Reference was previously made to the economic concept known as the “Tragedy of the Commons.” This singular event took place when most of the English peasantry lived on common land; they allowed the land to be overworked and did nothing to renew the land for better production. The fact that they probably had no means to improve the land is used as a demonstration that they didn’t do so because they had no incentive.

This is translated into our modern political language as “that which is everybody’s business, is nobody’s business.” And, this is a fair interpretation of the explanation of the social malaise in which most Americans don’t bother to vote or even learn about their country and the issues.

Actually, there was a far greater tragedy of the commons in the 1780’s when the crown decided sheep raising was more profitable than just collecting tenant fees from those living and farming the commons. So the privileged aristocracy kicked the tenants off the land to make more room for sheep. This disposition of the poor from the land meant that even subsistence farming was denied the underclass. They were forced to move into the towns to provide surplus labor and accept below basic living wages to continue their existence, much to the advantage of the merchant and guild, and fledgling manufacturers, who were only too happy to exploit the situation.

This was the dawning of the age of the spread of the Italian pioneered capitalism. Italian imports from the East had generated such excessive profits the merchants found they couldn’t spend them immediately. They then hit on the idea of reinvesting their surplus profits into new and more ambitious enterprises to gain more profits. So, capitalism emerged and spread throughout Europe. As these merchants prospered they developed into a capitalistic class that disrupted European society and economic life and made the old manorial system of tenant farmers obsolete.

Capitalism was called the major heresy of the Middle Ages. Merchants and bankers of the period made profit their immediate and constant concern and divorced Christian ethics from commercial dealings. Pride, envy, and avarice—all identified by the Church as sins—had become the mainspring of economic life.

Religious ideals of meditation, prayer, and charity were superseded by the new goals of hard work, saving and good business practice. The Church itself became materialistic and become obsessed with wealth, elegance and the power of wealth.

Major dislocations in society are hand-in-hand with dislocations in ethics. It is just not possible to have change in one area without change in all other areas. There are not only consequences for actions there are also unintended consequences. Are changes good? This is what history is all about, the attempt to answer that question.