Primary accumulation

[Young Master Smeet]

https://theconversation.com/how-stolen-treasure-kick-started-the-bank-of-england-55607

So, the history of capitalism is a history of thrift and industy, is it?

The above link recounts how teh adventurer William Phips managed to to find a windfall savlage of Spanish Gold:

Quote:

On the last day of the expedition, some of the divers went looking for mementos of the trip. As they explored a relatively shallow reef close to the shore they chanced upon a spectacular plume of coral reef and decided to take pieces of it home. But when they dived to look more closely they saw beneath it the unmistakable shape of a large cannonball. The Señora had been found. And the booty was immense.

The treasure weighed in at 34 tons of silver and gold. Investors were paid 10,000% dividends, a sum equal to a fifth of the state’s tax revenue.

This gold provided the seed capital for the bank of England:

Quote:

. The sunken galleon enabled the creation, in 1694, of the Bank of England as a private corporation to act as the government’s banker and owner of the state’s debt. It wasn’t until 1946 that the bank was finally nationalised and the heirs of the original investors were then paid off – though many were difficult to track down. Someone who invested £100 in Bank of England stock in 1694, assuming all dividends had been reinvested and there were no taxes, would have yielded nearly £42m profit by 1945.

Maybe the book it comes from:

http://www.zero-books.net/books/daniel-defoe-bank-england

Might be worth getting a review copy of?

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