Mercantilism Quotes

In the turbulent art arena they all pitch in and do their dubious and mercantile part in the rocambolesque saga of the art since so many judge art with their ears and the sound of the money. (“When is art?”)

Merchant and pirate were for a long period one and the same person. Even today mercantile morality is really nothing but a refinement of piratical morality.

Financial bitterness could not eat too deeply into Mack and the boys, for they were not mercantile men. They did not measure their joy in goods sold, their egos in bank balances, nor their loves in what they cost.

They were a strange and mercantile people, these Americans. One never knew what they might come up with next.

It's not Americans I find annoying; it's Americanism: a social disease of the postindustrial world that must inevitably infect each of the mercantile nations in turn, and is called 'American' only because your nation is the most advanced case of the malady, much as one speaks of Spanish flu, or Japanese Type-B encephalitis. It's symptoms are a loss of work ethic, a shrinking of inner resources, and a constant need for external stimulation, followed by spiritual decay and moral narcosis. You can recognize the victim by his constant efforts to get in touch with himself, to believe his spiritual feebleness is an interesting psychological warp, to construe his fleeing from responsibility as evidence that he and his life are uniquely open to new experiences. In the later stages, the sufferer is reduced to seeking that most trivial of human activities: fun.

In the natural sciences, some checks exist on the prolonged acceptance of nutty ideas, which do not hold up well under experimental and observational tests and cannot readily be shown to give rise to useful working technologies. But in economics and the other social studies, nutty ideas may hang around for centuries. Today, leading presidential candidates and tens of millions of voters in the USA embrace ideas that might have been drawn from a 17th-century book on the theory and practice of mercantilism, and multitudes of politicians and ordinary people espouse notions that Adam Smith, David Ricardo, and others exploded more than two centuries ago. In these realms, nearly everyone simply believes whatever he feels good about believing.

This may be hard to believe, coming from a black man, but I’ve never stolen anything. Never cheated on my taxes or at cards. Never snuck into the movies or failed to give back the extra change to a drugstore cashier indifferent to the ways of mercantilism and minimum-wage expectations. I’ve never burgled a house. Held up a liquor store. Never boarded a crowded bus or subway car, sat in a seat reserved for the elderly, pulled out my gigantic penis and masturbated to satisfaction with a perverted, yet somehow crestfallen, look on my face. But here I am, in the cavernous chambers of the Supreme Court of the United States of America, my car illegally and somewhat ironically parked on Constitution Avenue, my hands cuffed and crossed behind my back, my right to remain silent long since waived and said goodbye to as I sit in a thickly padded chair that, much like this country, isn’t quite as comfortable as it looks.

Today’s mercantile society exploits the will to jouissance so as to repress it all the more.

There were three of them outside the mercantile—women—and one of them was juggling. I blinked, thinking the magistrate had made a mistake. This was a girl I might have eagerly bought a drink for last night, but there was no mistaking she was outfitted for trouble, a sword hanging from one hip and two knives from the other. Her long black hair hung loosely over her shoulders, and she laughed and chatted with the store clerk as she continued to juggle, and then— I jabbed Mason. “Did you see that?” “See what?” “She just nicked an orange!

There cannot exist in the future an economy which is still mercantile but which isn't capitalist anymore. Before capitalism there were economies which were partially mercantile, but capitalism is the last of this genre.

mercantilism

In the future, a part of this class - individuals particularly sensitive to this question of the future - will realize that their happiness depends on that of others, that the human species can only survive united and pacific. They will cease to belong to the mercantile innovative class, and refuse to put themselves at the service of pirates. They will become what I call transhumans (who will give birth to a new order of abundance).

It is the industry which is carried on for the benefit of the rich and powerful, that is principally encouraged by our mercantile system. That which is carried on for the benefit of the poor and the indigent, is too often, either neglected, or oppressed

The difference between the genius of the British constitution, which protects and governs North America, and that of the mercantile company which oppresses and domineers in the East Indies, cannot, perhaps, be better illustrated than by the different state of those countries.

The most damning and hypocritical critiques of his allegedly aristocratic economic system emanated from the most aristocratic southern slaveholders, who deflected attention from their own nefarious deeds by posing as populist champions and assailing the northern financial and mercantile interests aligned with Hamilton. As will be seen, the national consensus that the slavery issue should be tabled to preserve the union meant that the southern plantation economy was effectively ruled off-limits to political discussion, while Hamilton’s system, by default, underwent the most searching scrutiny.

Me I was always lucky. My whole life. I wouldnt be here otherwise. Scrapes I been in. But the day I seen her come out of Kerr’s Mercantile and cross the street and she passed me and I tipped my hat to her and got just almost a smile back, that was the luckiest.

Green, cheap, and off-season continue to be the three mercantile legs upon which Florida’s tomato industry stands.

The difference between the genius of the British constitution which protects and governs North America, and that of the mercantile company which oppresses and domineers in the East Indies, cannot perhaps be better illustrated than by the different state of those countries.

Just imagine if police enforced their zero-tolerance strategy in finance. They would arrest people for even the slightest infraction, whether it was chiseling investors on 401ks, providing misleading guidance, or committing petty frauds. Perhaps SWAT teams would descend on Greenwich, Connecticut. They’d go undercover in the taverns around Chicago’s Mercantile Exchange.

Buying and selling is good and necessary; it is very necessary, and may, possibly, be very good; but it cannot be the noblest work of man; and let us hope that it may not in our time be esteemed the noblest work of an Englishman.

Again, a Prince should show himself a patron of merit, and should honour those who excel in every art. He ought accordingly to encourage his subjects by enabling them to pursue their callings, whether mercantile, agricultural, or any other, in security, so that this man shall not be deterred from beautifying his possessions from the apprehension that they may be taken from him, or that other refrain from opening a trade through fear of taxes; and he should provide rewards for those who desire so to employ themselves, and for all who are disposed in any way to add to the greatness of his City or State.

Adam Smith FRSE (baptised June 5, 1723 O.S. / June 16 N.S. – July 17, 1790) was a Scottish moral philosopher and a pioneering political economist. He is also the founder of economics. One of the key figures of the intellectual movement known as the Scottish Enlightenment, he is known primarily as the author of two treatises: The Theory of Moral Sentiments (1759), and An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations (1776). The latter was one of the earliest attempts to systematically study the historical development of industry and commerce in Europe, as well as a sustained attack on the doctrines of mercantilism. Smith's work helped to create the modern academic discipline of economics and provided one of the best-known intellectual rationales for free trade, capitalism, and libertarianism. Adam Smith is now depicted on the back of the Bank of England £20 note. Source: Wikipedia

[Charles the Fifth], pretty much every way worked to hold up the pillars of the medieval world order: monarchic power, domination by the Catholic Church, feudal land management, divine right, mercantile colonialization, and obedience to authority along the strict metaphysical line of the great chain of being.

Many historians have called this the age of 'merchant' or 'mercantile' capitalism, but 'war capitalism' better expresses its rawness and violence as well as its intimate connection to European imperial expansion. War capitalism, a particularly important but often unrecognized phase in the development of capitalism, unfolded in constantly shifting sets of places embedded within constantly changing relationships. In some parts of the world it lasted into the nineteenth century.

