Civet Cat

The Moses Project needed funding. The Venetian government raised money by auctioning off the right to use palaces, while ownership remained with Venice. Buyers like François Pino purchased them through private negotiations. His income mainly came from Printemps and Gucci.

If people were simply asked to donate to Venice, few would possess such noble sentiments. Only those who loved Venice would do so. Without realizing it, someone had done a good deed.

At the same time, François Pino bought Leonardo da Vinci's oil paintings. Capital itself was neutral, but it was also an enormous weapon. When this weapon called capital fell into different hands, it took on different natures. Its use determined that capital was not neutral. Some used money to do good; others used it to do evil. European and American luxury conglomerates and Western art capital were the most influential black capital in the world today. Those paintings could not only be used for money laundering, but also to inflate the prices of all European and American artworks. Compared with the prices of artworks, the value of ordinary people's labor was diminished. That was the principle behind legal money laundering.

Workers in industrial districts worked themselves to death, yet even if they went without food or drink their entire lives, they could not create four hundred million dollars' worth of value. But apart from looking at it, could that painting fill anyone's stomach?

To a farmer who knew nothing of such things, he certainly would not trade his bread for a canvas painting. Yet he recognized George Washington on the dollar bill. At their core, Washington and the Mona Lisa were both "paintings," both admired by so many people. Why was the Mona Lisa noble while Washington on a dollar bill was vulgar?

The silk that drove Western