1 00:00:04,920 --> 00:00:08,640 Speaker 1: Welcome to Dick It Happened Here podcast about things being 2 00:00:08,680 --> 00:00:14,040 Speaker 1: absolutely atrocious. I'm your host, Meo Ball, and today we're 3 00:00:14,040 --> 00:00:17,239 Speaker 1: going to do something a little different. Instead of our 4 00:00:17,320 --> 00:00:20,680 Speaker 1: normal sort of escapades through the torment and the sort 5 00:00:20,720 --> 00:00:24,040 Speaker 1: of crumbles of the modern world, We're going to take 6 00:00:24,079 --> 00:00:27,680 Speaker 1: a step back into history to trace through the history 7 00:00:27,800 --> 00:00:31,600 Speaker 1: and class psychology of a kind of guy who is 8 00:00:31,600 --> 00:00:35,360 Speaker 1: a recurring character in the history of North America and 9 00:00:35,600 --> 00:00:38,360 Speaker 1: who are responsible, to a greater extent than you think 10 00:00:38,560 --> 00:00:42,960 Speaker 1: for some of the worst atrocities this world has ever seen. Now, 11 00:00:43,159 --> 00:00:47,800 Speaker 1: I hesitate to use the word class as a way 12 00:00:47,800 --> 00:00:51,559 Speaker 1: to actually describe these people, because the people were going 13 00:00:51,600 --> 00:00:55,680 Speaker 1: to be talking about are from completely different economies, completely 14 00:00:55,720 --> 00:01:00,320 Speaker 1: different class structures, completely different systems of production. So we're 15 00:01:00,320 --> 00:01:05,720 Speaker 1: sticking with the loose term kind of guy. And this 16 00:01:05,800 --> 00:01:08,000 Speaker 1: kind of guy is a kind of guy that I 17 00:01:08,080 --> 00:01:12,480 Speaker 1: have termed the debtor slaver. Now this, at first glance, 18 00:01:12,680 --> 00:01:16,720 Speaker 1: this this is a confusing term. My word processor, at 19 00:01:16,720 --> 00:01:19,480 Speaker 1: the very least, gets very very angry with me every 20 00:01:19,480 --> 00:01:21,759 Speaker 1: time I try to write it and insist that no, no, no, 21 00:01:22,040 --> 00:01:26,440 Speaker 1: I must in fact mean debtor slave. But no, I 22 00:01:26,480 --> 00:01:30,080 Speaker 1: do not mean debtor slave. What I'm actually referring to 23 00:01:30,240 --> 00:01:33,560 Speaker 1: as a kind of guy who is both hopelessly in 24 00:01:33,640 --> 00:01:37,600 Speaker 1: debt and also in command of enormous economic abilitary resources, 25 00:01:38,000 --> 00:01:41,640 Speaker 1: most often slaves. To get a sense of what I'm 26 00:01:41,680 --> 00:01:44,240 Speaker 1: talking about here, we're going to start with the archetypical 27 00:01:44,319 --> 00:01:51,120 Speaker 1: debtor slaver, her Nan Cortes. Her name Cortes is, by 28 00:01:51,160 --> 00:01:55,600 Speaker 1: all reputable accounts, an enormous piece of ship. A broke 29 00:01:55,680 --> 00:01:59,720 Speaker 1: noble born in Spain in five Cortes managed to parlay 30 00:01:59,720 --> 00:02:02,840 Speaker 1: an inn initially successful career as a sort of adventurer 31 00:02:03,680 --> 00:02:06,480 Speaker 1: into a slave plantation in Cuba after he helped after 32 00:02:06,520 --> 00:02:10,600 Speaker 1: he helped conquer the island in fifteen eleven. From there, 33 00:02:10,800 --> 00:02:13,360 Speaker 1: through a combination of I shore you know this is 34 00:02:13,360 --> 00:02:15,960 Speaker 1: this is actually what the historical records say about him. 35 00:02:16,720 --> 00:02:20,720 Speaker 1: Wearing too many gold chains and spending too much money 36 00:02:20,720 --> 00:02:25,200 Speaker 1: on his wife, his finances imploded and he fell into debt. 37 00:02:26,200 --> 00:02:28,799 Speaker 1: This led him to embark on his infamous conquest of 38 00:02:28,880 --> 00:02:33,040 Speaker 1: Mexican attempt to pay office creditors. Here, I'm going to 39 00:02:33,160 --> 00:02:36,400 Speaker 1: turn to the work of the anthropologist David Graber. Rest 40 00:02:36,440 --> 00:02:42,480 Speaker 1: in Peace, Smissy Buddy. Graver describes the absolute horror of 41 00:02:42,880 --> 00:02:47,040 Speaker 1: entire population sold into slavery slaves with faces covered in 42 00:02:47,080 --> 00:02:51,000 Speaker 1: brands indicating who they've been bought and sold by, entire 43 00:02:51,120 --> 00:02:55,400 Speaker 1: populations worked to death, and minds empires drained of wealth 44 00:02:55,440 --> 00:02:57,920 Speaker 1: by men whose lust for gold and silver seemed to 45 00:02:58,000 --> 00:03:02,160 Speaker 1: know no end. And he somehow, both Cortes and his 46 00:03:02,240 --> 00:03:04,320 Speaker 1: men seemed to have come out of the other end 47 00:03:04,800 --> 00:03:08,840 Speaker 1: of one of the most important conquests in human history 48 00:03:09,480 --> 00:03:14,640 Speaker 1: completely broke. Now it's easier to explain how Cortes as 49 00:03:14,720 --> 00:03:17,200 Speaker 1: men came out of this broke. They came out of 50 00:03:17,240 --> 00:03:21,480 Speaker 1: his broke because Cortes and his officers were extorting and 51 00:03:21,560 --> 00:03:24,480 Speaker 1: robbing them mercilessly at literally every step of the campaign, 52 00:03:24,880 --> 00:03:29,000 Speaker 1: by charging them utterly exorbitant prices for everything from bandages 53 00:03:29,120 --> 00:03:32,480 Speaker 1: to like having to buy their own weapons, which were 54 00:03:32,520 --> 00:03:35,040 Speaker 1: being sold by guests who Cortez and his officers who 55 00:03:35,120 --> 00:03:37,520 Speaker 1: had to sort of cabal going on with everyone who 56 00:03:37,560 --> 00:03:42,200 Speaker 1: could sell things. And once the conquest was done, Cortes 57 00:03:42,320 --> 00:03:44,720 Speaker 1: as officers simply seized most of the share of the 58 00:03:44,840 --> 00:03:47,440 Speaker 1: loot from their menness payment for all of the stuff 59 00:03:47,480 --> 00:03:50,800 Speaker 1: that they needed. And I mentioned this not to inspire 60 00:03:50,840 --> 00:03:54,560 Speaker 1: sympathy for the conquistadors like these are These are some 61 00:03:54,640 --> 00:03:56,640 Speaker 1: of the worst human beings who have ever lived, and 62 00:03:56,880 --> 00:04:00,200 Speaker 1: managing to somehow lose money on one of the most 63 00:04:00,200 --> 00:04:02,640 Speaker 1: brutal sackings of a city in human history is like 64 00:04:02,720 --> 00:04:10,160 Speaker 1: the least of the punishment they deserve. But on the 65 00:04:10,240 --> 00:04:13,800 Speaker 1: other hand, their debt and the debt of Cortez himself, 66 00:04:15,200 --> 00:04:19,599 Speaker 1: goes a long way to explain what happened next. Here's graper. 