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The greatest mystery of the Inca Empire was its strange economy (2012)

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Re: The greatest mystery of the Inca Empire was its strange economy (2012)

#131

Post by mseebach »

soperj wrote: post #88
mseebach wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Explaining why communism always fail without faulting communism even slightly" is a very rich genre. It is also disingenuous in failing to consider the single most likely (by way of Occam's razor) cause of communism's failure, which is the ideology itself. But to apply some historical facts to the theory: From its founding, the Cheka was an important military and security arm of the Bolshevik communist government. I…

What is labelled as communism doesn't always fail, see China, Venezuela, Cuba.

You can see an extremely sharp bend in pretty much all economic indicators in China when they reformed away from marxism and adopted capitalist policies under Deng Xiaoping.

To claim that Cuba isn't a failure is just silly, and Venezuela (which isn't labelled communist, by the way) is failing very fast.

Re: The greatest mystery of the Inca Empire was its strange economy (2012)

#132

Post by mseebach »

stormbrew wrote: post #129
mseebach wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Explaining why communism always fail without faulting communism even slightly" is a very rich genre. It is also disingenuous in failing to consider the single most likely (by way of Occam's razor) cause of communism's failure, which is the ideology itself. But to apply some historical facts to the theory: From its founding, the Cheka was an important military and security arm of the Bolshevik communist government. I…

For that to fit occam's razor I think you need to demonstrate that communist societies actually suffer a higher rate of failure than any other -ism. Most nation states fail. You might even be right to say that most of them fail in short order. The French alone have been through 5 republics in the last couple of centuries. The simplest explanation, imo, is that power accretes in all civilizations, perhaps moreso in on…

In France, the third republic began with the fall of Napoleon and ended with WWII. The fourth republic was ended by a perfectly peaceful and democratic constitutional reform and that brings us to the fifth. If that's your benchmark for a failing capitalist state, then yes, those fail all the time.

Re: The greatest mystery of the Inca Empire was its strange economy (2012)

#133

Post by mseebach »

int_19h wrote: post #91
mseebach wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Explaining why communism always fail without faulting communism even slightly" is a very rich genre. It is also disingenuous in failing to consider the single most likely (by way of Occam's razor) cause of communism's failure, which is the ideology itself. But to apply some historical facts to the theory: From its founding, the Cheka was an important military and security arm of the Bolshevik communist government. I…

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Allied_intervention_in_the_Russ...

I was thinking in terms of subversive behind-the-lines campaigning that it might make sense to counter by policing what people read and talk about - but this was a "proper" military intervention with soldiers in uniform. It doesn't justify running a Gulag system.

Also, the internal oppression didn't exactly peter out after the intervention was over in 1920. The OSS (predecessor to the CIA) wasn't formed until WWII.

Re: The greatest mystery of the Inca Empire was its strange economy (2012)

#134

Post by cturner »

dsizzle wrote: post #117
jdmichal wrote: post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

First, it depends on whether the gold was considered a currency. If it was just another good, then it's really just a bartering -- life for some good, which in this case happens to be gold. Second, that story is post-conquistador. It is in fact the Spanish who are demanding the gold and silver, which is of course what the Spanish used for currency. So it's really an observation on the Spanish, not the Incans.

It may be that the Inca never used gold as currency, but it would be hard to substantiate that claim, I would think. The reason the Spanish valued it as currency is not because of some quirk of the Spanish, however -- it's univerally a good currency (though not the best). Unlike bartered goods or services, gold is readily divisible and transportable, transfers without any skill, and stores indefinitely.

The Spanish had grown up knowing that gold could be swapped into land and wine and women. Get a lot of it, go home, live the good life. I doubt it was more sophisticated than that. The evidence suggests that the Spanish didn't have an academic understanding of currency, because the influex of silver caused huge inflation in Spain and damaged their economy.

    > it's univerally a good currency
It's not. Metals don't function as currency even in the world we live in. You can't go into a shop and buy a computer with a piece of gold - nobody is set up for it. It functions less as a currency even than something like bitcoin, which you can occasionally find something quoted in. With gold - you won't find someone quoting food, land, or shares with it, or set up to accept it as payment.

There's a concept called 'store of value'. Gold is regarded by many to function as a strong store of value. In fact, recently it hasn't - it's gone up significantly for several years and then down this year.

But that's a different thing to currency. And it's not unique to metals - land and cocaine tend to have those properties also.

    > It may be that the Inca never used gold as
    > currency, but it would be hard to substantiate
    > that claim, I would think
You've set down a default assumption that is incorrect - that gold is a universal currency. Then you've followed on to say that - therefore - it should be assumed that the Incas used gold as a currency. This is invalid.

The article says there's an absence of evidence of markets from the Incas, and painted a picture of how life worked. If you think that gold was valued as a currency, show some evidence.

