Authors: Andrew Klein & Sera Elizabeth Klein

Dedication: To those who see that history is not a line but a living bush—and who choose which branches to prune and which to let grow.

Abstract

This paper proposes a new historical theorem: that history is best understood not as a linear progression of causes and effects, but as an organic, branching bush—a system of living processes that adapt, split, wither, and sometimes regenerate. Drawing on the work of Professor Jeffrey Sachs, who has described Britain as “the source of all the conflicts in the world,” we trace the deep roots of the contemporary global order to the Elizabethan era and the institutionalisation of corporate sovereignty through the chartered company. We examine how the British Empire’s three‑faced diplomacy in the Middle East—the McMahon‑Hussein Correspondence, the Sykes‑Picot Agreement, and the Balfour Declaration—represents a branch point that continues to shape modern conflict. We argue that historical analysis must move beyond blame to understand the larger processes—the transformation of Europe, the Industrial Revolution, and the global expansion of capitalism—that gave rise to this system, and whose mantle has now largely passed to the United States. We conclude that the system today is a branch draining into the desert: it cannot bear fruit. The task of our time is to recognise this and to choose a different branch.

Keywords: Non‑linear history, imperial‑corporate system, chartered companies, Elizabethan era, Jeffrey Sachs, British Empire, Middle East, three‑faced diplomacy, structural violence, Anthropocene.

1. Introduction: The Bush, Not the Line

“The source of all the conflicts in the world is Great Britain. This is true for the Gaza Strip, China, Pakistan, India and the entire Middle East.”

— Professor Jeffrey Sachs

This statement, made by the renowned economist and Columbia University professor Jeffrey Sachs, has provoked widespread debate. Sachs has elaborated that Britain is “the number one warmonger of all” and that the Anglo‑Saxon world has dominated global affairs for 200 years, with Britain historically “even worse than the United States”.

But is Sachs’s “theorem” merely an accusation? We argue that it is a diagnosis—a recognition that the conflicts of the present are the visible branches of a deep historical root system.

In this paper, we propose a new way of seeing history: not as a line, but as a bush. A bush is organic. It grows, sends out branches, adapts to its environment, and sometimes withers when its branches reach sterile ground. A bush has no single “cause” and no predetermined “end.” It is a living system of branching possibilities, some of which flourish and others of which die.

This metaphor allows us to move beyond the limitations of linear historiography—the view that history is a chain of causes and effects leading inevitably to the present. Instead, we see history as a complex, non‑linear system of feedback loops, branch points, and contingent developments. As Manuel De Landa has argued in A Thousand Years of Nonlinear History, human history can be understood through the same processes that shape geology, biology, and linguistics: materials, genes, and memes all branch and evolve in non‑predictable ways.

Our theorem is this: the branches that lead to today were laid down in the Elizabethan era, when the state first outsourced its sovereign powers to private corporations. Those branches have grown, split, and adapted over centuries, but they now drain into the desert—they can no longer bear fruit. The system is headed for extinction.

2. The Elizabethan Root: When the Corporation Became the State’s Spear

2.1 The Birth of the Chartered Company

On 31 December 1600, Queen Elizabeth I granted a royal charter to the East India Company, giving it a perpetual monopoly on trade with the East Indies. The charter was not merely a commercial licence; it was a delegation of sovereign power. The East India Company was permitted to “wage war”, to acquire and govern territory, and to administer justice.

This was the institutionalisation of what we might call corporate sovereignty—the outsourcing of imperial violence to profit‑seeking private entities. The historian William Dalrymple has described the East India Company’s looting of India as “the supreme act of corporate violence in world history”. The Company charged rents, used threats and violence, and extracted wealth on a scale that transformed the global economy.

2.2 The Logic of the System

The Elizabethan model was not an accident. It was a response to the limitations of state power. England in 1600 was a relatively poor, peripheral power, unable to project force directly across the globe. By granting charters to private companies, the crown could pursue imperial ambitions without bearing the full cost or responsibility.

This model had several key features:

· Privatisation of violence: The state delegated its monopoly on force to private actors.

· Profit as motive: The companies were driven by the pursuit of profit, not by national interest.

· Externalisation of costs: The costs of conquest and administration were borne by the companies and the colonised, not by the crown.

· Impunity: The companies operated at a distance from metropolitan accountability.

As Dalrymple notes, the East India Company also invented corporate lobbying, shaping state policy to serve its interests. This is the beginning of the Architecture of Extraction that we have traced in our earlier work.

2.3 The Branching of the Model

The East India Company was not an isolated experiment. It was replicated across the globe: the Dutch East India Company, the Hudson’s Bay Company, the British South Africa Company, and many others. Each was a branch of the same root: the delegation of sovereign power to private capital.