67 00:04:20,560 --> 00:04:22,960 Speaker 1: These were the men who ended up in control of 68 00:04:23,000 --> 00:04:28,360 Speaker 1: the provinces and who established local administration, taxes and labor regimes, 69 00:04:29,400 --> 00:04:32,440 Speaker 1: which makes it a little easier to understand the descriptions 70 00:04:32,440 --> 00:04:35,240 Speaker 1: of Indians with their faces covered by names, like so 71 00:04:35,279 --> 00:04:39,400 Speaker 1: many counter endorsed checks, with the mind surrounded by miles 72 00:04:39,400 --> 00:04:44,360 Speaker 1: of rotting corpses. We are not dealing with psychology of cold, 73 00:04:44,480 --> 00:04:48,719 Speaker 1: calculating greed, but a more complicated mix of shame and 74 00:04:48,839 --> 00:04:53,320 Speaker 1: righteous indignation, and of the frantic urgency of debts that 75 00:04:53,360 --> 00:04:58,880 Speaker 1: would only compound and accumulate. These were almost certainly interest 76 00:04:58,920 --> 00:05:03,240 Speaker 1: bearing loans in the outrage at the idea that, after 77 00:05:03,279 --> 00:05:05,919 Speaker 1: all they had gone through, they should be held to 78 00:05:06,000 --> 00:05:10,159 Speaker 1: owe anything to begin with. Now this is the sort 79 00:05:10,200 --> 00:05:14,200 Speaker 1: of trademark psychology of the debtor slaver. It's an incredibly 80 00:05:14,320 --> 00:05:20,400 Speaker 1: toxic mix of shame, indignation, outrage, and desperation that breathes 81 00:05:20,440 --> 00:05:25,159 Speaker 1: an incredible kind of violence and is determined in large 82 00:05:25,200 --> 00:05:29,480 Speaker 1: part by the conditions of modern compound debt itself. Here's 83 00:05:29,480 --> 00:05:34,320 Speaker 1: Graver again. Money always has the potential to become a 84 00:05:34,360 --> 00:05:38,440 Speaker 1: moral imperative one to itself, allow it to expand, and 85 00:05:38,480 --> 00:05:41,400 Speaker 1: it can quickly become a morality so imperative that all 86 00:05:41,520 --> 00:05:46,240 Speaker 1: others seem frivolous in comparison. For the debtor, the world 87 00:05:46,400 --> 00:05:50,160 Speaker 1: is reduced to a collection of potential dangers, potential tools, 88 00:05:50,240 --> 00:05:55,719 Speaker 1: and potential merchandise. Even human relationships become a matter of 89 00:05:55,760 --> 00:06:00,960 Speaker 1: cost benefit calculation. Clearly, this is the way they conquistadors 90 00:06:01,040 --> 00:06:06,120 Speaker 1: viewed the worlds that they set out to conquer. Now 91 00:06:06,160 --> 00:06:08,960 Speaker 1: it doesn't take long until not only human relations but 92 00:06:09,160 --> 00:06:14,400 Speaker 1: human beings themselves become a matter of cost benefit calculation, 93 00:06:14,720 --> 00:06:19,520 Speaker 1: a set of merchandise that value could be extracted from, 94 00:06:19,560 --> 00:06:28,440 Speaker 1: And here emerges the debtor slaver. Now, very clearly, all 95 00:06:28,520 --> 00:06:32,320 Speaker 1: debtors do not behave like this. In fact, almost all 96 00:06:32,400 --> 00:06:36,480 Speaker 1: debtors across all places and all times. Do not behave 97 00:06:36,520 --> 00:06:38,479 Speaker 1: this way, or the world would be a place that 98 00:06:38,520 --> 00:06:41,120 Speaker 1: makes even how we live in now look like a paradise. 99 00:06:43,080 --> 00:06:46,080 Speaker 1: There's another factor at work here that distinguishes the debtor 100 00:06:46,160 --> 00:06:51,279 Speaker 1: from the debtor slaver, and that's power. The debder slaver 101 00:06:51,440 --> 00:06:57,279 Speaker 1: already wields or has wielded, enormous power over other people, 102 00:06:58,080 --> 00:07:02,680 Speaker 1: either through direct violence or, as we'll see later, through 103 00:07:02,680 --> 00:07:06,240 Speaker 1: the command of economic power. This is one of the 104 00:07:06,279 --> 00:07:10,720 Speaker 1: products of the righteous indignation Grapery described earlier. These are 105 00:07:10,760 --> 00:07:13,360 Speaker 1: people who are used to wielding power, who are suddenly 106 00:07:13,360 --> 00:07:16,720 Speaker 1: now beholden in a real and immediate way to someone else, 107 00:07:19,040 --> 00:07:21,920 Speaker 1: and so they set about solving the problem the way 108 00:07:22,000 --> 00:07:27,960 Speaker 1: they've solved everything else in their life, throwing violence at it. Now, 109 00:07:28,680 --> 00:07:32,040 Speaker 1: if you've been paying attention closely, you might realize that 110 00:07:32,080 --> 00:07:35,640 Speaker 1: I've actually been describing two different sort of ranks of 111 00:07:35,720 --> 00:07:39,680 Speaker 1: debtor slaves who sort of fuse into one mass and 112 00:07:39,760 --> 00:07:47,520 Speaker 1: quartets conquissadors on the lower end, the people who kind 113 00:07:47,520 --> 00:07:51,520 Speaker 1: of loosely be called adventurers, essentially a kind of mercenary 114 00:07:51,720 --> 00:07:54,600 Speaker 1: out for a big score. Be that slaves be that 115 00:07:54,720 --> 00:07:59,080 Speaker 1: land be that stolen loot that could vault them out 116 00:07:59,080 --> 00:08:01,920 Speaker 1: of debton into the aristocracy. This is the sort of 117 00:08:02,280 --> 00:08:06,840 Speaker 1: build general military base of the conquistador army itself. On 118 00:08:06,920 --> 00:08:10,840 Speaker 1: the higher end of people like Cortez who having already 119 00:08:10,880 --> 00:08:13,320 Speaker 1: technically who you know who are who are already technically 120 00:08:13,360 --> 00:08:17,000 Speaker 1: plantation owners, but their own ineptitude, have still managed to 121 00:08:17,040 --> 00:08:21,160 Speaker 1: become heavily indebted. Combined, they form a group responsible for 122 00:08:21,240 --> 00:08:25,160 Speaker 1: three centuries of the greatest evil the world has ever seen. Now, 123 00:08:25,360 --> 00:08:27,760 Speaker 1: these two groups, in a broad sense, need each other. 124 00:08:31,760 --> 00:08:35,640 Speaker 1: The adventurers may have weapons, they may have some training, 125 00:08:36,360 --> 00:08:38,320 Speaker 1: but at the end of the day, they have very 126 00:08:38,320 --> 00:08:42,560 Speaker 1: little in terms of liquid capital. At liquid capital is 127 00:08:42,640 --> 00:08:45,360 Speaker 1: something that you need in order to run a military campaign. 