The Closed Commercial State

J. G. Fichte, Anthony Curtis Adler

• Publisher: SUNY Press
• Year: 2012
• ISBN:
  9781438440224
• Topic: Philosophie
• Subtopic: Histoire et théorie de la philosophie

Appearing for the first time in a complete English translation, The Closed Commercial State represents the most sustained attempt of J. G. Fichte, the famed author of The Doctrine of Science, to apply idealistic philosophy to political economy. In the accompanying interpretive essay, Anthony Curtis Adler challenges the conventional scholarly view of The Closed Commercial State as a curious footnote to Fichte's thought. The Closed Commercial State, which Fichte himself regarded as his "best, most thought-through work, " not only attests to a life-long interest in economics, but is of critical importance to his entire philosophical project. Carefully unpacking the philosophical nuances of Fichte's argument and its complex relationship to other texts in his oeuvre, Adler argues that The Closed Commercial State presents an understanding of the nature of history, and the relation of history to politics, that differs significantly from the teleological notions of history advanced by Schelling and later Hegel. This critical scholarly edition includes a German-English glossary, annotations, and page references to both major German editions.

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The Closed Commercial State

A philosophical sketch offered as an appendix to the Doctrine of Right and as a test of a politics to be delivered in the future

Table of Contents

PRELIMINARY CLARIFICATION OF THE TITLE

DEDICATION

DEDICATORY REMARKS

INTRODUCTION
On the relation of the rational state to the actual state, and of pure Right of state to politics

FIRST BOOK
Philosophy—what is Right with respect to commerce in the rational state

FIRST CHAPTER
Principles for answering this question

SECOND CHAPTER
General application to public commerce of the principles set forth

THIRD CHAPTER
On the presupposed division of the branches of labor in a rational state

FOURTH CHAPTER
Whether the taxes paid to the state will change anything in the balance of industry

FIFTH CHAPTER
How this balance of industry is to be secured against the uncertainty of agriculture

SIXTH CHAPTER
Whether this balance would be endangered through the introduction of money, and changed through the constant progress of the nation to a higher state of prosperity

SEVENTH CHAPTER
Further discussion of the principle set forth here concerning the right to property

SECOND BOOK
History of the present time—the condition of commerce in the actual states of the present

FIRST CHAPTER
Preamble

SECOND CHAPTER
The known world considered as one great unitary commercial state

THIRD CHAPTER
The reciprocal relation of the individuals in this great commercial state

FOURTH CHAPTER
The reciprocal relation of the nations as wholes in this commercial state

FIFTH CHAPTER
The means that governments have employed up till now to steer this relation to their advantage

SIXTH CHAPTER
The result of using these means

THIRD BOOK
Politics—how the commerce of an existing state can be brought into the arrangement required by reason; or, on the closure of the commercial state

FIRST CHAPTER
More precise determination of the task of this book

SECOND CHAPTER
The rightful claims of the citizen, as a hitherto-free participant in world trade, on the closing commercial state

THIRD CHAPTER
The claims of the state, as a self-sufficient whole, during its complete separation from the rest of the earth

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

FIFTH CHAPTER
Continuation of the preceding considerations

SIXTH CHAPTER
Further measures for the closure of the commercial state

SEVENTH CHAPTER
The result of these measures

EIGHTH CHAPTER
The actual reason why one will take offense at the theory we have presented

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Preliminary clarification of the title

A closed multitude of men, standing under the same laws and the same supreme power of coercion, forms the juridical state. This multitude of men should now be restricted to reciprocal trade and industry with and for one another, and everyone who does not stand under the same legislation and power of coercion should be excluded from participating in this commerce. The multitude would then form a commercial state, and indeed a closed commercial state, just as it now forms a closed juridical state.

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To his Excellency the Royal Prussian Acting Privy-Minister of State and Knight of the Order of the Red Eagle Herr von Struensee.¹

from the author

Dedicatory Remarks

[41] Your excellency,

Please allow me, following the custom especially of the dedication writers of past ages, to lay down before you my thoughts concerning the purpose and probable result of a writing that I hereby dedicate [zueignen] to you publicly as a memorial of my free veneration. In the beginning of his edition of Polybius, Casaubon talks quite uninhibitedly with Henry IV about the study of the ancients and the usual prejudices regarding this study.² May your Excellency permit me to talk just as uninhibitedly with you, in front of the public, about the nature of the relation of the speculative to the practicing politician.

