An engraving of Bosch's Avarice from his painting the Seven Deadly Sins.
Welfare for the Wealthy
Capitalism is an euphemism for socialism for the wealthy. Check out Google for bail-outs, tax breaks, subsidies, grants for the wealthy, Wall Street, big banks too big to fail, multi-national oil companies, giant agribusinesses, etc. and the government 50 million grant to the Dallas-Fort Worth's Cowboy Stadium.
Will Rogers said, "We have the best government money can buy." The wealthy intend to keep it that way. Among the wealthy, those with unlit candles in their souls, there are those, that say its not us, but the middle-class that is waging class warfare. Ah! They do proud Joseph Goebbel and Hermann Goering.
Feudalism, 9th to 15th century Europe, was the childhood of capitalism. During these centuries of indifference, greed gave rise to the “have and have not” political-economic system. All land was held in fief or fee. The vassals paid their lords homage: tributes of food, crafts, servants, laborers, soldiers, etc. There was always the fear of being subjected to forfeiture and eviction. See: A Distant Mirror: The Calamitous 14th century by Barbara W. Tuchman. Google.
Industrial Revolution, circa 1760s to circa 1840s Europe-America, was when capitalism came of age. There was child labor. Children, as young as seven, worked 12 to 16 hours a day, 6 days a week for little or no wages under emotional and physical abuse and dangerous conditions. See: Google.
Great Famine, 1845 to 1852 Ireland, was cause by the potato blight, absentee land owners' greed, indifference and the force eviction of tenants. There was mass migration, starvation, disease and it is estimated over one million died. See: A Modest Proposal by Jonathan Swift — a great biting satire. Google.
