Fr John Jimenez has been a priest of the Archdiocese of San Francisco for 25 years, involved in parishes and schools from St Pius, to Church of the Visitacion, to St Peter's and St Charles, to Riordan High School. Previous to that he was a public school teacher in Oakland.
In a recent essay, "The Ascent of Money and The Pound of Flesh", Fr Jimenez summarizes Nial Ferguson's book "The Ascent of Money", with allusions to the venture capitalist Marc Andreeson's recent essay detailing all of the positive aspects of tech inventions through history, while Ferguson brilliantly makes the analogy of historical financial innovations with the anthropologist Bronkowski's "The Ascent of Man", from early civilization when humans settled and grew crops, and kept an accounting for trade on stone tablets and the first use of language, to Fibonacci's number theory and use of Sanskrit and Arabic to simplify and improve the number system, and a more accurate accounting system that allowed the rise of the Medici's and the first banking systems, particularly a more extensive system of loaning money, fiat money even, that allowed for a multiplier affect in economic growth and technological innovation that feeds each others growth, and in general, allows a rising tide to lift all boats
Yet, Ferguson does describe the essence of Shakespeare's point in "The Merchant of Venice", that ultimately, a system of debt risks collapsing unless there is a "Pound of Flesh", the story where the merchant lends the money for Antonio's friend to win over the beloved and Antonio helps by borrowing money, with the ships he owns as collateral, and 'his own flesh", his life, if the loan cannot be paid back.
The story illustrates at a local level that a debt system can only function when the risk ensued, if there is no payback on the loan, is enforced by the debtor losing all that they have, even their life, "contracts being enforced", or even, seemingly, the role of a mafia hitman. Ferguson does point out that the Medici's origin were, in essence, as loan sharks
Add to this David Stockman's insight from his essay "The War Machine's Echo Chamber", and we see how historically, war has been the loan sharking, hitman of the rise of empires. At first, many benefit from the loans that allow economies to grow and tech to innovate, but war becomes the method of imposing the currency of the dominant power on those colonized, and controlling the means of production, the pricing and the wages paid to the worker.
Ferguson describes at the financial and war supply level, the rise of Napoleon and his defeat by Ellington at Waterloo. The ideology of the French Revolution of "Liberte" evolved into a cabal holding onto power through the constant threat of arrest and violence (the guillotine), and found that by expanding this violence into empire building, fiat money financed military expeditions and opening new markets and colonies, they found their leader in Napoleon to keep them in power.
2. Fr John Jimenez has been a priest of the Archdiocese of San Francisco for 25
years, involved in parishes and schools from St Pius, to Church of the
Visitacion, to St Peter's and St Charles, to Riordan High School. Previous to
that he was a public school teacher in Oakland.
In a recent essay, "The Ascent of Money and The Pound of Flesh", Fr
Jimenez summarizes Nial Ferguson's book "The Ascent of Money", with
allusions to the venture capitalist Marc Andreeson's recent essay detailing all
of the positive aspects of tech inventions through history, while Ferguson
brilliantly makes the analogy of historical financial innovations with the
anthropologist Bronkowski's "The Ascent of Man", from early civilization when
humans settled and grew crops, and kept an accounting for trade on stone
tablets and the first use of language, to Fibonacci's number theory and use of
Sanskrit and Arabic to simplify and improve the number system, and a more
accurate accounting system that allowed the rise of the Medici's and the first
banking systems, particularly a more extensive system of loaning money, fiat
money even, that allowed for a multiplier affect in economic growth and
technological innovation that feeds each others growth, and in general, allows
a rising tide to lift all boats
Yet, Ferguson does describe the essence of Shakespeare's point in "The
Merchant of Venice", that ultimately, a system of debt risks collapsing unless
there is a "Pound of Flesh", the story where the merchant lends the money for
Antonio's friend to win over the beloved and Antonio helps by borrowing
money, with the ships he owns as collateral, and 'his own flesh", his life, if the
loan cannot be paid back.
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3. 3
The story illustrates at a local level that a debt system can only function when the risk ensued, if
there is no payback on the loan, is enforced by the debtor losing all that they have, even their
life, "contracts being enforced", or even, seemingly, the role of a mafia hitman. Ferguson does
point out that the Medici's origin were, in essence, as loan sharks. Add to this David Stockman's
insight from his essay "The War Machine's Echo Chamber", and we see how historically, war
has been the loan sharking, hitman of the rise of empires. At first, many benefit from the loans
that allow economies to grow and tech to innovate, but war becomes the method of imposing
the currency of the dominant power on those colonized, and controlling the means of
production, the pricing and the wages paid to the worker.
Ferguson describes at the financial and war supply level, the rise of Napoleon and his defeat by
Ellington at Waterloo. The ideology of the French Revolution of "Liberte" evolved into a cabal
holding onto power through the constant threat of arrest and violence (the guillotine), and found
that by expanding this violence into empire building, fiat money financed military expeditions
and opening new markets and colonies, they found their leader in Napoleon to keep them in
power. Ferguson then describes the rise of the Rothschild banks, in centers of trade throughout
Europe, especially London, were in key positions to take advantage of the change of prices in
supply lines, and in currencies, to finance the supply lines of Ellington which allowed him to
defeat Napoleon, and Britian to go on, through the dominance of the sea trade, industrial
innovation, and their banks, to be the first global empire, able to expand its economic power
through it's colonies, the enforcement of which, the pound of flesh, being it's conflict with the
rise of Germany that became WWI.
4. The folly of ideology and empire is expressed in three of Beethoven's symphonies, The Third,
which expresses his hope for "Liberte" in Napoleon's coronation, The Fifth, the realization of the
horror of the war machine that empire is, and the moral decision to oppose it, and The Seventh,
looking out at the fields of the dead at Waterloo, the peasants who paid the price for empire and
ideology.
In response to this devastation, and the conjunctional role of technology in displacing peasants
and families in the 19th century, Pope Leo XIII wrote "Rerum Novarum" which illustrates
principles found in Aristotle, of power distributed and decision making at the local level, and the
primary role of the family, and guilds of workers and craftsmen to set fair prices and wages, local
credit unions for enterprises to grow (and not money accumulated into a few hands that fuel
empire building) all of which can be found in Revelation in how our Lord grew up in Nazareth
Yet, WWI, which has set in place the geopolitics of today, only repeated the same empire/pound
of flesh mentality, and the suffering of peasants, families and villages caught in the middle. So,
many more came to realize Pope Leo's insight, which would come to be called Distributism,
Hillarie Belloc, GK Chesterton, Dorothy Day, Alexander Chayanov, Karl Polyani, Wendell Berry,
Bishop Otto Van Kettler, Fr Vincent McNabb, Pope Pius XI, John Paul II
For a summary of these ideas, and how they were lived out during the 20th Century, Allan
Carlson's "Third Ways" (ISI Books) gives a good description of what has been done and what
could be done so that there are no more Waterloo wastelands, and like T.S. Eliot, let "The
Wasteland" be our motivation to live out the truth manifested at Bethlehem and lived out at
Nazareth
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