The latter have at all times granted to the former the right to present their thoughts concerning the institution and administration of states, and yet they have not otherwise paid much attention to these thoughts, never taking serious notice of such Platonic republics and their utopian constitutions. One may even grant the reproach that has always been made to the speculative politicians' prescriptions, namely that it is impossible to {390} immediately carry them out. Even this reproach need not dishonor the originators of these prescriptions, as long as they remain with their proposals in an ideal world, either confessing this explicitly or proving it through their deeds. As certain as there is order, consequence, and determinateness in the thoughts of the speculative politicians, it is equally certain that these prescriptions, in the form set forth, apply only to the state of affairs presupposed and contrived by their authors, who hope to present the universal rule through this as if through a mathematical problem. It is not this presupposed state of affairs that the practicing politician finds before himself, but a wholly different state of affairs. It is no wonder that a prescription will not suit a state of affairs that, in the form set forth, it did not take into account. [42]

Nevertheless, the philosopher, so long as he holds his science to be not a mere game but something serious, will never either grant or presuppose that it is absolutely impossible to carry out his proposals. For in this case, he would without doubt employ his time toward something more useful than what is, by his own account, a mere play of concepts. He will assert that his prescriptions, if set forth at a purely theoretical level, are indeed incapable of being immediately carried out, and for the very reason that, in their highest generality, they suit everything and thus nothing determinate. Yet he will maintain that they simply require further determination if they are to fit an actually given state of affairs. In just the same way: through our knowledge of the universal ratios of the sides and angles of a triangle to one another we do not yet know any single actual side or angle within a field. We must always still actually apply a standard measure and protractor to some piece of land and measure it with these. Yet having done this, we will be put in a position to figure out the rest by mere calculation using our knowledge of the universal ratios, without actually having to apply the standard measure.

The further determination of the universal rule set forth by pure Right of state occurs, in my opinion, in the science, whose concept I will determine in what follows, {391} that I call politics, holding it also to be the business of the speculative philosopher as such (for it follows automatically that the practicing politician could at the same time be a speculative philosopher, and perhaps even the reverse relation can take place). If a writing is advertised as political, then the reproach and the proof that its proposals are impossible to carry out would be a greater cause for dishonor than if the work were merely concerned with Right of state. In my opinion, indeed, even politics, so certain as it is a science and not however itself praxis, does not take its departure from a state that actually exists and is thoroughly determined in its every aspect—since then there would not be a universal politics, but only a particular politics for, say, England or France or Prussia, or indeed for one of these states in the year 1800, indeed in the autumn of the year 1800, and so forth. Rather, politics takes its departure from the state of affairs that is, say, common to all the states of the great European republic during the age when it is set forth. The practicing politician must still always apply to the particular case a rule that still remains in a certain regard universal, and that must be applied a bit differently to each particular case. Yet this universal rule nevertheless lies far closer to its application.

If a politics were carefully worked out according to this idea, and, informed by a correct knowledge of the present situation and starting out from solid principles of the Right of state, correctly drew the consequences [43] from these, this politics could, in my opinion, only seem useless to the mere empiricist, who trusts no concept or calculation, but only the confirmation of immediate experience. He would reproach it for not containing facts, but only concepts and calculations of facts, or, in a word, for not being history. Such a politician keeps stowed away in his memory a number of individual cases and the successful measures that others before him took. Whatever confronts him, he will think of one of these cases and proceed like one of the politicians before him, whom he awakens from the grave one after the other, presents again in his own age, {392} and thus composes his political career from the very different pieces of very different men, without adding anything of himself. Let us merely ask such a politician: those who were the first to use the measures that he now approves and imitates—whom did they imitate? What did they rely on as they seized on these measures? Previous experience or calculation? Let us remind him that everything that is now old was once new, nor is it possible that the human race has fallen so far in latter times as to be left only with memory and the ability to imitate. We will show him that through the progress of the human race, which occurred without his doing and which he can do nothing to keep in check, a great deal has changed, making necessary entirely new measures—measures that previous ages could neither devise nor implement. It might be instructive, faced with such a politician, to conduct a historical investigation into the question whether more evil has arisen in the world through daring innovations or through a sluggish adherence to outdated measures that are either no longer able to be implemented, or are no longer adequate.

Does the present writing meet the aforementioned requirements for a thorough treatment of politics? On this point the author dare not speak. With regard to its actual proposal to close the commercial state along with the juridical state, and the decisive means it proposes to this end—the abolition of world currency and the introduction of a national currency—the author certainly foresees that no state would want to accept this proposal unless it must, even though in the latter case it will not benefit from the promised advantages of these measures. Thus he also realizes that it would not be possible to firmly resolve to do what has been proposed. Since, moreover, an action that one cannot resolve on doing won't be carried out, it will therefore be deemed impossible to carry out. [44] The reason for this unwillingness, be it thought through clearly or be it not, is that Europe has a great advantage in trade over the remaining parts of the world, whose forces and products {393} it takes for its own use without giving anywhere near a sufficient return payment. Every single European state, however unfavorable its own trade balance stands in relation to the others, still draws some advantage from this common exploitation of the rest of the world, nor will it ever abandon the hope of improving the trade balance in its favor and thus drawing an even greater advantage. With its departure from the greater European commercial society it would have to renounce all this. If we are to remove the reason for this unwillingness, we must show that a relation like that which Europe has to the rest of the world—a relation grounded neither in Right nor in fairness—cannot possibly continue. The proof of this lies beyond the limits of my present intention. But even if this were proved, one could still always say to me: “This relation at least continues up till now: the colonies remain submissive to the motherlands, and there is still a slave trade. Nor will we live to see the day when all this shall cease. Let us then take advantage of this for as long as it continues, leaving it to the generations that are around when it finally comes to an end to figure out for themselves how they will cope. They can investigate, if need be, whether they can take something useful from your thoughts. We, who can't even wish for the same end as you, scarcely need instruction on the means to bring it about.”—I confess I have no answer to this.

