This kind of contractual relationship remained common in China until the tide of commercialism was ended by the restriction of commercial activity under the Han emperor Wudi in the 2nd century bce.
Perhaps, the darknet – which Bannon describes as being like "Paris in the 20s" and Empire as "discovering America again" – has the potential to be a bastion of free speech and creativity, where art can escape surveillance and commercialism, to blend with new technology and hard truths in a way that is no longer possible on the surface internet.
Uefa, whose chief executive Lars-Christer Olsson was formerly head of the Swedish FA, has become increasingly assertive about this philosophy and critical of the damage that rampant commercialism has done to football.
In recent years, with housing policy increasingly focused on large social housing providers and creeping commercialism, many have asked whether an independent black and minority ethnic (BME) housing sector has a future.
But we do know that the Peak District, well under 200 miles from London, remains generally unspoilt by commercialism and that its clouded hills have a rugged beauty which often amazes but never intimidates.
Each time the occasion prompts the obvious question: has the religious significance of Christmas been submerged, indeed drowned, by rampant commercialism?
How they do so reveals the brilliance of the IOC's stand against the "crass commercialism" of corporate ads and logos at the games.
In other words, the sun may well rise again in the 21st century, with Japan not emulating the West but instead playing a leadership role in the effort to fuse modern western capitalism with pre-modern but nonetheless well-developed Asian global commercialism.
But the visitor is left with a remarkable chronicle of the transformations of the 20th century the rise of industrialisation, the fall of colonialism, the spread of commercialism and the grand-scale shift in world order all captured by a lone man and his camera.
FOR old school graffiti taggers, it may be the final proof that commercialism is destroying their proud culture.
But through good judgment and better fortune, the exchange has also found some winning ways of its own (see chart).Unlike some fustier bits of the City of London, LIFFE has from the start taken pride in its commercialism.
