All the land then became the Pharaoh’s. The next step was simply to gather the people into cities. They were effectively caged so the armies of the Pharaoh could keep an eye on them.

But Joseph was very shrewd, as he left the land of the priests untouched. They had effectively the same freedom as Israel, and their leadership with such freedom would no doubt support the Pharaoh and justify his position as a god before the people. So, the Egyptians said, "In God We Trust”. Joseph had separated church and state, but had given exemptions so the church would be inclined to support the state. Very shrewd.(Gen 47:22).

 All that remained was for Joseph to give the people seed to plant, so they could grow wealth for Pharaoh, and Joseph laid a tax on them, Genesis 47:24:

 ” And it shall come to pass in the increase that ye shall give the fifth part unto Pharaoh, and four parts shall be your own for seed…”

 Sound familiar in principle?  "And Joseph made it a law over the land of Egypt unto this day, that Pharaoh should have the fifth part, except the land of the priests only, which became not Pharaoh’s.”

 Verse 27: “And Israel dwelt in the land of Egypt, in the country of Goshen; and they had possession therein, and grew and multiplied exceedingly.”

 The plan was simple enough: first, get control of the money. If the control of money is taken from the people, they are forced to begin trading possessions. Once possessions are taken away, the people are easily managed  to become obedient citizens. If the religions are free, and if they are given their freedom by being servant to the king or the government, they will tend to support the benevolence of the government, with lines like “this divinely ordered capitalist system”.

 The interesting twist is found in Genesis 50:20, as Joseph was about to die:

 ”But as for you, ye thought evil against me; but God meant it unto good, to bring to pass, as it is this day, to save much people alive”.

 But notice that Israel had free enterprise and wealth, while the Egyptians had traded their freedom and possessions away for security, even serving a priesthood that owed its  ‘freedom” to Pharaoh.

The problem, as Pharaoh correctly saw, was that a free people tend to act in their own self interest, and if Pharaoh should wage a war with other countries, Israel might well choose to serve his enemies out of self interest. The motivation of government to grant "security" is well shown by that example. Since Israel was not willing to become "equal" with Egyptian citizens, they became subject to forced labor, with their possessions taken by decree. What Israel saw as slavery, other Egyptians would see as justice, "equality".

 The lesson, from Genesis to Revelation, is not lost on the Jews. Their history has been one of adaptation and control by trade and commerce, from Babylon to the present day. As historian Max DiMont points out in "The Indestructible Jews", they have developed the beginnings of our present banking system, developed a process of common law by which nations would be ruled, and were selected as the finance ministers for gentile kings due to their ability to charge interest on non-Jews. As Joseph did in Genesis, once they gained control of the money, all else follows. This lesson is not lost on Christians either. They took the banking system from the Jews and began "saving souls" for God, king, and country, using the same formula.

 Karl Marx laid out the formula quite well. When money becomes the "universal equivalent", the general purchasing power, all things can be had for money. But people do not sell for money, wrote Marx, until the possessor had "alienated' himself from the property. This meant, wrote Marx, that the "so-called inalienable rights, and the fixed property relationships corresponding to them, break down before money". He was, after all, a Jew. He was also quite correct in that regard. What Marx wrote, Joseph had long ago put in practice.