you know the scary thing ?

Whats scary is that they say that in Germany in 1936 it was
easy to believe in peace and the future. They lived in a Republic
after all, with strict laws regarding what the government could
and could not do, and all looked well.

And yet, as is the way with these things, by the time they started to
come for your neighbours in the night, by the time people started
to get scared - by then it was too late.

You see it takes a lot of courage to open your eyes and see
what is happening, and I dont mean courage in the face of others.

Rather you need courage to question your own perceptions,
because nobody wants to believe that their beloved have gone astray. The cheater's lover is always the last to realise.

Please God, wake me up and tell me I'm dreaming.