Thread by @SteB777

There is a widespread false narrative that all people are equally to blame for the climate and ecological emergency, and I repeatedly get attacked for pointing out that the richest in society are most responsible for this crisis.
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https://twitter.com/SteB777/status/1490517280173793280

It is demonstrably untrue that all people, the public are equally responsible for the climate and ecological crisis. This for 4 main reasons I will list here.

I) When the industrial revolution started in the UK, the vast majority of the public had no vote and no influence.
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I cont...) Even after the 1832 Reform Act which greatly increased who could vote in England:

"Rodney Mace estimates that before, 1 percent of the population could vote and that the Reform Act only extended the franchise to 7 percent of the population."
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en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reform_Ac…

II) The industrial revolution didn't just happen, there was a lot of new laws passed, many Inclosure Acts and much social engineering was necessary to enable this as a profit making endeavour for the very rich.
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en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inclosure…

II cont ...) There's a widespread societal myth that the industrial revolution just spontaneously emerged when technology such as coal powered machinery facilitated industrial production. This is demonstrably untrue.
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II cont ...) Whilst we take production line production for granted now, factories were unknown in history prior to the industrial revolution. The first modern Factories built in the whole of history, were constructed in England. The first being in 1721.
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en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Factory

II cont ...) It should be noted that the first factories constructed in the world, in the whole of history in England, in the Derwent Valley, were water powered by water wheels. Very ancient technology, without a steam engine in sight.
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en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Factory_s…

Before moving on to the other 4 points, I want to let this sink in. We're taught, quite falsely that the industrial revolution happened when all the technology associated with the industrial revolution, such as steam power, was invented, and then it just spontaneously emerged.
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Self-evidently this claim is a falsehood, because the first factories in the whole of history, built in England, used old technology. Therefore steam engines and other technology, can't have triggered the industrial revolution like we are taught.
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There is no chicken egg mystery here about which came first. Obviously the factory system, the production line system, emerged in 18th Century England, before the technology we associate with it had been invented.
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The technology we associate with the industrial revolution was then invented to increase the productivity and therefore profitability, of a factory system and production line, which had already been introduced (albeit it recently).
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So where did the idea of factory production originate, as self-evidently it was not driven by the invention of technology, as the myth claims?
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We can see the origins of systematic production, if we go to the British East India company and the systematic exploitation of India. They actually called them factories.
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ampltd.co.uk/collections_az…

'A "factory" was a trading post where a number of merchants, or factors, resided. When company ships arrived at the factories, ships' merchants were thus enabled to exchange goods for trading immediately instead of having to wait to make deals with local merchants.'
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Below is a link to where the above quote was taken. It is clear that these factories were not of the modern type. However what is important is that it was the first highly systematised trading system for maximum profit.
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discovery.nationalarchives.gov.uk/details/r/b3c3…

I assert that the British East India Company was the origin of the modern industrial capitalist system. Where resources were systematically in a highly organized way, for maximum profit, yielding constant dividends for rich investors.
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en.wikipedia.org/wiki/East_Indi…

Essentially capitalism, is the investment of excess wealth, capital, with the attention of considerably growing the amount of money invested i.e. for a much bigger return.
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Whilst the idea of very rich people investing their excess wealth into ventures, is not new, and probably goes back into antiquity, investment opportunities were few and far between. So the only way rich people could grow their wealth, was with wars of conquest etc.
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Prior to the creation of constant investment opportunities, most rich people had big land holdings, estates, which whilst often producing a good income, this income was largely fixed and their wealth did not regularly grown.
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The European colonial system, colonised the New World and profited from this colonisation, but the basic model was not too different to the old estate and wars of conquest model of creating more wealth for the very rich.
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It's my contention, that Britain took it to the next level by very systematic exploitation of it's colonies, as the East India Company model demonstrated. This created far more investment opportunities for the rich.
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Prior to this point in time, most manufacture of goods, was by crafts people and the putting out system, which occurred at small scale, in cottage industry (the manufacture literally took place in people's cottages).
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en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Putting-o…

