Commerce forces rationalism in a civilization. In most civilizations, truth is determined by the command of the government, or by the dominant religion. Truth is not objective and independent of the authorities; it is handed down from above.
But trade forces objectivity upon a civilization. King Ozymandius can declare whatever truths he wishes, and High Priest Sanctimonious can reveal truth to the populace, but a merchant must deal with realities. A merchant can decide what he thinks is the true value of a product, but that merchant’s opinion is of little significance; what matters is the price that somebody ELSE is willing to pay or demands. You can be as subjective as you want when dealing with just about anything else, but when it comes to commerce, objectivity is forced upon you by the opinions of other people. You can complain that they’re not being fair, but ultimately, either you accept the prices established by others or you don’t do business.
More important, as the Greeks learned, the wealth you accumulate is the result of the quality of your analysis of the market. If you truly understand the market, how prices fluctuate in time and differ across distance, then you can get rich. But this requires the iron discipline of rationalism. If you indulge your fancies, or allow your subjectivity to run free, you will not get rich.
The rationalism of the merchant is contagious; it spreads from the merchant to the butcher, the baker, and the candlestick maker. It seeps into the nooks and crannies of society. The more important trade is to a society, the more powerfully rationalism permeates that society. This is why the great trading states of history also experienced a florescence of rationalism, usually expressing itself in a burst of scientific achievement. We saw this with Greece. But Greece was conquered by Rome, and trade was not a big source of wealth in Roman society. The way to get rich was either to own lots of land, or to get some public office that you could use to corruptly to get rich. Everybody did it. Thus, once Rome superseded Greece, intellectual progress came to a grinding halt. There was still some work done by Greeks in the eastern Empire. But Rome itself generated no great scientists, no great mathematicians, and no great rationalists.
The next society to exalt trade was in northern Italy starting around 1300 CE. The expanding trade of cities like Venice, Florence, Genoa, and Rome made merchants important, and triggered the Renaissance, a time of mighty intellectual leaps.
Portugal opened up trade with the Far East, but never exploited it enough to enjoy its intellectual benefits. It was the Netherlands that plunged wholeheartedly into trade with the Far East and re-arranged society around mercantilism. The Dutch VOC company built a trading empire in the Far East and reaped huge rewards. The Netherlands enjoyed fabulous wealth, but it also enjoyed an explosion of new ideas, new art, and new scientific discoveries. Unfortunately for the Netherlands, they got themselves into naval wars with the English, wars that eventually lost them the command of the seas. Once the English established their commercial empire, England started to breed several generations of brilliant scientists.
Commerce bestows rationalism upon a society.
January 25th, 2020
