Post by King Adam Aberdeen I on Jan 23, 2011 15:17:13 GMT -6
The Crede of Piers the Ploughman.
"As I went on my way,
I saw a poor man over the plough bending.
His hood was full of holes,
And his hair was sticking out,
His shoes were patched.
His toes peeped out as he the ground trod.
His wife walked by him
In a skirt cut full and high.
Wrapped in a sheet to keep her from the weather.
Bare foot on the bare ice
So that the blood flowed.
At the field’s end lay a little bowl,
And in there lay a little child wrapped in rags
And two more of two years old upon another side.
And all of them sang a song
That was sorrowful to hear.
The all cried a cry,
A sorrowful note.
And the poor man sighed sore and said
"Children be still."
[/center]Promoting democracy had always been an important theme in Adam’s grand strategy for the Gaelic Nations. That required a definition of democracy, one that explained how it worked as a political system. Understanding the realities of promoting democracy required one to have a foundation. A way for Skye to guide political change was to reform existing structures and political institutions with the aim of securing a rough balance among competing groups, strengthening them so that they can weather change, and promote civil society. This approach offered no dramatic results in the short run, but it served Skye interests better than the grand project of spreading democracy across the world.
Adam knew that the legacy of the Skye and the Gaelic Nations maintained a set of cultural values, religious beliefs, as well as economical, technological, and other achievements that could be passed on thru the years and continued to shape other civilizations.
The economy of Skye was among the most advanced in Europe. Turas Lan was a prime hub in a trading network that at various times extended across nearly all of Europe. The War of Freedom and the Trade Wars, however, represented a keypoint in the substantial reversal of fortunes contributing to a period of growth and transform. Adam’s reforms marked the revival that projected an image of luxury, and travelers were impressed by the wealth accumulated in the capital.
He established the position of High Merchant, quickly controlling both the internal and the international trade, and retained the monopoly of issuing coinage, merging the Gryphon monetary system (based with a gold standard) with the world’s system. The government exercised formal control over interest rates, and set the parameters for the activity of the guilds and corporations, in which it had a special interest. The King and his officials intervened at times of crisis to ensure the provisioning of the Capital, and to keep down the prices. Finally, the government collected part of the surplus through taxation, and put it back into circulation, through redistribution in the form of salaries to officials, or in the form of investment in public works.
Turas Lan held heavy influence on the modalities of trade and the price mechanisms, and its control over the outflow of precious metals and, even over the minting of coins. One of his economic foundations of the Gaelic Nations was trade, and he welcomed routes far from the norm.
As King, Adam’s invitation for more free trade of items that, for years had been in the system, was prevalent. The Gaelic Nations were involved in a tremendous growth in commercial activity, and a consequent restructuring of society, away from the feudal system. Changing attitudes towards trade and the merchant class marked the Gaelic Renaissance period. The merchant himself changed in his attitude towards his work, in his duties and abilities, and in his educational background. All of this, combined with the Church's criticism of commerce and usury, created a multi-layered complex of attitudes towards those who made their living by buying and selling goods or dealing with money. It was the Gaelic Nations that led the rapid expansion of trade and commerce into the late 1320s and early 1330s. The most important factor in the expansion of trade and commerce the freedom of trade that the Gaelic Nations offered. This enhanced the relations with Eastern countries, furthered the taste in the West for their indigenous productions, gave a fresh vigor to foreign commerce and trade, and rendered it more productive by removing the stumbling blocks which had arrested its progress. Merchants desired the new inventions that Skye offered in ship design and navigation. Turas Lan as the Capital of the Gaelic Nations was a preferred stopping point for rich merchants. The shipbuilding facility in Stornoway on the Isle of Lewis was burgeoning and those same wealthy merchants flocked to the Capital to bolster political influence, hoping to gain Skye’s new ship and wagon designs and sea-going navigation equipment, such as improved compass, ship’s wheel, rifled cannon, and the new handgonne firing mechanisms.
