CHAPTER XIV

POINTS OF DEPARTURE IN THE DEVELOPMENT OF COMMERCE

In its beginnings commerce ¹ is an affair between ethnic groups; it does not take place between members of the same tribe or of the same community but is in the oldest social communities an external phenomenon, being directed only toward foreign tribes. It may, however, begin as a consequence of specialization in production between groups. In this case there is either tribal trade of producers or peddling trade in products of a foreign tribe. In any case the oldest commerce is an exchange relation between alien tribes.

The trade of a tribe in its own products may appear in various forms. It usually develops to begin with as an auxiliary occupation of peasants and persons engaged in house industry, and in general as a seasonal occupation. Out of this stage grow peddling and huckstering as an independent occupation; tribal communities develop which soon engage in commerce exclusively. But it may also happen that the tribe engaged in some specialized industry is sought out by others. Another possibility is the establishment of a commercial caste, the classical form being found in India. There trade is a monopoly in the hands of certain castes, specifically the banya caste, with ritualistic exclusion of others. Alongside this trade conducted on ethnically restricted lines is found also trade ritualistically restricted to sects, the magical-ritualistic limitations of the members of the sect excluding it from all other occupations. This is the case with the Indian sect of the dschaina. The dschaina is forbidden to kill any living thing, especially a weak animal. Consequently, he cannot become a soldier, or pursue a multitude of occupations—for example, those in which fire is utilized, because insects might be destroyed; he cannot make a journey in the rain because he might trample upon earthworms, etc. Thus no occupation is open to the dschaina except trade at a fixed location, and the honorable character of. the occupation is as well established as that of the banya caste.

Not essentially different is the development of the Jews as an outcast commercial people. Down to the exile there were all sorts of classes within the Jewish people, knights, peasants, craftsmen, and to a limited extent traders as well. Prophecy and the after effects of the exile transformed the Jews from a people with a fixed territory to an alien people and their ritual thenceforward prohibited fixed settlement on the land. A strict adherent to the Jewish ritual could not become an agriculturalist. Thus the Jews became pariah people of the cities and the contrast between the pharisaical “saint” and the home population outside the law is still discernible in the Gospels.² In this turning to trade, dealing in money was preferred because it alone permitted complete devotion to the study of the Law. Thus there are ritualistic grounds which have impelled the Jews to trade and especially to dealing in money, and have made of their dealings a ritualistically restricted tribal commerce or folk-commerce.

The second possibility open in the development of trade was the establishment of seigniorial trade, a stratum of lords appearing as its supporters. First the idea might occur to territorial lords—and did in fact everywhere occur—to market the surplus products of their estates. For this purpose they attached professional merchants to themselves as officials. To this category belongs the actor in antiquity, who conducted his affairs in the name of the lord, and similarly the negotiator in the middle ages; the latter held as a fief, in consideration of a payment, the marketing of the products of his monastic overlord; his existence is not clearly demonstrable in Germany but his kind occur everywhere else. Actor and negotiator are not traders in the present sense of the word, but agents of others. Another sort of seigniorial trade originated in consequence of the position outside the law of foreign traders, who everywhere required protection; this was to be secured only through the political power, the noble granting his protection as a concession and for a consideration. Even the medieval princes granted concessions to traders and accepted payments from them in return. Out of this protective arrangement trade on his own account by the lord or prince frequently developed, as especially on all the coasts of Africa, where the chieftains monopolized the transit trade and themselves traded. On this trade monopoly rested their power; as soon as it was broken their position was gone.

Another form of trade which was taken up by princes is gift trade. In the ancient east the political authorities maintained themselves, when they were not at war with each other, by mutual voluntary gifts. The tables of Tell-el-Amarna, especially, from the period after 1400 B. C., show a lively gift trade between the Pharaohs and the Levantine rulers. The common objects of exchange were gold and war chariots against horses and slaves. Here originally the free gift was the custom. Numerous breaches of faith and trust which occurred in this connection gradually led to the imposition of mutual considerations so that a genuine trade on an accurate quantitative basis grew out of the gift trade.

Finally, in many places, economic history reveals trade by princes on their own account.³ Very old examples on the most extensive scale are furnished by the Egyptian Pharaohs, who as ship-owners carried on exportation and importation. Later examples are the doges of Venice, in the earliest period of their city, and finally, the princes of numerous patrimonial states of Asia and Europe, including the Hapsburgs to well along in the 18th century. This trade could be carried on either under the direction of the prince himself, or he could exploit his monopoly by granting a concession or leasing the privilege. In adopting the latter measures he gave the impulse to the development of an independent professional trading class.