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https://theconversation.com/friday-essay-how-societies-evolved-into-fear-dominated-goliaths-then-collapsed-263800>
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Review: Goliath’s Curse – Luke Kemp (Penguin)
We think of ancient civilisations as operating very differently from the way
our economy works today. Yet the Bronze Age Assyrians living in Mesopotamia,
around 4,000 to 3,000 years ago, began the basis of modern capitalism, in a
region spanning most of modern-day Iraq, eastern Syria and southeastern Turkey.
The Assyrian empire was the root of what many scholars would now call “the
West”.
Cuneiform writing, the oldest in the world, records evidence of credit, loans
and debits as “virtual money” and the rise of elite merchants holding
monopolies on trade. They traded Afghanistan tin from the city of Kanesh (in
modern Turkey) throughout their empire, working as multinational corporations
do today.
The Assyrian business community also had the first businesswomen and female
investors. Generous tax breaks were given to merchants who promoted good
business. The famous
Code of Hammurabi reads like the fine print of a
business deal, stating rules for granting credit and imposing taxes and tariffs
on trade.
Such claims loom large in Australian existential risk researcher Luke Kemp’s
highly provocative, page-turning new book
Goliath’s Curse, named after the
biblical story (
Book of Samuel 1, 17) of the Philistine warrior giant
Goliath, killed by young David with his slingshot. Goliath states are ruled by
violence or impending threat of it.
This book will reset everything you thought you knew about the rise and fall of
ancient to modern civilisations (states) – with seriously worrying implications
for understanding our current world political landscape."
Cheers,
*** Xanni ***
--
mailto:xanni@xanadu.net Andrew Pam
http://xanadu.com.au/ Chief Scientist, Xanadu
https://glasswings.com.au/ Partner, Glass Wings
https://sericyb.com.au/ Manager, Serious Cybernetics
