Sublime

By the eighteenth century, a new ideology was taking form, especially in Britain, that “greed is good” (to use a recent summary formulation), because greed spurs a society’s efforts and inventiveness. By giving vent to greed, the logic goes, societies can best harness the insatiable ambitions, great energies and ingenuity of their citizens. While g

Cassius Dio tells us that his usury helped precipitate the British rebellion of 61 ce, since Seneca suddenly called in a loan of forty million sestertii. The figure may be exaggerated, and the relationship between the rebellion and Seneca’s loan is not likely to have been so direct; but still, there is no reason to doubt that Seneca did profit by m

Commodities—Gold, silver, and other precious metals

Though all of that was a distant concern. His eyes and perception were locked onto the spiritual cracks. The Titan’s one blow had undone all his work, and Malice was just now finding her feet. She thrust out a hand. “Stop!” the Monarch commanded. All around the city, everything froze, including the spreading cracks. But not the Titan. It shrugged o

Some highlights have been hidden or truncated due to export limits.

Bid rigging produced extraordinary margins: in the late 1890s the companies collected $345–420 per ton of armor (a compromise after the Russia–Bethlehem embarrassment) against production costs of perhaps $150. With that kind of money at stake, what patriot could pass up the chance to defraud his fellow citizens?