In the emerging bourgeois economy of Skye’s realm of influence, the potential success of merchants grew ever greater. More and more people began to have the means to purchase more and more goods, and so the demand for such goods increased. Foreign spices, silks, and other products of demand were brought from around the world.
The main players in the trade game were the oldest dynasties of Europe and Africa; and Skye was the thorn in their side. Spain, France, Italy, and the Carnian Tamazgha. France has turned in on herself to partake her riches to task as she organizes her regions. Italy forms varying opinions, but too is dormant in the main conflict save from the Papal States of Rome. In an ongoing battle to control trade routes, the competition between these countries were fierce, at times escalating into violent confrontations. Still, from the Carnian Tamazgha, there is enough shaking of steel and voice to make Europe think on days of Crusades gone awry. They see minarets in their mind of scimitar moons. What do the Muslims see? Their vision is as fractured as their European neighbors as they are embroiled in conflict among themselves, but a conflict so righteous it threatens to choke the Strait of Gibraltar.
Trade and Commerce focus changed very little but fluctuations did include different products, especially spices, from Cairo and Alexandria in Egypt, Damascus in Syria, Baghdad, and other great cities, which became important commerce and trading centers because of their strategic location, astride the trade routes to India, Persia and the Mediterranean. The products were then carried across the Mediterranean to the Italian seaports and then on to the major towns and cities of Europe.
The King knew that relationships between merchants and their agents and representatives were usually maintained for life, and even lasted from generation to generation. These consolidated relationships sometimes coexisted with other sporadic ones, established for the purposes of one single commercial transaction.
Until recently, only the wealthiest merchants had sufficient capital to finance their own business and commercial expeditions, and all the intermediaries received a percentage of the profits of transactions. The big merchants often set up associations with other traders, creating real “monopolies”. These companies were reinforced with matrimonial alliances, although the professional associations were above these alliances, as can be seen in the odd case of divorce, where the company would outlast the marriage. The trading companies shared out the profits and financed operations jointly, but the properties of its members would remain separate. This custom was even applied to children; how strictly it was observed varied from one region to another and from one period to another. But this is where the legal implications of female liberalism in Skye affected those companies reinforced with matrimonial alliances. If a woman was divorced, then she too would either be “bought out” or partnered in such companies. Mercantilism was not only for the male species as it had been for a millennium. It was not taken by force of conquest, or fought over under the guise of faith issues. In Skye, liberal commerce was something to speculate on, and something to envy.
People risked their lives and made, or lost, their fortunes by carrying valuable commodities from where they were produced to where they were needed. In days past, when journeys were measured in months and weeks, only items that did not spoil could be traded over long distances, such as silk and porcelain from China, pepper and textiles from India, spices from the islands of Southeast Asia, pearls and gems from Sri Lanka, ivory, gold, and ostrich feathers from Africa, and other non-spoilage commodities. The bad state of the roads, the little security they offered to travelers, the extortions of all kinds to which foreign merchants were subjected, and the system of fines and tolls which each landowner thought right to exact, before letting merchandise pass through his domains, all created obstacles to the development of trade and commerce.
Skye, with Scotland, England, Ireland, and Wales comprise some of the wealthiest portions of Gaelic trade on both local and international fronts. East Ireland holds a boom trade on imported silks and Wine, and the North is quick to expedite the most common resource that every Celtic Nation shares: wool, livestock, iron ore, sea bounty, timber, and stone. Wales and Mann are content catalyst profiting of open routes for all of the items while still deciding how to partake of the wealth themselves. England has risen from the dust of former destruction to become a powerbroker. None of this would matter to the world at large if only Skye was as a world unto herself, but the quagmire stems from the King's increased contact with in the world arena of trade.
