1816 = 2023

Looking for more material on Magic Lanterns, this 1816 pamphlet came up.

Thaumaturgus, or the Wonders of the Magic Lantern. It’s not a guide to creating Magic Lantern displays. The author uses a Magic Lantern show as an extended conceit to display a harsh picture of society. The situation and the characters are PERFECTLY FAMILIAR NOW.

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The overall picture:

At another part of the scene before you may be observed clusters of poor ragged men, women, and children, standing shivering in the cold; those are the mechanics and their families, who, from the poverty of the farmers at home, and the rivalship their manufactures are meeting with on the continents both of Europe and America, and that partly from our good and faithful allies, they neither can obtain a subsistence in their own country, nor can they find their way to another, being prevented from emigrating by poverty or the laws against the emigration of artisans.

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The 1816 equivalent of NGOs and Effective Altruists:

Gentlemen, these are the men who encouraged the infatuated Pitt to enter into the late war, and who stood behind him clapping him on the back, and hallooing him upon the unfortunate French nation as butchers do a dog at a bull-baiting, declaring they would support him with their lives and fortunes in a war, in which some of them said the Godhead itself was concerned. But at the close of that war, they are the first to shrink from paying the expense of it; they insist that the income tax was a war tax, and should be discontinued during peace; they set their heads together last session of parliament, and they obliged the Minister to abandon the tax altogether, though it was only his intention to reduce it one half.

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Plutocrats insist on ZERO TAX:

Gentlemen, at those meetings convened and held for petitioning against the income tax, there was not a word said about the war taxes, which grind the poor and middling classes. No, their whole energy was directed against the income tax, because by it they themselves were most affected. They saw that the agricultural, mercantile, and manufacturing people, would soon have no property or income to tax; and that the burden would be left upon themselves: they, in that case, took advantage of the fears of those classes who yet had something remaining; and, in conjunction with them, they raised the hue and cry against the tax, and succeeded in having it abolished; but not a sentence did they utter against any other of the war taxes.

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Plutocrats insist on ZERO INTEREST and INFINITE QE:

Such men do not pretend to see any danger in abstracting from the Government the supply for which they cannot procure a substitute, nor any danger in refusing, at this critical period, their contributions, when the state of trade is such, that every branch of the revenue has failed. Nor do they seem to consider themselves at all culpable in refusing to assist in paying the interest of that debt, which was contracted by themselves, or by the Minister, with their concurrence; never once reflecting that to them alone is attached the responsibility for such borrowings, and that virtually the people have nothing to do with it, and are neither in honour nor conscience bound for its payment.

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Plutocrats love to spread Democracy:

We have the honour of being the deliverers of Europe, said one of them to me a few days ago. Yes, I replied, and of delivering the most enlightened portion of it into the hands of barbarians, at the expense of reducing our own country to a state of pauperism.

We have the honour of being the conquerors of the tyrant of the Continent, said he. Yes, I replied, and the honour of paying 300,000 a year for his support as a prisoner.

We have the honour of being the restorers of legitimate princes, said he. Yes, I replied, at the expense of 2000 millions of pounds sterling, and of 900 millions of accumulated debt, the payment of the interest of which, as well as the disappearance of the principal, operates against every branch of our trade and manufactures.

We have the honour of restoring to his throne the oppressed King of Spain, said he. Yes, I replied, and the honour of setting up the son against the father, and of restoring to the Spaniards the blessings of the inquisition.

We have the honour of restoring to the throne, his majesty Louis XVIII, said he. Yes, I replied, and of paying in gold and silver the expenses of that campaign, though our circulating medium at home is reduced to old rags; and we have also the honour of having our brethren of the Protestant religion in France massacred by the supporters of his said Majesty.

We have the honour of restoring to his dominions our good and faithful ally the King of Prussia, said he. Yes, I replied, and of having our manufactures prohibited in the dominions of our said good and faithful ally.

We had the honour of a visit from the most illustrious princes of the Continent, said he. Yes, I replied, and of exposing to them the nakedness of the land, and the poverty of our people, and also of paying their travelling expenses.

Oh yes, replied I, and of many more victories, and also the honour of losing about a million men by these victories; and though last, not least, we had the honour of being soundly drubbed by the Americans both by sea and land, whenever we were met by them. O yes, Sir, said I, we have honour to a wonderful extent, our farmers, our merchants, and our artisans, may breakfast, dine, and sup upon honour; and, if scarce of clothing to cover their bodies from the inclemency of the weather, they may call upon glory to over them like a blanket. In fact, honour must be every thing to us, it must supply our every want; when the merchant is called upon for payment of his bills, he must answer, I have no other mode of payment but by giving a draft upon honour; when the landlord looks to his tenant for his rent, he must say, Sir, I have no money, but I hope you will give me a receipt, and I shall give you an order upon honour.

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This author seemed to miss another parallel: cults and bubbles and cultbubbles. The South Sea Bubble was highly active at that moment, sucking the last pound from the collapsing middle class. Apocalyptic movements like the Great Awakening were growing fast, aided by a year of unique weather.

We now have the Everything Bubble and a wide variety of environmental cults posing as both Left and Right, aided by a similar period of weird weather, reinforced by cultbubbles like Bitcoin and NFTs.

In 1948 Henry Wallace talked about war taxes in remarkably similar terms.