Dean
1st May 2011, 17:13
How hundreds of NY bankers secretly supported a "grassroots" campaign for the "free market" just to get rid of the most competitive bank of the time period (http://thethinred.blogspot.com/2011/04/astroturfing-bankers-in-age-of-jackson.html)
http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-ZIgOrQeENkw/TboC3TO5YHI/AAAAAAAAACA/0WVQr6o8x0o/s320/locofoco.jpg (http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-ZIgOrQeENkw/TboC3TO5YHI/AAAAAAAAACA/0WVQr6o8x0o/s1600/locofoco.jpg)
In the early 1800s, the US banking system was dominated by a unique blend of proprietary bank notes held by wealthy merchants and a working class mostly limited to foreign currencies (when they were lucky enough to earn real money at all). New England merchants, ever reliant on European trade, had developed or maintained extensive connections to prominent European trading partners. The capital to valorize these products, coupled with the unique trading opportunities that a continent of untapped resources offered, were fertile ground for a rising class of bourgeois. A shipbuilding/fishing economy had given way to an international-mercantilist model, and the monetary supply could hardly keep up with growth.
As this rapid accumulation of capital progressed, a clear winner was bound to emerge - and the US Government wasn’t playing around: they were going to enthrone the financiers to their own ends. Remember, in those days money wasn’t quite as easy as it was now – loans were in the form of promissory notes or proprietary bank notes: unlike fractional reserve banking, there was little liquidity in loaned value. This was such a problem that it would cause a run on debt in 1937. For the better part of the century, the country was set to witness profound clashes between nearly monolithic financial interests - interests, it turns out, that would manipulate popular movements to push their own financial agenda, all in the name of the "free market."1
Problem was, this accumulation of power meant that public interest was even less likely to factor into the monetary policy of preeminent banking firms. Common household products were skyrocketing in price and foreclosures increasingly common. On top of this, massive debt held by states and private citizens alike threatened to capsize the banking system. Back then, those outraged at the bankers made real demands in their own interests - and they acted on them:
“Unhappily, many victims of hard times sought relief in direct action instead of concentrating their efforts on state legislature. … Above all, the malcontents insisted upon stopping foreclosures, and to this end they demanded either the abolition or the adjournment of the intermediate courts that had dispossessed debtors or had sent them to jail. Not content with verbal pleas, insurgents marched to county towns, where they closed the courts, coerced judges into suspending business, and raided jails to release debtor inmates.”3
Fledgling popular movements are ripe for exploitation. Soon enough, some of these activists started saying things we will find all too familiar: “Hostility to any and all monopolies by legislation.” Gold was cited as the “only legitimate form of money.” A swelling of ”democracy,” led by the Jacksonian petty bourgeois, sought to cement their place in US society in the face of an emergent class of bankers. Their movement was called “Locofocoism,” and it was firmly couched in moral-religious doctrine, to the degree that they released a pamphlet with moral guidance as to how to spend the Sabbath. 4,5
Turns out that the astroturf model has been used for centuries...
http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-ZIgOrQeENkw/TboC3TO5YHI/AAAAAAAAACA/0WVQr6o8x0o/s320/locofoco.jpg (http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-ZIgOrQeENkw/TboC3TO5YHI/AAAAAAAAACA/0WVQr6o8x0o/s1600/locofoco.jpg)
In the early 1800s, the US banking system was dominated by a unique blend of proprietary bank notes held by wealthy merchants and a working class mostly limited to foreign currencies (when they were lucky enough to earn real money at all). New England merchants, ever reliant on European trade, had developed or maintained extensive connections to prominent European trading partners. The capital to valorize these products, coupled with the unique trading opportunities that a continent of untapped resources offered, were fertile ground for a rising class of bourgeois. A shipbuilding/fishing economy had given way to an international-mercantilist model, and the monetary supply could hardly keep up with growth.
As this rapid accumulation of capital progressed, a clear winner was bound to emerge - and the US Government wasn’t playing around: they were going to enthrone the financiers to their own ends. Remember, in those days money wasn’t quite as easy as it was now – loans were in the form of promissory notes or proprietary bank notes: unlike fractional reserve banking, there was little liquidity in loaned value. This was such a problem that it would cause a run on debt in 1937. For the better part of the century, the country was set to witness profound clashes between nearly monolithic financial interests - interests, it turns out, that would manipulate popular movements to push their own financial agenda, all in the name of the "free market."1
Problem was, this accumulation of power meant that public interest was even less likely to factor into the monetary policy of preeminent banking firms. Common household products were skyrocketing in price and foreclosures increasingly common. On top of this, massive debt held by states and private citizens alike threatened to capsize the banking system. Back then, those outraged at the bankers made real demands in their own interests - and they acted on them:
“Unhappily, many victims of hard times sought relief in direct action instead of concentrating their efforts on state legislature. … Above all, the malcontents insisted upon stopping foreclosures, and to this end they demanded either the abolition or the adjournment of the intermediate courts that had dispossessed debtors or had sent them to jail. Not content with verbal pleas, insurgents marched to county towns, where they closed the courts, coerced judges into suspending business, and raided jails to release debtor inmates.”3
Fledgling popular movements are ripe for exploitation. Soon enough, some of these activists started saying things we will find all too familiar: “Hostility to any and all monopolies by legislation.” Gold was cited as the “only legitimate form of money.” A swelling of ”democracy,” led by the Jacksonian petty bourgeois, sought to cement their place in US society in the face of an emergent class of bankers. Their movement was called “Locofocoism,” and it was firmly couched in moral-religious doctrine, to the degree that they released a pamphlet with moral guidance as to how to spend the Sabbath. 4,5
Turns out that the astroturf model has been used for centuries...