The author is content that this sketch might also remain a mere school-exercise, without result in the actual world—a link in the chain of his system, a system that is to be gradually realized [ausführen].³ And he will be satisfied if, by making it known to others, he should do nothing more than induce them to reflect more deeply about these matters and perhaps strike upon one or another invention that will be both useful in and applicable to a sphere from which, as things stand, one will not wish to leave. And so the author limits himself explicitly and with careful consideration to these ends.

{394} May your Excellency be so gracious as to accept my assurance of the veneration I owe you both as one of the principal state officials of the monarchy where I found a refuge when I could not hope for refuge in the remaining parts of my German fatherland, [45] and as that man whose personal qualities it was granted me to observe and to venerate.

Berlin, the 31^st of October, 1800

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Introduction

On the relation of the rational state to the actual state, and of pure Right of state to politics

Pure Right of state lets the rational state arise under its eyes according to the concepts of Right, by presupposing men to be without any of the relations that, resembling rightful relations, had previously existed.

Yet we never find men in this state of existence. In every quarter they are already living together under constitutions that, for the most part, arose not according to concepts and through art, but rather through chance or providence.⁴

The actual state finds them in this latter state of existence. It cannot suddenly destroy this constitution without dispersing the men and turning them into savages, thus nullifying its true purpose of building a rational state from them. It can do no more than gradually approximate itself to the rational state. It follows that we may represent the actual state as in the process of gradually instituting the rational state.

With the actual state, the question is not merely, as with a rational state, what is right, but: how much of what is right can be carried out under the given conditions? If we give the name of politics to the science of government of the actual {398} state according to the maxim just indicated, this politics would then lie halfway between the given state and the rational state: it would describe the continuous path [Linie] through which the former changes into the latter, and will itself terminate in pure Right of state.

Whoever undertakes to show the particular laws under which to bring the public commerce in the state would thus first have to investigate what is right in a rational state with regard to commerce. Then he must indicate the custom of the existing actual state in this regard. And finally he must show the path by which the state can pass over from the latter state of existence to the former.

I need not defend the fact that I speak of a science and art that will gradually bring about the rational state. All the good things of which man should partake must be produced by his own art, guided by science. This is man's vocation [Bestimmung]. Nature gives him nothing in advance, save the possibility of applying art. In government as elsewhere, we must subsume everything under concepts that lets itself be subsumed under them, and stop abandoning anything that should be calculated to blind chance in the hope that blind chance will make it turn out well. [52]

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FIRST BOOK

Philosophy—what is Right with respect to commerce in the rational state

First Chapter

Principles for answering this question

A false proposition is usually suppressed by a contrary proposition that is equally false. It is not until quite late that one discovers the truth lying in the middle. This is the fate of science.

The opinion that the state is the absolute [unumschränkt] guardian of humanity in all its affairs, making it happy, rich, healthy, orthodox, virtuous, and, if God so wills, even eternally blessed, has been sufficiently refuted in our day. Yet it seems to me that in turn, coming from the opposite side, one has too narrowly limited the duties and rights of the state. It is indeed not exactly incorrect, and could be given some good sense, were one to say that the state has to do no more than preserve and protect each in his personal rights and his property—as long as one did not often seem to silently presuppose that property could take place independently of the state; that the state only has a view to the state of possession in which it first finds its citizens, without having to inquire into the rightful basis of acquisition. In opposition to this opinion, I would say: it is the vocation of the state to first give each what is his, to first put each in possession of his property, and only then to protect him in this. I will make myself clearer by returning to first principles. {400}

1.

A crowd of men live together within the same circle of efficacy.⁵ Each one stirs and moves about within this circle, freely pursuing his nourishment and pleasure. One of them crosses the path of the other, tears down [54] what the other had built, and either destroys or uses for himself what the other was counting on. The other, from his side, does the same; and so each acts toward each. One should not speak here of morality, fairness, and the like, since we are standing in the domain of the doctrine of Right. Nor however does the concept of Right let itself be applied in the circumstances we have just described. Obviously, the soil that has been trod upon, the tree that was robbed of its fruit, will not enter into a conflict over rights with the man who did these deeds. But even if another man were to do so, what reason could he offer why everyone else should not tread on the same soil, or take fruit from the same tree, as he himself?

In this state of existence, no one is free, since all are free without limitation. No one can carry out anything in a purposeful fashion and count for a moment on it lasting. The only remedy for this conflict of free forces is for the individuals to negotiate trea...