Self-evidently British entrepreneurs inspired by the profit enabled by systematic exploitation and production in the colonial system, could be applied to manufacture in Britain itself.
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Instead of traders, putting out contracts, if someone built a whole factory, employing people to do the work, instead of a contract for them to do the work, the factory owner could themselves, get all the profits.
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The factory owner, would then realise if they could increase their output and profitability, they could increase their profits. This is what led to the development of technology, we associate with the industrial revolution, to increase profit.
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Eventually it was realised that if the machinery could be operated by less skilled operators, the factory owners could employed unskilled people on lower wages, increasing profitability. The rich found new investment opportunities.
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However, this was not just about factory production, because the British agricultural revolution saw a big increase in produced from farming in a similar time frame. As you can see, there is much debate when and how this took place.
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en.wikipedia.org/wiki/British_A…

My explanation is quite simple and is drawn from the evidence, not an idea. The rich who were big landowners, had learned how much more money can be made from more systematic exploitation, as learned from the colonial system.
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It's what I call a "conspiracy of common purpose", where a societal group, usually the powerful group in a society, coordinate, because they all have a common goal. Here that common goal was to grow their wealth with a combination of investment and increased productivity.
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Remember at the time, members of parliament, were rich, often rich landowners, and only 1% had the vote. So they started to game the system, to change laws, to facilitate maximum profitability through systematic exploitation.
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To what extent the rich were aware of the overall pattern of what they were doing is difficult to tell. They could hardly tell the people, we're intending to exploit you like livestock, where you've be work 6 days a week for 12 hours a day in our factories, for a pittance.
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However, I argue that to see the big picture we can lay aside the extent to which this was consciously organized, because we know very well that was what happened, and the wealthy cooperated to make it happen because here was constant economic growth, that suited them.
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People i.e. the public, largely without a vote, realised that they were systematically exploited by the wealthy and powerful, and rebelled. The Luddites were only one such example.
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en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Luddite

Here's another example later in time, the Newport Rising. There were many of these uprising and rebellions, all of which were brutally put down by the military. Ringleaders were executed, others transported to the colonies.
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en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Newport_R…

I don't want to get too deep into all public resistance to the system what was being imposed on them, but it is crystal clear that the people, the public didn't go along with this willingly. Their objections were brutally suppressed.
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en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peterloo_…

I think people can see where I'm going with this. We have been taught a false history of these events. That the industrial revolution just happened because the clever Brits came up with marvellous knew technology, because of their genius.
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That the public meekly went along with it, or enjoyed being virtually enslaved, working 6 days a week 12 hours a day for a pittance, because they just loved these new jobs.
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Whereas what really motivated all this, was the very rich learning that they could make incredible profits, from the systematic exploitation of both people and natural resources and systems. We're fed these false narratives, as the truth is uncomfortable for those at top.
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It's really no coincidence, that most of the grand stately homes of rich landowners of Britain and their landscaped estates date from the period I have been describing.
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Whenever I raise this, I get angrily attacked because the narrative I've described is so contrary to the wishful thinking fairy tales we are taught as history. Except what I've described isn't a hypothesis, it is what actually happened, based on the evidence.
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It is the conventional narratives, which are inconsistent with the evidence, not the simple narrative I've created, which is entirely consistent with the evidence.
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I know my critics will sneer at me for using Wikipedia references. However, all these events I refer to are historical facts. Read whatever reference you like, and you will see the bare facts still stand.
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It's getting late and I will have to deal with the rest of points up to modern times in another thread or to. But rest assured, I can prove with hard evidence, that the majority of people are not responsible for the climate and ecological crisis.
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Neither are most people the direct cause of this crisis, because the richest produce by far the highest GHG emissions. Nor have the people just gone along with this.

@GeorgeMonbiot @JKSteinberger @GretaThunberg @ClimateHuman @ECOWARRIORSS @ClimateBen @ExtinctionR @gailbradbrook

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