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ECONOMICS & SALT
At the beginning of the Roman period the sea level was at least 2m below present levels.
Salt making was well established on the Western European coasts, and the
Mediterranean. These vast flat coastal areas ideal for making salt, were gradually
inundated - until by about 400 AD, (what were to become) the Meers, Broads, Clairs and the
traditional Roman salt flats of Ostia, Aquilea, and Ravenna had all been
flooded.
Rome's port was moved inland three times. The effects of this sea
level rise to nearly 2 m above present day levels was also catastrophic for western European
salt makers. During the 'Dark Ages' salt traffic almost disappeared and the
coasts of Britain and France became deserted.
The general population density fell in spite of an influx of Germanic tribes from the
north. Rome was forced to establish 'via salaria' to such forsaken
places as the Dead Sea, the African and Asian salt mines the desert lakes such as the
Tatta [Tuz Golu]. These became the inland salt havens for the
European civilization.
From about 700 AD the sea level began receding and coastal flats again
re-emerged. According to the Doomesday book by 1086 hundreds of saltpans
were again operating in the English estuaries, and the 'Bay' salt of Bourgneuf began
supplying a revitalized Europe from Scandinavia to the Baltic. The vacuum was
suddenly filled with Norsemen taking over British and French salt centers, and even Arabs
invaded Spain finally clashing with the Normans in Provence. Ravenna, Venice, and Yarmouth
in England began to thrive. Concurrently the inland Asian and African sources lost
their importance to the maritime nations.
The data available today, due to the Global warming research, has shown that these
eustatic sea level changes were possible, and Archaeological data from more than 200
submerged Mediterranean sites is confirming them.
The salt monopolies established during the previous inundation , at the turn of the
millennium, such as the Gabelle [fr]/gabellum [latin]/quabala [arabic]/gavia [hebrew]
were the basis for a 'relatively' ordered but still
authoritarian Medieval history. They were
administered by the monks, and their Royal siblings. The
customs and salt tax 'limes' delineating the local inland
salt monopoly became the future frontier lines of
today's 'sovereign' states. It also led to the
misunderstanding that a government monopoly in certain
public sectors must be efficient and for 'our own' good.
Mankind can live without gold...but not without
Salt -[CASSIODORUS]
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ESSAY - SALT and the
evolution of MONEY
ESSAY - SALT and the community loss of civil liberty
ESSAY
- SALT and the evolution of MONOPOLY
ESSAY -
SALT and the evolution of TAX
מעשר
ESSAY
[
המלח והתפתחות המונופול ]
The MONEY CRISIS and our complete
misconception of money
Money as a means of exchange is not a commodity but a concept and
thus in the classic meaning, its availability can not be limited. It
has no intrinsic value. Only after it is spent - does it represent the
intrinsic value of the items or services purchased . Throughout history
many kinds of money were invented including cowry shells, salt, medals and
gold - none of them with the exception of salt had serious intrinsic value.
Today even gold it might be argued has little value relative to its real
usefulness .
Salt was and still is a commodity and it's intrinsic value was governed
by it's sometimes precarious availability - Even when very difficult
to obtain salt was possibly available even in extreme cases in return
for the life it saved. Human bondage, as the means of exchange was a
slave and slavery.
In such extreme circumstances slaves were only a
drastic exchange alternative likened to money or gold or Chinese
Cowry shells provided they satisfied the supplier that they represented the
current value of salt. Money does not have intrinsic value.
It was the lack of availability [or monopolizing] of salt that
increased its value and not the lack of money or slaves-
Availability was mainly determined by the vagaries of climate
which allowed ruthless authoritarians to periodically make the rules .
Tax collection in times of famine added to the
burden.
Gold for example as a defined measure of the weight of salt or other
valued commodities was useful, but greater values had to be measured by
digital means and other forms of recorded guarantees and promises
ROLE
OF the BANKS
Up until the present crisis Banks have been adding [or
subtracting] and manipulating the measured value until it no longer
represented the original asset value. Inflation and even worse, deflation
came into being. On the other hand countries' regimes have also very
successfully sold paper money to the rest of the world which it has accepted
as a consensus of valuation. [It is difficult to understand why this is
called debt and not investment since any money should represent collateral
and therefore an interest in the expected improved value of that collateral ]
Money can and is printed by
authorities and banks
as a recorded measure of exchange by any credible trading authority
without limit for the purpose of exchange. The asset or
work-in-progress described by Aristotle and later by Keynes can be passed on and change
ownership using this measure of exchange. These total assets are what planet
earth is worth and almost impossible to measure in value. It might even be
impossible to print enough money to represent earthly value. So
why is there a liquidity problem ? Clearly the answer is not
about money but about ownership.
