Progress Vs Parasites

The change in our ancestors' behaviour was barely perceptible at first. Only a few clues in the archaeological record - sea shells, ochre and stone tools carried over long distances - hint at what was to come. From such simple barter arose a network of interdependence and exchange that spans the pla [...]
Visa längre beskrivning

The change in our ancestors' behaviour was barely perceptible at first. Only a few clues in the archaeological record - sea shells, ochre and stone tools carried over long distances - hint at what was to come. From such simple barter arose a network of interdependence and exchange that spans the planet - and which lifted most of our species out of the grinding poverty of the past. But for much of history this engine of progress stalled, with societies rigged in the interests of small parasitic elites. From the Greeks and Romans in antiquity, to China, India and Europe in the Middle Ages, the history of the world can be written as the constant struggle between the productive and the parasitic. Progress Vs Parasites charts this struggle. Those societies that flourished were those within which the productive had been set free. Empires rise and fall according to the parasitic burden they carry. It is the idea of freedom, Carswell argues, that ultimately allows the productive to escape the parasitic - and thus decides whether a society flourishes or flounders. A robust defence of classical liberalism, Progress Vs Parasites shows that greatest threat to human progress today - as it has been in every age - is the idea that human affairs need to be ordered by top down design.