Views of mercantilists and cameralists on the role of the state in the economy. Mann, Thomas - short biography Chapter III
German writer. Born on June 6, 1875 in Lübeck, into a family of wealthy businessmen that played a significant role in Lübeck and other Hanseatic cities in Northern Germany. Mann spent his childhood in Lübeck; he studied in Lübeck and Munich, where the family moved after the death of his father in 1891. As a university student, he independently and enthusiastically studied A. Schopenhauer, F. Nietzsche and R. Wagner. After an unsuccessful attempt to make a business career, Mann went to Italy in the mid-1890s, where he stayed for two and a half years, devoting them mainly to working on his first significant novel, Buddenbrooks (1901), which became a bestseller. Upon returning to Munich, Mann, until 1914, led a life common to the prosperous “apolitical” intellectuals of that time. Germany's role in World War I and its subsequent unpopularity abroad sparked Mann's interest in national and international politics. His Reflections of an Apolitical (Betrachtungen eines Unpolitischen, 1918), as well as short essays from the war, represent an attempt by a German conservative patriot to justify his country's position in the eyes of the democratic West. By the end of the war, Mann had moved closer to the Democratic position. After receiving Nobel Prize in Literature (1929) he gained recognition throughout Europe and beyond. In the 1920s and early 1930s, the writer repeatedly warned his compatriots against the threat of Hitlerism; in 1933 his voluntary emigration began. Having become a US citizen in 1944, Mann decided not to return to Germany after the war, and a few years later he left the US and settled in Switzerland, in Kilchberg near Zurich. Last years his life was marked by new literary achievements. A few days before his death, which followed on August 12, 1955, he was awarded Germany's highest Order of Merit. Buddenbrooks is based on Mann's observations of his family, friends, and morals. hometown, behind the decline of a family belonging to the hereditary middle class. The book "Royal Highness" (1909), like all of Mann's works, in a certain sense autobiographical. Among the early short stories, “Tonio Kröger” (1903) and “Death in Venice” (1912) are especially noteworthy; Among the later short stories, “Mario and the Wizard” (1931) occupies an outstanding place, where we're talking about about freedom. Perhaps the most important book Manna – novel of ideas “The Magic Mountain” (1924). The monumental tetralogy Joseph and His Brothers (1934–1944) is even more clearly oriented toward “friendliness to life” than The Magic Mountain. The novel Lotte in Weimar (1940) reflected Mann's growing interest in Goethe. This is the story of the second meeting of the aging Goethe with Charlotte Buff, who in his youth inspired him to write the book that brought him European fame - Suffering young Werther. For creative path Mann wrote whole line large and small essays, before the First World War, drawing on themes in the field of culture, then including the sphere of politics. A number of Mann's major essays are dedicated to the three idols of his youth - Schopenhauer, Nietzsche and Wagner, as well as I.V. Goethe, L.N. Tolstoy, F.M. Dostoevsky, F. Schiller, Z. Freud and others. His political essays are these are reflections on two world wars and the emergence of Hitlerism.
English mercantilism
Features of English mercantilism:
1) English economic thought begins to occupy first place in Europe;
2) prerequisites appear for the implementation of the free trade policy (free trade);
3) market relations England and other countries develop very harmoniously, and this harmony is achieved in all spheres (trade, agriculture, industry).
W. Stafford "A Cursory Discussion of English Politics"
William Stafford - representative of the English. mercantilism.
Home work- “A quick discussion of English politics. The idea is the problem of wealth accumulation in the country.
The work was written in the form of a dialogue between representatives of various segments of the population: a knight (landowner), merchant, artisan, farmer (cultivator) and theologian. The knight complains about the rise in price of goods. Farmer - to increase rent and “fencing” (when the land was transferred from cultivated to pasture). The merchant complains about the state of affairs among artisans - it, according to him, has become worse since landowners began to focus primarily on raising livestock. In all trades there is a decrease in the number of journeymen and apprentices. As for foreign trade, it has become less profitable, since foreigners have significantly raised the prices of their goods.
Key points:
1) Damage to coins by the state does not enrich the country, but harms its wealth.
2) It is equally unprofitable to force foreign merchants to spend money with us: they will take more than ours for their goods.
3) We cannot allow the export of our raw materials, because they are processed abroad, and when processed products are imported back, we pay for our own raw materials, for all foreign customs duties, for all our import duties.
4) You should refrain from buying foreign goods even when they are sold cheaper compared to what they cost in England. Hence the need for state protection of domestic trade. Those. Stafford sought a policy of protectionism - the development of domestic industry by protecting it from foreign competition.