Combine Honnete Ober Advancer Mercantiles—the CHOAM Company.

el sistema no mercantil tiene la reconfortante ventaja de ocultar el hecho de que los pobres no reciben la misma calidad de educación que los ricos.

If some saw the Indians as living in prelapsarian innocence, there were others who judged them to be savage beasts, devils in the form of men. The discovery of cannibals in the Caribbean did nothing to assuage this opinion. The Spaniards used it as a justification to exploit the natives mercilessly for their own mercantile ends. For if you do not consider the man before you to be human, there are few restraints of conscience on your behavior towards him. It was not until 1537, with the papal bull of Paul III that the Indians were declared to be true men possessing souls.

The Chinese invented mercantilism (zhong-shang), and the country’s leaders reject the West’s contention that mercantilism has been rendered obsolete by the success of free markets and free trade.10

(...)é um fato que a história do Estado liberal coincide, de um lado, com o fim dos Estados confessionais e com a formação do Estado neutro ou agnóstico quanto às crenças religiosas de seus cidadãos, e, de outro lado, com o fim dos privilégios e dos vínculos feudais e com a exigência de livre disposição dos bens e da liberdade de troca que assinala o nascimento e o desenvolvimento da sociedade mercantil burguesa. Sob esse aspecto, a concepção liberal do Estado contrapôe-se às várias formas de paternalismo, segundo as quais o Estado deve tomar conta de seus súditos tal como o pai de seus filhos, posto que os súditos são considerados como perenemente menores de idade. Um dos fin a que se propõe Locke com seus 'Dois ensaios sobre o governo' é o de demonstrar que o poder civil, nascido para garantir a liberdade e a propriedade dos indivíduos que se associam com o propósito de se autogovernar é distinto do governo paterno e mais ainda do patronal.

For more than a millennium the eastern Mediterranean seaboard called Syria Libanensis, or Mount Lebanon, had been able to accommodate at least a dozen different sects, ethnicities, and beliefs—it worked like magic. The place resembled major cities of the eastern Mediterranean (called the Levant) more than it did the other parts in the interior of the Near East (it was easier to move by ship than by land through the mountainous terrain). The Levantine cities were mercantile in nature; people dealt with one another according to a clear protocol, preserving a peace conducive to commerce, and they socialized quite a bit across communities. This millennium of peace was interrupted only by small occasional friction within Moslem and Christian communities, rarely between Christians and Moslems.

The difference between the genius of the British constitution, which protects and governs North America, and that of the mercantile company which oppresses and domineers in the East Indies, cannot, perhaps, be better illustrated than by the different state of those countries.

One of the greatest defects of the economies run by political authorities, whether under medieval mercantilism or modern communism, is that the vision and insight that emerges among the population does not carry enough weight to force the authorities to change the the way they do things.

The empires built by bankers and merchants in frock coats and top hats defeated the empires built by kings and noblemen in gold clothes and shining armour. The mercantile empires were simply much shrewder in financing their conquests. Nobody wants to pay taxes, but everyone is happy to invest.

The Church won, partly because it had almost a monopoly of education, partly because the kings were perpetually at war with each other, but mainly because, with very few exceptions, rulers and people alike profoundly believed that the Church possessed the power of the keys. The Church could decide whether a king should spend eternity in heaven or in hell; the Church could absolve subjects from the duty of allegiance, and so stimulate rebellion. The Church, moreover, represented order in place of anarchy, and consequently won the support of the rising mercantile class. In Italy, especially, this last consideration was decisive.

Primarily, which is very notable and curious, I observe that men of business rarely know the meaning of the word 'rich'. At least, if they know, they do not in their reasoning allow for the fact, that it is a relative word, implying its opposite 'poor' as positively as the word 'north' implies its opposite 'south'. Men nearly always speak and write as if riches were absolute, and it were possible, by following certain scientific precepts, for everybody to be rich. Whereas riches are a power like that electricity, acting only through inequalities or negations of itself. The force of the guinea you have in your pockets depends wholly on the default of a guinea in your neighbour's pocket. If he did not want it, it would be of no use to you; the degree of power it possesses depends accurately upon the need or desire he has for it,— and the art of making yourself rich, in the ordinary mercantile economist's sense, is therefore equally and necessarily the art of keeping your neighbour poor.

All men, taken singly, are more or less selfish; and taken in bodies, they are intensely so. The British merchant is no exception to this rule: the mercantile classes illustrate it strikingly. These classes certainly think too exclusively of making money; they are too oblivious of every national consideration but that of extending England’s — that is, their own — commerce.

The monetary standard had always been flexible: indeed, that was precisely what the perennial struggle between the sovereign and his mercantile subjects had always been about. The value of money depended not on the stuff that the coinage was made of but on the creditworthiness and authority of the sovereign who stood behind the tariff that specified the nominal value of the coin.

A disdain for the practical swept the ancient world. Plato urged astronomers to think about the heavens, but not to waste their time observing them. Aristotle believed that: “The lower sort are by nature slaves, and it is better for them as for all inferiors that they should be under the rule of a master.… The slave shares in his master’s life; the artisan is less closely connected with him, and only attains excellence in proportion as he becomes a slave. The meaner sort of mechanic has a special and separate slavery.” Plutarch wrote: “It does not of necessity follow that, if the work delight you with its grace, the one who wrought it is worthy of esteem.” Xenophon’s opinion was: “What are called the mechanical arts carry a social stigma and are rightly dishonoured in our cities.” As a result of such attitudes, the brilliant and promising Ionian experimental method was largely abandoned for two thousand years. Without experiment, there is no way to choose among contending hypotheses, no way for science to advance. The anti-empirical taint of the Pythagoreans survives to this day. But why? Where did this distaste for experiment come from? An explanation for the decline of ancient science has been put forward by the historian of science, Benjamin Farrington: The mercantile tradition, which led to Ionian science, also led to a slave economy. The owning of slaves was the road to wealth and power. Polycrates’ fortifications were built by slaves. Athens in the time of Pericles, Plato and Aristotle had a vast slave population. All the brave Athenian talk about democracy applied only to a privileged few. What slaves characteristically perform is manual labor. But scientific experimentation is manual labor, from which the slaveholders are preferentially distanced; while it is only the slaveholders—politely called “gentle-men” in some societies—who have the leisure to do science. Accordingly, almost no one did science. The Ionians were perfectly able to make machines of some elegance. But the availability of slaves undermined the economic motive for the development of technology. Thus the mercantile tradition contributed to the great Ionian awakening around 600 B.C., and, through slavery, may have been the cause of its decline some two centuries later. There are great ironies here.

The contemporary populist Right is a bastard child of corporate America, which has subsidized the Tea Party via front groups like American for Prosperity and the Club for Growth ever since the movement's beginning on the floor of the Chicago Mercantile Exchange. Its real, as opposed to stated, purpose was to distract and channel the inchoate popular longing for a change in the status quo... p 234

arrived. Although human slavery was technically illegal, colonies were being raided for slaves—and that meant a market somewhere. "Normal" humans blamed heavyworlders; heavyworlders blamed the "lightweights" as they called them, and the wealthy mercantile families of the inner worlds complained bitterly about the cost of supporting an ever-growing Fleet which didn't seem to save either lives or property.

