Is GRRM propagating communism?

[Roose The Weddingcrasher]

If Marxism doesn't care about the fruits then why bother controlling the means? Is it perhaps got something to do with what is produced and who gets it?

"Who gets what" is the question. "Ownership of the means of production" is the answer.

Or maybe the question is "what is the just way of organizing the workforce in general?" I may be wrong, but so far, that's how I like to interpret it.

[The Meeraculous Third Reed]

No he's not. He's past the age of 17.

[Greymoon]

Bravvos is run by a sealord, who i believe is elected, and it is one of the greatest cities in GRRM's story focusing around the iron bank of bravvos lending money to others around the world to help them fight their wars...sound like any paticular modern day country?

Actually, the oldest banks in the modern sense of the world were founded in Italy:

• the Peruzzi Bank and the Compagnia dei Bardi in Florence;

the Medici bank in 1347;

and the Banca Monte dei Paschi di Siena, that is today's oldest, still operating bank founded in 1472.

These banks were lending money to foreign monarchs: the Peruzzi Bank actually bankrupted after Edwards III of England failed to return his loan.

There's been "banking" activity in ancient Assyria and Babylonia, too. Anyway, the point: in my opinion, that feeds the Venice/Braavos parallel, and none other and there's no reason to compare Braavos to a modern day country...moreover, I perceive the IR as a bank/trading/mafia type of company, ruthless in pursuing their money and killing off bad investments, so IMO, whatever the IB does or doesn't do, does not in any way reflect Braavosi foreign policies.

Further if the country you are speaking about is the same as the one I think you are speaking about then, to think that this country is "helping others fight their wars" out of altruism is naïve...and lending money, fighting proxy wars and/or military interventions in the name of a humanitarian sensitivity are criteria that may apply to more than one country in the world, which curiously sometimes, seems to be forgotten. There's a whole lot of other liberal democracies right on the other side of the Atlantic, across the Pacific, south and north of where that country is located...and between these and a tyranny, there's a whole gradual ladder.

[Borsabil]

Actually, the oldest banks in the modern sense of the world were founded in Italy:

• the Peruzzi Bank and the Compagnia dei Bardi in Florence;
• the Medici bank in 1347;
• and the Banca Monte dei Paschi di Siena, that is today's oldest, still operating bank founded in 1472.

These banks were lending money to foreign monarchs: the Peruzzi Bank actually bankrupted after Edwards III of England failed to return his loan.

There's been "banking" activity in ancient Assyria and Babylonia, too. Anyway, the point: in my opinion, that feeds the Venice/Braavos parallel, and none other and there's no reason to compare Braavos to a modern day country...moreover, I perceive the IR as a bank/trading/mafia type of company, ruthless in pursuing their money and killing off bad investments, so IMO, whatever the IB does or doesn't do, does not in any way reflect Braavosi foreign policies.

Further if the country you are speaking about is the same as the one I think you are speaking about then, to think that this country is "helping others fight their wars" out of altruism is naïve...and lending money, fighting proxy wars and/or military interventions in the name of a humanitarian sensitivity are criteria that may apply to more than one country in the world, which curiously sometimes, seems to be forgotten. There's a whole lot of other liberal democracies right on the other side of the Atlantic, across the Pacific, south and north of where that country is located...and between these and a tyranny, there's a whole gradual ladder.

Yes the Iron Bank storyline is a fascinating subplot. Have the Braavosi bankers been engaged in fractional reserve banking? If so the default by the Westerosi may mean their bankruptcy and the ruination of the entire city state. However I think GRRM has included it as a convenient means to get Stannis back in the game, throwing a few thousand dragons to Stannis is chicken feed compared to the many millions they'd be on the hook for if the IT doesn't start making payments.

[Borsabil]

Or maybe the question is "what is the just way of organizing the workforce in general?" I may be wrong, but so far, that's how I like to interpret it.

I think we're getting lost in a chicken and egg scenario here. Why do communists seek to control the means of production? Because they like controlling mines and factories? No, they seek to control the means of production as a way to allocate resources to individual members of society in an egalitarian way. So to say that communists 'don't care what personal items people own' is demonstrably untrue, they very much do care, especially if one class has too much in the way of personal items and another has too little. Historically the first order of business of any new Marxist government, after crushing the opposition and nationalizing all private enterprise, has been the confiscation of not just land but all privately owned wealth.

[Light a wight tonight]

No, you're just seeing what you want to see. LF as capitalist? I don't see that connection at all. He has brothels but that's about it as far as his capitalism goes. Otherwise he's just kind of a devious trickster and you'll find that in every government/economy style. And the BWB were not a force for good no matter how much they want to tell themselves that.

