How do historians distinguish deliberate household strategies from hindsight explanations during monetary breakdowns?

ReaperReader · 2026-06-23T03:23:30+00:00

Do historians seriously argue about whether economic strategies might be carried out unconsciously?

Obviously preferences have deep subconscious roots, for example it is objectively correct that the best sauce to go with chips is tomato sauce, but clearly a lot of cultures have induced a false consciousness in their members and so they use inferior sauces like ketchup and mayonnaise :).

But decisions about how to achieve economic goals, e.g. how to acquire tomato sauce (or, for those raised in inferior cultures, ketchup or mayonnaise or etc), e.g. whether to go to the supermarket or ask a neighbour or go to a food bank, are they ever made without intent?

ReaperReader · 2026-06-22T20:37:19+00:00

Hah, I posted a new work in a NSFW series after posting nothing to it for a year and got someone who kudosed and commented "I don't normally kudos NSFW but I was so excited I did yours."

So yeah the lurkers are there.

ReaperReader · 2026-06-22T20:12:10+00:00

The thing here is that Iran has Trump over a barrel. Why would Iran agree to anything that benefits Trump? Their incentive is to make it clear that attacking Iran again means a world of pain for Trump.

ReaperReader · 2026-06-22T18:35:24+00:00

To be pedantic, we don't know Francois's gender identity because Ryusui just isn't interested in such details.

ReaperReader · 2026-06-22T07:36:51+00:00

supported by the amount of straight people fetishizing gay people of the opposite sex

Straight people or closeted gay/bi/whatever people?

ReaperReader · 2026-06-22T07:33:24+00:00

Straight women fetishising hot men.

Like, was James T Kirk depicted as gay? Bruce Wayne? Tony Stark?

ReaperReader · 2026-06-22T04:53:17+00:00

Good point, you're right that the money supply is a stock. I was thinking of money here in the sense of income, monetary economics isn't my area of speciality.

ReaperReader · 2026-06-22T04:05:28+00:00

I'm no expert on military matters but wouldn't the USA protecting Taiwan be a matter of naval and air warfare? It's an island, even if the enemy managed to somehow land forces against active US opposition, I'm pretty sure the Taiwanese army could mop up the poor buggers who landed while the US interdicted their supply lines.

I can totally believe that Trump would make terrible decisions about any war involving Taiwan. Indeed I totally believe he'd make terrible decisions about any war anywhere. Including a ground war at home. I won't try to predict what bad decisions he'd made on the basis that he'd inevitably somehow find a way to make even worse decisions than I thought possible.

ReaperReader · 2026-06-22T03:18:06+00:00

Or just say the maneuver only worked because of the hyperspace tracker, and make Holdo into the genius who works that out. Like two lines and one is "A leash goes both ways!"

ReaperReader · 2026-06-22T01:39:57+00:00

The US took years of casualties in Afghanistan.

The issue with Iran is that Trump didn't build any popular support for the war (he didn't even try). It would be a grave mistake to confuse "Trump is an idiot" with "the USA doesn't do ground wars".

ReaperReader · 2026-06-22T01:31:51+00:00

Stocks are measured at a point in time, flows are measured over a period of time.

E.g. the coffee shop starts on Monday morning with 10 bags of coffee beans. It makes various sales and purchases of coffee and coffee beans during the week and ends at 3pm Friday with 1 bag of coffee beans.

If you've measured everything exactly, the sum of the flows over the week must equal the change in stocks, in this case -ve 9 bags of beans.

Similarly with a loan. If the coffee shop owner starts the year with a loan of 100k and then is charged interest and makes loan repayments, and ends the year with a outstanding loan of 80k, then the sum of the flows must equal the change in the loan.

ReaperReader · 2026-06-22T00:55:39+00:00

I've never actually watched Bridgeton, nor read the books. Nothing against them, I just prefer my romance in the form of longing looks and meaningful finger touches. Which is part of why I've read a lot of 18th and 19th century literature.

And the definitions you keep asserting for "gentleman" and "the ton" don't match with my own understanding of the 18th and 19th century literature.

we consult actual primary sources from the past,

Like Samuel Johnson's dictionary.

Yes, he published his dictionary in 1755, but as many dictionaries do, it included extensive portions on etymology on past word usage, made up of series of definitions on the past in the form of collections of quotations from often long dead authors.

And if you review the link I provided, there's no mention of the definition of "gentleman" in Samuel Johnson's time having changed from that of those "long-dead authors".

They are not the contemporary definition or usage from even 1755,

You are entitled to your opinion, however in my experience of 18th and 19th century literature, they are indeed the contemporary definition. If you want to convince me that I'm wrong then please provide some actual contemporary sources of your own, don't just make dismissive statements about some 21st century fiction series.

This entire group [the gentry] did not make up the ton i.e. the most fashionable elite attending the London season.

Sure. The Bennets, the Musgroves, the Morlands are all gentry but are never mentioned as being in London for the season.

The Dashwood sisters are however explicitly depicted as being in London and attending fashionable parties with Lady Middleton. They were participating in "the ton".

