"A good healthy licking would discredit the Landholders; peace, mercantilism, and cooperation with others (or, at least, simple cutthroat economic competition) would become fashionable on Neuheim; and, incidentally, a journeyman who played a significant part in that outcome would expect early certification as a Master Merchant." (IV, p. 293)
That is not "...incidentally..."
We appreciate the humor or irony as "cooperation" is amended to "cutthroat competition." Falkayn's point is that League mercantilism, whether regarded as cooperation or as competition, is preferable to Landholder militarism. (We are getting some neat verbal dichotomies here.)
However, (I think that) mercantilism generates militarism and prevents "peace." Each armed nation-state use its military might to defend the sources of raw materials, trade routes, markets, property and profits of the companies based within its territory. The Solar Commonwealth and the Polesotechnic League will be drawn into a war for the immense wealth to be extracted from the planet, Mirkheim.
6 comments:
Kaor, Paul!
And I disagree. We see more REAL peace as a result of mercantile competition than any other socio/political system has ever managed to achieve.
Ad astra! Sean
Note that while many mercantile entities are fine with intimidation, they rarely like outright war, contrary to popular mythology.
Even weapons manufacturers don't -- war generally involves closer government regulation, and it's inherently risky. If your side loses, you're often left in the lurch as currencies fluctuate wildly and debts are cancelled. What they like is a state of tension short of war, so everyone's buying weapons but not using them.
That's why big wars almost invariably start with stock market panics and clamping down currency controls.
There are exceptions, but they're rare and spotty.
Eg., the East India Company did a lot of fighting, but its HQ in London was usually reluctant, and often ended up acquiescing in (and paying for) actions started by the "man on the spot" and reported only months later.
HQ was reluctant because they thought conflict usually bad for trade -- and because of a unfounded suspicion that their men on the spot were likely to dream up "necessary" wars out of careerism, hunger for glory, or outright desire for plunder. Clive in India was an example -- he did very well out of the conquest of Bengal, though as he said later when tried in Parliament "I am astounded at my own moderation" compared to some others.
Warrior aristocracies, OTOH, have a vested interest in war. Both in terms of what they want -- land and the people living on it -- and in terms of their self-image and self-conception. Fighting is what they 'do', not just something that seems occasionally to be unavoidable or desirable.
That's the contrast that Poul is bringing out in that story. The Landholders want revenge, power and glory -- they expect to profit by it too, but that's not their primary motive. That's why they can't be bought off.
Curse autocorrect. Make that "a not-unfounded" suspicion, above.
Kaor, Mr. Stirling!
Again, I agree! We see a very similar situation with the Polesotechnic League, a deep reluctance to go to war, because of its costs and dangers.
And wasn't it Warren Hastings, not Clive, who was impeached and tried by Parliament on charges of abusing his powers in India? I have read of how determinedly Edmund Burke prosecuted Hastings.
Ad astra! Sean
Sean: no, they were both impeached and tried. There was a lot of that going around! Clive was more of an outright buccaneer and conquistador type than Hastings.
Kaor, Paul!
I sit corrected! And there were the "White Rajahs" of Sarawak from the Brooke family. The first Brooke rajah WAS an unabashed buccaneer who carved out his principality of Sarawak on the island, I think, of Borneo.
Ad astra! Sean
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