Carroll Quigley

When the business interests... pushed through the first installment of civil service reform in 1883, they expected that they would be able to control both political parties equally.

Hitler's economic revolution in Germany had reduced financial considerations to a point where they played no role in economic or political decisions.

By the winter of 1945-1946, the Russian peoples were being warned of the dangers from the West.

Instead, there were a variety of controls of which some could be influenced by bankers, some could be influenced by the government, and some could hardly be influenced by either.

Thus, the use of fiat money is more justifiable in financing a depression than in financing a war.

On this basis, which was originally financial and goes back to George Peabody, there grew up in the twentieth century a power structure between London and New York which penetrated deeply into university life, the press, and the practice of foreign policy.

In addition to their power over government based on government financing and personal influence, bankers could steer governments in ways they wished them to go by other pressures.

To this day the Arab influence is evident in southern Italy, northern Africa and, above all, in Spain.

The failure of Christianity in the areas west from Sicily was even greater, and was increased by the spread of Arab outlooks and influence to that area, and especially to Spain.

This persistence as private firms continued because it ensured the maximum of anonymity and secrecy to persons of tremendous public power who dreaded public knowledge of their activities as an evil almost as great as inflation.

The traditional Christian attitude toward human personality was that human nature was essentially good and that it was formed and modified by social pressures and training.

The history of the last century shows, as we shall see later, that the advice given to governments by bankers, like the advice they gave to industrialists, was consistently good for bankers, but was often disastrous for governments, businessmen, and the people generally.