Unfortunately BANKS have been treating money
as if it were an asset with intrinsic value - Even worse
banks have been inflating this measure by compounding commissions and
interest. The role of a bank should only be to oversee investments and
earn a profit from this service. Collecting capital and holding deposits are clearly
two separate businesses .
The measured capital used for investments should always equal the
perceived value of an economy and is only a tool which should never
be owned by the bank. If a bank has to write down badly spent capital it
must bear the marginal loss as a recorded perceived value reflecting its
reputation and goodwill. However the principle still represents an
economic value albeit depreciated and eroding the market's consensus of
opinion
A sum of money may represent an item, or service
with a value as perceived by a market with the freedom of choice. That
sum of money however has not been consummated as a recorded value until the
exchange has been made and only then has the item or asset been given a
temporary measure of exchange in the form of a credit or debit. Such a
credit or debit is not a commodity, but only a record of exchange
A quantity of money held as a deposit may represent the perceived value
of
an item or service , however if that perceived value changes then any
money offered as a means of exchange will be dependent upon the perceived
value of this item of collateral held by those offering or printing the
money or by mutual agreement. The measured value of any item of
collateral is by a mutual trade agreement . The total value
of an economy therefore is by mutual agreement and not by unilateral
declaration.
However much money is deposited or printed it cannot be less than the
perceived value of the economy it represents. It would also be
impossible to spend more money than the goods, services and work in progress
that are available in that economy. There only remains the political question as
to who should spend it . It may also be argued that not spending it causes a relative reduction
in the availability and the usefulness of available goods and services, and work in progress.
Since the available collateral created or discovered on this planet is
mostly owned by countries, then such countries ought to able to print or mint money
according to the rest of the worlds perceived value of that country's
economic worth. A group of countries eg the EUROZONE or the United
States of America may have advantages in terms of size however
individual states or countries within the group would not be able to manipulate local
fiscal conditions.
There cannot be a limiting ceiling to the value of this collateral
(generally known as an "economy" ) so long as there is a an objective
consensus of opinion as to the perceived value monitored by the rest of the
world. Credit grading bodies eg S&P may provide indication of status/
In practice the rest of the world
reacts to devaluation or revaluation of an economy by choice in buying
[or not buying] its goods and services indicated by the exchange rate
of its currency
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ESSAY - SALT and the
evolution of MONEY
ESSAY
[
המלח והתפתחות המונופול ]
The historical scars of the salt monopolies are still in
evidence and the quaint legislation on many country statutes was still
operative at the beginning of the 20
th
century vividly demonstrated by Gandhi in India. Even today China's salt
police, 25,000 officers strong with red epaulettes and gold badges in the
shape of salt crystals still enforce one of the oldest economic policies in
the world: the Chinese government's exclusive right toproduce and sell salt
for the past 2600 years. [Although now it is iodized salt needed for the
health of the population. [21
Fackler ]
The monopolies ran
concurrently with periods of salt famine. Episodes such as the controversial
and violent latter part of the Roman period and the move to the Levant and
Byzantia, or
the despicable inequality of the Gabelle regime were necessarily accompanied
hand-in-hand with fiercely authoritarian regimes to protect and oversee
their implementation.
המלח והתפתחות המונופול Possibly the most recent period of slavery from West
Africa to America bears witness to the worst form of salt famine. Towards the end of
the Greek and early Roman period the resulting social upheaval forced the
focus of communities away from the slowly flooding coastal salt sources that
had been synonymous with more liberal civilizations and undisturbed coastal
salt making. They were drawn toward the few known highly protected inland
salt quarries, brine springs and salt lakes catered by military with
supply lines and ‘via salarium’. The salt famines provided periodical
significance to those places that have regularly suffered the cycle of
prosperity and then decay in unison with the fluctuating sea. Peaceful
maritime Trade and liberal regimes grew with the ability of those
blessed with salt sources, to supply themselves and barter their salted
goods. War, on the other hand, cursed those same communities
when the lines of supply became unreliable and defense and protection became
synonymous with monopoly and coercion. It is perhaps no coincidence that the
word for ‘war’ in ancient Hebrew [mel’chama]
means literally “a fight for [salt and bread] “ Similarly we may also find
the words for salt in the etymology of "peace" :
salaam, shalom, saluti, salvete!
