Too bad the :libertarian-approaching: answer to the question of “why do we obey the legal fiction that is money” is “time to make a worse money!” :cryptocurrency: :dumpster-fire:

  • zifnab25 [he/him, any]@hexbear.netEnglish
    1·
    1 year ago

    So, historically… a couple of points.

    1. Pharaohs would regularly begin the commission and construction of their tombs long before they died.

    2. The deification of the Pharaohs was an extension of the civil legal system and theocratic underpinning of Egyptian leadership, so surviving Priests and future Pharaohs have a vested interest in maintaining the symbols of authority constructed by prior generations

    3. The construction of the pyramids was at once a public works project, a social credit system, and an artisanal patronage system. Egyptian taxation and expenditure during rich years afforded the government opportunities to build up surplus to distribute during leaner years. Large scale construction projects were a kind of emergent jobs system and a means of cultivating an artisanal class which had knock-on effects that benefited Egyptians outside the vanity projects of the national leaders.

    None of that is to say Egyptians could not have leveraged the bureaucracy of the Pharaohs for a purpose more socially beneficial than the construction of giant tombstones. But to claim these constructions occurred purely at the stated whims of dead people is a huge mistake.

      • zifnab25 [he/him, any]@hexbear.netEnglish
        1·
        1 year ago

        I think there are parallels between the Pharaoh’s pyramids and the modern luxury economy or military economy.

        Hell, you could compare it to the modern commercial real estate economy. Why do we insist on building out new Mega-Malls and steel-glass skyscrappers in an era when that mode of development is past the point of profitability? Only because we still have large and well-connected coalitions of investors, managers, and workers who benefit from construction as well as a base of supporters that continue to believe these symbols of prosperity are desirable even when the attendant long-term social benefits aren’t forthcoming.

        Case in point, Austin is building multiple 100+ story towers in an era when the city physically can’t move people into and out of the downtown area in any kind of efficient manner. Why are we building these behemoths when “nobody” wants them?