5) But not all trade needs to be encouraged. There are three types of trade:
Only removing money from the country (dealers of colonial goods and wine);
Spending all the money here that was earned here (tailors, butchers, bakers);
Importing money from abroad (exporting wool and leather processing products).
Only the third type - export industries - should be patronized. And it is not the raw materials that need to be exported, but the products of their processing.
6) Agriculture can neither employ all the workers in the country nor provide everyone with income. Industry is a more important matter.
7) The state should act not through prohibitions, but through duties and taxes.
Thomas Maine "England's Wealth in Foreign Trade"
The main idea of the work is ways to enrich the kingdom.
In this work, Maine identifies ways and means to increase the export of goods and reduce the import of foreign ones:
"Sell annually at a large amount what we buy." For this:
1) expand the raw material base of industry (by plowing up vacant lots);
2) reduce excessive consumption of foreign goods;
3) increase competition with low prices (just not to lose sales); improve the quality of English products.
4) Export goods on our own ships, then we will receive not only the value of our goods in our country, but also the benefit that a foreign merchant receives when buying them from us for resale in his homeland, as well as the amount of insurance costs and freight for transporting them overseas.
5) Consume natural resources sparingly. Luxury, only through English goods “the excesses of the rich will give work to the poor”
6) develop fishing
7) establish transit trade
8) value trade with distant countries
9) Export money for trade purposes (refusal of the ban on export, because the abundance of money in the country is harmful and causes an increase in the price of goods).
10) goods made from foreign raw materials, such as velvet and other silks, twisted silk, etc., were exported duty-free.
11) Do not burden our domestic goods with too high duties , so as not to make them too expensive for foreigners and not to interfere with their sale.
12) Try to make as many of your own goods as possible, whether natural or artificial.
Maine rejects government intervention in trade. He sets the goal of trade to increase the amount of money in the country. Money must circulate, the result of which is an increasing amount of money in the country.
Natural wealth among mercantilists is the result of labor applied to nature, more precisely, these are products Agriculture and extractive industries as opposed to manufactured goods or artificial wealth.
Thomas Maine "Discourse on the Trade of England with the East Indies"
Maine was a member of the board of the famous East India Company and the government's trade committee.
The idea is to protect the East India trade against attacks on it from different sides. It gives a fairly clear picture of the first two decades of English trade with the East Indies.
1. Maine develops the theory of balance of trade. The cost of export from England must exceed the cost of import - active trade balance- the country's monetary fund will increase.
2. Classifies goods required for import into England:
Basic necessities (food, clothing, war supplies). This is due to the fact that there was a famine, and it was necessary to stock up on essential goods.
Goods necessary for the development of crafts
Decorations
3. Protects the export of money (10 shillings spent in India turns into 35 shillings after sale Indian goods in London).
4. “There are no other ways to get money except trade,” hence the two ways to increase the wealth of the state are:
1) consume more domestic goods;
2) consume less foreign goods .
Maine considers the essence of wealth, in which he distinguishes the natural products of territories and the artificial products of labor. Maine's natural wealth comes from agriculture and mining. Artificial wealth - products of the processing industry.
Cromwell's Navigation Act(valid for 200 years) - a law that contributed to the development of English maritime trade at a time when England's trade and fleet were in their infancy and required protective measures. Led to a series of Anglo-Dutch wars in the 17th century.
It was published, on the one hand, to encourage the English merchant fleet, and on the other hand, to destroy Holland's primacy at sea. According to the N. Act, goods from Asia, Africa, and America could be imported into Great Britain only on ships that belonged to British subjects and whose crew consisted of at least 3/4 British subjects; from Europe goods could be imported on British ships or on the ships of the country in which the goods were produced or in whose harbors they could first be loaded onto a ship.
Related information.
(Sometimes Maine, Men, English Thomas Mun; 1571, London - July 21, 1641) - English economist, mercantilist. Worked in England and Europe from 1620 to 1641.
Scientific achievements
Essays: “Discourse on England’s trade with the East Indies,” “England’s wealth in foreign trade, or the Balance of our foreign trade as a regulator of our wealth.” He considered commercial capital to be the main type of capital, identified wealth with its monetary form, and recognized only trade as a source of enrichment, in which the export of goods prevails over the import, which brings an increase in capital and wealth. " We need to sell as cheaply as possible so as not to lose sales....»
