A bit of perspective is important as regards cocoa beans, and, indeed, all commodities. The cocoa bean, as grown and harvested, is inedible. It is tough, dry, bitter and rock hard. Native Ghanian’s historically had no use for the beans and considered them a nuisance.

That is, until the 19^th century when Europeans perfected the process of converting the cocoa bean into refined lusciously tasty, highly desired chocolate food products. For centuries, chocolate was a dilettante’s delight, the food of royalty. Chocolate was rare, expensive and difficult to distill. Nestle, Cadbury and Hershey were among the many businesses that perfected the mass manufacturing processes essential to bringing the delights of chocolate to the masses, and as a result, created the market for the formerly unwanted Ghanian cocoa beans.

The pricing of the raw cocoa beans that Flight Lt. Rawlings was so agitated about are controlled by market forces. A socialist dictator, of course, does not understand market forces. Supply and demand, drought, market conditions and competitive forces determine what any commodity is worth on any given day. Without an industrial process capable of converting a commodity into a finished product, a system to distribute that finished product and an organized marketplace for the sale and consumption of finished goods, there would be virtually zero value in most of the world’s raw materials.

For centuries the Middle East camel caravans and traders were confronted with a constant nuisance: trade routes were often submerged in a bog of oil seeping uncontrolled from beneath the earth. The resulting need to chart and create new routes was time consuming and expensive. Oil was considered the “devils drink”. Camels could not drink oil. The Bedouin could not sleep or wear the oil.

The dawn of industrialization, mechanization, steam engines, the internal combustion engine and mobile transit created a need for significant stocks of oil. Initially, oil was plentiful and affordable in the United States. Petroleum engineers, anticipating the coming worldwide demand for petroleum distillate products, visited the Middle East in the 1920’s. The first oil concessions were negotiated with the House of Saud, and thus began the rise of omnipotent Middle East oil principalities. This is but another example of an unwanted, valueless commodity suddenly gaining remarkable currency as a result of industrial, really entrepreneurial success.

Bauxite, plutonium, titanium, cobalt, magnesium, and dozens more raw materials and minerals are of immense value in our contemporary world because, and solely because, modern economies have created products and industries that have need of these elements. The final products we see on our store shelves, personally consume or utilize to perform our work usually consist of a perfected blending of the world’s commodities that alone, have little use or value.

Have peoples and countries been exploited of their indigenous raw materials? Absolutely, and forever and a day this has occurred. Long before the industrial revolution people were robbed, enslaved and exploited by stronger groups in order to exploit water, salt, cattle or some perceived benefit that was not readily available to them. The modern industrial craving for raw materials to propel industrialization has been a real fact.

My point and perspective is to simply state the obvious: raw materials often have no intrinsic value as stand alone products or consumables. Without a marketplace that creates demand and valuations for minerals as product components, native peoples would enjoy even lower standards of living than Jerry Rawlings and so many current third world leaders, continually complain about.

The discussion of the appropriate use of mineral revenues by third world countries is for another article and another day. Suffice it to say that rarely does a specific nations mineral wealth benefit the native population. Vast amounts of revenues that could be applied to indigenous poverty, lack of education and economic development seems to wind up in off-shore accounts, yachts and Parisian shopping sprees.

The third world peasant unknowingly has a great benefactor in every entrepreneur. Because so much of the second and third world lacks basic property rights and rule of law, there is a resulting lack of entrepreneurial activity in these poor countries. Patent protection, intellectual property rights and transparent legal systems are essential for entrepreneurial endeavor to thrive.

Innovation that utilizes the raw materials so prevalent in many poor countries is the engine that can, and should be instrumental in eliminating poverty and ignorance. Demagogue’s ranting about the abuses of capitalism inevitably are key to keeping their populations poor. The entrepreneur, with a better mousetrap and a plan to market the device, is far more beneficial to the peasant living in darkness than the charismatic blowhard with a bushel full of rhetorical claptrap and a Swiss bank account.

Since the dawn of capitalism and the industrial revolution, entrepreneurs have created products, services and whole industries that have improved the human condition. The poorest amongst us, living in the most remote third world villages, have enjoyed at least some indirect benefits of this flood of inventiveness. The real shame is that demagogues, charlatans and political poseurs keep so many people in the dark and removed from the full benefits of participating in capitalist, profit seeking, entrepreneurial enterprise.

Inventions such as polio vaccine, the telephone, the laser, freeze-drying and flight are of amazing benefit to the poor. The capacity of the inter-net and electronic media to enlighten, and thus embolden formerly untouched villagers with hope, education, and ambition to improve their lot is on display in many areas of the third world. This march will not be stopped. Once people are exposed to modern comforts, opportunities and methods to peacefully improve their lot, well, as the old saying goes: “It is hard to keep them down on the farm”.

The drive to be entrepreneurial is deeply imbedded in human nature. The opportunity to use natural resources productively and profitably is just as possible in the third world as anywhere else, if transparent legal systems are in place. Creating jobs, profits and new products is what successful entrepreneurs do best. It is unfortunate that third world poverty is wrongly blamed on productive uses of indigenous resources that would be of no value to anyone if left in the ground. The real misfortune for the worlds forgotten poor is their exclusion from full economic participation in so many economies based on the willful, spiteful complicity of their leaders.

