The Closed Commercial State

Sixth Chapter: The result of using these means

Sixth Chapter The result of using these means We now have to answer two questions. First, to what extent will the pur‑ pose that one had pursued with these means actually be reached through them? And second, is this purpose itself purposeful? Is it the purpose that one should have pursued? As for the first question, it is immediately clear that if a sum of money now remains in the hands of residents, from whom the state can collect taxes, rather than going to a foreigner who will pay no taxes on it to the government, or likewise if a tax‑paying resident now receives a sum of money from a foreigner who would have paid the taxes on it to another government, then the national wealth, in the sense of the word established above, would certainly either increase or at least decrease by less, with the government realizing the increase in its strength intended through these measures. [106] What we stated above in general application is true in an even higher sense for governments. Every dollar earned by its nation is worth double for it: insofar as it is thereby in its command, it can be used against the goals of every other government, and insofar as no other government has it in its command, it cannot be used against its own goals. Yet it is also clear that when even only one government has publicly pursued these measures, seeking to draw exclusive advantages for itself and its nation from living together [with other nations] in a common commercial republic, all the other governments that are suffering as a result, if they are the least bit wise, will feel the need to pursue the same measures. It is likewise evident that once one nation has achieved superiority in trade, the other nations that are oppressed as a result must employ every possible means to weaken {468} the first nation’s superiority and bring themselves back into equilibrium, and that when they are not immediately able to do so at the expense of the predominant nation, they will just as gladly do this at the expense of a nation even weaker than themselves. With all the states at any rate already tending toward reciprocal hostility on account of their territorial borders, a new tendency toward enmity will arise on account 155 156 Second Book of their trade interests, resulting in the eruption of a secret trade war of all against all. The interest in one’s own advantage will be joined by an interest in the other’s loss. Sometimes a nation will be happy to satisfy the latter without the former, causing pure damages. So it was when the Dutch extirpated all the spice plants that they found beyond the islands set aside for their cultivation, burning part of the harvested spices, just as in war one burns the supplies that cannot be brought along for one’s own use. This secret war will pass over into acts of violence [Tätlichkeiten], and such as are not honorable. One will foster smuggling into neighboring lands, and indeed openly encourage it.—Conflicting trade interests are often the true cause of wars that have been given another pretext. Thus, one buys [107] half continents at the price of a people’s political principles, as one says, since the war is actually directed against the people’s own trade, and indeed is to the disadvantage of those who have been bought. Trade interests ultimately give rise to political concepts that could not be more perilous, and these concepts in turn give rise to wars whose true cause one no longer conceals but parades in open view. Thus will arise dominion over the sea, which, beyond the range of a shot fired from the shores of inhabited lands, should no doubt be as free as air and light. Thus will arise the exclusive right to trade with a foreign people—a foreign people that [considered for itself] doesn’t concern one trading nation more than another: and over this dominion and this right there will arise bloody wars. In the long run, the efforts made by the nations {469} who are los‑ ing at trade will not be without favorable result. We can only wish them luck in this. But what will be the result for the states that, till now, have enjoyed superiority in trade? With each new step the foreigner takes toward independence from them, they lose a corresponding amount of...