128 00:08:45,840 --> 00:08:48,839 Speaker 1: Because in order to keep all of these people, all 129 00:08:48,840 --> 00:08:50,840 Speaker 1: of these sort of adventurers, all of these sort of 130 00:08:50,840 --> 00:08:54,000 Speaker 1: debtor slavers, all of these sort of would be conquistadors 131 00:08:54,080 --> 00:08:58,079 Speaker 1: in the field, you have to produce, you know, things 132 00:08:58,120 --> 00:09:02,440 Speaker 1: like food, things like boots, things like medical supplies. And 133 00:09:02,880 --> 00:09:06,240 Speaker 1: this is where the plantation owners come in, because those 134 00:09:06,240 --> 00:09:08,880 Speaker 1: are people who even though they're enormously in debt, and 135 00:09:08,920 --> 00:09:11,920 Speaker 1: even though very often they're either fleeing their debtors or 136 00:09:12,000 --> 00:09:14,600 Speaker 1: their all of their debts about to be called in. 137 00:09:14,800 --> 00:09:18,120 Speaker 1: These are people who still technically have lines of credit 138 00:09:18,160 --> 00:09:22,240 Speaker 1: open and they and you know also there are also 139 00:09:22,280 --> 00:09:26,120 Speaker 1: people who sometimes have allies in more sort of solvent 140 00:09:26,600 --> 00:09:30,320 Speaker 1: people in the same class, so they're able to sort 141 00:09:30,320 --> 00:09:33,920 Speaker 1: of funnel liquid capital into these sort of ventures. And 142 00:09:34,160 --> 00:09:36,559 Speaker 1: this is a process that we are going to see 143 00:09:36,679 --> 00:09:53,080 Speaker 1: again after these ads. And we're back moving forward in 144 00:09:53,160 --> 00:09:56,559 Speaker 1: time a few hundred years and north a few thousand miles, 145 00:09:57,200 --> 00:09:59,960 Speaker 1: we come into another scene of debt subjugation and violen 146 00:10:00,679 --> 00:10:05,280 Speaker 1: the plantations of the American South. Now, this is not 147 00:10:05,440 --> 00:10:09,439 Speaker 1: the primitive, unhallowed fifteen hundreds, where slaves would be marked 148 00:10:09,480 --> 00:10:11,960 Speaker 1: like tally sticks as they were passed back and forth 149 00:10:12,040 --> 00:10:16,120 Speaker 1: between sword and pike wielding Spanish barbarians as they slaughtered 150 00:10:16,120 --> 00:10:18,360 Speaker 1: their way through one of the greatest cities the world 151 00:10:18,360 --> 00:10:22,800 Speaker 1: had ever known. This is the benighted eighteen hundreds. This 152 00:10:22,920 --> 00:10:25,520 Speaker 1: is the age of steam power and railroads, the age 153 00:10:25,520 --> 00:10:30,280 Speaker 1: of electricity, the advent of the global telecommunications network. What 154 00:10:30,320 --> 00:10:34,280 Speaker 1: would come of this new era of progress. One of 155 00:10:34,360 --> 00:10:37,680 Speaker 1: the greatest of all world historical crimes, the conversion of 156 00:10:37,800 --> 00:10:43,960 Speaker 1: human beings into increasingly complex financial instruments plantation owners contrary 157 00:10:44,000 --> 00:10:47,480 Speaker 1: to their depiction in media, which they've gotten almost those 158 00:10:47,480 --> 00:10:50,040 Speaker 1: those people have gotten almost as good PR as cops, 159 00:10:50,440 --> 00:10:56,280 Speaker 1: which is fairly incredible considering they haven't really existed as 160 00:10:56,320 --> 00:10:58,440 Speaker 1: the sort of slave owning classes they used to be 161 00:10:58,640 --> 00:11:03,720 Speaker 1: in you know, a hundred hundred years. I don't know, 162 00:11:05,000 --> 00:11:09,080 Speaker 1: discuss among yourselves when you think share cropping has sort 163 00:11:09,080 --> 00:11:11,679 Speaker 1: of decreased to an amount where these people like are 164 00:11:11,720 --> 00:11:15,840 Speaker 1: no no longer around as a class. But you know, okay, 165 00:11:15,880 --> 00:11:18,080 Speaker 1: just despite the sort of pr but these like Southern 166 00:11:18,120 --> 00:11:24,680 Speaker 1: gentlemen get these people are constantly in debt, and they're 167 00:11:24,679 --> 00:11:26,959 Speaker 1: you know, constantly attempting to solve the problem of them 168 00:11:27,000 --> 00:11:28,960 Speaker 1: being in debt with the only thing they know how 169 00:11:29,000 --> 00:11:32,360 Speaker 1: to do, which is slavery. And when I say they're 170 00:11:32,360 --> 00:11:34,959 Speaker 1: trying to solve this problem through slavery, um, we're we're 171 00:11:34,960 --> 00:11:36,920 Speaker 1: going to get to the more complicated ways to try 172 00:11:36,960 --> 00:11:38,880 Speaker 1: to solve this with slavery. One of the big ways 173 00:11:38,880 --> 00:11:41,000 Speaker 1: I try try to solve this with slavery is just 174 00:11:41,040 --> 00:11:50,080 Speaker 1: whipping people harder. It's brutal and horrible, and yeah, you 175 00:11:50,120 --> 00:11:52,959 Speaker 1: know this, this this is a system that is, who's 176 00:11:53,000 --> 00:11:55,840 Speaker 1: the the efficiency of which is just built on profound 177 00:11:55,920 --> 00:12:01,040 Speaker 1: human violence. So let's let's let's just established that right 178 00:12:01,080 --> 00:12:03,000 Speaker 1: off the bat. This is the worst kind of slavery 179 00:12:03,000 --> 00:12:09,280 Speaker 1: anyone's really ever done. Yeah, now you know, another factor 180 00:12:09,320 --> 00:12:12,000 Speaker 1: for these people essentially turning into debt or slavers is 181 00:12:12,040 --> 00:12:15,400 Speaker 1: the fact that these people are constantly putting themselves in 182 00:12:15,440 --> 00:12:20,920 Speaker 1: self inflicted debt in order to do speculation. And this 183 00:12:21,040 --> 00:12:24,320 Speaker 1: is the part where they start doing ship that is 184 00:12:25,160 --> 00:12:28,319 Speaker 1: difficult for me to even try to explain will adequately 185 00:12:28,440 --> 00:12:32,920 Speaker 1: capturing the horror of the process. The Southern planters began 186 00:12:33,000 --> 00:12:36,920 Speaker 1: to create an entire separate financial network based entirely off 187 00:12:36,960 --> 00:12:40,439 Speaker 1: of the quote unquote value of their slaves and their land. 188 00:12:41,679 --> 00:12:47,960 Speaker 1: From the historian