Nevertheless statesmen are still greatly exercised by the problem of the international distribution of money. For hundreds of years, the Midas Theory, systematized by Mercantilism, has been the rule followed by governments in taking measures of commercial policy. In spite of Hume, Smith, and Ricardo, it still dominates men's minds more than would be expected. Phoenix-like, it rises again and again from its own ashes.

The Panic of 1819 sounded a wakeup call to some that the founders had been right after all in separating State and Commerce. Having experienced both state religion and state mercantilism under the British, the founders recognized the importance of separating the three power centers of Commerce, Church, and State. Commerce or Church, combined with State, produced both corruption and power too great to oppose – a condition of tyranny.

Though all the houses of Venice are strange and old, those of the Ghetto seemed particularly so – as if queerness and ancientness were two of the commodities this mercantile people dealt in and they had constructed their houses out of them. Though all the streets of Venice are melancholy, these streets had a melancholy that was quite distinct – as if Jewish sadness and Gentile sadness were made up according to different recipes. Yet

...Rusche and Kirchheimer relate the different systems of punishment with the systems of production within which they operate: thus, in a slave economy, punitive mechanisms serve to provide an additional labour force -- and to constitute a body of 'civil' slaves in addition to those provided by war or trading; with feudalism, at a time when money and production were still at an early stage of development, we find a sudden increase in corporal punishments -- the body being in most cases the only property accessible; the penitentiary (the Hopital General, the Spinhuis or the Rasphuis), forced labour and the prison factory appear with the development of the mercantile economy. But the industrial system requires a free market in labour and, in the nineteenth century, the role of forced labour in the mechanisms of punishment diminishes accordingly and 'corrective' detention takes its place.

Estamos ante un enfrentamiento entre la metrópolis y el territorio que pretende colonizar, y por ironía de la historia, la causa de la libertad, la razón y el deseo ha abandonado las ciudades, o mejor dicho, lo que antes fueron ciudades, para refugiarse en el campo, lo que antes fue campo, y lanzar desde allí, con el concurso nihilista de los excluidos del suburbio, el contraataque contra las fuerzas antihistóricas domiciliadas en las conurbaciones. Lejos de los centros comerciales, y por lo tanto, lejos de la mercantilización del vivir y de la estatización de la existencia, el tiempo y el lugar recobran algún sentido y permiten a los individuos recuperar la memoria y cooperar contra la sinrazón capitalista, construyendo, si se rebasa el horizonte plataformista, una nueva identidad de explotados anclada en el territorio, luego en su condición concreta de habitantes, no en la condición abstracta de ciudadanos. Dicha identidad no ha de aspirar a proporcionar un marco más regulado al mercado de la vivienda y del suelo, sino a abolir cualquier relación mercantil; tampoco pretenderá complementar el régimen tecnocrático que gusta en llamarse "democracia" cuando no es más que totalitarismo disimulado, sino sustituirlo por una verdadera democracia de base, horizontal, directa, autogestionaria. No será el estandarte de un nacionalismo de nuevo cuño, sino el emblema de una voluntad universal de liberación.

The common belief is that religion is always opposed to material good. ‘One cannot act religiously in mercantile and such other matters. There is no place for religion in such pursuits; religion is only for attainment of salvation,’ we hear many worldly-wise people say. In my opinion the author of the Gita has dispelled this delusion. He has drawn no line of demarcation between salvation and worldly pursuits. On the contrary he has shown that religion must rule even our worldly pursuits. I have felt that the Gita teaches us that what cannot be followed in day-today practice cannot be called religion. Thus, according to the Gita, all acts that are incapable of being performed without attachment are taboo. This golden rule saves mankind from many a pitfall. According to this interpretation murder, lying, dissoluteness and the like must be regarded as sinful and therefore taboo. Man’s life then becomes simple, and from that simpleness springs peace.

Most non-European empires of the early modern era were established by great conquerors such as Nurhaci and Nader Shah, or by bureaucratic and military elites as in the Qing and Ottoman empires. Financing wars through taxes and plunder (without making fine distinctions between the two), they owed little to credit systems, and they cared even less about the interests of bankers and investors. In Europe, on the other hand, kings and generals gradually adopted the mercantile way of thinking, until merchants and bankers became the ruling elite. The European conquest of the world was increasingly financed through credit rather than taxes, and was increasingly directed by capitalists whose main ambition was to receive maximum returns on their investments. The empires built by bankers and merchants in frock coats and top hats defeated the empires built by kings and noblemen in gold clothes and shining armour. The mercantile empires were simply much shrewder in financing their conquests. Nobody wants to pay taxes, but everyone is happy to invest.

For centuries, it wasn’t government that kept the best records; merchants did. They were the ones who refined methods of accounting, bookkeeping, costs, and incomes, and they were at the core of the development of banking and notes of credit that are the precursors to all contemporary finance. Rulers, however, needed and coveted the revenue that merchants generated. Hence the evolution of the mercantile system, which saw various empires attempt to monopolize trade with their far-flung colonies and keep out foreign powers and foreign merchants.

The end of something, that specific mid-century American upper-middle-class WASP East Coast thing, the mercantile remnant of the Puritans, the ruling class tossed up by the Civil War and westward expansion, a whole litany of crimes now lost within the comforts of civilization, harmless as a lullaby... I felt nothing but regret. I do not suffer loss well... Their dark and unfortunate masterpiece, the Vietnam War...dislodged, then replaced...powerful now only in the heads of their children, the children of Little America... When we die, they'll vanish forever.

THE PROPHET (570-632) During the month of Ramadan in 610 C.E., an Arab business-man had an experience that changed the history of the world. Every year at this time, Muhammad ibn Abdallah used to retire to a cave on the summit of Mount Hira, just outside Mecca in the Arabian Hijaz, where he prayed, fasted and gave alms to the poor. He had long been worried by what he perceived to be a crisis in Arab society. In recent decades his tribe, the Quraysh, had become rich by trading in the surrounding countries. Mecca had become a thriving mercantile city, but in the aggressive stampede for wealth some of the old tribal values had been lost.

I told a reporter here a while back—young girl, seemed nice enough. She was just tryin to be a reporter. She said: Sheriff how come you to let crime get so out of hand in your county? Sounded like a fair question I reckon. Maybe it was a fair question. Anyway I told her, I said: It starts when you begin to overlook bad manners. Any time you quit hearin Sir and Mam the end is pretty much in sight. I told her, I said: It reaches into ever strata. You’ve heard about that aint you? Ever strata? You finally get into the sort of breakdown in mercantile ethics that leaves people settin around out in the desert dead in their vehicles and by then it’s just too late.

