The Closed Commercial State

Fourth Chapter: Decisive measures for achieving both the closure of the commercial state and the conditions for this closure that have just been set forth

Fourth Chapter Decisive measures for achieving both the closure of the commercial state and the conditions for this closure that have just been set forth Let us now set aside the goals we set forth in the two preceding chapters until we automatically strike on the means for achieving them, and simply recall the task, presented above, of closing off the commercial state. What is demanded is the complete elimination of all direct commerce between the citizen and any foreigner. One can only say that something has been eliminated completely when it has been rendered impossible. The direct commerce between the citizen and any foreigner must be rendered completely impossible. The possibility of world trade rests on our possessing the means of exchange valid in all the world, and being able to put this to use for us. The foreigner will not sell to someone who does not possess the same sign of value—which is to say, gold or silver money—as he himself possesses. And he for whom the money that the foreigner could give him is worth nothing cannot sell anything to the foreigner. Trade by means of money is, from this point on, not possible between them. There only remains the possibility of exchanging goods for goods. Yet such trade will not get out of hand, if only because of its inconvenience. The state would be able to supervise it more easily, and, as we will see farther down, a state that is closing has at its disposal the most {485} infallible means of eliminating all need and all desire for it. Hence, the solution of our task is as follows: all the world currency that is found in the hands of the citizens, viz., all gold and all silver, should be brought out of circulation and converted into a new national currency, a money—this is to say—that would be valid only in the country, and yet would be exclusively valid in it. 173 174 Third Book The validity, and indeed the sole and exclusive validity, of the new national currency, would be provided and guaranteed in the following way: the government, which, by means of the taxes, is already the recipient of the largest payments, and could, in addition, use an artificial provision dur‑ ing the introduction of the new national currency to temporarily make itself into the largest and indeed nearly the only seller, would accept payments only in this money. [121] It is clear that the government must be the one who manufactures and gives out this money and provides it with general validity by announcing that it will henceforth be the only means of exchange, and that the government will accept only it in its pay‑offices. It is also clear that, through specially erected currency exchanges, the government would have to give out the new money in exchange for gold and silver, first at equal value, and then, after some time, at a loss in its value in gold and silver.—It is obvious why the government must erect special currency exchanges and cannot accept direct payments of gold and silver, despite the fact that it is at any rate one and the same government that must first disburse the new money from the currency exchanges before it can accept it at the pay‑offices, accepting at the one the gold and silver that it refuses at the other. It should not depend on the subjects’ good will whether they procure for themselves the new national currency right away and willingly trade in their gold and silver. They should be compelled to make this exchange. As for the material from which this new money should be manufactured, I will at present say only this much. Lest it offend the imagination of the people [Einbildungskraft des Volkes], this material must not have been previ‑ ously familiar to them in any context, {486} having become known to them now for the first time with the new money. And from now on it must only be used for money. It is material for money and nothing else than material for money, and the people need know nothing more than this. For keep in mind that the gold and silver in circulation should be exchanged for this and brought back into the hands of the government. If now, say, paper or leather or any other material already familiar from before and already possessing a determinate intrinsic value is made into money, the unthinking...