Edward B. Baptiste, Yet enslavers had already 189 00:12:47,960 --> 00:12:51,280 Speaker 1: by the end of the eighteen twenties created a highly 190 00:12:51,360 --> 00:12:56,960 Speaker 1: innovative alternative to existing financial structure. The Consolidated Association of 191 00:12:57,040 --> 00:13:01,880 Speaker 1: Louisiana Planters, despite his name it c APL was still 192 00:13:01,920 --> 00:13:05,720 Speaker 1: a bank, created more leverage for enslavers at less cost 193 00:13:06,280 --> 00:13:11,120 Speaker 1: and on longer terms. It did so by securitizing slaves, 194 00:13:11,640 --> 00:13:16,720 Speaker 1: hedging even more effectively against the individual investors loss, so 195 00:13:16,760 --> 00:13:20,200 Speaker 1: long as the financial system itself did not fail. Here 196 00:13:20,320 --> 00:13:25,319 Speaker 1: is how it worked. Potential borrowers, mortgage slaves and cultivated 197 00:13:25,400 --> 00:13:29,480 Speaker 1: land to the c APL, which entitled them to borrow 198 00:13:29,600 --> 00:13:33,120 Speaker 1: up to half of the assessed value of their property 199 00:13:33,120 --> 00:13:37,240 Speaker 1: from the CIAPL and bank notes. To convince others to 200 00:13:37,320 --> 00:13:41,000 Speaker 1: accept the banknotes thus distributed at face value, the ci 201 00:13:41,080 --> 00:13:45,679 Speaker 1: ap L convinced the Louisiana legislature to back two point 202 00:13:45,760 --> 00:13:50,000 Speaker 1: five million dollars in bank bonds do win ten to 203 00:13:50,080 --> 00:13:54,280 Speaker 1: fifteen years bearing five percent interest with the faith and 204 00:13:54,320 --> 00:13:58,200 Speaker 1: credit of the people of the state. The Great British 205 00:13:58,280 --> 00:14:01,559 Speaker 1: Merchant bank bearing brother has agreed to advance the c 206 00:14:01,760 --> 00:14:05,760 Speaker 1: APL the equivalent of two point five million dollars in 207 00:14:05,880 --> 00:14:10,040 Speaker 1: Sterling bills. By the way, that is a unfathomable amount 208 00:14:10,040 --> 00:14:13,040 Speaker 1: of money. Now that's not five million dollars that is 209 00:14:13,480 --> 00:14:15,040 Speaker 1: that is it? That is an amount of money that 210 00:14:15,080 --> 00:14:18,360 Speaker 1: will make your ears bleed the equivalent of two point 211 00:14:18,400 --> 00:14:21,760 Speaker 1: five million in sterling bills and market the bonds on 212 00:14:21,880 --> 00:14:27,920 Speaker 1: European securities markets. The bonds effectively converted in slavery's biggest investment, 213 00:14:28,680 --> 00:14:34,000 Speaker 1: human beings or quote unquote hands from Maryland and Virginia 214 00:14:34,040 --> 00:14:38,800 Speaker 1: and North Carolina and Kentucky into multiple streams of income, 215 00:14:39,280 --> 00:14:44,240 Speaker 1: all under their control. Since all borrowers were officially stakeholders 216 00:14:44,240 --> 00:14:48,040 Speaker 1: in the bank, the sale of the bonds created a 217 00:14:48,120 --> 00:14:51,200 Speaker 1: high quality credit pool to be lent back to the 218 00:14:51,240 --> 00:14:55,720 Speaker 1: planters at a significantly lower rate, sorry at a rate 219 00:14:55,760 --> 00:14:58,960 Speaker 1: significantly lower than the rate of return they could expect 220 00:14:58,960 --> 00:15:02,920 Speaker 1: that money to produce. The pool could be used for 221 00:15:02,960 --> 00:15:07,520 Speaker 1: all sorts of income generating purposes, buying more slaves to 222 00:15:07,680 --> 00:15:11,560 Speaker 1: produce more cotton and sugar and hence more income, or 223 00:15:11,640 --> 00:15:16,480 Speaker 1: lending to other enslavers. Ver borrowers could pure amid their 224 00:15:16,560 --> 00:15:20,400 Speaker 1: leverage even higher by borrowing on the same collateral from 225 00:15:20,520 --> 00:15:26,560 Speaker 1: multiple lenders, while also getting unsecured short term commercial loans 226 00:15:26,600 --> 00:15:30,360 Speaker 1: from the c apl by purchasing new slaves with the 227 00:15:30,400 --> 00:15:34,800 Speaker 1: money they borrowed and borrowing on them too. They had 228 00:15:34,840 --> 00:15:40,120 Speaker 1: mortgaged their slaves, sometimes multiple times, and sometimes they even 229 00:15:40,160 --> 00:15:44,800 Speaker 1: mortgage fictitious slaves. But in contrast to what Walsh had promised, 230 00:15:44,880 --> 00:15:50,360 Speaker 1: Nulty in this type of mortgage gave the enslaver tremendous 231 00:15:50,440 --> 00:15:55,120 Speaker 1: margins control and flexibility. It was hard to imagine that 232 00:15:55,160 --> 00:15:59,520 Speaker 1: such borrows would be foreclosed even if they fell behind 233 00:15:59,560 --> 00:16:04,200 Speaker 1: on their aiments. After all, the borrowers owned the bank. 234 00:16:05,520 --> 00:16:08,840 Speaker 1: Using the C A p L model, slave owners were 235 00:16:08,840 --> 00:16:12,320 Speaker 1: now able to monetize their slaves by securitizing them and 236 00:16:12,360 --> 00:16:19,720 Speaker 1: then leveraging them multiple times on the international financial markets. Now, okay, 237 00:16:19,840 --> 00:16:24,160 Speaker 1: having having just spent a decent amount of time running 238 00:16:24,200 --> 00:16:26,760 Speaker 1: through the sort of finance of this, I need to reiterate. 239 00:16:27,080 --> 00:16:31,080 Speaker 1: These are human beings who are being enslaved and tortured constantly, 240 00:16:32,600 --> 00:16:36,040 Speaker 1: the ownership of whom is being mortgaged to a bank 241 00:16:36,600 --> 00:16:39,760 Speaker 1: and then sold and traded as assets on the financial market. 242 00:16:40,560 --> 00:16:44,720 Speaker 1: What what they have done here is like two thousand 243 00:16:44,960 --> 00:16:50,800 Speaker 1: eight style financial collapse, like set of collateralized loan obligations, 244 00:16:50,880 --> 00:16:55,480 Speaker 1: except the loans are backed by fucking human beings they 245 00:16:55,600 --> 00:16:59,200 Speaker 1: forced into slavery. It is a level of evil that 246 00:16:59,320 --> 00:17:04,720 Speaker 1: is almost incomprehensible because the very financial language that is 247 00:17:04,760 --> 00:17:09,480 Speaker 1: necessary to explain what they're doing, by necessity, conceals the 248 00:17:09,640 --> 00:17:13,440 Speaker 1: horror of what's actually being done and was actually being 249 00:17:13,480 --> 00:17:17,600 Speaker 1: done here is hundreds of thousands of people are being 250 00:17:17,640 --> 00:17:21,159 Speaker 1: sold into slavery and forced to clear land and work 251 00:17:21,640 --> 00:17:25,959 Speaker 1: on land that has just been stolen literally like you know, 252 00:17:26,080 --> 00:17:29,680 Speaker 1: sometimes in some cases like the day before, by indigenous 253 00:17:29,680 --> 00:17:31,679 Speaker 1: people who have just been sent on the trail of tears. 