A lo largo de muchas meditaciones fué ordenando sus ideas: él no quería equivocarse... Él quería acertar; sólo así tendría garantías su afán de saber... Poco a poco fué apartando tentaciones... No quería ser profesor mercantil, como su padre... La contabilidad por partida doble era muy bella, sí, pero... tal disciplina resultaba muy limitada... Tampoco sería ingeniero naval... Debía ser muy hermoso planear un buque, pero... existía el peligro de distraerse mirando el mar y apeteciendo tomar un baño... No sería arquitecto... El cálculo de resistencias ofrecía muchos atractivos, pero... a su lado florecían los riesgos: a lo mejor le daba por dedicarse a proyectar edificios que habían de dedicarse a campos de fútbol...

Smith’s concept of the mercantile system evolved—completely out of context—into the modern concept of mercantilism: a simplistic, blanket economic term used to characterize early modern economic thinkers as proponents of an interventionist, taxing, subsidizing, and warring state whose goal was to simply hoard gold. In 1931, the Swedish economic historian Eli Heckscher, in his monumental study Mercantilism, juxtaposed Colbert’s “mercantile” economics with a pure, laissez-faire system, which he felt Smith embodied, that allowed for individual and commercial freedoms without state intervention. A powerful and simplistic binary continued thereafter, one that informs our own vision of the free market today. We can see it still in Friedman’s work.

Literature...describes a descent. First, gods. Then demigods. Then epic became tragedy: failed kings, failed heroes. Then the gentry. Then the middle class and its mercantile dreams. Then it was about you--Gina, Gilda: social realism. Then it was about them: lowlife. Villains. The ironic age...Literature, for a while, can be about us...:about writers. But that won't last long. How do we burst clear of all this? And he asked them: Whither the novel? ... Supposing...that the progress of literature (downward) was forced in that direction by the progress of cosmology (upward--up, up). For human beings, the history of cosmology is the history of increasing humiliation. Always hysterically but less and less fiercely resisted, as one illusion after another fell away.

The sense of superiority and the snobbery that underlay all the theory were far more important than any of the formal statements of mercantile or political thought. For this sense permeated, or seemed to, all ranks of Englishmen conscious of American existence. And it may be that the colonials in America, in the peculiar way of colonials, accepted both the truth of the explicit propositions and the unconscious assumption that they somehow were unequal to the English across the sea. Certain it is that the most sophisticated among them yearned to be cosmopolites, followed London’s fashions, and aped the English style. If this imitation did nothing else, it confirmed the prevailing feeling in Britain that the lines of colonial subordination were right and should remain unchanged.

If a society, a city, or a territory, were to guarantee the necessaries of life to its inhabitants (and we shall see how the conception of the necessaries of life can be so extended as to include luxuries), it would be compelled to take possession of what is absolutely needed for production; that is to say — land, machinery, factories, means of transport, etc. Capital in the hands of private owners would be expropriated and returned to the community. The great harm done by bourgeois society, as we have already mentioned, is not only that capitalists seize a large share of the profits of each industrial and commercial enterprise, thus enabling them to live without working, but that all production has taken a wrong direction, as it is not carried on with a view to securing well-being to all. For this reason we condemn it. Moreover, it is impossible to carry on mercantile production in everybody’s interest. To wish it would be to expect the capitalist to go beyond his province and to fulfill duties that he cannot fulfill without ceasing to be what he is — a private manufacturer seeking his own enrichment. Capitalist organization, based on the personal interest of each individual trader, has given all that could be expected of it to society — it has increased the productive force of work. The capitalist, profiting by the revolution effected in industry by steam, by the sudden development of chemistry and machinery, and by other inventions of our century, has endeavoured in his own interest to increase the yield of work, and in a great measure he has succeeded. But to attribute other duties to him would be unreasonable. For example, to expect that he should use this superior yield of work in the interest of society as a whole, would be to ask philanthropy and charity of him, and a capitalist enterprise cannot be based on charity.

Golosh Street is an interesting locality. All the oddities of trade seemed to have found their way thither and made an eccentric mercantile settlement. There is a bird-shop at one corner. Immediately opposite is an establishment where they sell nothing but ornaments made out of the tinted leaves of autumn, varnished and gummed into various forms. Further down is a second-hand book-stall. There is a small chink between two ordinary-sized houses, in which a little Frenchman makes and sells artificial eyes, specimens of which, ranged on a black velvet cushion, stare at you unwinkingly through the window as you pass, until you shudder and hurry on, thinking how awful the world would be if everyone went about without eyelids. Madame Filomel, the fortune-teller, lives at No. 12 Golosh Street, second storey front, pull the bell on the left-hand side. Next door to Madame is the shop of Herr Hippe, commonly called the Wondersmith. ("The Wondersmith")

But capitalism has not stood still since Marx's day. Writing in the middle years of the nineteenth century, Marx could not be expected to grasp the full consequences of his insights into the centralization of capital and the development of technology. He could not be expected to foresee that capitalism would develop not only from mercantilism into the dominant industrial form of his day—from stateaided trading monopolies into highly competitive industrial units—but further, that with the centralization of capital, capitalism returns to its mercantilist origins on a higher level of development and reassumes the state-aided monopolistic form. The economy tends to merge with the state and capitalism begins to "plan" its development instead of leaving it exclusively to the interplay of competition and market forces. To be sure, the system does not abolish the traditional class struggle, but manages to contain it, using its immense technological resources to assimilate the most strategic sections of the working class.

Compare, for example, seventeenth century writers with those of the eighteenth. What a difference in tone and gait! The former, under a veneer of servility, have the most noble and proud stance… They do not pretend to reign. They merely stand at their place, recognize the place of a superior power beyond, give themselves completely to their writing task, dismiss the temptation of advertising and demonstrate their professional dedication. On the other hand, look at the Voltaire, Diderot and the like: they open well the era of intellectuals, writing stooges as they are, courtiers of princes they flatter and despise at the same time—something they are forced to do as they want to usurp their power… Their courtier nature reveals in everything they do… The whole eighteenth century, both spiritual and plain on a scoundrel background, is libertine, and already pornographic: such is the start of literary mercantilism; people of letters make money out of their writings, pretend to financial independence, and they write garbage to flatter the opinion of their public.

I don't know it is that I always feel that other people can create things but that I can't. I imagine it's simpler living in remote tribes or communities where one is obliged to have a go or else you have to do without. I suppose it is fear of failure in an age where political correctness is trying to erase the word 'failure' from the language. It's OK to fail isn't it, but only if you've tried? What is so bizarre is that when one does try, one rarely falls short. Obviously some people do things better than others but if it gives you pleasure, then so what? As my grandmother used to say, 'patience and perseverance made a bishop of his reverence!' So don't say you can't make candles or soap or that you can't spin or weave until you've tried it. As for mending, well, if you're not throwing everything away, then you have no option but to make do and mend. After all, the only way to get rid of shopping malls and supermarkets with their food miles is for people not to shop in those places and the way to cure this mercenary mercantile world is to make your own things.

