The evil that sparked the Boston Tea Party stalks us today: the alliance of money, power, and weapons that subjugates the many for the benefit of the few. We call it fair trade, protectionism, corporatism, the military-industrial complex. The colonists knew it as mercantilism and fought it in the British East India Tea Company.
East India companies of various nationalities preyed on India during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. Britain's government (in 1600) and Holland's (1602) were among the first to establish cartels for plundering the subcontinent to benefit the rulers, bureaucrats, and shareholders at home. The French followed suit in 1664, and the Danes in 1729. Though Britain's version started with only 125 shareholders and £72,000 in capital, it metastasized into a full-fledged government within 70 years. It even boasted an army and fortresses to prevent the other companies from poaching its suppliers and employees: talk about cutting out competitors! By 1858, when this force was folded into the British Army, it numbered 24,000 troops.
*FEElosophers extraordinaire and proud of it. Eat that, Kirkpatrick Sale!
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