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chapter four: The Third Difference - Benjamin Constant, Principles of Politics Applicable to All Governments [1815]

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Principles of Politics Applicable to a all Governments, trans. Dennis O’Keeffe, ed. Etienne Hofmann, Introduction by Nicholas Capaldi (Indianapolis: Liberty Fund, 2003).

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chapter four

The Third Difference

In the third place, none of the republics people have wanted us to imitate was commercial. The limits of this work prevent us from citing all the causes which constituted obstacles to the progress of commerce among the ancients. Ignorance of the compass forced them not to lose sight of the coast during their navigations more than was [425] absolutely necessary. To go beyond the columns of Hercules, that is, pass through the Strait of Gibraltar, was considered the most audacious venture. The Phoenicians and Carthaginians, the most skillful navigators among the ancients, did not dare to till very late and for long had no imitators. In Athens, which as we will say below was the most commercial republic of antiquity, the maritime rate of interest was about 60 percent, while the ordinary rate was only 12 percent, so much did the idea of long-distance navigation imply danger.

Religious prejudices were opposed to maritime trade among several peoples of antiquity. For example, there was the horror of the sea among the Egyptians, as still today among the Indians, whereby sacred rites forbade the lighting of fire on the ocean, thus preventing all long-range navigation, because food cannot be cooked. Independently of these factual proofs, simple reasoning suffices to show that war must have come before trade. The one and the other are only different means of reaching the same end, which must forever be man’s end, that is, to assure oneself the possession of what seems desirable. Trade is only homage made to the power of him who has what we would like to seize. It is the desire to get by mutual agreement what we no longer hope to take away forcibly. A man who was always the strongest would never have the idea of trade. It is experience, which, proving to man that war, that is, the use of force against the force of other people, is exposed to divers opposing checks and failures, brings him to resort to trade, that is, to a gentler and surer way of engaging the interest of others so that they consent to what suits one’s interest. War is therefore older than trade. The one is an impulsion, the other a calculation. The spirit of modern peoples is essentially commercial. Trade makes a large extension of political power at once more harassing and easier to evade: more harassing, since trade casts greater variety into men’s economic dealings, and government has to multiply its activities to get at these dealings in all their manifestations; easier to elude because trade, [426] changing the nature of property, makes this part of human existence, a part which soon becomes its most important one, almost untouchable by government. Trade gives to property the new quality of mobility. Without mobility property is only a usufruct. Government can always exert an influence on a usufruct, since it can take away one’s right of possession. Mobility, however, puts an invisible and invincible block on this boundless power of government. The effects of trade extend further still. Not only does it free individuals from the tyranny of communal government, but by creating credit it subjects communal government in some respects to individuals. It has very often been remarked that money is despotism’s main weapon but also its most powerful brake. Credit subjected to public opinion makes those who govern dependent on the governed. Force is pointless. Money hides or flees. All the State’s operations are suspended. In antiquity credit did not have the same influence.6 A deficit of sixty million made the French Revolution. A deficit of six hundred million under Vespasian did not shake the empire in the least.7

Thus governments in antiquity were necessarily stronger than individuals. Individuals are today stronger than their governments.8

Trade has another effect. In antiquity each citizen saw not only his affections but his interests and his fate bound up in his country’s lot. His patrimony was ravaged if the enemy won a battle. A public reversal removed him from the rank of free man, condemning him to slavery. No one had the means of moving his wealth. In [427] modern nations, thanks to trade, individuals shape their own futures, despite events. They move their assets far away; governments cannot penetrate their transactions; they take along with them all the comforts of private life. Moreover, in antiquity war isolated nations. Their mores were different, their dispositions savage, and expatriation almost impossible.9 Trade has brought nations together, giving them almost the same mores and habits. Their leaders may be enemies, but the peoples are compatriots. Trade has modified even the nature of war. Trading nations were in the past always subjugated by warrior peoples. Now they resist the latter successfully.10 Carthage struggling against Rome in antiquity was bound to fail; the weight of things was against her. If the struggle between Rome and Carthage happened today, however, Carthage would enjoy the best wishes of all the peoples. She would have for allies the outlook and the mores of the century. Just as war, as we have already shown, favors a vast extension of political power, so trade is favorable to individual freedom.11

This observation is borne out, even when applied to contemporary nations. People in Athens enjoyed an individual freedom much greater than in Sparta, because Athens was at once warlike and commercial12 and Sparta was exclusively warlike. This difference makes itself felt under all forms of political organization. Under despotism, as under freedom, war gathers men around government, trade isolates them from it.