And even a rejoicing, [Greek; salt=hal] 'hallelujah!
The salt monopolies and their
enforcement were the cruelest but perhaps the most practical of instruments
for consolidating and wielding power until the start of the Industrial
Revolution. The inventive use of modern burning fuels suddenly allowed the
efficient mass production of salt for everyone with unlimited supply. The
remnants of these authoritarian regimes are still with us, because
anti-trust law is not yet fully recognized or perhaps even understood.
The tobacco monopolies were paired
with the salt monopolies
Saltpetre impregnated fungus - Polyphorus fomentarius - known all over
Europe as 'amadoo' - was widely used
as tinder from early times. It was collected from old trees and treated by boiling,
soaking in saltpetre, then dried and used in a tinder box. This contained flint, steel and
material - the tinder - to ignite easily and was an essential household article before the
invention of matches as well as a personal possession as the cigarette lighter is today.
Tobacco leaf was almost certainly used for impregnation to produce such
tinder and this would explain the pairing of these two monopolies.
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SALT as MONEY - Aristotle
and Keynes
Aristotle believed that primitive barter trading of
standardized commodities 'hall-marked" by an authority for correct weight and
quality, represented the first use of "money". He says......."as the the
necessaries of nature were not all easily portable, people agreed for the purposes of
barter, mutually to give and receive some article which.....was practically easy to handle
in the business of life.....The trading of
standardized pieces of salt, and
gold metal have
all the the aspects of dealing in what we call today....money.
The key to this concept was the word "hall- marked" [ [hal
-
αλάτι
- alati = Greek= salt] a marking to guarantee a
weight or quantity of salt in terms of the perceived value. This mark
was therefore a measurement of its intrinsic value. Money developed
into a record of guaranteed measurement which reflected an intrinsic value
without the intrinsic value having to be present or portable at the time of
an exchange trade. Thus the means of exchange - money
became credible in its own right and separated from the asset or intrinsic
value. Unfortunately since the commodity gold is still
considered to have intrinsic asset value; the same criteria seem to
mistakenly have been applied to money which clearly is not a commodity with
value but only a measure of value. This has caused modern
economies to erroneously give importance to the availability of money as
though it was a commodity and thus artificially causing increases and
decreases in the cost of money. This in turn may artificially
create assets that do not exist.
__________________________________________________
Minor Unit of Salt-bar Money [Pitt Rivers Museum, South Parks Road
Oxford.]
The Museum has many fine examples of local currencies from around the world—shell
money, feather money, stone money, salt money
__________________________________________________
For instance bread-like
moles of salt each weighing about 5 kg still circulate in Ethiopia as a means of payment
The Horn of Africa is
presently considered to be one of the poorest parts of Africa and salt
"Amoles" were only until recently still used as means of exchange
An old Persian word for the shekel was a [pathuka]--a 'ram'" (Dandamaev and Lukonin) It also meant five fingers [or worth a handful of salt?]
possibly the handful of salt was the amount required to de-hydrate
by osmosis the meat of one ram and render it "kosher"
Ethiopian airlines advertisement
Pliny following Aristotle's ideas, interprets the use of
salt as a means of payment ..."in Rome...the soldier's pay was originally salt and
the word salary derives from it..." Plinius Naturalis Historia. XXXI -
[ Pliny may well have
interpreted this payment wrongly. To judge from the missions and the
locations to which the Roman army was dispatched, it would seem that
protecting the salt sources and securing the 'via salarium' roads was the true military objective
- The first "legions" aka : LEGIO : ie "levying" [ for
the monarchy], were not paid since the collection of salt from
those sources which was clearly the ultimate value itself, was the
Military
business and responsibility. It was necessary for their economic
viability as a domesticated entity. The minting of money and its
perceived representative value has always depended upon the health of the economy and on the effectiveness of the
regime's governance. Failing these the mint could only rely on
an intrinsic mint value - eg salt. Thus Rome may not have "fallen"
into decadent bankruptcy but
only moved to a location where this basic value was available -
the eastern end of the Mediterranean where Jerusalem's Dead Sea
salt and the Tuz Golu salt lake in Cappadocia gave apparent
valuation to the economy.
].
