Growth of the Tree

Before entering the labyrinth of branches of the money tree in the 20th century, it is worth noting how the 19th century set the stage, not only of the tree itself but the political alignments created by the developments of the British Empire and the technological revolution that spawned the chaos of the century we have just passed through.

Much of the drive to create the British Empire was centered in religious zeal. Britain, and its offspring the United States, were the crucibles of the spread of the protestant religions around the globe. Much of the British exploitation of other lands was led by the missionary movement. They set out to convert the world of savages into good Christians and teach them how to live in a civilized manner. The height of the Empire was the Victorian Age. When the heathens objected to the desecration of their gods and fought against this invasion of their world, the army was sent to protect the missionaries and the merchants accompanied them to teach the savages the proper way to do business and exploit their resources.

England was not all-powerful in those days but it forced the European Kingdoms to coalesce into political alliances to maintain their survival. The Europeans set out to compete in empire building on one hand, and holding their royal powers at home on the other. The old Byzantine empire became the Ottoman Empire and was gnawing at the underbelly of the Austro Hungarian Empire, forcing that motley collection of different ethnic cultures to seek other alliances, setting up the powder keg in the Balkan states that triggered World War I, and creating a new coalition of alliances that became the nation we know as Germany. The Russian Czars had let their power dissipate and the French were being torn by revolutions. The powerful empires were squabbling over the collection of tiny kingdoms on the peninsula that had been the home of the Roman Empire, so to prevent war they agreed to the creation of Italy to try to stabilize the region.

The technological revolution had sped up the flow of information with the telegraph and the organization of information and its dissemination with new improvements to the printing press. A group of aristocratic thinkers began to systematically study the world and the universe, calling themselves Natural Philosophers. The 19th century opened with the German Alexander von Humboldt and his artist friend Bonplant, touring the north of South America and Mexico collecting species of plants and animals unknown to Europeans. These challenged the prevailing dogmas of the times and inspired a young British aristocrat to tour the world in search of knowlege. Charles Darwin shattered the prevailing world view and set up the modern era of scientific study that became so overwhelming with new information it had to be broken into different scientific branches. Natural Philosophy first broke into separate studies of biology and the newly emerging study of chemistry. Darwin's Theory of Evolution challenged theology at its very roots. The study of fossils, along with the idea of natural selection, showed every thinking person that the world was not in stasis but was in a state of constant change resulting in the evolution of species.

This is when the money tree began sprouting more branches and the fight to control the money tree created the convolutions of the 20th century. As information sped up development, more and more money was needed to keep the wheels of industry and commerce greased and working. The banks were happy to keep lending more and more to create the expanding money supply as debts owed to them. The world sank deeper and deeper in debt to the shadowy silent persons whose only product was money.

Who were these people? How did they maintain such a vast confidence game when even religion itself could be challenged?