ETHICS OF COMMERCE AND PRACTICAL MATHEMATICS PART II

The mathematics of trade boils down to simple arithmetic, and in reality the question of surplus and deficit is merely a matter of definitions, as both are covered by valuable commodities which can be called products of sorts. Gold is certainly a bona fide product, reducing all deficit payments in gold to zero balance on such transactions. Paper money and all sorts of promissory notes and credit obligations may also be regarded as items of value determined by the trading parties. This may appear as kindergarten economics, but, perhaps, what modern economics needs the most today amidst all the voodoo and gibberish is a return to the kindergarten and its primitive clarity that is so sorely missing, resulting in irresolvable crises and the desire of the self-perceived victims to collect their own toys and quit the collective game… here is a zero-sum game for you, with winners and losers, and no need for graduate science…

For, there is not so much danger in oversimplifying the complicated as in overcomplicating the simple.

…As for the ethics of trade, it is literally drowning in relativism. There is nothing ethically wrong, I repeat, with the concept of trade as such, but it is the practice of trade that leaves the door open to various degrees of abuse. With which basic platitude I conclude this segment.

Instead of a Conclusion.

In the course of this entry, I have been taking a few glimpses of a number of aspects of certain commercial practices. Meanwhile, there is a curious self-contradiction in the theory and practice of the so-called mercantilism, occupying a special place in the history of capitalism, which is worthy of being mentioned here.
According to Wikipedia, “the earliest stage of modern capitalism, arising in the period between the 16^th and the 18^th centuries is commonly described as merchant capitalism and mercantilism. This period is associated with geographic discoveries by merchant overseas traders, especially from England and the Low Countries, the European colonization of America, and the rapid growth in overseas trade. Mercantilism was a system of trade-for-profit, even if commodities were still largely produced by non-capitalist production methods.”
But now comes this historical irony. “Under mercantilism, European merchants, backed by state controls, subsidies, and monopolies, made most of their profits from buying and selling of goods. Similar practices of economic regimentation had begun earlier in the medieval towns. However, under mercantilism, given the contemporaneous rise of absolutism, the state superseded local guilds as the regulator of the economy. Proponents of mercantilism stressed state power and overseas conquest as the principal aim of economic policy. If a state could not supply its own raw materials, according to the mercantilists, it should acquire colonies, from which they could be extracted. Colonies constituted not only the sources of supply for raw materials, but also markets for finished products. Because it was not in the interests of the state to allow competition, held the mercantilists, the colonies ought to be prevented from engaging in manufacturing and trading with foreign powers.” (State, state, state!!!… and yet they still dare to call that capitalism?)
Now, mercantilism is admittedly the grandfather of authentic classic capitalism. But let us compare the role of the state in this admittedly early stage of capitalism, with the most recent analysis of the role of the state in the full-blown emergence of state capitalism on the world arena, namely, in such key nations as Russia and China, to mention just these two. This analysis, by some leading Western authorities, suggests that not only is international commerce unperturbed by the invasion of these essentially anti-capitalist states on the world market, but that the global capitalist community finds it even advantageous, in so far as their political stability is concerned, as opposed to the speculative uncertainties of various unsound free market ventures.
Paradoxically, I say, Russia and China, as virtual practitioners of state capitalism, are closer to classic solid capitalism, in my estimation, than the modern Western perversions of it, essentially equating capitalism with crooked money manipulations.
Whoever said that the economic future of the world belongs to naked capitalism or to some extreme form of socialism, for that matter? I would say, what I already said before, that the future looks more and more like a mixed basket, leaning toward moderate socialism.