Subject: Ralph's House On Saturday.  Part 2 of 2. 
Aug. 6, 2011.

  I just got back from Ralph's meeting and everyone had a good time.
We got to talking about coming to Earth from the Pleiades and one person
said to all of us that he himself was from the Pleiades and he recognized
me as being from there.  I then told him that some people before had told
me the same thing.

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Growth of group barter developed into commerce; and following the
exchange of commodities came the exchange of skilled labor.

4. The Beginnings of Trade
Just as marriage by contract followed marriage by capture, so trade by
barter followed seizure by raids. But a long period of piracy intervened
between the early practices of silent barter and the later trade by modern
exchange methods.

The first barter was conducted by armed traders who would leave their
goods on a neutral spot. Women held the first markets; they were the
earliest traders, and this was because they were the burden bearers; the
men were warriors. Very early the trading counter was developed, a wall
wide enough to prevent the traders reaching each other with weapons.

A fetish was used to stand guard over the deposits of goods for silent
barter. Such market places were secure against theft; nothing would be
removed except by barter or purchase; with a fetish on guard the goods
were always safe. The early traders were scrupulously honest within
their own tribes but regarded it as all right to cheat distant strangers.
Even the early H-brews recognized a separate code of ethics in their
dealings with the gentiles.

For ages silent barter continued before men would meet, unarmed, on
the s-cred market place.
These same market squares became the first places of sanctuary and in
some countries were later known as cities of refuge. Any fugitive
reaching the market place was safe and secure against attack.

The first weights were grains of wheat and other cereals. The first
medium of exchange was a fish or a goat. Later the cow became a
unit of barter.

Modern writing originated in the early trade records; the first literature
of man was a trade-promotion document, a salt advertisement. Many
of the earlier wars were fought over natural deposits, such as flint,
salt, and metals. The first formal tribal treaty concerned the
intertribalizing of a salt deposit. These treaty spots afforded
opportunity for friendly and peaceful interchange of ideas and the
intermingling of various tribes.

Writing progressed up through the stages of the message stick,
knotted cords, picture writing, hieroglyphics, and wampum belts,
to the early symbolic alphabets.
Message sending ev-lved from the primitive smoke signal up through
runners, animal riders, railroads, and airplanes, as well as telegraph,
telephone, and wireless communication.

New ideas and better methods were carried around the inhabited
world by the ancient traders.
Commerce, linked with adventure, led to exploration and discovery.
And all of these gave birth to transportation. Commerce has been the
great civilizer through promoting the cross-fertilization of culture.

5. The Beginnings of Capital
Capital is labor applied as a renunciation of the present in favor of
the future. Savings represent a form of maintenance and survival
insurance. Food hoarding developed self-control and created the
first problems of capital and labor. The man who had food, provided
he could protect it from robbers, had a distinct advantage over the
man who had no food.

The early banker was the valorous man of the tribe. He held the group
treasures on deposit, while the entire clan would defend his hut in
event of attack. Thus the accumulation of individual capital and group
wealth immediately led to mi-itary organization.
At first such precautions were designed to defend property against foreign
raiders, but later on it became the custom to keep the mil-tary organization
in practice by inaugurating ra-ds on the property and wealth of neighboring
tribes.

The basic urges which led to the accumulation of capital were:
1. Hunger associated with foresight. Food saving and preservation meant
power and comfort for those who possessed sufficient foresight thus to
provide for future needs. Food storage was adequate insurance against
famine and disaster. And the entire body of primitive mores was really
designed to help man subordinate the present to the future.

2. Love of family desire to provide for their wants. Capital represents the
saving of property in spite of the pressure of the wants of today in order 
to
insure against the demands of the future. A part of this future need may
have to do with one's posterity.

3. Vanity longing to display one's property accumulations. Extra clothing
was one of the first badges of distinction. Collection vanity early appealed
to the pride of man.

4. Position eagerness to buy social and poli-ical prestige. There early 
sprang
up a commercialized nobility, admission to which depended on the
performance of some special service to royalty or was granted frankly for
the payment of m-ney.

5. Power the craving to be master. Treasure lending was carried on as a 
means
of enslavement, one hundred per cent a year being the loan rate of these
ancient times. The moneylenders made themselves kings by creating a
standing a-my of debtors. Bond servants were among the earliest form of
property to be accumulated, and in olden days debt slavery extended even
to the control of the body after de-th.

6. Fear of the g-osts of the d-ad priest fees for protection. Men early 
began
to give dea-h presents to the priests with a view to having their property
used to facilitate their progress through the next life. The priesthoods 
thus
became very rich; they were chief among ancient capitalists.

7. S-x urge the desire to buy one or more wives. Man's first form of trading
was woman exchange; it long preceded horse trading. But never did the
barter in se- s-aves advance society; such traffic was and is a ra-ial
disgrace, for at one and the same time it hindered the development of
family life and polluted the biologic fitness of superior peoples.

8. Numerous forms of self-gratification. Some sought wealth because it
conferred power; others toiled for property because it meant ease. Early
man (and some later-day ones) tended to squander his resources on luxury.
Intoxicants and d-ugs intrigued the primitive rac-s.

As civilization developed, men acquired new incentives for saving;
new wants were rapidly added to the original food hunger. Poverty
became so abhorred that only the rich were supposed to go direct to
heaven when they died. Property became so highly valued that to
give a pretentious feast would wipe a dishonor from one's name.

Accumulations of wealth early became the badge of social distinction.
Individuals in certain tribes would accumulate property for years just
to create an impression by burning it up on some holiday or by freely
distributing it to fellow tribesmen.
This made them great men. Even modern peoples revel in the lavish
distribution of Ch-istmas gifts, while rich men endow great institutions
of philanthropy and learning. Man's technique varies, but his disposition
remains quite unchanged.

But it is only fair to record that many an ancient rich man distributed
much of his fortune because of the fear of being k-lled by those who
coveted his treasures.
Wealthy men commonly sacrificed scores of sla-es to show disdain for
wealth.

Though capital has tended to liberate man, it has greatly complicated
his social and industrial organization. The abuse of capital by unfair
capitalists does not destroy the fact that it is the basis of modern
industrial society. Through capital and invention the present generation
enjoys a higher degree of freedom than any that ever preceded it on
earth. This is placed on record as a fact and not in justification of the
many misuses of capital by thoughtless and selfish custodians.

6. Fire in Relation to Civilization
Primitive society with its four divisions industrial, regulative, rel-gious,
and mi-itary rose through the instrumentality of fire, animals, sla-es,
and property.
Fire building, by a single bound, forever separated man from animal; it
is the basic human invention, or discovery. Fire enabled man to stay
on the ground at night as all animals are afraid of it. Fire encouraged
eventide social intercourse; it not only protected against cold and
wild beasts but was also employed as se-urity against gh-sts. It was
at first used more for light than heat; many backward tribes refuse to
sleep unless a flame burns all night.

Fire was a great civilizer, providing man with his first means of being
altruistic without loss by enabling him to give live coals to a neighbor
without depriving himself. The household fire, which was attended by
the mother or eldest daughter, was the first educator, requiring
watchfulness and dependability. The early home was not a building
but the family gathered about the fire, the family hearth.
When a son founded a new home, he carried a firebrand from the
family hearth.

Though Andon, the discoverer of fire, avoided treating it as an object
of wo-ship, many of his descendants regarded the flame as a fetish or
as a sp-rit. They failed to reap the sanitary benefits of fire because
they would not burn refuse.

Part 2 of 2.

John Winston.  johnfw@mlode.com