Marco Polo writes about salt as if it were a
treasure as precious as gold.... "KAIN-du is a Chinese pro
vince...where the money or currency
they make use of, is thus prepared: their gold is formed into small rods and being cut to
certain lengths , passes according to its weight without any stamp......This is their
greater money. The smaller [money] is of the following description...".in this
country there are salt springs from which they manufacture salt by boiling it in small
pans. When the water has boiled for an hour it becomes a kind of paste which is formed
into cakes of the value of twopence each. These, flat on the lower, and convex on the
upper side, are placed upon hot tiles near a fire in order to dry and harden. On these
latter species of money , the stamp of the Grand Khan is impressed, and cannot be
impressed by any other than its own officers. When these are carried to little
frequented parts they obtain a 'saggio' of gold for sixty, fifty or even forty salt
cakes....the further removed from the towns....."
Heller money printed in the City of HALLE [hal
-
αλάτι
- alati = Greek salt
αλατίζων saltworker eg slave ]
The term heller (Czech:
haléř,
Slovak: halier) was also
used for a coin valued at 1/100 of
koruna in
the
Czech Republic (Czech
koruna) and
Slovakia
(Slovak
koruna),
Understanding the history of salt, may help us to
understand
what money represents
AND ITS REAL PLACE
IN TODAY'S ECONOMY :-
It may also help us to understand how and why we have almost
self destructed our civilizations following the relative freedom of the
Aegean democracies.
Our modern civilization still reflects the monopolies and corruption
inherent in the regimes of socialism and capitalism of many of
today's governments. [Winston Churchill claimed
democracy was only the lesser evil of the two] But Both
these regimes
would seem to be destined to collapse so long as they are enhanced by monopoly
and corruption dominated
sectors. Perhaps Churchill meant that The only real difference
between the two regimes is that democracy does have Strong regulation of
anti-trust legislation whereas socialism is about centralisation. We are still confused as to whether state monopolies are efficient
use of resources or recipes for corruption and manipulation
ESSAY - SALT and the community loss of civil liberty
ESSAY
- SALT and the evolution of MONOPOLY
ESSAY -
SALT and the evolution of TAX
מעשר
MONOPOLY - Israel
PRINCIPALS OF MONEY
MONEY represents VALUE [ money should
be specifically used as a means of measurement and not as a commodity ]
MONEY fulfils its representative value
when it is spent on an article or service of value to society and
which improves the living standard.
MONEY represents little
or no value when those 'who know not' how to spend it, and
do not improve their quality of life.
MONEY represents negative book value when wrongly
or badly spent [inflation]
MONEY represents increased value when spending it
improves 'life' on this earth [deflation]
MONEY which is borrowed representing accompanying collateral
should be earning either as commission or interest as the profit, and
should reflect the added value of
the goods, services and work in progress AND NOT TO INFLATE THE
[so-called product ] MONEY
ESSAY - SALT and the evolution of
MONEY
[המלח
והתפתחות המונופול]
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Means of payment or "primitive money" is not yet
money in the sense of G.F.Knapp's "State theory" of money, however by
introducing the "tally" system - "tessera" or "talea" in
Latin, "kerbholz" [notched wood] in German, "Teomim" in Hebrew,
"symbolon" in Greek, Chih-chi" in Chinese ....the essential element in the
evolvement of money currency became possible, ..eg: the deposits of stored valued goods
[salt] were represented by the tally, which then itself became a means of payment.
The tally was treated as currency. Metal coinage and
and paper money both became mass produced tallies, cheap to make but also easy to imitate,
and so eventually limited to "smaller money" and used to pay individual tax. . A
further refinement - the records of the tally's existence, became tangible and
transferable, and so on, until even work and services could be "notched up" as
transferable value. Thus paper 'value' began to replace the wooden tally system. It was
the State's "charter" which gave such transactions their value and credibility,
and state monopolies on valuable goods, which ensured intrinsic value. For example, in
China in 1329 AD, all tax was paid in paper money, 82% of which came from
the salt monopoly.
The
Tally was conventionally, a willow stick up to eight feet long and notched to indicate the
sums loaned to government, receipts and advances were normally only in very large amounts
in millions of pounds. On repayment the split halves were matched together. Tallies were
abolished only in 1826. The burning of these old tallies caused [by chance] the
destruction of the Houses of Parliament in 1834
AN EXAMPLE OF THE ABUSING OF MONEY
MONOPOLISING the salt supply allowed
control of the meaning and the value which money represented As
recently as 1930 this was demonstrated by Ghandi in India. In
particular the French Revolution also demonstrated the viciousness of this control
could hurt inhabitants.