Security was one of the King's key issues to control. He often displayed considerable concern over the security of the world’s sea lanes and their attendant choke points, which were considered vulnerable to threats against free trade. He sought improvements to trade and commerce by issuing proclamations locally, and assisting in foreign efforts, in improving the roads and security. In the near future, commerce and trade would become safe and more general; the coasts would be protected from piratical incursions; lighthouses would be erected at dangerous points to prevent shipwrecks; and future treaties of commerce with foreign nations, including even the most distant, guaranteed the liberty and security of traders abroad. Yet even the most honored of ideas holds in it the seeds for some disdain, some conflict.
But, greedy men, and even nations, would attempt to corner markets, or halt the efforts of the fellows… They too would have an effect on trade and commerce… in turn, they would have an effect on the known world... This and more would soon become a legacy of Skye…
The development of a bolstering economy in the Gaelic Nations created new hierarchies and cleavages within society. While some individual entrepreneurs, as well as organized groups of traders and artisans prospered, others like unskilled workers and unattached women became marginalized. The age of Gaelic Renaissance, furthermore, exalted values of acquisition and profit that were alien to a traditional morality that had always scorned attachments to material possessions.
Unbeknownst to many, including the Sovereign, the Gaelic Nations were moving toward becoming a diverse social, political, and economic society that cooperated with each other to create the material product on which they subsisted and which they traded with other societies.
The prevailing accepted view holds that population increases led to more and bigger urban centers with enhanced possibilities for specialization and trade. These in turn spurred agricultural improvements and a higher standard of living. When population began to outstrip land, rents and food prices rose, real wages dropped, and improved terms of trade for agriculture versus crafts favored the accumulation of capital by landlords. Higher incomes, new potential for investment, and greater diversity of production caused the feudal system to be dismantled as landlords needed cash for trade and as individual rent-paying farms proved more profitable to them.
Feudalism in Skye already differed from that in most of the world. Slavery was disappearing. Manors were managed by bailiffs and stewards whom the lord had selected from among well-to-do villagers. These bailiffs collected taxes, made rules, organized courts of law for settling disputes, and kept communications open between the lord and the peasants.
The idea of forming groups for lord-peasant interaction proved contagious, moving from the manor into other areas. Younger sons of lords began to want power of their own, while village leaders wanted alternative lords. Interest groups proliferated. Noble families began to indulge themselves with separate, scattered living quarters. Knights previously attached to lords established their own residences. Castellanies broke up. Fewer restrictions upon sons' marriages enabled them to move away from extended families.
Excesses led to depression, the effects of which were compounded by civil strife and war.
Before the Gaelic Renaissance, poverty had been mostly accepted as inevitable as economies produced little, making wealth scarce. Rises in the costs of living make poor people less able to afford items.
The poor are passive players in a larger drama that focused on the salvation of the giver rather than the improvement of the recipient. But this does not reflect the full reality, because individuals, as well as groups, increasingly begin to discriminate in the disbursement of this charity, justified by the notion that resources are insufficient to aid all. Therefore, maidens, children, widows, relatives, and neighbors were preferred to vagrants, prostitutes, and able-bodied idlers. If these distinctions lack the rationally calculated engineering of a public welfare program, they do contain the kernel of a social policy.
Often, paupers were divided into three categories;
• the able-bodied poor, for whom work would be provided;
• the old, children, the handicapped or sick, including lunatics - the "impotent poor" ; and
• those thought to be able, but unwilling, to earn a living for themselves - the "sturdy beggars".
From the earliest days of poor relief it has been the role of the local owners of land and property, and their better-off tenants, to make the decisions over the ways in which the local unfortunates should be treated. As these were among the very people who had to provide the funds through the local poor rate, it is hardly surprising that the main objective of the overseers of the poor and other officials over the years has been to do the absolute minimum, and at minimum cost, to help the local poor in order to keep the poor rate as low as possible.