254 00:17:32,480 --> 00:17:35,120 Speaker 1: And this is this is being done to fuel these 255 00:17:35,119 --> 00:17:40,320 Speaker 1: new financial instruments. Now, in a somewhat ironic twist, the 256 00:17:40,400 --> 00:17:43,199 Speaker 1: product of this entire thing, the product of all of 257 00:17:43,280 --> 00:17:46,679 Speaker 1: this land clearing, the product of Andrew Jackson's war on 258 00:17:46,760 --> 00:17:50,000 Speaker 1: the Second Bank of the US, the product of all 259 00:17:50,040 --> 00:17:54,520 Speaker 1: of this sort of speculation is the plantations wind up 260 00:17:54,520 --> 00:17:58,680 Speaker 1: producing too much cotton, too much slave cotton, and this 261 00:17:58,840 --> 00:18:04,879 Speaker 1: quickly becomes an absolute fiasco. Debt suddenly outpaced the entire 262 00:18:05,040 --> 00:18:08,840 Speaker 1: value of the slave crop, and you know, the entire 263 00:18:08,920 --> 00:18:11,919 Speaker 1: financial system begins to implode. So it starts, It starts 264 00:18:11,960 --> 00:18:14,800 Speaker 1: in sort of the UK and the European markets that 265 00:18:14,840 --> 00:18:17,440 Speaker 1: had taken a bunch of these these sort of slave bonds. 266 00:18:18,359 --> 00:18:22,040 Speaker 1: But eventually the financial collapse spreads, and you know, as 267 00:18:22,080 --> 00:18:24,600 Speaker 1: we heard in the article, right the way these banks 268 00:18:24,600 --> 00:18:26,640 Speaker 1: are set off, the way these again like these these 269 00:18:26,680 --> 00:18:30,800 Speaker 1: banks that are just all of the bank is just slaves. 270 00:18:31,720 --> 00:18:33,480 Speaker 1: And I guess, I guess I should also take an 271 00:18:33,480 --> 00:18:37,160 Speaker 1: aside here to mention that like the normal banks are 272 00:18:37,200 --> 00:18:40,960 Speaker 1: also doing stuff like this. It's just that the South 273 00:18:41,080 --> 00:18:44,520 Speaker 1: not being content to just have normal banks taking you know, 274 00:18:44,600 --> 00:18:47,919 Speaker 1: doing mortgages, like they're taking out mortgages on houses with 275 00:18:48,000 --> 00:18:51,760 Speaker 1: slaves as collateral. Uh, they've they've credit decided to create 276 00:18:51,800 --> 00:18:54,479 Speaker 1: like they're in their own entire financial network that's just 277 00:18:54,720 --> 00:18:59,120 Speaker 1: slaves and nothing else. Well land too, but yeah, slaves 278 00:18:59,119 --> 00:19:03,760 Speaker 1: and land, and this entire thing sort of just collapses 279 00:19:03,760 --> 00:19:07,879 Speaker 1: in on itself and this leads to it to an 280 00:19:07,960 --> 00:19:14,360 Speaker 1: even larger mass of deader slavery plantation owners. And this 281 00:19:14,480 --> 00:19:17,480 Speaker 1: is where we turn from plantation slavery to some good 282 00:19:17,480 --> 00:19:22,600 Speaker 1: old fashioned conquistadoring what what have the sort of myths 283 00:19:22,640 --> 00:19:25,280 Speaker 1: of slavery with the way that you know, slavery has 284 00:19:25,280 --> 00:19:29,680 Speaker 1: been sort of understood in the West, particularly in sort 285 00:19:29,680 --> 00:19:32,920 Speaker 1: of Europe, well, particularly in the U S and the UK, 286 00:19:33,400 --> 00:19:40,960 Speaker 1: which have these sort of like complexes about you know, 287 00:19:41,080 --> 00:19:46,480 Speaker 1: like this sort of inevitability of ebolitionism and the sort 288 00:19:46,520 --> 00:19:51,280 Speaker 1: of benevolent empire against abolition or whatever. You know, there's 289 00:19:51,320 --> 00:19:53,400 Speaker 1: there's this sort of like that you get these economic 290 00:19:53,480 --> 00:19:55,920 Speaker 1: organis to that that the people people will argue that 291 00:19:56,320 --> 00:19:59,800 Speaker 1: you know, slavery was like going to collapse anyways, Like 292 00:20:00,680 --> 00:20:03,080 Speaker 1: people just let it go, it would have fell on apart, 293 00:20:03,400 --> 00:20:07,440 Speaker 1: and that that is just sort of nonsense. And one 294 00:20:07,480 --> 00:20:09,600 Speaker 1: of the things that this, one of the things that 295 00:20:09,640 --> 00:20:16,040 Speaker 1: this conceals is that slave power was constantly expansionary. It's 296 00:20:16,119 --> 00:20:19,480 Speaker 1: never sort of like slavery was never a system that 297 00:20:19,560 --> 00:20:22,960 Speaker 1: was sort of just contained in one place, right. It 298 00:20:23,040 --> 00:20:25,520 Speaker 1: was always pushing. It was always attempting to you know, 299 00:20:25,640 --> 00:20:29,160 Speaker 1: seize new land. It was always attempting to seize new slaves. 300 00:20:29,280 --> 00:20:31,760 Speaker 1: Was it was a system that could only really survive 301 00:20:32,320 --> 00:20:35,040 Speaker 1: if it was constantly able to seize new territory and 302 00:20:35,080 --> 00:20:38,879 Speaker 1: seize new slaves in order to work it. And so 303 00:20:39,840 --> 00:20:42,440 Speaker 1: there's a lot of sort of products of this, right. 