La forma-mercancía, o sea la determinación social de las cosas como mercancías, en la moderna sociedad burguesa se ha convertido en forma universal debido a que el capitalismo ha hecho de la fuerza de trabajo una mercancía de la cual sus portadores disponen libremente: esto es, libres de dependencias personales, libres de toda coacción, menos de la que los obliga a ganar dinero. Pero esa coacción impersonal es universal, de modo que el dinero se ha convertido en la sola finalidad de todo trabajo y la venta de la propia fuerza de trabajo en forma predominante de reproducción. En la sociedad mercantil, la satisfacción de cualquier necesidad concreta depende del dinero. La necesidad de disponer del máximo posible de dinero se convierte así en el primer "interés propio", igual para todos los miembros de la sociedad, aunque lo tengan que perseguir compitiendo unos con otros como mónadas económicas. Los sujetos del intercambio mercantil, libres e iguales en tal sentido abstracto, se imaginan a sí mismos como individuos autónomos que se ganan honradamente el sustento con su trabajo.

A book is a real object, sure, but the form of the book is artifice, a product of industrial mercantile nations nurturing good little middle-class consumers, sheep who learned to do what they were told: turn the page, turn the page, turn the page. Hypertext, on the other hand, presents an antiauthoritarian alternative. Readers of hypertext aren’t passive consumers. They’re creators.” “And what do they create?” “Meaning. People can do what they want in a hypertext. There isn’t an overbearing author telling them what to think. They have the freedom to think what they will. What you have to understand is that information technologies are really just vessels for ideology. Print books are authoritarian and fascist. Hypertexts are liberating and empowering. I’m telling you, dude, traditional storytelling is dying. In the future, all the important literature will be hypertext.” “And this is what the World Wide Web is for?” Jack said. “Hypertext?” “The web seems good for two primary things, and the second is hypertext.” “What’s the first?” “Pornography.” “There’s pornography on the web?

Mr. Colbert, the famous minister of Louis XIV, was a man of probity, of great industry and knowledge of detail, of great experience and acuteness in the examination of public accounts, and of abilities, in short, every way fitted for introducing method and good order into the collection and expenditure of the public revenue. That minister had unfortunately embraced all the prejudices of the mercantile system, in its nature and essence a system of restraint and regulation, and such as could scarce fail to be agreeable to a laborious and plodding man of business, who had been accustomed to regulate the different departments of public offices, and to establish the necessary checks and controls for confining each to its proper sphere. The industry and commerce of a great country he endeavoured to regulate upon the same model as the departments of a public office; and instead of allowing every man to pursue his own interest in his own way, upon the liberal plan of equality, liberty, and justice, he bestowed upon certain branches of industry extraordinary privileges, while he laid others under as extraordinary restraints.

The German economic system as it existed before the war depended on three main factors: I. Overseas commerce as represented by her mercantile marine, her colonies, her foreign investments, her exports, and the overseas connections of her merchants; II. The exploitation of her coal and iron and the industries built upon them; III. Her transport and tariff system. Of these the first, while not the least important, was certainly the most vulnerable. The Treaty aims at the systematic destruction of all three, but principally of the first two. I (1) Germany has ceded to the Allies all the vessels of her mercantile marine exceeding 1600 tons gross, half the vessels between 1000 tons and 1600 tons, and one quarter of her trawlers and other fishing boats.[9] The cession is comprehensive, including not only vessels flying the German flag, but also all vessels owned by Germans but flying other flags, and all vessels under construction as well as those afloat.[10] Further, Germany undertakes, if required, to build for the Allies such types of ships as they may specify up to 200,000 tons[11] annually for five years, the value of these ships being credited to Germany against what is due from her for Reparation.[12]

Under these circumstances, revenue from the New World in the form of exports of gold and silver was critical. The Spanish government, however, imposed strict rules limiting economic exchange—a system known as mercantilism—under the mistaken belief that this would maximize its income from the colonies. Exports from the New World could go only to Spain, indeed, to a single port in Spain; they were required to travel in Spanish ships; and the colonies were not permitted to compete with Spanish producers of manufactured goods. Mercantilism, as Adam Smith was to demonstrate in The Wealth of Nations, created huge inefficiencies and was highly detrimental to economic growth. It also had very significant political consequences: access to markets and the right to make productive economic investments were limited to individuals or corporations favored by the state. This meant that the route to personal wealth lay through the state and through gaining political influence. This then led to a rentier rather than an entrepreneurial mentality, in which energy was spent seeking political favor rather than initiating new enterprises that would create wealth. The landowning and merchant classes that emerged under this system grew rich because of the political protection they received from the state.

If we had days and weeks I could begin to tell you the story of the subtle knife, and the Guild of the Torre degli Angeli, and the whole sorry history of this corrupt and careless world. The Specters are our fault, our fault alone. They came because my predecessors, alchemists, philosophers, men of learning, were making an inquiry into the deepest nature of things. They became curious about the bonds that held the smallest particles of matter together. You know what I mean by a bond? Something that binds? “Well, this was a mercantile city. A city of traders and bankers. We thought we knew about bonds. We thought a bond was something negotiable, something that could be bought and sold and exchanged and converted…. But about these bonds, we were wrong. We undid them, and we let the Specters in.” Will asked, “Where do the Specters come from? Why was the window left open under those trees, the one we first came in through? Are there other windows in the world?” “Where the Specters come from is a mystery—from another world, from the darkness of space…who knows? What matters is that they are here, and they have destroyed us. Are there other windows into this world? Yes, a few, because sometimes a knife bearer might be careless or forgetful, without time to stop and close as he should. And the window you came through, under the hornbeam trees…I left that open myself, in a moment of unforgivable foolishness. There is a man I am afraid of, and I thought to tempt him through and into the city, where he would fall victim to the Specters. But I think that he is too clever for a trick like that. He wants the knife. Please, never let him get it.

If we had days and weeks I could begin to tell you the story of the subtle knife, and the Guild of the Torre degli Angeli, and the whole sorry history of this corrupt and careless world. The Specters are our fault, our fault alone. They came because my predecessors, alchemists, philosophers, men of learning, were making an inquiry into the deepest nature of things. They became curious about the bonds that held the smallest particles of matter together. You know what I mean by a bond? Something that binds? “Well, this was a mercantile city. A city of traders and bankers. We thought we knew about bonds. We thought a bond was something negotiable, something that could be bought and sold and exchanged and converted…. But about these bonds, we were wrong. We undid them, and we let the Specters in.” Will asked, “Where do the Specters come from? Why was the window left open under those trees, the one we first came in through? Are there other windows in the world?” “Where the Specters come from is a mystery—from another world, from the darkness of space…who knows? What matters is that they are here, and they have destroyed us. Are there other windows into this world? Yes, a few, because sometimes a knife bearer might be careless or forgetful, without time to stop and close as he should. And the window you came through, under the hornbeam trees…I left that open myself, in a moment of unforgivable foolishness. There is a man I am afraid of, and I thought to tempt him through and into the city, where he would fall victim to the Specters. But I think that he is too clever for a trick like that. He wants the knife. Please, never let him get it.” Will and Lyra shared a glance. “Well,” the old man finished, spreading his hands, “all I can do is hand the knife on to you and show you how to use it, which I have done, and tell you what the rules of the Guild used to be, before it decayed. First, never open without closing. Second, never let anyone else use the knife. It is yours alone. Third, never use it for a base purpose. Fourth, keep it secret. If there are other rules, I have forgotten them, and if I’ve forgotten them it is because they don’t matter. You have the knife. You are the bearer. You should not be a child. But our world is crumbling, and the mark of the bearer is unmistakable. I don’t even know your name. Now go.