Hospitals, institutional medical care, and relief starts with the notion of poverty is a complex theme. For some, poverty is an affliction; for others, it is a source of virtue. Poverty is never seen purely in economic terms, but rather viewed as a form of degradation that renders the individual vulnerable or dependent. For some, such as monks and friars, this humiliation is voluntary and thus a source of virtue, but others are merely victims of economic need, old age, or disease that makes life difficult to sustain and even causes a decrease in rank or status. For the latter, the defining concept is less the absolute level of their subsistence, than their lack of power to sustain a particular status without some sort of assistance.
The issue of poverty, and the results upon the people would be brought up to parliament by a concerned King. He proposed a significant expansion of support for the needy, particularly in the form of hospices, hostels, and hospitals in towns and along trade routes.
As the economy became more complex, and the growing concern of the poverty-stricken, the Crown exacted more revenue in the form of taxes. Taxes are the price of civilization and are justified as they fund activities that are necessary and beneficial to society. Also, taxation transfers wealth from households or businesses to the government of a nation.
The King would grant his city rights to taxation on a limited scale. The most common taxation being a trade tax. Gates, fords, ports, and harbors become tax checkpoints for incoming goods. As merchants and tradesmen bring in goods, the city taxes them according to their wares. Wine tax, beer tax, grain tax; if the city can monitor the movement of a commodity, it can tax it. He also instituted a tax on guilds, much like the tax on cities.
He also established a poor rate levy, that businesses would have to pay; and this levy would pay for the building of the poorhouses just outside the cities of Turas Lan, Stornoway, Aberdeen, Edinburgh, York, London, Aberystwyth, and Portsmouth. These would provide work and materials for paupers. The children of inmates would not sent away, but wherever possible, were to be apprenticed in the guilds for seven years or more.
More disturbing, but became main stream was the institution of Auctions of the Poor. People who could not support themselves, and their families, were put up for bid at public auction. In an unusual type of auction, the pauper was sold to the lowest bidder, or the person who would agree to provide room and board for the lowest price -- usually for a specific period of a year or so. The person who got the contract got the use of the labor of the pauper for free in return for feeding, clothing, housing, and providing health care for the pauper and his/her family. This was actually a form of indentured servitude. And it had many of the perils of slavery. The welfare of the paupers depended almost entirely upon the kindness and fairness of the bidder. If he was motivated only by a desire to make the maximum profit off the "use" of the pauper, than concern for "the bottom line" might result in the pauper being denied adequate food, or safe and comfortable shelter, or even necessary medical treatment. And there often was very little recourse for protection against abuse.
Overcome by audiences arguing the rights of Poor Auctions and the results thereof, the King left the responsibility of protecting the pauper to the Baliffs and Shire-reeves (Sheriffs); who were appointed at the pleasure of the King.
Those appointed Baliffs and Shire-reeves were responsible for collecting the King’s revenues for their county, preserving the King’s peace, serving and returning the King’s writ, and presiding over the county court. But even those responsible empowered poverty, by enlarging their dues, or cuts, and forcing the people to pay more taxes than the King actually envoked.
But again, the lack of self worth, among the rich, often leads to poverty for others. There is nothing wrong with becoming rich and/or wealthy. It’s the lack of responsibility of the rich in their behavior that creates poverty. Becoming rich through responsible behavior is not mutually exclusive but you’d never know by the actions chosen by many of that type.
Too often, reaching those heights calls for losing one’s sense of self. Where climbing the ladder of success has called for doing things going against who we are as people. There are many who succumb to giving up themselves for the money on many financial levels. Poverty comes from the greed of those in pursuit of wealth who make drastic choices of making money over the well being of people.
The idea of ending poverty as a royal goal of primary importance is gaining real traction. No one believes that we will ever end all inequality -- in that sense, the poor are always with us. But an increasing number of people believe that we can eradicate absolute poverty: that we can raise every person above the basic thresholds of the Nation’s standards; that we can ensure than every man, woman and child in this land has enough to eat and drink, some shelter, access to medical care, access to basic education, and the basics of sustainable livelihood.
