Progress at Gunpoint (In The Killing Age, Clifton Crais says modernity is a machine for systematic killing), Pg18

Key Highlights:

• Clifton Crais introduces the "Mortecene," or "Killing Age," arguing modernity is a machine for systematic killing, driven by the proliferation of guns.
• From 1750 to 1900, Britain led in gun production, leveraging control over saltpeter from India to establish a near monopoly.
• Guns facilitated slavery on an unprecedented scale, underwrote brutal labor regimes, and enabled the extermination of indigenous peoples.
• Between 1750 and 1900, unnecessary human deaths outside Europe may have reached 200 million, alongside the destruction of millions of animals.
• By the late 19th century, empires sought to consolidate authority by disarming populations, exemplified by the Indian Arms Act of 1885.

Detailed Insights:

• The Mortecene concept challenges traditional views of modernity, emphasizing the role of violence in shaping capitalist development and state formation.
• Gun-enabled violence was integral to the Industrial Revolution, facilitating resource extraction like whale oil, bison bones, and land transformations for sugar production.
• The British East India Company was a key player in global gun running, highlighting the entanglement of trade, violence, and global capitalism.
• Imperial powers initially proliferated guns through warlords, leading to anarchy, before attempting to monopolize violence through disarmament laws.
• The book forces a moral reckoning by revealing the slaughter, dispossession, and extinction concealed behind abstractions like "institutions" and "growth".

Key Concepts Involved:

• Mortecene: A proposed epoch characterized by systematic killing as a central feature of modernity.
• Saltpeter: The key ingredient in gunpowder, control over which gave Britain a strategic advantage.
• Indian Arms Act of 1885: A law aimed at disarming the Indian population to consolidate British authority.