Originally Posted by Aquila
Not sure. There's nothing wrong with being an agrarian society. The foundation of any culture, no matter how advanced, is its agrarian foundations. For without produce, food, grain, and farming, no such nation can exist. It is a philosophy rooted in collective farming and cooperatives with workers, and even the poor, to ensure that none went hungry. The relationships in an agrarian society were deeply interrelated, and so to work together for the common good was in the best interests of everyone to ensure survival. In the trades found in ancient Israel we also see trade guilds, cooperatives, and apprenticeships. Tradesmen actually felt their labor was worthy of the barter and contract. They were not wage slaves. If you had need to hire skilled tradesmen, you would approach a guild and hire them for the work based on contract.
In today's more urban technological society we see shades of this in collective bargaining (trade unions) and local farming cooperatives. Corporatism has nearly eviscerate this way of life in our modern world, reducing everyone to a wage slave who stands alone without any sense of solidarity with others in their field. Divide and conquer. And divide they did.
The philosophy that none in a society would truly starve to death and perish in destitution was picked up by social democrats in Europe in the 1900's. As society became more industrial, urban, and technological the harvests became paychecks, the guilds became unions, etc. The key to understanding all of this "socialism" of whatever form it is, is the concept of solidarity. Sadly, we lack solidarity in our families, communities, churches, trades, career fields, etc. We're such rugged individualists... we glory in substandard wages and our personal struggle... even if we die coughing in an indigent bed without any healthcare. To a society that is predicated upon solidarity, such is a horrific tragedy. We live together, work together, raise families together, provide for one another. If one of us languishes and dies without care, we all are lesser for it. This isn't some communistic collectivism... this is simply how societies have survived since ancient times. The corporate mantra in our hijacked capitalist system is that collectives are bad. Really? For whom? The corporation, that's who. Because if we had solidarity, we'd demand our share... for it is our labor that makes the CEO filthy rich and brings shareholders profit. And they don't want to relinquish what is rightfully ours. And so CEOs make hundreds and often thousands of times a year more than their average employee who struggles through insurmountable trial to simply pay the bills and put food on the table for their family. The corporate conglomerates of our society are the modern plantation. And we're all salves. They've hijacked actual capitalism where in goods and even services are capital, often cooperative,.... and switched it with a fascist corporatism that has turned even war into a most lucrative business venture.
It's sickening.
But in short, the tithe was an agrarian land tax placed on land owners to help care for the needs of the Levites, the poor, and the temple. They didn't even have the word "socialism" in their vocabulary. They called it, "justice".
|
Threaded Mode
