Reading Notes

- A few examples of how capitalism works and why:- “British Railway construction in Argentina was dramatic – from 1000 kilometres in 1871 to 12 000 kilometres two decades later, but entirely commercial in motivation: to move wheat and meat to ports.”-

“The effort to ensure a plentiful supply caused bloody conflict as one European country after another sought to establish monopolies over the produce of India’s Malabar coast (pepper, ginger), Sri Lanka (cinnamon)…”i.e. economic causes for war.-

“The meat-packing industry made beef an everyday luxury, but there was nothing benevolent about these butchers. Chicago became the world’s largest concentration of industrial capital, mass production, and human misery.” (see also Upton Sinclair’s ‘The Jungle”).-

“Every tonne of sugar consumed in Europe came at the cost of one slave’s life.”-

“In Mexico, the pre-conquest population of five to ten million was just 1.6 million in 1618. In the future United States, the native population shrank from two million in 1500 to 750 000 in 1700 and just 325 000 in 1830.” No wonder the Indian T-shirt says, “Fighting Terrorism Since 1492”. All the above come from “A Brief History of Globalization”, by AlexMacGillivray.
John Ayers