So this is a little off topic for me, nothing culinary here today. I want to share a little of the history of meso America, the truth really. if you cant be bothered with the introduction skip to the end for synopsis.
South America is a continent entirely in the Western Hemisphere[note 6] and mostly in the Southern Hemisphere, with a relatively small portion in the Northern Hemisphere. It can also be described as the southern subregion of a single continent called America.
South America is bordered on the west by the Pacific Ocean and on the north and east by the Atlantic Ocean; North America and the Caribbean Sea lie to the northwest. The continent generally includes twelve sovereign states: Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Ecuador, Guyana, Paraguay, Peru, Suriname, Uruguay, and Venezuela; two dependent territories: the Falkland Islands and South Georgia and the South Sandwich Islands; and one internal territory: French Guiana.[note 8] In addition, the ABC islands of the Kingdom of the Netherlands, Ascension Island (dependency of Saint Helena, Ascension and Tristan da Cunha, a British Overseas Territory), Bouvet Island (dependency of Norway), Panama, and Trinidad and Tobago may also be considered parts of South America.
In the 19th century, Latin America emerged from its wars of independence ravaged, and, although its revolutionary armies had been largely people of color, those underclasses went ignored. The principles of Enlightenment that had fueled the revolutions were cast aside as rich Creoles (whites of Spanish ancestry) scrambled to appropriate the wealth the colonial overlords left behind. Governments were improvised in a way that kept the darker races in servitude and granted whites the seats of power. The rule of law—indispensable to a free people—was abandoned as one dictator after another rewrote laws according to his caprices. Indians and blacks, having fought furiously for liberty, were cast back into servitude. Bigotry, institutionalized by Spaniards, hardened under their descendants, and a virulent racism became the region’s tinderbox. A nervous era followed.
Economic growth is rarely examined for ancient states and empires despite its prominence as a topic in modern economies. The concept is debated, and many measures of growth are inaccessible for most of the ancient world, such as gross domestic product (GDP). Scholars generally have been pessimistic about ancient economic growth, but expectations derived from dramatic growth in modern economies can lead to overlooking important evidence about economic change in the past. The measure of economic growth that we adopt focuses on the economic well-being of ordinary households. We evaluate one domain of evidence: imported obsidian implement consumption in the coastal lowlands of Mesoamerica. We situate the obsidian study against a backdrop of ideas concerning economic growth in ancient societies because such topics have received only modest attention for Mesoamerica. For the major Mesoamerican ceramic periods, we display the already-known early technological shift in predominant techniques of obsidian implement production—from percussion and bipolar flakes to prismatic pressure blades—that led to more efficient tool production for long-distance trade, note other lithic technological improvements, and evaluate increased obsidian access with a growing market system in the last centuries of the prehispanic record.
So, what exactly am I getting at here? Well, it seems that the Ämericas were at one time a thiving economic meca long before North America. The Spanish did away with that, much like the French Catholics did in Canada, and the British in the United States. The economy of the Americas was a more pure and fair form of commerce, bartering, trading and giving. Not like the mess we are in now with mega rich corporations calling all the shots, and an ever increasing poverty sector. Basically the West is on the brink of collapse, socially and economically. I have seen nothing but good will, kindness and gratitude in my times spent down South. Here in Ecuador they still have values, integrity and a tight social network called FAMILY. Yes, there are problems here, and poverty, but not to the degree I see in what we call a democratic society. We are basically an Oligarchy; a form of government in which a small group of people hold most or all political power.
Folks, we have to get ourselfs back to the garden! A new form of democracy is needed, and fast, or we will suffer the consequences of past history. A complete breakdown of social order, basically the Fall of the Western Empire is at stake!
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