Travels etc.

I have just finished reading Alcibiades I , by Plato. In that dialog I found very good part that may illustrate many events that happen constantly when someone deals with people in regards to influence, politics, problem solving, negotiations etc. Here’s the text I’d like to quote: --- SOCRATES: Then let us compare our antecedents with those of the Lacedaemonian and Persian kings; are they inferior to us in descent? Have we not heard that the former are sprung from Heracles, and the latter from Achaemenes, and that the race of Heracles and the race of Achaemenes go back to Perseus, son of Zeus?  ALCIBIADES: Why, so does mine go back to Eurysaces, and he to Zeus!   SOCRATES: And mine, noble Alcibiades, to Daedalus, and he to Hephaestus, son of Zeus. But, for all that, we are far inferior to them. For they are descended 'from Zeus,' … whereas, we and our fathers were but private persons.   How ridiculous would you be thought if you were to make a display of yo...

Interesting book for those engaged in Australian and World War 2 history. Lt Colonel John Robertson of the 2/29th Battalion AIF, a decorated veteran of the First World War, was killed in action in Malaya on 17 January 1942, the first day of his Battalion’s encounter with Japanese forces. His death devastated his men but they continued to revere Robbie as they endured more than three years of captivity. By contrast, some historians have described him as too old and hide-bound for command, as having lost the confidence of General Gordon Bennett, and as having imperilled his troops by refusing to co-operate with the battery from the 4th Anti-Tank Regiment. Grandson Andrew Warland asks whether the evidence supports such views. Reproducing the letters Robbie wrote home to his family in 1940–42, he presents a fascinating study of a man who left his family and his business, and ultimately gave his life, to make (in his own words) ‘a better world for us all’. http://www.scholarl...

Читаю вот в книге " Социальная психология и история " Б.Ф. Поршнева: "Напомним, что когда Ленин в статье "О лозунге Соединенных Штатов Европы" писал о возможности победы социализма "первоначально в немногих или даже в одной, отдельно взятой капиталистической стране", он имел в виду не обособленность этой страны, а ее антагонизм к мировой капиталистической системе: "Победивший пролетариат этой страны, экспроприировав капиталистов и организовав у себя социалистическое производство, встал бы против остального, капиталистического мира, привлекая к себе угнетенные классы других стран..." 1 Эти слова, разумеется, в полной мере относятся и к тому времени, когда на карте уже не одна социалистическая страна, а мировая система стран социализма, антагонистичная мировой системе монополистического капитализма." Как интересно. 1 Ленин В. И. Полн. собр. соч., т. 26, с. 354

From time to time an opinion comes up regarding state deficits, national debts etc. Here's the insight on how it is relevant and whether it does influence wealth of the country or not: "The balance of produce and consumption may be constantly in favour of a nation, though what is called the balance of trade be generally against it. A nation may import to a greater value than it exports for half a century, perhaps, together; the gold and silver which comes into it during all this time, may be all immediately sent out of it; its circulating coin may gradually decay, different sorts of paper money being substituted in its place, and even the debts, too, which it contracts in the principal nations with whom it deals, may be gradually increasing; and yet its real wealth, the exchangeable value of the annual produce of its lands and labour, may, during the same period, have been increasing in a much greater proportion. The state of our North American colonies, and of the trade ...

We have not long ago discussed some aspects of sociology. There is an opinion that theories of 17-19th centuries are not applicable today - in the 21st century. However as I am reading Adam Smith at the moment, here's quite an interesting quote: "In every country it always is, and must be, the interest of the great body of the people, to buy whatever they want of those who sell it cheapest . The proposition is so very manifest, that it seems ridiculous to take any pains to prove it; nor could it ever have been called in question, had not the interested sophistry of merchants and manufacturers confounded the common sense of mankind. Their interest is, in this respect, directly opposite to that of the great body of the people . As it is the interest of the freemen of a corporation to hinder the rest of the inhabitants from employing any workmen but themselves; so it is the interest of the merchants and manufacturers of every country to secure to themselves the monopoly o...

From time to time the question of money comes up in conversation. Many people tend to think that money can increase wealth or to help to resolve many issues relating to health, starvation and education. However, there is an interesting quote from the 17th century: "It would be too ridiculous to go about seriously to prove, that wealth does not consist in money, or in gold and silver; but in what money purchases, and is valuable only for purchasing. Money, no doubt, makes always a part of the national capital; but it has already been shown that it generally makes but a small part, and always the most unprofitable part of it. It is not because wealth consists more essentially in money than in goods, that the merchant finds it generally more easy to buy goods with money, than to buy money with goods; but because money is the known and established instrument of commerce, for which every thing is readily given in exchange, but which is not always with equal readiness to be got in...

"Such as they were, however, those arguments convinced the people to whom they were addressed. They were addressed by merchants to parliaments and to the councils of princes, to nobles, and to country gentlemen; by those who were supposed to understand trade, to those who were conscious to them selves that they knew nothing about the matter . That foreign trade enriched the country, experience demonstrated to the nobles and country gentlemen, as well as to the merchants; but how, or in what manner, none of them well knew. The merchants knew perfectly in what manner it enriched themselves, it was their business to know it. But to know in what manner it enriched the country, was no part of their business ." - Adam Smith, The Wealth of Nations

Here's some interesting passage regarding law and justice: "Upon the authority which the great proprietors necessarily had, in such a state of things, over their tenants and retainers, was founded the power of the ancient barons. They necessarily became the judges in peace, and the leaders in war, of all who dwelt upon their estates. They could maintain order, and execute the law, within their respective demesnes, because each of them could there turn the whole force of all the inhabitants against the injustice of anyone. No other person had sufficient authority to do this. The king, in particular, had not. In those ancient times, he was little more than the greatest proprietor in his dominions, to whom, for the sake of common defence against their common enemies, the other great proprietors paid certain respects. To have enforced payment of a small debt within the lands of a great proprietor, where all the inhabitants were armed, and accustomed to stand by one another, w...

"Were the Americans, either by combination, or by any other sort of violence, to stop the importation of European manufactures, and, by thus giving a monopoly to such of their own countrymen as could manufacture the like goods, divert any considerable part of their capital into this employment, they would retard, instead of accelerating, the further increase in the value of their annual produce, and would obstruct, instead of promoting, the progress of their country towards real wealth and greatness. This would be still more the case, were they to attempt, in the same manner, to monopolize to themselves their whole exportation trade." - Adam Smith, The Wealth of Nations

During my recent visit to Art Gallery of NSW this painting drew my attention. It depicts the exchange of the land for cloth. I wouldn't start a discussion now about the fairness of this deal - first of all it is all history and second as a matter of fact this type of deals fits very well into the marketing and wealth building concepts that are promoted everywhere. However I researched this subject a bit and found that this painting is not the only one about this historical event. 01. The first one was  Treaty of Penn with Indians by Benjamin West That work, it appears, influenced Edward Hicks and other artists to create multiple paintings of the same event. The difference is in details: 02. 03. 04. 05. This image is from  AllPosters.com 06. 07. A 19th-century lithograph by Currier & Ives By the way, William Penn was an English real estate entrepreneur, philosopher, early Quaker and founder of the Province of Pennsylvania . He ...

That's how the journey to Valhalla looks like: From the Vikings - Beyond the legend exhibition

Have recently bought a couple of books about history for children. Straight away checked the pages about World War II. The quiz: spot a single world about Soviet Union or at least Russia? In one of the books there is a Soviet banner, but it's not clear from the text how did it appear in Berlin. Magically?