We aren’t simply looking at a demographically induced economic breakdown; we are looking at the end of a half millennium of economic history. At present, I see only two preexisting economic models that might work for the world we’re (d)evolving into. Both are very old-school: The first is plain ol’ imperialism. For this to work, the country in question must have a military, especially one with a powerful navy capable of large-scale amphibious assault. That military ventures forth to conquer territories and peoples, and then exploits said territories and peoples in whatever way it wishes: forcing conquered labor to craft products, stripping conquered territories of resources, treating conquered people as a captive market for its own products, etc. The British Empire at its height excelled at this, but to be honest, so did any other post-Columbus political entity that used the word “empire” in its name. If this sounds like mass slavery with some geographic and legal displacement between master and slave, you’re thinking in the right general direction. The second is something called mercantilism, an economic system in which you heavily restrict the ability of anyone to export anything to your consumer base, but in which you also ram whatever of your production you can down the throats of anyone else. Such ramming is often done with a secondary goal of wrecking local production capacity so the target market is dependent upon you in the long term. The imperial-era French engaged in mercantilism as a matter of course, but so too did any up-and-coming industrial power. The British famously product-dumped on the Germans in the early 1800s, while the Germans did the same to anyone they could reach in the late 1800s. One could argue (fairly easily) that mercantilism was more or less the standard national economic operating policy for China in the 2000s and 2010s (under American strategic cover, no less). In essence, both possible models would be implemented with an eye toward sucking other peoples dry, and transferring the pain of general economic dislocation from the invaders to the invaded. Getting a larger slice of a smaller pie, as it were. Both models might theoretically work in a poorer, more violent, more fractured world—particularly if they are married. But even together, some version of imperialist mercantilism faces a singular, overarching, likely condemning problem: Too many guns, not enough boots.

Men are not content with a simple life: they are acquisitive, ambitious, competitive, and jealous; they soon tire of what they have, and pine for what they have not; and they seldom desire anything unless it belongs to others. The result is the encroachment of one group upon the territory of another, the rivalry of groups for the resources of the soil, and then war. Trade and finance develop, and bring new class-divisions. "Any ordinary city is in fact two cities, one the city of the poor, the other of the rich, each at war with the other; and in either division there are smaller ones - you would make a great mistake if you treated them as single states". A mercantile bourgeoisie arises, whose members seek social position through wealth and conspicuous consumption: "they will spend large sums of money on their wives". These changes in the distribution of wealth produce political changes: as the wealth of the merchant over-reaches that of the land-owner, aristocracy gives way to a plutocratic oligarchy - wealthy traders and bankers rule the state. Then statesmanship, which is the coordination of social forces and the adjustment of policy to growth, is replaced by politics, which is the strategy of parts and the lust of the spoils of office. Every form of government tends to perish by excess of its basic principle. Aristocracy ruins itself by limiting too narrowly the circle within which power is confined; oligarchy ruins itself by the incautious scramble for immediate wealth. In rather case the end is revolution. When revolution comes it may seem to arise from little causes and petty whims, but though it may spring from slight occasions it is the precipitate result of grave and accumulated wrongs; when a body is weakened by neglected ills, the merest exposure may bring serious disease. Then democracy comes: the poor overcome their opponents, slaughtering some and banishing the rest; and give to the people an equal share of freedom and power. But even democracy ruins itself by excess – of democracy. Its basic principle is the equal right of all to hold office and determine public policy. This is at first glance a delightful arrangement; it becomes disastrous because the people are not properly equipped by education to select the best rulers and the wisest courses. As to the people they have no understanding, and only repeat what their rulers are pleased to tell them; to get a doctrine accepted or rejected it is only necessary to have it praised or ridiculed in a popular play (a hit, no doubt, at Aristophanes, whose comedies attacked almost every new idea). Mob-rule is a rough sea for the ship of state to ride; every wind of oratory stirs up the waters and deflects the course. The upshot of such a democracy is tyranny or autocracy; the crowd so loves flattery, it is so “hungry for honey” that at last the wiliest and most unscrupulous flatterer, calling himself the “protected of the people” rises to supreme power. (Consider the history of Rome). The more Plato thinks of it, the more astounded he is at the folly of leaving to mob caprice and gullibility the selection of political officials – not to speak of leaving it to those shady and wealth-serving strategists who pull the oligarchic wires behind the democratic stage. Plato complains that whereas in simpler matters – like shoe-making – we think only a specially-trained person will server our purpose, in politics we presume that every one who knows how to get votes knows how to administer a city or a state.

Revelation Chapter 18 details the many goods which are sold through the Daughter of Babylon’s ports. The lengthy list appears in Revelation 18:11-13. Take any one of those goods listed by John two thousand years ago and ask this question: is any other nation the center for world trade in those commodities, except for the United States? Where else does one find exchanges as important as the New York Stock Exchange, the American Stock Exchange, the New York Mercantile Exchange, the New York Cotton Exchange, the Chicago Board of Trade, the Chicago Mercantile Exchange and numerous other exchanges for currency, coffee, sugar, tea, cocoa, soybeans, oats, wheat, cattle, hogs, lumber, diamonds, iron, ivory, marble, spices, cosmetics, steel, tin, zinc, rubber, etc. Those exchanges, through which the world’s commerce is passed daily, are all located in one country. They’re not in Iraq, nor in Rome.

Hong Kong is one of the world's great cities, a synthesis of British power, Scottish mercantile drive and Chinese intelligence, ingenuity and hard work.

The prevailing view that Smith criticized was mercantilism, which held that wealth consisted of the stock of precious metals in a country.

I wish I could help. I’d offer to put a day in at the mercantile, but I can’t clean worth anything.” “I know,” she muttered. He smiled a bit. “And I am absolutely certain no one would buy a loaf of bread I made.” “Especially if they knew you mixed it on the floor.” “A very good point, Katie.” He laughed through the words and felt her chuckle against him. He kept her close, hoping doing so didn’t make him selfish. She needed comfort and had turned to him. She was being courted by someone else. Yet, she’d turned to him. He was very confused. But, Katie was there, with him. He’d made her laugh. That was something.

achievement to create the first modern insurance fund, based on correct actuarial and financial principles, rather than mercantile gambling.

With the help of a civil war fought in pursuit of his belief in a single and powerful centralized government, Lincoln was able to turn America a few more clicks of the compass away from the defense-oriented libertarianism of Jefferson to the warlike mercantilism of Hamilton.

The importance of a mercantile agent is the good can easily reach the consumer even at the remotest places in the globe. The mercantile agent is the one who actually manages the business transactions on the behalf of the principal or the producer.

London was the heart of the greatest empire ever known; a financial and mercantile hub for the world; but it was also infamously filthy.

lifted the jug he’d left in the shade between the mercantile and drugstore and took a lengthy swig, his gaze lifting to the window of Sadie’s room. Wouldn’t she rather have a whole house to call her own? Sure she would. Every woman wanted her own place, a husband, and a family. And he was willing to give it to her, if only she’d stop fluttering her eyelashes at the sheriff and look at Sid.