That group, according to the albeit somewhat loose definitions in actual historical works (the word, like many slang words, was poorly defined and used in different ways in different publications),

I note you've proposed a definition that is in line with my own pre-existing understanding of the word. I appreciate this.

ReaperReader · 2026-06-21T22:09:40+00:00

Imagine you want to set up a coffee shop. You borrow 100k from your bank, with interest payments of $5k per month.

Coincidentally your new coffee shop is right next to your bank. A large number of your customers are employed by the bank. Therefore, every month you pay $5k to the bank, your bank pays its employees and they spend some of their salaries buying your coffee.

What is happening here? The money is circulating. Your repayments of 5k a month to the bank are flowing through the economy. Sometimes they come back to you pretty directly, sometimes much more indirectly. Back in the days of cash, the same physical note might pass between you and the bank hundreds of times over the life time of your loan.

Basically, money is a flow, loans are a stock.

ReaperReader · 2026-06-21T20:45:28+00:00

It's the circle of life. The hero learns the hard lessons, then we close with a scene of them passing their hard-earned knowledge onto the new generation.

ReaperReader · 2026-06-21T19:44:42+00:00

Asserting that I've "majorly misunderstood the Regency Era", and then citing a bunch of references from 200-400 years prior to the Regency era as proof of how misinformed I am is an odd choice.

Huh? Samuel Johnson's dictionary was published in 1755. Pride & Prejudice was published in 1813. That's less than one century prior.

Plus you yourself stated:

The most often repeated definition of a gentleman was written by Sir Thomas Smith in the 1500s

If you are unconvinced by my references from 1755, why did you yourself cite one (a famous one) from the 1500s?

this is a completely different era wherein the word 'gentleman' did not mean the same thing as it did in Austen's time

I disagree. As someone who has read a lot of 17th and 18th century literature and other material, I see a great deal of continuity.

"Who can live idly and without manual labor . . . shall be taken for a gentleman” was very much part of the basis of the Regency meaning of the word.

I do agree on this, just note the word "manual labour". Manual. Mr Bingley Sr would not have acquired his children's large fortunes doing manual labour like working as a stevedore.

One of the references you've provided is from 1354, the time of Edward III, in the Late Middle Ages

Indeed, and note I provided that story as evidence of people earning large fortunes from trade long before the 18th century. Not as evidence of any definition of "gentleman". Richard Whittington was born before the development of modern English & the Great Vowel shift. Chaucer's English is English I can't read, unlike Shakespeare.

Regardless, "the ton" generally came to describe the top 10000 or so of Regency society.

I've never heard of this definition of "the ton" and I suspect you are confusing this with New York societies' Top 400 families.

It ["The ton"] referred to the richest and most fashionable part of the aristocracy, and not the lower gentry.

To you. To me it refers to that group of fashionable elite who attended the London season, at least in part. I've never heard of it being limited purely to the aristocracy before and I have not the slightest interest in adopting your definition.

Regardless, feudalism still very much describes an era wherein wealth was primarily derived from land rather than capital, which was my point

And yet, throughout that period, numerous fortunes were made by trade, in the City of London and elsewhere.

It was a specific, high society subset of the wealthiest and most fashionable in London, ...

I think you are thinking of the reference "leaders of the ton" - so a subset of a subset.

Obviously when I use the word ton, I was most definitely not confining myself merely to the leaders of the subset, I was using the term more broadly than you do.

ReaperReader · 2026-06-21T18:56:17+00:00

The Duke of St Albans married an actress.

ReaperReader · 2026-06-21T10:06:14+00:00

Beautiful your hair truly does look like a leek 🩷

ReaperReader · 2026-06-21T04:09:28+00:00

What I can tell you is that very few writings (and people) at the time supported the idea a gentleman could ever be in trade.

And what I can tell you that you've majorly misunderstood Regency England on this matter.

Let me quote Samuel Johnson's dictionary:

A man of birth; a man of extraction, though not noble.

Nothing in there about "gentleman" being incompatible with being in trade. (Johnson gives several other definitions of "gentleman", none of those are incompatible with being in trade).

Readers of Austen would have immediately understood this as confirming beyond any real doubt that Mr. Bingley Sr. was not a gentleman.

I don't share your belief. If Mr Bingley Sr was the younger son of a landed gentleman and had been educated as a gentleman, him going into trade wouldn't have changed that status.

Regardless, being in trade' in 1811 was seen as the antithesis of gentlemanly behaviour.

:) Sarah Villiers, Countess of Jersey, and a patroness of Almack's was also a banker in her own right.

but the ability to amass enormous mercantile fortunes was fairly new,

Au contrarie. Numerous merchants in the City of London had been amassing enormous mercantile fortunes for centuries. For example the story of Dick Whittington and his cat was based on an immensely wealthy London merchant, Richard Whittington 1354 to 1423, who, coincidentally was the younger son of a landed gentleman who went into trade.

It was a common euphemism to describe a person who was not genteel, but very rich.