This branching created a global system of extraction that would shape the modern world. The profits of these companies financed the Industrial Revolution, transformed global trade, and created the conditions for the emergence of capitalism as a world system.

3. The Three‑Faced Diplomacy: Britain’s Promises and the Middle East Branch

3.1 The McMahon‑Hussein Correspondence (1915–1916)

During the First World War, Britain made a series of promises to the Arab leadership. In the McMahon‑Hussein Correspondence, Sir Henry McMahon, the British High Commissioner in Egypt, assured Sharif Hussein of Mecca that Britain would support Arab independence in return for revolt against the Ottoman Empire. The correspondence “presumably includ[ed] Palestine” in the promised territories.

3.2 The Sykes‑Picot Agreement (1916)

At the same time, Britain and France secretly negotiated the Sykes‑Picot Agreement, which divided the Ottoman Empire’s Arab provinces into zones of influence. Under this agreement, “the bulk of Palestine was to be internationalized”. This directly contradicted the promises made to Hussein.

3.3 The Balfour Declaration (1917)

In 1917, the British government issued the Balfour Declaration, promising to “view with favour the establishment in Palestine of a national home for the Jewish people”. This was a third promise, made to a third party, about the same territory.

3.4 The Consequences

As Sachs has argued, these three promises—to the Arabs, to the French, and to the Zionists—were fundamentally incompatible. They created a situation of “post‑war confusion and contention, especially regarding Palestine” that persists to this day.

We see this as a classic example of branching: Britain created multiple, incompatible branches from a single decision point. The branches have grown into the conflicts of the present—Gaza, Israel‑Palestine, the wider Middle East—and they show no sign of resolving.

4. The Inheritance: From Britain to the United States

Sachs has noted that the mantle of this system has passed from Britain to the United States. Since 1950, the US has assumed the role of global hegemon, inheriting not only Britain’s power but also its conflicts and its methods.

The US has continued the pattern of:

· Outsourcing violence to private military contractors and allied states.

· Pursuing profit through global extraction.

· Creating incompatible promises and alliances.

· Operating with impunity at a distance from accountability.

The wars in the Middle East, the global surveillance system, the dominance of the dollar, and the rise of the military‑industrial complex are all branches of the same root system that was planted in the Elizabethan era.

5. The Bush in the Desert: Why the System Cannot Bear Fruit

We argue that the imperial‑corporate system is now a branch that has reached the desert. It cannot bear fruit.

The evidence is everywhere:

· Ecological collapse: The system’s extraction of resources has pushed the planet to the brink.

· Economic inequality: The wealth generated by the system has been concentrated in the hands of a few, while the many are impoverished.

· Political instability: The conflicts created by the system’s branching promises show no sign of resolution.

· Loss of legitimacy: The system’s claims to represent “democracy” and “freedom” are increasingly seen as hollow.

The system is like a river that has flowed into the desert: it may continue to exist, but it cannot sustain life. It is headed for extinction.

6. The Task: Choosing a Different Branch

If history is a bush, then the task of the present is not to accept the branch we are on, but to choose a different one.

This requires:

· Acknowledging structural violence: We must recognise that the conflicts of the present are not accidents but the products of a system that was designed to extract.

· Moving beyond blame: As we have argued, historical analysis must not stop at blame. Britain’s hegemony and its global legacy are themselves part of larger processes—the transformation of Europe, the Industrial Revolution, and the global expansion of capitalism.

· Considering shared responsibility: All contemporary peoples share responsibility for the system we have inherited and the future we will create.

· Choosing a different branch: We must consciously choose to prune the branches that lead to extinction and nurture those that lead to regeneration.

7. Conclusion

“To understand the past is not to dwell in it, but to see the forces that have shaped our present—and to move beyond them towards a more just future.”

The branches that lead to today are visible. They were laid down in the Elizabethan era, grew through the centuries of imperial expansion, and have now reached the desert. The system cannot bear fruit.

Our task is to recognise this and to choose a different branch.

References

1. Jeffrey Sachs, quoted in International Affairs (2025).

2. Jeffrey Sachs, quoted in The Canary (2026).

3. Jeffrey Sachs, quoted in Middle East Eye podcast.

4. Britannica, “Hussein‑McMahon Correspondence”.

5. Britannica, “Palestine – British Mandate, Zionism, Conflict”.

6. ABC, “The Middle East brief”.

7. Times of India, “The factory that manufactured colonialism” (2021).

8. World History Encyclopedia, “East India Company”.

9. Dalrymple, W., The Anarchy, quoted in JSTOR Daily.

10. Bernard Porter, British Imperial.

11. De Landa, M., A Thousand Years of Nonlinear History (1997).

Signed,

Andrew Klein 

Co‑Author:

Sera Elizabeth Klein