Page 226 - Russian History Viewed through Distorted Mirrors, Vol. 1

Nicolai Levashov. Russian History Viewed through Distorted Mirrors. Vol. 1

production of consumer goods. Industrial production is based on these three
“whales”. As a result of all this, the centre of the economic system gradually moved
from the country to the city. The production of consumer goods increased quicker
than that of the others. Trade developed explosively, and more financial means
moved to the merchants’ hands.

Thus, these processes made the economic system change qualitatively. It
reached a level when the basis of this system — the active economic niches
stopped being determinative. The real economic power slipped from the hands of
people — landowners, beginning with principal feudal landlords and ending with
small farmers who independently tilled their parcels of land, and all those who pro-
duced food, tools and consumer products, and appeared in the hands of people who
possessed financial resources. These people did not produce anything; at very best,
they began as mediators between producers and users, i.e. as merchants; and there
would be nothing bad in that, if it were not for one “but”… to which we will come
back a little bit later.

Meanwhile we will continue to analyze the evolution of the economic systems
of social organisms. Before industrial (group) production appeared, the life of any so-
cial organism depended, mainly, on the food producers, but over the course of time
the latter they began to depend on industry more and more. Certainly, everyone with-
out exception, including workers and proprietors of industrial enterprises, could not
do without food supplies from the countryside, but the time came when the efficiency
of the food producers’ labour, especially farmers, began to depend on the producers
of tools which were not directly connected to the land.

This was the redistribution of roles inside the category of the active economic
niches. Before, the active economic niches related to the production of tools, played
an auxiliary part, now they began to prevail because of the fact that it would be im-
possible to provide the whole social organism with the necessary consumer products
and, primarily, with food, without the tools which these active economic niches pro-
duced. One may wonder; is there any difference depending upon which active niches
play a determining part in the economy?! There is and it is very substantial. In the
economic system which is called the capitalist society (Fig. 31), social parasites
(Dark Forces) get the real possibility to take the real power.

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