There’s something else I want to ask you, too.” His hand still holding tight to hers, he glanced around the empty mercantile. Then he leaned across the counter, his face so close to hers his breath kissed her cheeks. “This isn’t hardly the time or place, but I don’t want to waste another minute. Sadie, would you do me the honor of allowing me to court you?

One can of stewed tomatoes, and her meager grocery shopping list would be complete. From its position on the upper shelf beyond her reach, the can taunted her with its flashy red label and bright green letters. It practically goaded her to come and get it. Her gaze darted to the plaque hung from a nail on the center shelf: “Please Let Us Assist You.” She’d be happy to if Mr. Reilly noticed anyone in the store besides the customers with money. As it was, she had no choice but to take matters into her own hands. Hannah glanced from the sign to the stout, long-nosed grocer. Behind the counter, he continued his chatty dialogue with the banker’s wife, turning a blind eye as her five-year-old son skipped around the mercantile like a child at the fair. Easing the wheeled ladder back and forth a few inches on its rail, Hannah watched to see if Mr. Reilly noticed. When he didn’t turn her direction, she hiked up her skirt. With one foot firmly planted on the ladder’s first step, Hannah rolled the ladder a yard to the right. After stopping beneath the elusive tomatoes, she scurried up the three flat rungs and clasped the can in her hand before hoisting it aloft like a trophy.

You're become a good friend, Arthur. I appreciate all you've done to help me since Warren's death. If we were to put the deeds of giving on a scale, your side would plunge downward compared to the paltry things I've done for you in return.' She had no idea what she'd done for him, awakening him to love again, inspiring him to look beyond his own needs to someone else's. He started to tell her so, but she went on. 'But I can't look at years and weeks. I have to look at souls and sales. What would God have me view as the most valued?' She imitated the gesture he'd made earlier, raising one hand as high as her chin and lowering the other to midthigh. 'Souls, Arthur.' She balled the hand beside her leg into a tight fist, lifted it, and pressed it to her heart. 'Souls matter most. Even if it means I lose my mercantile - my home - I choose to love those children.

La sociedad chilena ha expandido radicalmente el territorio de la mercantilización. Mejor dicho, se ha visto expandida dentro de ella la penetración y profundización de las lógicas de mercado. Las sociedades capitalistas tienden a invadir entornos no mercantiles con dichas orientaciones, como cuando un amigo presiona a otro para comprar un crédito, una cuenta corriente, un seguro, una crema o un envase de plástico. En ese instante, cuando el asado se transforma en venta, la mercancía no es solo el objeto vendido, sino también la relación de amistad que es puesta en entredicho por la aparición de una mirada instrumental.

trasladado a la costa Oeste. La interiorista encargada de que el piso de Alex fuera decorado con gusto le había aconsejado que contratara a Ramón cuando vio que Alex pasaba tanto tiempo en el trabajo que a menudo tenía que comprarse camisetas nuevas porque se le amontonaba la colada. El piso de Alex en Beekman Place, con vistas al East River, tenía seis estancias, más las dependencias del servicio; demasiadas para un soltero. Pero disponía de espacio suficiente para un salón en el que reunir a sus amigos, para un despacho, para Ramón y para el hermano menor de Alex, Andrew, un abogado mercantil de Washington capital que lo visitaba con frecuencia. En

She pivoted ninety degrees away from Gareth's house, the mercantile, even the brothel and headed straight to the emerald trees. If the Xhosa women and the soldiers could go and come in those woods everyday, so could she. With Jonas asleep and bundled tightly in her sash, she could dash into forest find the rue and head back. The day's light should still be good. Before

A menudo la crítica del valor ha criticado las alternativas fáciles - y lo ha hecho por diferentes razones. Para ponerlo en pocas palabras: por una parte, es cierto que se puede experimentar, hasta cierto grado, formas de vida alternativas en el interior del marco capitalista. Pero la lógica capitalista tiene la tendencia de aplastar todo y transformarlo en fuente de ganancia y no va a tolerar el nacimiento de otra forma de vida. Por tanto hay que prever una fase de conflictos y de luchas. En el capitalismo, todo cuanto existe solo es considerado como una porción de valor que no conoce más que relaciones cuantitativas. La primera exigencia para una alternativa sería la de devolver su dignidad a todos los objetos que creamos, sin permitir ya su transformación en mercancías. Esto también quiere decir que no habría una forma de intercambio de las mercancías basada sobre la cantidad de trabajo. Al mismo tiempo, es necesario que todas estas nuevas formas se practiquen a la escala más grande posible. De otro modo, una fábrica autogestionada o una simple granja correrían el riesgo de tener que afirmarse en un mercado anónimo y competitivo que las sometería a las mismas exigencias de rentabilidad y ganancia que a las otras empresas. Habría que organizar, de inmediato, intercambios no mercantiles entre diferentes actividades. El fin del capitalismo no será un fin pacífico; en efecto, por todas partes aumenta la tendencia a la barbarización. Las formas postmercantiles y no bárbaras tendrán que encontrar modos de reaccionar contra la lógica mafiosa y criminal, que no cesará de difundirse. Y habrá también un aumento de la violencia, como lo vemos ya en las numerosas guerras civiles que hay en el mundo.

That there is a code and standard of mercantile honor which is quite as pure and grand as any military code, is beyond question, but it has never yet been established and defined by long usage and the concurrent support of a large and influential society. The

She hurried to the door, cinching her robe, smoothing her hair, and asking God to guide her conversation with the man claiming to be Vince’s brother—whoever he was. She opened the door. “Good morn—” She frowned, unable to explain the tiny spark of irritation, but even greater sparks of joy, she felt. “What are you doing here?” “Good morning, Miss Ashford. It’s nice to see you again too, ma’am.” With a wry smile, Wyatt Caradon tipped his hat and held up the ragged-looking advertisement she’d posted at the mercantile weeks ago. “I’m here in answer to your notice, ma’am. I’m hoping you can still use a ranch hand.

For a minute there, I thought we really had us a problem.” Her hands went to her hips. “And you think we don’t?” “No ma’am, not the kind you’re imagining.” She opened her mouth and, with his gentlest touch, he closed it for her. Then drew his hand away before he lost it. “Like I said, I appreciate your candor, and I can see how you came to your conclusion. I don’t blame you for it either,” he added, seeing her brow rise. He pointed to her cider. “You going to drink that?” She shook her head. He picked up the mug and downed the contents, wishing it were something a little stronger. He’d sensed she wanted to talk about something, but they’d gotten derailed, as they often did. If this woman wanted to talk, he’d stay up the rest of the night to oblige her, despite being dog-tired. She didn’t let her walls down often, and he wanted to be there when she did. “You remember Slater, the man you sewed up at the doc’s clinic?” She slowly nodded, her skepticism obvious. “Men like him don’t hang around mercantiles or dry goods stores. You find men like him in saloons and gaming halls. So for the most part, that’s where I spend my time these days. And yes, there are women there. But . . .” He wanted so badly to touch her face, but the way she’d jumped when he’d taken hold of her hand told him he needed to move slowly with her. More slowly than he wanted to. “I have never . . . never been with a woman in one of those places.” McKenna looked at him, really looked at him, and he didn’t flinch. He hoped she would stare, study, search, do whatever she needed to do, for as long as she needed to do it—until she recognized the honesty in him.

