by Terry 23 Replies latest members politics
Any economy without the correct philosophy as its base will fail. Without a philosophy of individual rights, individual control and individual freedom of asset use---no economy can succeed.
That is why the west overtook Islamic based societies resulting in humiliation and the situation we are in today
This is something we were never taught in the Troof, we always targeted enough to live and then go in service, no thought was given to our future.
It is one of the biggest hurdles ex-jw's face, retiement and preoviding for your future when you will not be able to work as you do now. As in my case, just the IRA money I missed out on would be worth over a half million today...if my parents had only known...
Terry, where may I ask did you get the following information from?
Huh?
T.
Your post was pretty good. But I have a few problems with the follow up.
Terry
"Native Americans were living at about the same level of existence as Stone Age Neanderthals!"
Ever heard of the Mississipian cultures Terry? They weren't hunter/gatherers. They developed rather sophisticated cultures and there is no telling what they would have become economically if they had not been wiped out by diseases brought to the continent by early white explorers/traders.
Terry
"They could not even produce metal!"
Excuse me! And what were the copper artifacts found in many places made out of native copper from Michigan? Although they did not yet know how to extract metal from many ores, they did know how to make things out of copper. They were entering an early copper age!
Terry
"The women were the slaves who served the needs of the men from dawn to dusk, living short and miserable lives."
While that might have been true with some groups, many if not most were Matriarchal societies. The five nations of the Iroquois Confederacy being a prime example. Women held the real power in that society, not men.
Terry
"The banding together as a "nation" came from the utter necessity of facing off against a common enemy who was implacable: the white man."
See my first answer in this post again.
Terry
"When the white man arrived the "Indians" marvelled at them because of the miraculous advancement of technology in metals,"
I'll give you that one, but the rest of that paragraph is questionable. Remember that the first communities of whites to survive their first year on this continent generally did so because their so called "primitive" neighbors taught them how and generously gave out of their own abundant surpluses. And before they were decimated by disease they were no worse organized than continental Europeans. Most of the hunter/gatherer societies lived in lands that were, and still are marginal in its ability to support human populations. Even then the native Americans had a trade network going and were well on there way to rectifying that situation.
Terry
"There were approximately 10 million "Indians" on this continent. Yet, they were unorganized until it was too late for them. White men knew how to exploit the soil for rich crops in a way unknown to the native Americans. White men "owned" land because they could live off it permanently in a way the "Indians" had no conception of. (Nomads are force to drift)."
See my foregoing points.
Terry
"In short, the economic advantages of the whites had given them an advancement light years beyond the poverty level of the indigenous tribes."
It is true that the Europeans were more advanced in technology, Science, and economic developement. But give the Indians their due. On the North American continent they had some pretty sophisticated nations that were way beyond Nomadic living. In fact, many of the mississipian cultures produce a surplus of food and goods that were traded. They had a trading system that brought goods both North and South as far as from the Northern peninsula in Michigan to southern Florida. I am not sure how far the system went from east to west. They were entering an early copper age. Women had a much better position in the more developed nations than did their European counterparts.
I do not deny that the Europeans were more advanced technologically than the Native Americans and the outcome would not have been different in the end. However, the situation was not primitive as you alledge and the conquest was much easier because the early explorers brought diseases that the Indians had no immunity or defense against. Those diseases wiped out the great civilizations of the Mississipian culture and brought the remnants down to much lower level as attested to by the historical record. Even then not all of the survivors were reduced to the hunter/gatherer lifestyle as attested to by the existance of the Creek, Cherokee, Iroquois, and many other "tribes".
And that is not even mentioning the great civilizations of Mesoamerica and South America! Again, disease was what really brought those nations crashing down! It usually went ahead of the conquistadores or arrived with them and saved their hairy butts!
By the way, I do have a grasp of how an economy works. my wife is a business major and I often read the material she has to know and generally do what I can to help her in her studies.
Forscher
