Banking began in Florence, Venice and Genoa in the 14th century when Jews set up their benches in the piazzas to loan money and insure farmers crops. The ideas spread to Amsterdam and London, while the first stock exchange began in Amsterdam in 161...
The explosive growth of ideas and improved productivity (mostly in the past 100 years) has significantly increased the wealth of almost everyone on the planet by a factor of five (500%).
On average, we now produced five times more for the same amount of work with a (relatively) free movement of both labour and capital required for the machinery and infrastructure.
This astonishing phenomenon has also improved the health, education, and longevity of all but a very small percentage of people on the planet.
This increase was NOT caused by a redistribution of wealth (stealing from one, to benefit another) and NOT from an accumulation of capital and NOT by state control of the economies.
On the contrary, state control has generally restricted economic growth and frequently has resulted in draconian restriction on liberty and millions of deaths.
Throughout history, governments have generally impeded attempts to increase wealth;- by assigning monopoly rights to favoured individuals or industries, by not controlling corruption and other criminal activities, by imposing excessive taxes and import or export duties, and excessive and often unnecessary regulations. And by starting and continuing wars.
(As I write, the Russian tyrant, Vladimir Putin, is destroying enormous amounts of the wealth of the people in the Ukraine and the world but also of the Russian people. He is also directly responsible for tens of thousands of deaths. Putin clearly demonstrates the danger of police states and undemocratic governments).
But, even the most honest and competent bureaucrats cannot manage a national economy remotely as well as millions of people making their own decisions about what to make, buy and sell.
Why do governments subsidize rich western farmers, encouraging them to produce more than they can sell, and levy tariffs on farm products from poorer countries? So why is it that, even today, many educated people believe, with religious fervour, that the free enterprise system that has benefited so many people should be replaced by progressive(!) socialist government controlled economy?
Why do some people believe that the free enterprise system, that has produced such phenomenal benefits, should be replaced by a government controlled economy; an idea that has failed repeatedly?