As a counselor and consultant to many entrepreneurs I am always amazed at the spirit and drive they exhibit. As I have become an inter-net user over the years, I am really encouraged by the contacts I receive on a daily basis from prospective entrepreneurs living in countries and continents that are not normally associated with creativity and free markets. In most situations, these hopeful entrepreneurs will not have the ability to commercialize their ideas. However, the mere fact that they have ideas, ambition and courage, despite the circumstance of their geography should be of great solace to all of us. A better world can happen and freedom, personal and commercial, will be the first rail of such a world.

Thus, a commercial opportunity was noticed, addressed and successfully harvested. In 1670 there was a massive fire in London. It was the largest fire in history until that time. The city was, at that time the largest, most densely populated in the world. Almost all of the buildings in London were constructed of wood and were built closely together, At that time, as now, London was a very horizontally designed metropolis (New York City and Hong Kong in contrast, are much more vertically built). The fire fed upon itself and raged widely, consuming all in its path.

After the fire burnt itself out, the city of London and it’s population were decimated. A prescient resident named Nicholas Barbon observed first hand the total destruction of his the metropolis. Barbon was a German trained physician. He assisted by caring for the injured but felt that something more could be done to assist people in rebuilding their physical, financial and emotional lives.

His brilliant, elegantly simple idea was to create an assurance product that could be sold in mass, at affordable rates and cover the possibility of loss by fire. Nicholas Barbon met with accountants and financiers and developed some of the earliest actuarial tables to assess and price risk. London Assurance was incorporated and was the first known entity to sell fire insurance to individuals and businesses.

In America, Benjamin Franklin started the first fire insurance company in Philadelphia in the 1760’s. Franklin was an entrepreneur with a wide range of business and philanthropic interests. He was probably one of America’s richest men of that era. He started the first fire department in Philadelphia at the same time. Imagine selling fire insurance for profit, and assembling a professional fire department to mitigate losses from fires. Bright fellow, no?

The great Chicago fire and the San Francisco fire of 1906 would have left these modern, beautiful metropolises with much sadder futures if the use of fire insurance had not been widely incorporated by the time they burned. Chicago is now known as “The 2^nd City”, not because it is secondary to New York, but because the modern city we enjoy was rebuilt on top of the burned out husk of old Chicago.

Today the use of fire insurance is ubiquitous. We must have fire insurance to secure a home loan. Cities around the world have crafted building codes to minimize fire hazards among other reasons. The assessment of fire insurance risk is an actuarial craft. Hundreds of thousands of jobs are existent because of the fire and casualty industry that Nicholas Barbon pioneered.

The genius of Nicholas Barbon in assembling the elements that successfully commercialized the fire insurance business benefit us to this day. His vision allows millions of families and businesses around the world to survive disasters and re-assemble their lives.

Everyday, in locations all over the world, entrepreneurs are working to create new products, techniques and services that can improve our lives. Ben Franklin, Thomas Edison, Bill Gates and other famous inventors are paid homage for their contributions and genius. They are worthy role models for people seeking to create new opportunities. Men like Nicholas Barbon are less obvious. And yet, the seemingly mundane creation of fire insurance is a wonderful template for us to consider as we seek to craft exciting, new innovations.

Almost entirely forgotten, however, is the ancient Egyptian fetish for personal health and cleanliness. We know from written records and paintings that they were very keen to promote health, wellness and hygiene in ways that were amazingly advanced for the time, and would be considered modern today. Unfortunately, after the glory of the pharaoh’s faded, these habits were forgotten for centuries and, particularly in Western Europe, people lived in filth for ages.

An example of ancient Egyptians interest in cleanliness is their oral hygiene regimen. Egypt is an arid, windy, sandy country. Dust was omnipresent and was often blown into their foodstuffs. Grains were ground for flour between stone wheels and bits of the stone would become mixed into the final product. We know from examining mummies that their teeth were ground down almost to the gum line from a lifetime of chewing this gritty diet. The pain must have been unbearable.

Halitosis is most prevalent when tooth and gum disease is present. The Egyptians perfected the art of perfumery. For treatment of halitosis they would chew fragrant herbs and rinse with a concoction of warm water, a drop of perfume and an herb cocktail. They also practiced a form of dentistry, using needles to pierce and bleed abscesses. Priests acted as doctors and dentists.

More than half of all ancient Egyptian babies died before the age of five. Women were very protective of their bodies as soon as they became aware of their imminent pregnancy. We know that they utilized a very clever pregnancy test, thousands of years before the red/blue urine test modern women buy at pharmacies. Wheat or oat grains were collected, and the ancient Egyptian woman would urinate on the seeds. If the seeds sprouted, the woman knew she was pregnant and would adjust her personal regimen to prepare for the precious moment of childbirth.

There are many more examples of practical, but advanced hygienic procedures that were used 4000 years ago to pamper and protect the human body. And yet, a millennium later, virtually none were in wide use in most of the world. What happened?