304 00:20:43,560 --> 00:20:45,480 Speaker 1: One of the sort of earlier ones, you get these 305 00:20:45,520 --> 00:20:48,520 Speaker 1: settlers pushing west, attempting to turn sort of new states 306 00:20:48,520 --> 00:20:51,680 Speaker 1: and the slave states, and these are you know, these 307 00:20:51,720 --> 00:20:54,320 Speaker 1: are often, like the settlers here, often the sort of 308 00:20:54,320 --> 00:20:57,560 Speaker 1: men like euphemistically described as adventurers, with like you know, 309 00:20:57,560 --> 00:21:01,040 Speaker 1: these are people who portize right like they are people 310 00:21:01,119 --> 00:21:03,879 Speaker 1: desperately attempting to stay one step ahead of their creditors 311 00:21:03,920 --> 00:21:07,480 Speaker 1: by invoking the time honored American tradition of slaughtering indigenous 312 00:21:07,480 --> 00:21:10,119 Speaker 1: people for their land, which you know, could then be 313 00:21:10,119 --> 00:21:12,280 Speaker 1: turned over to speculators, you could be turned over to 314 00:21:12,320 --> 00:21:16,959 Speaker 1: the sort of wealthier backers. And these men and in 315 00:21:16,960 --> 00:21:19,920 Speaker 1: this period these are almost always men. I thought that's 316 00:21:19,920 --> 00:21:24,720 Speaker 1: going to change pretty soon. But these men are so 317 00:21:24,800 --> 00:21:27,000 Speaker 1: violent and so disruptive that at various points in the 318 00:21:27,119 --> 00:21:30,399 Speaker 1: late seventeen hundreds and early eight hundreds, the US like 319 00:21:30,520 --> 00:21:33,560 Speaker 1: attempts to stop them from settling any further less they 320 00:21:33,560 --> 00:21:37,120 Speaker 1: sort of disturb American foreign policy efforts. Um. And these 321 00:21:37,119 --> 00:21:41,159 Speaker 1: efforts fail, and the product of this is that manifest destinies, 322 00:21:41,240 --> 00:21:44,760 Speaker 1: you know, trail of corpses pushes even further and further west. 323 00:21:55,000 --> 00:21:57,720 Speaker 1: Now by the by the eighteen fifties, there there's a 324 00:21:57,760 --> 00:21:59,960 Speaker 1: new sort of conquistador who's setting out to you know, 325 00:22:00,200 --> 00:22:02,400 Speaker 1: conquer in the name of the Cross and paying off 326 00:22:02,400 --> 00:22:06,680 Speaker 1: their creditors. And they're called filibusters. Now this is actually 327 00:22:06,760 --> 00:22:09,960 Speaker 1: where these people are where the term filibuster as a 328 00:22:10,040 --> 00:22:13,439 Speaker 1: sort of like like thing that you do in the 329 00:22:13,560 --> 00:22:15,440 Speaker 1: sentence and not let people do stuff like that. This 330 00:22:15,440 --> 00:22:18,359 Speaker 1: this is where that comes from. It's these people. Um, 331 00:22:18,440 --> 00:22:23,720 Speaker 1: these are okay, so you know, the official descriptions of 332 00:22:23,760 --> 00:22:28,359 Speaker 1: them will say things like private armies. I there are 333 00:22:28,440 --> 00:22:32,520 Speaker 1: more these kind of like ragged bands of like slavery 334 00:22:32,600 --> 00:22:36,760 Speaker 1: mongering gennis ideas who are backed by, you know, largely 335 00:22:36,800 --> 00:22:40,000 Speaker 1: by southern plantation owners, sometimes by Southern states, occasionally by 336 00:22:40,040 --> 00:22:43,199 Speaker 1: just northern banks, because the place they're trying to go 337 00:22:43,359 --> 00:22:45,600 Speaker 1: somewhere the banks, the northern Banks want to sort of 338 00:22:45,600 --> 00:22:48,720 Speaker 1: seize control of. And you know, these people set out 339 00:22:48,760 --> 00:22:52,000 Speaker 1: to conquer new slave states by you know, straight up 340 00:22:52,000 --> 00:22:56,040 Speaker 1: season control of places like Cuba or Mexico. They do 341 00:22:56,080 --> 00:22:59,320 Speaker 1: a bunch of this stuff in Texas doesn't really work, 342 00:22:59,400 --> 00:23:03,720 Speaker 1: but you know they I mean, part of the complicated 343 00:23:03,760 --> 00:23:07,199 Speaker 1: thing and talking about the filibusters is that like, in 344 00:23:07,280 --> 00:23:11,720 Speaker 1: some sense, the most successful like attempt to do something 345 00:23:11,800 --> 00:23:15,080 Speaker 1: like this was actually Texas, but those people weren't really 346 00:23:15,240 --> 00:23:18,800 Speaker 1: phil about. Like the people who actually successfully sees control 347 00:23:18,840 --> 00:23:22,679 Speaker 1: of Texas, like Sam Adam and his sort of crew 348 00:23:22,720 --> 00:23:26,960 Speaker 1: of merry miscreant slave owners. Those guys aren't technically filibusters, 349 00:23:27,040 --> 00:23:29,879 Speaker 1: but you know, they they do sort of succeed in 350 00:23:30,040 --> 00:23:35,280 Speaker 1: bringing in Texas as a slave state. But yeah, you know, 351 00:23:35,240 --> 00:23:37,560 Speaker 1: I mean these people are they keep they keep launching 352 00:23:37,560 --> 00:23:40,840 Speaker 1: invasions of fucking Cuba. They keep launching use invasions everywhere 353 00:23:40,920 --> 00:23:44,439 Speaker 1: that There's a really great movie called Walker that's a 354 00:23:44,440 --> 00:23:47,639 Speaker 1: sort of fictionalized account of probably the most famous filibuster, 355 00:23:47,760 --> 00:23:51,040 Speaker 1: a guy named William Walker. And well, okay, so it 356 00:23:51,080 --> 00:23:54,680 Speaker 1: starts with his attempt to like conquered Mexico, which doesn't 357 00:23:54,680 --> 00:23:57,600 Speaker 1: go well, but then it sets out for his ataept 358 00:23:57,600 --> 00:24:00,560 Speaker 1: to conquered in Charagua, which like kind of works, actually 359 00:24:00,560 --> 00:24:05,320 Speaker 1: takes Nicaragua for a little bit. You know. But this 360 00:24:05,320 --> 00:24:07,199 Speaker 1: this this movie version of it's also like it's an 361 00:24:07,240 --> 00:24:10,159 Speaker 1: anti war film about the US backing the contrast, and 362 00:24:11,160 --> 00:24:14,000 Speaker 1: it rules. I'm talking about it because nobody's ever watched 363 00:24:14,000 --> 00:24:17,639 Speaker 1: this thing. And the studio when when they they actually 364 00:24:17,720 --> 00:24:20,879 Speaker 1: figured out what Walker was and that it was, you know, 365 00:24:20,920 --> 00:24:24,919 Speaker 1: like an an anti war film about the contrast, they 366 00:24:25,200 --> 00:24:29,640 Speaker 1: literally killed the entire movie and the director, Alex Cox, 367 00:24:29,680 --> 00:24:31,560 Speaker 1: here's the guy you should repo man like, he literally 368 00:24:31,640 --> 00:24:35,560 Speaker 1: never worked in Hollywood again after this. So yeah, go 369 00:24:35,640 --> 00:24:38,240 Speaker 1: watch Walker. Understand it's a little it's a bit fictionalized. 