[…] En faisant ainsi prévaloir les droits de la spontanéité sur la réflexion, de l’ignorance sur la science, de l’immédiateté de la pulsion sur la patience de l’art, de l’éphémère adolescence sur l’éternelle sagesse, d’instinct le Têtard faisait triompher la paresse de ceux qui estiment que la tradition tient en elle trop d’exigences, et qu’un héritage, notamment celui de l’excellence, est bien trop lourd à porter. Ces affalés préfèrent laisser libre cours à l’interne chimpanzé qu’ils sont fiers de traîner, en qui ils entendent se complaire et qui réclame tyranniquement une culture pour lui tout seul : celle de la luxure de marché, celle du glauque, de la bigarrure et de l’anomie, celle des veines épithumiques, d’un désir encalibistré et claustral, petite région élevée au rang de galaxie et que ces hédomanes rêvent ventromniloque. La culture du bas-jouir prêt à tout. C’est Têtard qui déclare ainsi l’ouverture du premier génocide fœtal de l’histoire au nom de prétendus droits reconnus à la salope : tout enfant non dévaginé est passible de la peine de mort si un couple de robots drogués ou de Thénardier jouisseurs se voit contrarier le plan de ses projets hédonistes et mercantiles. Microcéphalopolis est une cité cohérente où l’on tue pour finir ses études, pour forniquer plus confortablement, pour partir en vacances, et où l’on dresse simultanément des monuments aux victimes des grands massacres historiques. Car Microcéphalopolis détermine elle-même, au milieu des chialeries, quels sont les génocides propres et quels ne sont pas.

La forma-mercancía, o sea la determinación social de las cosas como mercancías, en la moderna sociedad burguesa se ha convertido en forma universal debido a que el capitalismo ha hecho de la fuerza de trabajo una mercancía de la cual sus portadores disponen libremente: esto es, libres de dependencias personales, libres de toda coacción, menos de la que los obliga a ganar dinero. Pero esa coacción impersonal es universal, de modo que el dinero se ha convertido en la sola finalidad de todo trabajo y la venta de la propia fuerza de trabajo en forma predominante de reproducción. En la sociedad mercantil, la satisfacción de cualquier necesidad concreta depende del dinero. La necesidad de disponer del máximo posible de dinero se convierte así en el primer "interés propio", igual para todos los miembros de la sociedad, aunque lo tengan que perseguir compitiendo unos con otros como mónadas económicas. Los sujetos del intercambio mercantil, libres e iguales en tal sentido abstracto, se imaginan a sí mismos como individuos autónomos que se ganan honradamente el sustento trabajando.

Nos hacen falta mejores arquitecturas de toma de decisiones en lo público, en lo mercantil y en lo privado. Y lo que es más importante, nos hace falta otro talento con el que vivir, trabajar, dirigir, descansar, aprender, soñar…

France had recently switched to the metric system of measurement. This gave scientists a much-needed standardized system to measure and compare results, but it also required a whole new set of calculating tables. The sheer number of calculations was beyond what could be accomplished by all the mathematicians in France, so Riche established calculating 'factories' to manufacture logarithms the same way workers manufactured mercantile goods. Each factory employed between 60 and 80 human 'computers.' But they weren’t trained mathematicians; they were mostly out-of-work hairdressers who had found their skill at constructing elaborate pompadours for aristocrats much less in demand after so many former clients lost their heads at the height of the French Revolution. Riche had hit upon a rote system of compiling results based on a set of given values and formulas, and the workers just cranked out the answers in what must have been the world’s first mathematical assembly line. Babbage figured that if an army of untrained hairdressers could make the calculations, so could a computing 'engine.

The Mercantilism represented by the Hamilton-Clay tradition transcends the history of the American political economy in its significance. Prior to the Industrial Revolution, France stood out for state commitment to internal improvements: in 1666, Colbert had convinced Louis XIV to finance the Canal du Midi as one aspect of the generations-long campaign to establish centralized state authority over the still-feudal French nation. Since time immemorial however, the public credit of the state had been predominantly devoted to the financing of war, whether the state was in the hands of a feudal king, an absolute monarch, a republican city-state, or the conflation of royal power circumscribed by parliamentary representatives of the propertied classes and tempered by "the mob" that emerged in Britain from 1688. The game between the financial markets and the state was played out over the terms on which the owners of liquid capital would fund the state's armies relative to the problematic likelihood of their being repaid.

La Constitución de 1980 consagra una sociedad individualista, donde las relaciones humanas y éticas se disuelven en favor de las relaciones mercantiles brutales.

Sempre foi considerada uma infelicidade para um país ser governado por um ponto de vista particular ou no interesse de qualquer classe particular, quer fosse a corte, a Igreja, o Exército ou as classes mercantil ou trabalhadora”, disse ele. “Todos os países devem ser governados de um ponto de vista central em que todas as classes e todos os interesses estejam proporcionalmente representados, e atrevo-me a pensar que até nesses tempos modernos esse princípio se aplica ao nosso governo.

What lay to the east of Siberia was in the eighteenth century uncharted, uncivilised and, most importantly, uncolonised. It was all too tempting. For a period of almost eighty years, between 1725 and the end of the century, adventurous gentlemen from the Russian Empire - military, academic, mercantile, or simply mercenary - embarked upon voyages of exploration to map the coastlines and islands, investigate and civilise the native peoples, and seek out trading opportunities.

An honest man falls in love with an honest woman; he wishes, therefore to marry her, to be the father of her children, to secure her and himself. All systems of government should be tested by whether he can do this. If any system—feudal, servile, or barbaric—does, in fact, give him so large a cabbage-field that he can do it, there is the essence of liberty and justice. If any system—republican, mercantile, or Eugenist—does, in fact, give him so small a salary that he can't do it, there is the essence of eternal tyranny and shame.

I had to resist the feeling that her mercantile spirit was corrupting the purity of my love for poetry.

The Dutch East India Company, which was headquartered in Batavia (now the Indonesian capital of Jakarta), was the great mercantile engine of the seventeenth century, and all the major geographic discoveries in the Pacific during this period were made by Dutch captains in search of new markets and new goods for trade. One of these was a commander named Abel Janszoon Tasman, who, in 1642, set out with a pair of ships bound for the southern Pacific Ocean. Tasman followed what looks, on the face of it, like the most unlikely route imaginable. Departing from the island of Java, he sailed west across the Indian Ocean to Mauritius, a small island off the coast of Madagascar, which itself is a large island off the coast of southeastern Africa. There, he turned south and continued until he reached the band of powerful westerlies that would sweep him back eastward, all the way across the Indian Ocean, until he finally reached the Pacific. Tasman followed this lengthy and unintuitive route—sailing nearly ten thousand miles to reach an ocean that was less than twenty-five hundred miles from where he had begun—because the winds and currents in the Indian Ocean operate the same way they do in the Pacific, circling counterclockwise in a similar gyre.

a federal government given land-use powers would be manipulated by the mercantile barons to their own ends, to the detriment of the common people.