Ahhh, you say it yourself, education is a tool to control people. Therefore, education in such a scenario as you are postulating is an attempt ot change peopels minds and influence them. I was suggesting taht in this world, that always happens with the exploiters good in mind, you seemed to be arguing that it might be possible to have a totally unselfish country do it for the other countrys good, and moreover actually succeed. Which I have to concede might be possible, especially in a thought experiment. "Over time the culture will change, but it will be seen as a choice made by the people." But it wont have been made by the people, therefore the whole spiel is moot, if you think that people need to be able to control their own destiny as it were. As for money, nope, banks create money by lending it. Have you checked the amount of savings recently? Banks create debt, adn give you money, ie it comes out of nowhere, and is then treated as a real thing. If you dont believe me why are interest rates varied to control inflation? Anyhow, that was just a little digression , leading you towards the mechanisms of monetary colonialism, or imperialism, or whatever you want to call it. Except the way it works, you are the colony adn the bank is the imperial power.
It is a tool, but a self defeating one if people learn to think for themselves. But, as I said the choice would be seen as one made by the people, because it will have been. If a man becomes a doctor and learns of the advanced medical technologies available in the rest of the world, might he not want to bring those technologies to his people? If a Farmer learns of ways to increase crop production through irrigation and crop rotation, might he not want to make his farm more productive? What I am saying here is through education, people wil want to abandom older methods of doing things for new more industrialized methods, thus changing their society. Religious and ethinic ways will adapt to keep pace or be forgoten, but that is a choice that the people will make. This is akin to the way many educated people choose to abandon a 'God' for atheism. In doing so industry grinds forward. As generations come and go, old ways become forgotten and new ways discovered. Do the english still toil in small village fields with their lords sitting in castles somewhere, or do they get up and go to work in offices and factories? As far as banking goes, I mentioned the income produced by loans, but that isn't the only way banks make money. They do invest what people put into saving accounts. That is why if a population scares a withdrawals all the money that should be in the bank, it colapses. all the money isn't there. Ever. If money isn't kept in circulation it causes economic chaos. The less money circulating, the more it is worth in that economy. Basic supply and demand. The effect of this is that prices on goods and services drop, and the supply side loses money, and eventually close shop, less jobs more hording of cash. A depression. That is why interest rates fluctuate, to keep money circulating.
"If a man becomes a doctor and learns of the advanced medical technologies available in the rest of the world, might he not want to bring those technologies to his people? " But that has nothing to do with actual colonialism/ Imperialism. Many countries have sent people abroad to learn from other countries, indeed the USA does some good as host for many of them. You would agree that it is different from invading another country and forcibly educating them differently. "As generations come and go, old ways become forgotten and new ways discovered. Do the english still toil in small village fields with their lords sitting in castles somewhere, or do they get up and go to work in offices and factories? " Also sort of correct, but as usual, I dont recall the miners for example saying "please, we want to go and work in call centres instead" or something like that. PLus think bankers instead of lords and youll get a better picture. You are sort of right about banks, but teh point is that there is no direct link between what banks lend and what we have deposited with them. It was different when money was physcial gold, but now with paper and electronic money, there is no connection. If you have borrowed 10,000$ and your neighbour has deposited 10,000$ you dont owe it to him. Therefore, as you point out, there is never enough money in the bank to pay off the people with deposits, because ultimately, the bank has lent far more money than actually existed before. I cant be bothered trying to explain it all, but even Abraham Lincoln was for hte idea of debt free money creation, it seems. The whole point is that banks create unregulated amounts of money with debt attached, out of nothing, a practise that drives the economy adn individuals further and further into debt. How can hoarding of cash play a part in deflation etc when everyone is deep in debt? Look how much Japan is in debt, adn has deflation. Isnt deflation due more to prices falling due to too many products and producers trying to sell to a glutted market, and therefore unable to actually make much return on capital, but htey ahve to, becasue they are in debt up to theri eyeballs. Anyhow its late and im gonig to bed, ill try and explain better tommorrow or something. Suffice to say your not getting hte whole picture here, and go and muse on the connection between money, the need for markets, imperialism and colonies, and how colonies develop. I'm getting insufferable now, arent I?
Insufferable? Not really. I would suggest you read up on why the market crash caused the great depression in the twenties though. It is one of the main reasons that the FTC is what it is today. I wasn't sujesting forcibly educating anyone. The idea here is that if the education is available, then the ideas will flurish. Most people want to learn better ways of doing what they do. Show them those ways and they will want the means to do them. As far as your miners go, you are right they didn't. Of course as those other jobs became available, less people said "hey I want to go and bust my ass all day in a dangerous job when i can go and sit in a nice office and still get paid." Even if they never realize that goal, they will realize that with education their children might. The industrialization builds itself after a certain point. It just needs to be started.
Ahhh, see I know roughly why the great crash happened, the point about money being created by banks, leaving a trail of debt behind, is that that sort of thing helps create bubbles and hence crashes. As for teh miners, it does seem they were falsely decimated, which in itself helped rule out the climb up out of dangersous and difficult jobs that you are talking about, since it is that much harder to help your child do better at school and leave the mine behind when you and your entire village are unemployed. Many of the earlier children were working their way out of mining or taking opther jobs eg electrician, but killing the mining off like Thatcher did was stupid, it probably pushed things back. Oh yes, and were still not back onto colonisation, except of ideas, and in a sense I dont see anything wrong with that, you can have different ideas available and think about them but its much more your choise than if someone is pointing a gun at you. Or maybe we could take this onto Dawkins memes?
Truth be told, I know next to nothing about social reform, econiomics, politics, colonization, industrialization and history in general. I just have a base knowledge and some ideas about how things could and should be done. I was really arguing the case because nobody else was. I would like to think I did a good job of it too. Anyway, you totaly lost me on Dawkins memes. No clue what you are even talking about. If you would care to explain a bit, I will give it my all at refuting you there too. Also, i was going to mention we had kind of gotten off topic, but decided not to for some reason. If only I had opened my mouth perhaps my ignorance would have stayed my little secret, but oh well. Well met indeed guthrie.
Meme: A unit of cultural information, such as a cultural practice or idea, that is transmitted verbally or by repeated action from one mind to another. A qoute: "An idea is something you have; an ideology is something that has you." --Morris Berman Dawkins' theory is do do with the way people try to 'infect' and 'influence' others with their own ideas consider an idea is like a virus:
To all those who say the kilt was born from an english mill owner, can I say absolute rubbish! The kilt was never a kilt as such but a plaid and worn by scots and possibly even picts (despite their reputation for nudity) many centuries before the word mill was even considered a word. Cmon people, at least let your statements hold a semblence of historical fact.
Hail fellow, well met Mephura. Remember, not knowing your own ignorance is a dangerous thing. As for ben Nevis, I thought we had teh historical stuff correct. what exactly offends you about it?