[428] If we could enter here into historical details, we would show how among the Athenians trade had made the most essential differences between the ancient and modern peoples disappear. The outlook of the Athenian traders was like the outlook of ours. During the Peloponnesian War they withdrew their holdings from the Athenian mainland and sent them to the islands of the archipelago.13 Trade had created circulation between them. They understood the use of bills of exchange.14 From this, because it is all connected, flowed a vast softening in manners, more indulgence toward women,15 more hospitality to strangers,16 and an exceeding love of individual freedom. In Sparta, says Xenophon,17 citizens run when the magistrate calls them. In Athens a rich man would be in despair if anyone thought he was subservient to the magistrate. If the completely modern character of the Athenians has not been remarked on enough, this is because the general spirit of the age influenced philosophers, and they always wrote in an inverse direction from the national mores.

[6. ]See Constant’s Note C at the end of Book XVI.

[7. ]Charles Ganilh, Essai politique sur le revenu public des peuples de l’antiquité, du moyen-age, des siècles modernes et spécialement de la France et de l’Angleterre, depuis le milieu du XVe siècle jusqu’au XIXe, Paris, Giguet et Michaud, 1806, t. I, pp. 64–65. “When Vespasian mounted the throne, he declared that the state was unsustainable unless a way were found of raising 6,900,000,000.” Hofmann points out that Constant omitted a zero.

[8. ]See Constant’s Note D at the end of Book XVI.

[9. ]See Constant’s Note E at the end of Book XVI.

[10. ]See Constant’s Note F at the end of Book XVI.

[11. ]See Constant’s Note G at the end of Book XVI.

[12. ]See Constant’s Note H at the end of Book XVI.

[13. ]See Constant’s Note I at the end of Book XVI.

[14. ]See Constant’s Note J at the end of Book XVI.

[15. ]See Constant’s Note K at the end of Book XVI.

[16. ]See Constant’s Note L at the end of Book XVI.

[17. ]See Constant’s Note M at the end of Book XVI.

[C. [Refers to page 356.]]The public revenue of the ancients, says Ganilh,45 was made up from the work of slaves, the plundering of the conquered, and tribute from subjugated peoples. There was nothing there which could give birth to credit such as we conceive it today, because there was nothing there which depended on the views and the individual confidence of members of the society. This claim is perhaps a bit too general, since the citizens of Athens and Rome, from the time of Servius Tullius, paid taxes on their wealth to the State. But these taxes were nothing compared to what was drawn from allied peoples and the provinces. And the author’s basic outlook is no less true because of that.

[[445] D. [Refers to page 357.]]See on this subject an excellent work which has just appeared. [See Constant’s previous note and also footnote 45.] The differences between our era and antiquity in this regard are perfectly expounded, along with the results of these differences.

[E. [Refers to page 357.]]In Latin the word hostis meant, equally, a stranger or an enemy. Cicero, De Officiis, Liber I.46

[F. [Refers to page 357.]]“In modern wars,” observes Smith, “ the huge expense of firearms gives a great advantage to the nation most in a position to meet this expense and therefore to a civilized and wealthy rather than a poor and barbarous one. In ancient times rich and civilized nations found it difficult to defend themselves against poor and barbarous ones. In modern times poor and barbarous nations find it difficult to defend themselves against civilized and opulent ones.” Richesse des nations, Livre V, Ch. 1.47

[G. [Refers to page 357.]]There are some ingenious ideas on the links between commerce and individual and political freedom, in Walckenaer’s Essai sur l’histoire de l’espèce humaine, pp. 250 onward.48

[H. [Refers to page 357.]]All commodities, says Isocrates, Panégyrique, p. 114, which [446] are dispersed only in small portions in the other markets of Greece, are found together in abundance in the Piraeus.49

[I. [Refers to page 358.]]Xenophon, De la république des Athéniens.50

[J. [Refers to page 358.]]Isocrates recounts in his Trapezeticus that a stranger who had brought corn to Athens presented a bill of exchange drawn on a town in the Euxine from a merchant named Stratocles.51

[K. [Refers to page 358.]]“Provided that peace and friendship continue to reign in the life of the household, there is great respect for the mothers of the family. There is even indulgence of the sins which nature makes them endure, and when they succumb to the irresistible tyranny of the passions, the first weakness is forgiven and the second forgotten.” Xenophon, Dialogue between Hieron and Simonides.52

[L. [Refers to page 358.]]Proofs of this hospitality to be found. Art, industry. The law of Solon. The émigrés who come to Athens with their whole family to establish a trade or a factory, can from that moment be raised to the dignity of citizens. Samuel Petit, [447] Compilation of the Laws of Athens, Livre II, titre III.53 Plutarch, Solon.54

[M. [Refers to page 358.]]Xenophon, Respublica Lacedaemoniorum.55

[C. [Refers to page 356.]]The public revenue of the ancients, says Ganilh,45 was made up from the work of slaves, the plundering of the conquered, and tribute from subjugated peoples. There was nothing there which could give birth to credit such as we conceive it today, because there was nothing there which depended on the views and the individual confidence of members of the society. This claim is perhaps a bit too general, since the citizens of Athens and Rome, from the time of Servius Tullius, paid taxes on their wealth to the State. But these taxes were nothing compared to what was drawn from allied peoples and the provinces. And the author’s basic outlook is no less true because of that.

