Michael Perelman wrote:
<<<Keynes, Treatise on Money
139: "The booty brought back by Drake in the Golden Hind may fairly be
considered
the fountain and origin of British foreign investment. Elizabeth paid off
out of
the proceeds the whole of her foreign debt and invested a part of the
balance
(about �42,000) in the Levant Company; largely out of the profits of the
Levant
Company there was formed the East India Company, the profits of which during
the
seventeenth and eighteenth centuries were the main foundation of England's
foreign
connections; and so on.>>>
and Ian Murray wrote:
<<"England gained naval superiority over Spain largely through the
action of the Elizabethan Sea Dogs. These private adventurers, in
collusion with the English Crown, engaged in all sorts of violent
activities directed against Spain in the New World. Besides plundering
Spanish Ships and settlements, such Sea Dogs as Drake, Cavendish,
Clifford and Raleigh engaged in what might be termed state-sponsored
terrorism. For example, Drake extorted large ransoms from two Spanish
colonial cities by threatening to burn them to the ground. He actually
destroyed three other cities. His sack of Peru netted him and his
backers 2.5 million Lpounds[money] and repaid his backers, including
Elizabeth 47 to 1. Cumberland, leading a purely private expedition,
captured Puerto Rico in 1598. Other Sea Dogs behaved similarly,
plundering destroying and extorting their way to fame and fortune in
England and sharing their loot with the English Crown. Drake and
Raleigh, of course, were knighted for their achievements." [Janice
Thompson, Mercenaries, Pirates and Sovereigns, Princeton U Press,
1994]>>
-----------------------------
The next time I am at Disneyland and ride the "Pirates of the Caribbean," I
will soak back and appreciate for the first time the Marxist-historical
implications.
However, is the argument that New World piracy was a "but for" cause of
English industrial development? IOW, if there were no pirates, England
would not have developed "capitalism?"
David Shemano
