World history as an experiment and a mystery. "When Adam plowed and Eve spun - who was the nobleman then" Adam plowed and Eve spun

DEAN, John (b. 1938), lawyer, adviser to US President R. Nixon 266 List of enemies. // Enemies list. In Dean's memo dated Aug. 16. 1971, it was proposed to compile a list of “persons known for their opposition to our government. To put it a little more sharply: how

DEAN, John (b. 1938), lawyer, adviser to US President R. Nixon115List of enemies. // Enemies list. In Dean's memo dated Aug. 16. 1971, it was proposed to compile a list of “persons known for their opposition to our government. To put it a little more sharply: how do we

vol. Ilf and Petrov wrote in "One-Storey America" Boulder Dam, located at the junction of four states - Arizona, Nevada, Utah and California - provides the desert with not only electricity, but also water. In addition to the power plant, there will also be a center for the All-American Canal irrigation system.
“Tell me,” we asked Thomson, “who is the author of the Boulder Dam project?”
To our surprise, he did not answer this question. He could only provide the names of the joint-stock companies that carried out this work by order of the government.
“Probably,” said Thomson, smiling, “if you ask some builder who installs the turbines here, he will not be able to say my name.” He will simply say that the installation is being done by the General Electric Company. Engineers here in America are not famous. We only know companies.
- Excuse me, Mr. Thomson, but this is a great injustice. We know who built Peter's Basilica in Rome, although it was built centuries ago. The authors of Boulder Dam, where remarkable technology and amazing construction art are combined, have a right to fame.
“No,” said Mr. Thomson, “I don’t see any injustice in this.” Personally, for example, I am not looking for fame. I am quite satisfied that two hundred specialists in the world know my name. In addition, the state of modern technology is such that it is indeed not always possible to determine the author of a particular technical work. The Edison era is over. The time for individual great inventions has passed. Now there is general technical progress. Who is building Boulder Dam? Six well-known companies. And it's all.
- But in the USSR there are engineers and workers who are very popular. Newspapers write about them, magazines print their portraits.
- You are simply passionate about construction. It plays too big a role for you now. And then you will forget about him and stop glorifying engineers and workers.
We talked for a long time about fame, or rather, about the right to fame. It seems to us that we have not convinced each other of anything. Thomson's position was clear to us: capitalism denied him glory, or rather, appropriated his glory, and this proud man does not even want to hear about it. He gives knowledge to his masters and receives a salary for this. It seems to him that they are even.
Standing on top of one of the most beautiful structures of our century, about which all that is known for certain is that it was built by an unknown person, we talked about glory in the United States.
Fame in this country begins with publicity. Publicity is given to a person only when it is beneficial to someone.
Who enjoys really great, national fame in America? People who make money, or people with the help of whom someone else makes money. There are no exceptions to this rule. Money! A boxing champion or a football champion has nationwide fame because a match with their participation collects a million dollars. A movie star has fame because an entrepreneur needs his fame. He can deprive her of this national glory the minute he wants it. Bandits have fame because it is profitable for newspapers and because the names of bandits are associated with numbers with a large number of zeros.
And who might need to give glory to Thomson or Jackson, Wilson or Adams, if these people just build some machines, power plants, bridges and irrigation systems! It is not even profitable for their masters to make them famous. A famous person will have to pay more salary."

A few facts about peasant uprisings in France in the first two-thirds of the 17th century.

1. Peisans almost always rose up against royal taxes, but under the typical slogan of those times: “For the king and against evil advisers.” In the 17th century, the French tax system changed dramatically, and moving away from centuries-old traditions is always difficult. At the same time, the tax burden grew in proportion to the growth of average income, but it seemed as if the people were being squeezed more and more. So there were countless peasant revolts at that time.

2. A huge number of speeches began due to the most incredible rumors about new taxes: a shoe tax, an air tax, a spring water tax, a sex tax, a tax on the birth of children, etc. Naturally, there was nothing of the kind, but the people were excited.

3. The best time for a riot was considered to be the end of winter and spring. 99% of the speeches looked like this: people offended by life surrounded the hotel where the royal tax collectors were staying, dragged them out into the street, the hotel was broken or burned, all tax documents were carefully destroyed, tax workers were beaten and their clothes were torn, but almost never killed. After this, the rebel peasants bravely broke and robbed something else, got alcohol and drank until they lost consciousness. Having woken up, everyone embarrassedly went about their business, trying not to look at each other. Very rarely did unrest last longer or spread to other villages and towns. In exceptional cases, something like an army was formed, which either fled on its own at the end of spring, or met with the royal soldiers and everything ended very tragically.

4. After the uprising, the rebel place received various bonuses, taxes were reduced or abolished, abuses of officials were investigated and punished. True, if the uprising was large, then the king ordered several of the instigators to be hanged for intimidation, granting amnesty to the rest.

5. Local nobles quietly acted as the main catalysts and organizers of peasant uprisings. They also did not like the officials sent by the king, the decrease in the profitability of traditional positions (those that had been bought for centuries), and most importantly, the total amount of taxes did not change (it was difficult to take more), but royal taxes became an increasingly larger part of the total tax burden, and the nobles had less fell as local taxes, so they were interested in the peasants extracting tax breaks from the king. So the nobles paid both for the spread of the above-mentioned incredible rumors and paid extra money to the ringleaders of the rebellion. In turn, the rebel peasants almost never burned the noble estates and did not attack the noble servants, unlike the royal ones. Harassment from the nobles was rare, mostly at that time they already behaved smarter, and tried not to cut the branch on which they were sitting, on the contrary, they helped the development of the economy in their province: more trade turnover, higher average per capita income = more profit, it is easier to part with established amounts of taxes.

6. In the last third of the 17th century, the master of domestic politics, Louis XIV, got rid of these entertainments almost completely. He formalized taxes to make them more understandable to the population, made the process of collecting them even more bureaucratic, and established strict control over the collectors. But the main thing is that under him, more than half of the taxes collected in the province did not leave its borders and went to local needs, including financing local government. People saw where their money was going and let off steam in provincial assemblies. The nobility received stability of income and lost reasons to incite paisan against the king. So peasant performances began to happen much less frequently.