Actually LF was a practicing capitalist in that he used money to make money, through lending and investments. The whorehouses would supply some wealth but not on the scale that he's accumulated it. Don't believe me? Do a reread on the Tyrion POV (Storm of Swords?) where he's trying to unravel the books after being made Master of Coin and uncovers LF's doings.

[SeanF]

Yes the Iron Bank storyline is a fascinating subplot. Have the Braavosi bankers been engaged in fractional reserve banking? If so the default by the Westerosi may mean their bankruptcy and the ruination of the entire city state. However I think GRRM has included it as a convenient means to get Stannis back in the game, throwing a few thousand dragons to Stannis is chicken feed compared to the many millions they'd be on the hook for if the IT doesn't start making payments.

I imagine the Iron Bank could absorb a loss of 1.5m dragons (the Faith can cancel a debt of 1m). But, it's a matter of principle that defaulting debtors get punished.

[The Marquis de Leech]

I think we're getting lost in a chicken and egg scenario here. Why do communists seek to control the means of production?

Because control of the means of production is where the power of the ruling class comes from, allowing the subjugation of workers, and alienating them from that with which they work. Private ownership of the means of production is, in the Marxist view, the basis for the capitalist state apparatus and law.

[Borsabil]

I imagine the Iron Bank could absorb a loss of 1.5m dragons (the Faith can cancel a debt of 1m). But, it's a matter of principle that defaulting debtors get punished.

It depends on how leveraged they are. In a highly leveraged bank, say one with less than 10 or even 5% in capital ratios to outstanding loans any losses above that will wipe them out instantly, as we all found to our cost back in 2008. And unlike say Citi or Bank of America the Iron Bank doesn't have a friendly central bank on hand that can print gold dragons to bail them out. If this is the case it means they're desperate and will do pretty much anything to get the loan re-paid.

[Trigger Warning]

It's just because the rich guys are in power.

Plenty of the small folk will go about being bastards, but it's not important because it's on a small scale.

[SeanF]

It depends on how leveraged they are. In a highly leveraged bank, say one with less than 10 or even 5% in capital ratios to outstanding loans any losses above that will wipe them out instantly, as we all found to our cost back in 2008. And unlike say Citi or Bank of America the Iron Bank doesn't have a friendly central bank on hand that can print gold dragons to bail them out. If this is the case it means they're desperate and will do pretty much anything to get the loan re-paid.

I think of the Iron Bank as being a state-capitalist organisation. If it got into real trouble, I think the Braavosi government would re-capitalise it. They're calling in loans across Westeros, which hurts the locals, but not them.

[Borsabil]

I think of the Iron Bank as being a state-capitalist organisation. If it got into real trouble, I think the Braavosi government would re-capitalise it. They're calling in loans across Westeros, which hurts the locals, but not them.

There's two problems with that. Unless the Braavosi government has enough in it's treasury to make good the losses then they can't bail them out. Unlike the Federal Reserve aSoIaF operates in a hard money environment, and you can't print gold. Even if they do have enough they'd be obligated to come out and say so to prevent a bank run, it will be common knowledge by now that the IT has defaulted on it's loan. The Braavosi will have to be careful with this as very often a government announcing the need to backstop a bank is what precipitates depositor panic and instead of preventing a bank run they end up causing one.

This all supposes that GRRM has thought this through as a story line and the implications of such a large default might have on a banks balance sheet and it isn't just a convenient prop to fund Stannis and get him back in the game.

[Sir Noone Sword Of The Day]

no offence but i reckon this is a blatant example of how people can look TOO deeply into a book and question the authors motives with the most outlandish theories...

[SeanF]

There's two problems with that. Unless the Braavosi government has enough in it's treasury to make good the losses then they can't bail them out. Unlike the Federal Reserve aSoIaF operates in a hard money environment, and you can't print gold. Even if they do have enough they'd be obligated to come out and say so to prevent a bank run, it will be common knowledge by now that the IT has defaulted on it's loan. The Braavosi will have to be careful with this as very often a government announcing the need to backstop a bank is what precipitates depositor panic and instead of preventing a bank run they end up causing one.

This all supposes that GRRM has thought this through as a story line and the implications of such a large default might have on a banks balance sheet and it isn't just a convenient prop to fund Stannis and get him back in the game.

It can sound a bit outlandish to use modern economic terminology here. But, although Ned's appalled by the debt of 6m dragons, I doubt if it's very large in relation to GDP in Westeros, given that half the debt is owed to just one family. Probably, the terms of the loans are dreadful, with punitive rates of interest, and the Lannisters syphoning off Crown revenues.

Braavos is the world's most advanced economy. The IB is as big as every other bank in the Free Cities put together. I'm sure a loss of 1.5 m dragons hurts, but I'm sure their reserves would cover this. It's the reputational damage, of allowing a major creditor to default, that matters.