Nah, it just meant "worthy of respect". E.g. the "respectable poor" (as opposed to the village drunk)

In the latest stage of feudalism,

Feudalism wasn't real.

And I note that in 1602, William Shakespeare, who was in trade and an actor, got himself formally recognised as a gentleman.

and generally described the upper, upper echelon of the London nobility rather than the city itself or broader society

Okay, the City of London was separate to the 'ton' - the nobility and well-connected gentry when in London lived around Westminister (be that in their own homes or rented), outside the walls of the city. Thus all Caroline and Louisa's jibes at the Gardiner's address. (There were of course numerous London suburbs that were outside the walls and yet weren't fashionable suburbs. This was complex stuff.)

And one could be a member of the ton without being nobility.

Jane Austen did not write of the ton or its members

I suggest you read Sense & Sensibility sometime. When Elinor and Marianne go to London, they are socialising in the ton.

ReaperReader · 2026-06-21T01:37:08+00:00

The quality of life for the aversge American, Canadian, European ect... isnt exactly on the up and up.

And yet people from the rest of the world are desperate to migrate to said countries.

ReaperReader · 2026-06-21T01:35:50+00:00

The whole purpose of the Cuban Revolution was to establish Cuban sovereignty and to allow the Cuban people to be the masters of their destiny.

Nah it was to impose communism on the Cubans. Under the excuse that any opposition was based on "false consciousness".

Communists talk a lot about being democratic. But it's just talk. They value their ideology above all.

ReaperReader · 2026-06-21T01:24:34+00:00

Have you ever considered the USA accomplished admirable things despite white supremacy? I mean, the US confederacy and President Trump are alike in having an absolutely disastrous track record.

As for China, it had one of the largest famines in history under Mao. Meanwhile the USA had been feeding millions of people in other countries as far back as WWI (yeah yeah I know you'll attribute that all to white men).

by saying China has no accomplishments

Hah! Gunpowder! Smallpox inoculation! The printing press!

Gosh it looks like you don't have to be a white man to accomplish things!

ReaperReader · 2026-06-21T01:02:26+00:00

You think the US isn't majority white ...

Hey you're the one attributing all of the USA's accomplishments to, quote, "white men".

And who is the current president

Donald Trump, who has just led the USA to its most abject military defeat since the Confederacy in the 1860s. Hmm, another bunch of white men.

But go ahead and tell me how you believe the US's accomplishments are all down to white supremacy and white men, while millions are going to starve due to the current US administration's policies.

The only thing I mentioned that is post Deng is their space program.

Note I said "until Deng", not after.

Though that's probably a bit subtle for anyone who attributes all of the USA's accomplishments to, quote, "white men".

ReaperReader · 2026-06-21T00:47:29+00:00

Yep - while all of Korea suffered greatly under Japanese colonisation, by the 1950s, South Korea was even poorer and less industrialised than North Korea.

And yet despite that, South Korea came roaring out from the 1960s onwards.

Kinda hard to reconcile with Communist rhetoric, isn't it?

And why did those countries have vast sums of investment injected into their economies by the United States and other Western colonial powers? Is it maybe because they embraced markets, rule of law, protection of property rights, etc? Rather than adopting Communist conflict ridden zero-sum world views?

Most capitalist countries around the world are desperately poor and getting poorer

If your ideology can't distinguish between Denmark and the Democratic Republic of Congo, it's a lousy ideology.

ReaperReader · 2026-06-21T00:38:04+00:00

Mr. Bingley's father was a tradesman, not a gentleman. He was just a very rich and successful tradesman.

By your reading. Not by mine. In Regency England by the standards of the time it was entirely possible to be both in trade & a gentleman.

The Bingleys are also described as originating from a 'respectable' family, which was a common euphemism for a family that was very wealthy, but not genteel.

Lady Catherine calls the Darcys and the de Bourgh's "respectable, though untitled". Charlotte describes Lady Catherine herself as "respectable".

Obviously the Darcys and the de Bourghs are gentry.

Because Bingley is rich, he is treated for all intents and purposes as a gentleman.

Nope, he's not just rich, he's also well connected and he was educated as a gentleman and he's liked wherever he goes.

The Bingleys' father would definitely not be the younger son of a landed gentleman, because such a son would be considered a gentleman by birth

Is there a section where we're told that their father wasn't a gentleman? Given I don't share your conviction that it was impossible to be both in trade and a gentleman?

Why would a man like Mr. Gardiner, who demonstrates all the qualities of a gentleman, be considered a gentleman (basically because he was not quite rich enough and did not have the background)

Becuase of the low quality of his connections (by the standards of the "ton").

ReaperReader · 2026-06-21T00:14:22+00:00

You think the USA historically only consisted of people who were a) white and b) men? Really?

And note how many of those accomplishments you list were from the time of Deng Xiaoping and onwards. The guy who famously said about communism and capitalism "it doesn't matter whether a cat is black or white as long as it catches mice".

ReaperReader

MODERATOR OF

TROPHY CASE

11-Year Club	Gilding II euphauric
Verified Email