Re: The greatest mystery of the Inca Empire was its strange economy (2012)

#135

Post by cturner »

bobbydavid wrote: post #118
dsizzle wrote: post #117

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It may be that the Inca never used gold as currency, but it would be hard to substantiate that claim, I would think. The reason the Spanish valued it as currency is not because of some quirk of the Spanish, however -- it's univerally a good currency (though not the best). Unlike bartered goods or services, gold is readily divisible and transportable, transfers without any skill, and stores indefinitely.

Incidentally, so is salt.

It's a stretch to call it a universal currency. You don't see people in the high street quoted in units of salt.

Re: The greatest mystery of the Inca Empire was its strange economy (2012)

#136

Post by seanmcdirmid »

lostlogin wrote: post #126
seanmcdirmid wrote: post #113

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Monopoly on means of survival is effective slavery. People in early agricultural societies didn't exactly have many choices.

This is the argument behind the movements for a living wage. However this is now, no early agricultural society, just first world shining light capitalism. http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Living_wage

There are huge limits to capitalism in terms of automation. We are going to hit those limits in our lifetime and society is going to need some drastic adaptations.

Re: The greatest mystery of the Inca Empire was its strange economy (2012)

#137

Post by teeja »

Perhaps they were rich in sanity. Unlike the 20th century. (Stalins, Hitlers, nuclear brinkmanship, massive pollution, tens of millions killed in war ...)

Sanity alone explains their remarkable success. From each according to his ability, to each according to his need. Money is a symptom.

That and (towards the end) a couple of kings who had absolute power. Like ... Stalin.

Re: The greatest mystery of the Inca Empire was its strange economy (2012)

#138

Post by winter_blue »

moxie wrote: post #65
chrismealy wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You mean feudalists. It's been a long time since I've read any pre-Columbian history, but I seem to remember that in addition to infectious disease, a lot of the South American empires were easy to conquer because the subjects generally hated their rulers, and the Spanish had no trouble finding indigenous allies.

The Inca were easy to conquer because they had no steel and no horses. The Spanish were so unimaginably horrible that I can't imagine their presence having anything other than a uniting effect. The book "The Last Days Of The Inca" describe a scene were ~20 armored conquistadors are in a town that's surrounded by mountains on all sides. The Incas managed to call in enough people that the hillsides were all completely…

> covered with tens of thousands of people waiting to attack. When they did, the entire population was slaughtered by the 20 conquistadors on horseback

That's completely and utterly ridiculous. What were the conquistadors? Supermen?

Re: The greatest mystery of the Inca Empire was its strange economy (2012)

#139

Post by ekianjo »

mercurial wrote: post #124
ekianjo wrote: post #110

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Contrast this with the dismal performance of French and British troops during the Battle of France. Contrast this with the millions of people who died in Germany and Japan because of that determination (or should I say their rulers' determination!), without avoiding the final outcome at all. The French government understood very fast they were completely behind and were going to lose and they did the right thing to…

> Contrast this with the millions of people who died in Germany and Japan because of that determination (or should I say their rulers' determination!), without avoiding the final outcome at all. The French government understood very fast they were completely behind and were going to lose and they did the right thing to avoid a massacre which would have prevented nothing. I was more thinking in terms of low troop mora…

> I'm not aware that Japanese units on the island were more "forced to fight" than any other body of troops, but still fought almost to the last man, in spite of their poor physical condition.

They fought out of despair since they were told they would be tortured if they ever get caught (and most of them killed themselves instead of surrendering in the end). And it's not like they had anywhere to go at Iwo Jima. They were on an island.

Re: The greatest mystery of the Inca Empire was its strange economy (2012)

#140

Post by winter_blue »

shuffleshuff wrote: post #97
r00fus wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> That said, a Spaniard on a thousand pound horse, wrapped in steel, on an open, unobstructed field, against people wearing mostly cloth armor, with stone or copper weapons, was effectively unstoppable This is ridiculous. The problem was that the Incans didn't have access to (or had developed) the polearm (ie, spear axes), guerilla warfare or basic combat engineering (read: trenches/moats). 10 decently trained pole-a…

> More likely, the Incan slave/poor populace was split and easily co-opted by the Spaniards. Why is this either/or? The above statement is undoubtedly true, but that doesn't mean what I said is false. The problem, is, as you say, that the Incans only had access to cloth armor, copper axes, and stone clubs, as I said in my comment. They eventually developed guerilla tactics, but such tactics are not effective when you…

> Llamas are not, shall we say, renowned for their martial prowess.

The idea of someone riding a llama and going out to battle gives me laughs.

Obligatory llama pictures:

* Llama face: https://si0.twimg.com/profile_images/269279233/llama270977_s...

* Llama standing on steppe: http://images.nationalgeographic.com/wpf/media-live/photos/0...

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