[nubreed000]

Tonight on Fox News: Is George RR Martin propagating communism?? We take a closer look at the way HBO's hit TV series is threatening our way of life. And later, Sean Hannity looks at the disturbing links between Obama Bin Laden, Iran, and Ned Stark! The results may surprise you!! With guest speakers Michelle Bachman, Sarah Palin, Rush Limbaugh and Clint Eastwood all weighing in.

All this and more on Fox News, your ONLY source for news that's Fair & Balanced™

[Ramsay Gimp]

no offence but i reckon this is a blatant example of how people can look TOO deeply into a book and question the authors motives with the most outlandish theories...

indeed, but it can lead to fun discussions. Like the examination of the Iron Bank, etc.

[Ramsay Gimp]

Tonight on Fox News: Is George RR Martin propagating communism?? We take a closer look at the way HBO's hit TV series is threatening our way of life. And later, Sean Hannity looks at the disturbing links between Obama Bin Laden, Iran, and Ned Stark! The results may surprise you!! With guest speakers Michelle Bachman, Sarah Palin, Rush Limbaugh and Clint Eastwood all weighing in.

All this and more on Fox News, your ONLY source for news that's Fair & Balanced™

Not really fair to throw Clint Eastwood in with those blowhards. He's really a live and let live type of guy, despite his "right-wing" (oh noez!!) views

[Ramsay Gimp]

I'm not a Randian, but isn't objectivism's view of altruism more about rejection of the notion of force in human interactions? I get a little hazy when she tries to then justify any form of government, as she also rejects anarchism. It never made that much sense to me, kind of like socialism, more an intellectual construct than a theoretical model of reality.

Besides I'm really not sure if Martin does see the dragons as a good thing and their elimination as necessarily bad. In his universe they're kind of like the Atomic bomb, when only one side of a conflict has them it tends to guarantee war and conquest, if both sides have them an uneasy truce and peace.

The problem with Objectivism from a broader individualist or libertarian perspective is that it purports to be a moral philosophy, rather than just a political one. She would condemn works of art or classical music or even particular marriages for being "anti-rational" or whatever, like a Marxist would, and even excommunicate people like some religious cult.

Rand had some great ideas and some nonsensical ones, from a libertarian perspective. Her blanket condemnation of "altruism" and the twisting of its definition being one of the nonsensical ones - no, it wasn't only directed at government force but even private charity. She also trashed libertarians and accused them of stealing her ideas, as if Thomas Jefferson or Henry Hazlitt or Henry David Thoreau or Von Mises or Lysander Spooner or Murray Rothbard never existed. She had a big ego (not exactly surprising) and it seeped into her ideas.

anyway, /rant :blushing:

[Borsabil]

It can sound a bit outlandish to use modern economic terminology here. But, although Ned's appalled by the debt of 6m dragons, I doubt if it's very large in relation to GDP in Westeros, given that half the debt is owed to just one family. Probably, the terms of the loans are dreadful, with punitive rates of interest, and the Lannisters syphoning off Crown revenues.

Braavos is the world's most advanced economy. The IB is as big as every other bank in the Free Cities put together. I'm sure a loss of 1.5 m dragons hurts, but I'm sure their reserves would cover this. It's the reputational damage, of allowing a major creditor to default, that matters.

It again depends. What is the maximum that the Iron Throne can extract from it's population? In theory a government can extract all the wealth from taxpayers, in reality that's impossible, and taxation reaches a level that causes a mass revolt or economic collapse. Practically the amount a government in the medieval period could extract would be WAY less than today, partly this is technological, taxation being far easier to evade, and partly due to the way the economy was structured, far more economic transactions outwith the monetary system (straight barter) and far less of the population participating in the cash economy. There was also the issue of the largest and wealthiest being largely exempt (the nobility and church). So 6 million gold dragons might not be a high percentage in terms of Westeros GDP, but it may well be far too much for the government to service on an ongoing basis, which, as they've just defaulted, seems likely.

As to your second point, well again it depends on how leveraged the Iron Bank is. As I might have mentioned, even banks with a huge asset base will get into trouble

no offence but i reckon this is a blatant example of how people can look TOO deeply into a book and question the authors motives with the most outlandish theories...

Fair enough, all speculation on my part, but not completely groundless. Fractional Reserve Banking, in one form or another, has been practiced for many, many centuries, and was certainly existent in medieval Europe.

if they've over leveraged themselves as a means to chase profit. Relatively small losses can cause the collapse of even large banks. If the IB is facing a depositor run they will be desperate to restore confidence by forcing the resumption of repayments from the IT.

[Garlan Marius]

He can't represent communism in ASoIaF, as it would be anachronistic. Capitalism developed out of feudalism, what with the burghers gaining political and economic power. If anything, Littlefinger represents this transformation.