[E. [Refers to page 357.]]In Latin the word hostis meant, equally, a stranger or an enemy. Cicero, De Officiis, Liber I.46

[F. [Refers to page 357.]]“In modern wars,” observes Smith, “ the huge expense of firearms gives a great advantage to the nation most in a position to meet this expense and therefore to a civilized and wealthy rather than a poor and barbarous one. In ancient times rich and civilized nations found it difficult to defend themselves against poor and barbarous ones. In modern times poor and barbarous nations find it difficult to defend themselves against civilized and opulent ones.” Richesse des nations, Livre V, Ch. 1.47

[G. [Refers to page 357.]]There are some ingenious ideas on the links between commerce and individual and political freedom, in Walckenaer’s Essai sur l’histoire de l’espèce humaine, pp. 250 onward.48

[H. [Refers to page 357.]]All commodities, says Isocrates, Panégyrique, p. 114, which [446] are dispersed only in small portions in the other markets of Greece, are found together in abundance in the Piraeus.49

[I. [Refers to page 358.]]Xenophon, De la république des Athéniens.50

[J. [Refers to page 358.]]Isocrates recounts in his Trapezeticus that a stranger who had brought corn to Athens presented a bill of exchange drawn on a town in the Euxine from a merchant named Stratocles.51

[K. [Refers to page 358.]]“Provided that peace and friendship continue to reign in the life of the household, there is great respect for the mothers of the family. There is even indulgence of the sins which nature makes them endure, and when they succumb to the irresistible tyranny of the passions, the first weakness is forgiven and the second forgotten.” Xenophon, Dialogue between Hieron and Simonides.52

[L. [Refers to page 358.]]Proofs of this hospitality to be found. Art, industry. The law of Solon. The émigrés who come to Athens with their whole family to establish a trade or a factory, can from that moment be raised to the dignity of citizens. Samuel Petit, [447] Compilation of the Laws of Athens, Livre II, titre III.53 Plutarch, Solon.54

[M. [Refers to page 358.]]Xenophon, Respublica Lacedaemoniorum.55

[45]Charles Ganilh, op. cit., t. I, pp. 66–67.

[46]See Ganilh, op. cit., t. I, p. 221, n. 1. Ganilh’s note supported the following text: “The ancients were in a permanent state of hostility between themselves. Without mutual communication, they saw and treated each other as enemies.” Cicero in Les devoirs, I, 37, says, “Among our ancestors in fact we called hostis him whom now we call peregrinus, foreigner.” Text edited and translated by Maurice Testard, Paris, Les Belles Lettres, 1965, t. I, pp. 121–123.

[47]Adam Smith, op. cit., t. IV, pp. 122–123.

[48]C.-A. Walckenaer, Essai sur l’histoire de l’espèce humaine, Paris, Du Pont, 1798, Livre VI, pp. 251–368, Des peuples cultivateurs, après l’introduction des manufactures et du commerce et la séparation des professions.

[49]This note is taken from Cornelius de Pauw, op. cit., t. I, pp. 70–71. Hofmann does not know to which edition Constant’s page reference (114) relates. The reference is to the Panegyric of Isocrates in his Discours, text edited and translated by Georges Mathieu and Emile Brémond, Paris, Les Belles Lettres, 1938, t. II, p. 24.

[50]Xenophon, La république des Athéniens, II, 16: “But as they did not have the chance to build their city on an island, here is what they do. Confident in their maritime superiority, they deposit their wealth in the islands, leaving Attica to be ravaged, because they understand that if they have mercy on it they will lose other more important goods.” Xenophon, Anabase . . . , éd. cit., p. 518.

[51]Isocrates, Trapésitique, 35–37. See the edition of the Discours, éd. cit., t. I, pp. 81–82. Constant has taken the example and the reference from Cornelius de Pauw, op. cit., t. I, p. 335.

[52]All this note and the reference are from Cornelius de Pauw, ibid., p. 191.

[53]It is again from Cornelius de Pauw (op. cit., t. I, p. 69) that Constant has drawn this illustration with the references to Samuel Petit and Plutarch.

[54]Plutarch, Solon, 24, 4: “He permitted citizenship to be granted only to people banished in perpetuity from their country or who come to set up in Athens with all their family with a view to establishing a trade.” Plutarch, Vies, t. II, Solon, Publicola, Themistocle, Camille, text edited and translated by Robert Flacelière, Emile Chambry, and Marcel Juneaux, Paris, Les Belles Lettres, 1961, p. 39.

[55]Xenophon, La république des Lacédémoniens, VIII, 2: “in the other States, the most powerful do not even want to have the appearance of fearing the magistrates and regard such fear as a mark of baseness. In Sparta, on the contrary, the most notable men are the most submissive to the authorities; they glory in their humility and pride themselves when they are called on, obeying not by walking but at the double.” Xenophon, Anabase . . . , éd. cit., p. 489.