370 00:24:38,400 --> 00:24:41,520 Speaker 1: It's mostly an anti war film about the contrast, but 371 00:24:41,600 --> 00:24:43,360 Speaker 1: you know, part of what you try to track down 372 00:24:43,359 --> 00:24:45,680 Speaker 1: and personally, that is very important about this is that 373 00:24:46,400 --> 00:24:49,600 Speaker 1: you know, the there's this, there's these sort of lineages 374 00:24:49,600 --> 00:24:53,480 Speaker 1: of American colonialism, and part of these lineary edges is 375 00:24:53,520 --> 00:24:57,480 Speaker 1: that you know, like the that literally does not matter 376 00:24:57,640 --> 00:24:59,680 Speaker 1: like what century you're in, the US is trying to 377 00:24:59,720 --> 00:25:03,360 Speaker 1: see his introl of Nicaragua. Now, okay, so but back 378 00:25:03,359 --> 00:25:06,879 Speaker 1: back to the soil. The filibusters mainline. Unlike the Conquistadors, 379 00:25:06,920 --> 00:25:10,080 Speaker 1: who were kind of like I don't know, they had 380 00:25:10,119 --> 00:25:15,080 Speaker 1: a combination of being really really lucky and also like 381 00:25:15,760 --> 00:25:19,000 Speaker 1: genu winely having some pretty good leadership even though you know, 382 00:25:19,400 --> 00:25:24,640 Speaker 1: good leadership, but for evil I those guys were really successful. 383 00:25:25,040 --> 00:25:30,800 Speaker 1: The Philip Buzzers they mostly failed because again this is 384 00:25:30,920 --> 00:25:33,520 Speaker 1: these these are mostly sort of just like bands of 385 00:25:33,680 --> 00:25:37,639 Speaker 1: like marauders. They almost they barely have supply lines, like 386 00:25:38,640 --> 00:25:42,479 Speaker 1: I don't know, sometimes they have real weapons, but they're 387 00:25:42,520 --> 00:25:46,040 Speaker 1: not especially competent. But what what what they did do 388 00:25:46,640 --> 00:25:50,560 Speaker 1: is they kill a lot of people. And this this 389 00:25:50,720 --> 00:25:54,960 Speaker 1: is one of those things that's sort of like I 390 00:25:55,000 --> 00:25:57,840 Speaker 1: don't know, it gets sort of romanticized or it gets 391 00:25:57,840 --> 00:26:00,720 Speaker 1: sort of like brushed over. Is that like, yeah, I know, 392 00:26:00,960 --> 00:26:06,320 Speaker 1: these these people like they're they're like these groups are 393 00:26:06,359 --> 00:26:10,680 Speaker 1: basically like rolling lynch mobs, and so you know, there 394 00:26:10,800 --> 00:26:13,200 Speaker 1: they'll they'll be doing something that run into a town. 395 00:26:13,280 --> 00:26:16,240 Speaker 1: They'll just they'll just kill everyone. They will enslave people, 396 00:26:16,280 --> 00:26:19,600 Speaker 1: they were rape people, they do ship that is just 397 00:26:20,280 --> 00:26:24,520 Speaker 1: they're absolutely imborrant. And that's that's the sort of legacy 398 00:26:24,560 --> 00:26:27,399 Speaker 1: of this stuff. And you know, they probably would have 399 00:26:27,480 --> 00:26:30,679 Speaker 1: kept doing it and you know, except they were stopped. Right. 400 00:26:30,800 --> 00:26:34,080 Speaker 1: One of one of the sort of like legacies of 401 00:26:34,160 --> 00:26:37,639 Speaker 1: these people is eventually the sort of slave powers like 402 00:26:39,040 --> 00:26:41,080 Speaker 1: wind Up and Bleeding Kansas, which is the sort of 403 00:26:41,119 --> 00:26:44,240 Speaker 1: semi civil war between the pro slavery anti slavery forces 404 00:26:44,280 --> 00:26:47,800 Speaker 1: in Kansas that leads to the regular Civil War. But 405 00:26:48,359 --> 00:26:49,919 Speaker 1: you know, I mean, I think I think it's sort 406 00:26:49,920 --> 00:26:54,600 Speaker 1: of important to understand about this entire thing is that 407 00:26:54,680 --> 00:26:57,560 Speaker 1: these people just kept accumulating power and kept accumulating power 408 00:26:57,600 --> 00:27:00,600 Speaker 1: and kept a commulating power do someone stopped them. And 409 00:27:00,920 --> 00:27:03,800 Speaker 1: that was also true of the conquistadors, right, Like I mean, 410 00:27:03,920 --> 00:27:06,919 Speaker 1: you know, and like arguably arguably the sort of sentences 411 00:27:06,920 --> 00:27:09,960 Speaker 1: those people are still in power. But like, you know, 412 00:27:10,080 --> 00:27:14,440 Speaker 1: the Spanish were not run out of the places that 413 00:27:14,560 --> 00:27:19,520 Speaker 1: they had conquered until people sort of fought them. Now, 414 00:27:19,640 --> 00:27:22,520 Speaker 1: the last thing I want to do is we're also 415 00:27:22,680 --> 00:27:27,440 Speaker 1: not free of this kind of guy. Um. It kind 416 00:27:27,440 --> 00:27:31,560 Speaker 1: of manifests in different ways in sort of more recent times. 417 00:27:31,680 --> 00:27:35,760 Speaker 1: I think probably the the closest we have to the 418 00:27:35,800 --> 00:27:39,440 Speaker 1: sort of like corporate Cortez thing are the people behind 419 00:27:39,520 --> 00:27:41,280 Speaker 1: the sort of it gets it gets re read it 420 00:27:41,280 --> 00:27:45,840 Speaker 1: as mergens and acquisitions. But the people behind the like 421 00:27:46,040 --> 00:27:51,320 Speaker 1: leveraged buy out um, like corporate radar stuff on Wall 422 00:27:51,359 --> 00:27:55,240 Speaker 1: Street in the eighties, who you know. And then the reason, 423 00:27:55,280 --> 00:27:57,560 Speaker 1: the reason they sort of they behave and they think 424 00:27:57,840 --> 00:27:59,119 Speaker 1: in a lot of the very in a lot of 425 00:27:59,200 --> 00:28:01,240 Speaker 1: the same ways as these sort of as a sort 426 00:28:01,280 --> 00:28:05,400 Speaker 1: of debt or slavers, is that their their financial techniques 427 00:28:06,720 --> 00:28:10,960 Speaker 1: leave them in basically the same situation as um as 428 00:28:11,119 --> 00:28:13,919 Speaker 1: as your Cortez, which is that the way that these 429 00:28:13,960 --> 00:28:16,280 Speaker 1: people take over a company, and these these are basically 430 00:28:16,320 --> 00:28:19,240 Speaker 1: financed people. These are investors who have figured out a 431 00:28:19,280 --> 00:28:21,119 Speaker 1: way to seize control of companies. And the way they 432 00:28:21,160 --> 00:28:25,479 Speaker 1: figured out to do it is they they essentially they 433 00:28:25,520 --> 00:28:28,680 Speaker 1: still bonds other investors. So the short version of it 434 00:28:28,800 --> 00:28:31,600 Speaker 1: is that, yeah, they they go into an enormous amount 435 00:28:31,640 --> 00:28:34,720 Speaker 1: of debt personally, right in order to you know, have 436 00:28:34,960 --> 00:28:37,000 Speaker 1: enough money to just buy up the stock prices of 437 00:28:37,080 --> 00:28:40,280 Speaker 1: the company. And you know, they say, okay, we're gonna 438 00:28:40,280 --> 00:28:42,920 Speaker 1: buy say say say your stock prices thirty five dollars, 439 00:28:42,960 --> 00:28:44,760 Speaker 1: are like, okay, we're gonna buy the stock at forty 440 00:28:46,040 --> 00:28:49,120 Speaker 1: and unless the company can you know, like somehow raise 441 00:28:49,160 --> 00:28:51,880 Speaker 1: their stock price above that in order to defend them off. 442 00:28:52,360 --> 00:28:54,560 Speaker 1: You know, this one person who's taking on an enormous 443 00:28:54,560 --> 00:28:57,040 Speaker 1: amount of debt now suddenly just owns the company and 444 00:28:57,120 --> 00:28:58,760 Speaker 1: he could transfer the debt onto the company, and then 445 00:28:58,800 --> 00:29:01,239 Speaker 1: he has to start, you know, just upping assets from it. Right. 