The British entered the subcontinental scene at the outset of the seventeenth century. The question is, would they finally present a challenge to the interminable reign of the subcontinent’s usurers?
It seems reasonable to assume they might have done so given the long-standing acceptance in Europe of economics as a school of moral philosophy. Of course, it hadn’t always been that way. The Roman penchant for enslaving conquered peoples meant that there was a time when chattel slaves were as much a feature of the economy as debt slaves. It’s estimated that by the end of the 1st century BC, about 35 percent to 40 percent of Italy’s population were slaves.1
But by the 5th century AD, the Roman Empire had collapsed. In time Christianity would replace paganism which included a series of radical departures from the pagan understanding of economics.
Labor in the pagan world, particularly manual labor, was seen as the output of slaves. The idea that a well-to-do Roman would sully his hands cleaning, gardening, or carrying out any other work typically carried out by slaves was unthinkable. But to the Christian mind, when God became man, He gave new dignity to man’s output, namely his labor, laying the groundwork for the acceptance of labor as the source of value. This accounts for the Benedictine order’s value for labor, implicit in their motto, “ora et labora” or “pray and work,” over a millennium before Adam Smith and his leftist counterpoint, Karl Marx, came to the same conclusion.
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