8 March 2021 — Origin: Climate & Capitalism
Plundering a New Found Land
While treasure fleets carried silver to Spain, far more ships were carrying men, fish and whale oil across the North Atlantic.
Part One discussed the development of fish as a mass food commodity, and the Dutch use of factory ships in the North Sea in the 16th Century. Part Two looks at the rise of an even bigger capitalist fishery on the other side of the Atlantic.
“In the sixteenth and partly still in the seventeenth, the sudden expansion of trade and the creation of a new world market had an overwhelming influence on the defeat of the old mode of production and the rise of the capitalist mode.” — Karl Marx[1]
by Ian Angus
This year’s spring budget was like the worst kind of meal: A lot of fanfare before it, yet in the tasting rather bland, leaving much to be desired.
The New Dark Age 