446 00:29:02,000 --> 00:29:03,680 Speaker 1: He has to find ways to make money. He has 447 00:29:03,720 --> 00:29:07,040 Speaker 1: to find ways to sort of raise the stock price 448 00:29:07,080 --> 00:29:09,360 Speaker 1: of this thing, you know. And this is usually done 449 00:29:09,400 --> 00:29:13,400 Speaker 1: by like stripping people's pensions, by firing people, by just 450 00:29:13,600 --> 00:29:18,200 Speaker 1: destroying entire like entire sort of like people's livelihoods. This 451 00:29:18,320 --> 00:29:21,120 Speaker 1: is done by just dismantling companies wholesale like towards Arouse 452 00:29:21,240 --> 00:29:23,640 Speaker 1: is the last company that sort of famously had this 453 00:29:23,680 --> 00:29:25,520 Speaker 1: happened to them. They just get completely dismembered and they 454 00:29:25,520 --> 00:29:30,800 Speaker 1: get completely dismembered because the people who buy these companies, right, 455 00:29:31,640 --> 00:29:34,400 Speaker 1: and you know this eventually short of transider firms instead, etcetera, etcetera. 456 00:29:34,560 --> 00:29:40,160 Speaker 1: But those people are also unbelievably in debt, right, and 457 00:29:40,880 --> 00:29:42,720 Speaker 1: you know it's that that they've imposed on themselves. It 458 00:29:42,800 --> 00:29:45,760 Speaker 1: isn't that you know, the sort of psychological effects of 459 00:29:45,840 --> 00:29:51,080 Speaker 1: it are very similar. And you know, I think I 460 00:29:51,120 --> 00:29:57,240 Speaker 1: think the thing about sort of like the late century 461 00:29:57,320 --> 00:30:01,760 Speaker 1: is that the violence gets outsourced. So you know, these 462 00:30:01,800 --> 00:30:05,360 Speaker 1: people still have slaves, but the slaves are like you 463 00:30:05,440 --> 00:30:08,240 Speaker 1: know that the slaves are owned by a contractor who's 464 00:30:08,240 --> 00:30:13,600 Speaker 1: our contractor of a contractor like somewhere way down the line. 465 00:30:15,960 --> 00:30:19,840 Speaker 1: But you know, the the sort of strategic stuff and 466 00:30:19,960 --> 00:30:23,200 Speaker 1: the way that these people behave is very similar. And 467 00:30:23,400 --> 00:30:25,320 Speaker 1: I think it's worth knowing that there's there's two there's 468 00:30:25,320 --> 00:30:26,960 Speaker 1: people who there's coople people who come out of this 469 00:30:27,120 --> 00:30:30,440 Speaker 1: era who are very important now. One is that one 470 00:30:30,440 --> 00:30:31,640 Speaker 1: of the people who comes out of this sort of 471 00:30:31,720 --> 00:30:34,480 Speaker 1: eighties nineties era who was also constantly in debt, and 472 00:30:34,520 --> 00:30:38,480 Speaker 1: it's also just sort of like a murderous, like incredibly 473 00:30:38,600 --> 00:30:42,560 Speaker 1: vengeful person who who's also sort of dealing with these 474 00:30:42,640 --> 00:30:47,000 Speaker 1: same kinds of like you know, the who's tapping into 475 00:30:47,080 --> 00:30:49,240 Speaker 1: the sort of emotions of the sort of like indignation 476 00:30:49,360 --> 00:30:54,600 Speaker 1: and outrage and desperation, like is Donald Trump and you know, 477 00:30:55,120 --> 00:30:57,000 Speaker 1: in Toronald Trump, I think is a sort of tragedy 478 00:30:57,120 --> 00:30:58,280 Speaker 1: version of it. And then you get to see it. 479 00:30:58,400 --> 00:31:03,080 Speaker 1: We've been getting to see it, uh with Elon Musk 480 00:31:03,080 --> 00:31:04,880 Speaker 1: as a sort of farst version of it, where he's 481 00:31:05,080 --> 00:31:07,720 Speaker 1: you know, increasingly desperate to try to dig himself out 482 00:31:07,760 --> 00:31:10,960 Speaker 1: of the hole that he got by buying by having 483 00:31:11,000 --> 00:31:14,680 Speaker 1: to leverage himself so much to buy Twitter. But yeah, 484 00:31:14,760 --> 00:31:17,560 Speaker 1: we are, we well remain haunted by the specter of 485 00:31:17,720 --> 00:31:21,640 Speaker 1: this kind of guy. And they've done They've done enormous 486 00:31:21,680 --> 00:31:23,680 Speaker 1: harm to the world. They're probably going to keep doing 487 00:31:23,800 --> 00:31:28,720 Speaker 1: enormous harm in the world. And yeah, but but again, 488 00:31:28,760 --> 00:31:34,880 Speaker 1: I I think it is worth thinking about them psychologically 489 00:31:34,880 --> 00:31:37,560 Speaker 1: and worth understanding that it's not that you know, like 490 00:31:37,880 --> 00:31:41,200 Speaker 1: at the core of sort of like the capitalist death machine, 491 00:31:41,240 --> 00:31:45,000 Speaker 1: are not necessarily these like incredibly cold, rational calculating people. 492 00:31:45,120 --> 00:31:47,360 Speaker 1: It's a bunch of people who are frantic, who are desperate, 493 00:31:47,400 --> 00:31:50,680 Speaker 1: who are very very angry, and that doesn't make them 494 00:31:50,760 --> 00:31:52,560 Speaker 1: sort of you know, doesn't make them more sympathetic, it 495 00:31:52,640 --> 00:31:59,400 Speaker 1: just makes them more violence. It Could Happen Here as 496 00:31:59,440 --> 00:32:02,120 Speaker 1: a production of cool Zone Media. For more podcasts from 497 00:32:02,160 --> 00:32:05,040 Speaker 1: cool Zone Media, visit our website cool zone media dot com, 498 00:32:05,240 --> 00:32:06,960 Speaker 1: or check us out on the I Heart Radio app, 499 00:32:07,000 --> 00:32:10,320 Speaker 1: Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to podcasts. You can 500 00:32:10,360 --> 00:32:13,040 Speaker 1: find sources for It could Happen Here, updated monthly at 501 00:32:13,080 --> 00:32:16,320 Speaker 1: cool zone Media dot com slash sources. Thanks for listening.