Climate, demographics, social mores and superstitions are a few of the reasons historians and anthropologist’s offer as evidence for the loss of ancient healthcare techniques. Today, we believe that living in advanced modern societies we will improve and perfect new care techniques and each subsequent generation will live better, healthier lives than previous generations. Unless we learn the lessons of history there is no guarantee that we might not revert to a Dark Age lifestyle.

Currently there is a world economic crisis. If we had studied and learned from past economic calamities much of the pain being suffered by the worlds economy could have been mitigated. The fact is we often ignore or forget the lessons of the past. The bubonic plague of the middle-ages would most assuredly have been mitigated if society had utilized hygienic procedures perfected by the ancient Egyptians and Romans. Manias like Holland’s 17^th century tulip-mania, South Africa’s milk culture scheme, Ponzi schemes, and countless modern recessions and the great depression all germinate from the same seeds: greed, fear and a lack of historical perspective.

Societies do forget. Governments do forget. Groups and individuals do forget. The ancient Egyptians gifted the world with many advances in engineering, construction, science, health care and art. These lessons were largely lost in subsequent centuries. Some, such as the mystery of the erection of the pyramids, have never been rediscovered. It behooves us all today to rekindle an interest in history and ancient creativity.

Chocolate was first harvested and converted into a consumable drink by the Aztec’s in Mexico. Before the Aztec’s, the cacao bean was considered a nuisance plant that neither animals or humans would eat. Tough, bitter, hard, and inedible, cacao was the plant seemingly least likely to have an upside commercial destiny.

The Aztec’s took the cacao bean and blended the meat of the plant with peppers, cane and various liquids to form a drink that was consumed vigorously as a luxury tonic. The cultivation of cacao became a significant industry in Mexico and the beans actually represented a type of currency that facilitated trade.

When Hernando Cortes conquered Mexico, he and his Spanish conquistador’s were repulsed by the taste of the cacao spirit drink that the Aztec’s consumed in such large quantities. They spit it out and written accounts refer to their disgust at the drinks harsh, bitter taste. However, through experimentation, they found that by removing the pablano peppers and other Mexican herbs and substituting pure sugar the combination produced a sweet, savory foodstuff that was consumable as a drink or a candy.

The undesirable cacao bean had found it’s initial commercial niche. Plant specimens were transported back to Spain and soon the popularity of chocolate spread across Europe. Planting of cacao trees spread across parts of Africa and Asia as demand increased and plantations were required to produce cacao in huge quantities.

The Aztec’s likewise are central to the discovery and commercialization of chewing gum. In remote parts of southern Mexico, trees release a type of sap called chicle. The Aztec’s harvested this chicle resin and developed a chewable paste that could be imbued with herbs, sweets and flavors. For hundreds of years the use of chicle as a forerunner of modern chewing gum was common throughout Mexico and parts of Central America.

Hernando Cortes however did not just conquer the Aztec’s. He obliterated their society and culture. The southern source of chicle was unknown to the Spanish and thus lost for centuries. In 1870, Thomas Adams, exploring in Mexico’s southern-most jungle rediscovered the ancient chicle resin. Soon after, William Wrigley found the source and the first chewing gum war soon commenced.

Adam’s most famous brand of chewing gum was Chiclettes. Wrigley launched the Juicy Fruit and Spearmint brands. Both were very successful, though Wrigley came to be a towering beacon of Chicago commercial and social life. The Company he founded, in addition to the eponymous Wrigley Building and Wrigley Field, has seared the name Wrigley as one of America’s great brands.

Inadvertently, the search for new sources of chicle in Southern Mexico has lead to the discovery of many ancient Aztec and Mayan cities that the jungle had devoured. To this day archaeologists are diligently working, and discovering lost tombs, pyramids and ruins that might have never been brought from beneath the jungle’s grasp without the commercial desirability of chicle acting as the apex prod for exploration.

The Conquistador’s were not interested in foodstuffs. They were lustily seeking gold, silver, jewels and mineral wealth. However, after plundering Mexico and Central and South America of all the booty they could pilfer and transferring this haul to Spain they never recognized the real treasures they had discovered.

Many types of grains, vegetables and fruits were introduced to Europe and the world as a result of the rapaciousness of the Spanish Conquistador’s. These unintended side effects of the Spanish invasion of the New World were, at that time, considered tertiary benefits of the conquests. Certainly, the exportation of chocolate and chewing gum has provided the modern world with several of life’s most appreciated and satisfying products.

Cadbury, Nestle, Mars and Hershey are international behemoth brands that provide sinful delicacy and enjoyment to humankind at amazingly affordable pricing. Hundreds of enterprises, large and small, all over the world produce amazing confections based on the Aztec discoveries of chicle and chocolate. Today, we are the beneficiaries of the Aztec genius for taking unwanted forest by-products and converting them to wondrous concoctions that make our mouths salivate and tongue’s quiver with delight.

The Aztec legacy would be great even without the treasured gifts of chewing gum and chocolate. But when I watch a child eat chocolate ice cream, or a Snickers bar, or blow bubble gum bubbles, I know the world is a happier place as a result of this ancient genius.