Mann put forward the idea that formed the basis of the quantity theory of money. The increase in money in a country depends on trade. In this regard, he considered money not only as a treasure, but also as a means of circulation and capital. Wealth is considered in its monetary form as stocks precious metal. Just as an individual commercial capitalist puts money into circulation in order to extract it incrementally, so the country must enrich itself through trade, ensuring that the export of goods exceeds the import “... sell to foreigners annually for a larger amount than we buy from them...". The development of production is seen as a means of expanding trade. Loan interest is considered as dependent on trade, and loan capital - on trade. Man was categorically opposed to regulating the interest rate through legislation.
Thomas Mann was born on June 6, 1875 in Lübeck, northern Germany, into the family of a wealthy merchant. But in 1891, his father died, and his shipping company went bankrupt.
When Thomas was 16 years old, his family moved to Munich. Here future writer worked in an insurance company and was engaged in journalism. After some time, he became an editor at a satirical weekly and began trying to write books.
In 1901, Mann's first novel, Buddenbrooks, was published. In 1903, the short story “Tonio Kroeger” was published. These works were a great success.
In 1905, Mann married Katya Pringsheim, the daughter of a prominent mathematician, a descendant of an old Jewish family of bankers and merchants. They had six children, three girls and three boys.
Thomas Mann and his wife Katja Pringsheim. Photo 1929
In 1913, the short story “Death in Venice” was published. During First World War Mann authored the book Discourses of the Apolitical (1918). In this work, he criticized liberal optimism and opposed rationalistic Enlightenment philosophy.
After the war, Mann again took up literary activity. In 1924, the novel “The Magic Mountain” was created.
Literary Nobel. Thomas Mann
In 1929, Mann received the Nobel Prize in Literature “primarily for great novel Buddenbrooks, which became a classic modern literature and whose popularity is steadily growing."
After receiving the Nobel Prize, Mann began to pay a lot of attention to politics. He advocated the creation of a common front of socialist workers and bourgeois liberals to fight against the Nazi threat. In 1930 it was created political allegory"Mario and the Wizard" Mann was a sharp critic of the Nazis.
When Hitler became chancellor of Germany in 1933, Mann and his wife, who were in Switzerland at the time, decided not to return home. In 1938 they moved to the United States. For about three years, Mann lectured in the humanities at Princeton University, from 1941 to 1952. he lived with his wife in California.
In 1936, Mann was stripped by the Nazis of his German citizenship and his honorary doctorate from the University of Bonn (awarded to him in 1919). But in 1949, at the end of World War II, the honorary degree was returned to him.
For many years (1933-1943) Mann worked on a tetralogy about biblical Joseph. In 1939, the novel “Lotte in Weimar” (1939) was created, in 1947 – “Doctor Faustus”, in 1954 – “The Adventures of the Adventurer Felix Krul”.
In 1949 Mann received the Goethe Prize. This prize was awarded to him jointly by Western and East Germany. In addition, he held honorary degrees from the Universities of Oxford and Cambridge.
Mann loved his wife, but marriage could not save him from homosexual desires that haunted the writer all his life.
The main theorist of late mercantilism in England was Thomas Men (1571-1641). He was a member of the board of the East India Company and the government trade committee. In 1664, his book “The Wealth of England in Foreign Trade, or the Balance of Our Foreign Trade as the Regulator of Our Wealth” was published.
Below are the main provisions of this book, in which the domestic and foreign economic policies of the state are justified from the standpoint of mercantilism.
England's wealth in foreign trade
Chapter II. Ways to enrich our kingdom and increase the amount of money in the country
The usual means of increasing our wealth and money is through foreign trade. At the same time, we must constantly observe the following rule: sell to foreigners annually for a greater amount than we buy from them. Let us suppose that our kingdom is abundantly supplied with cloth, lead, tin, iron, fish, and other domestic goods, the surplus of which we annually export abroad to the amount of 2,200,000 pounds; and at the same time we buy abroad and import to ourselves £2,000,000 worth of foreign goods for our own consumption. By observing this rule in our trade, we can be sure that the kingdom will be enriched annually by 200,000 pounds, which will be imported to us in the form of money, since that part of our goods for which we do not receive goods in exchange will be necessary imported in the form of money.
In this case, the money goes into the kingdom's treasure. Suppose someone has a thousand pounds of income in
year and two thousand pounds in cash in hand. If such a man spends £1,500 annually, his entire stock of money will be used up in four years, but in the same period his stock will double if he spends only 500 pounds a year sparingly. This is also true of the state as a whole... I will show by whom and in what manner the balance of the kingdom should be drawn up annually or as often as the state needs to know how much we gain or lose in our foreign trade. But first I will tell you something related to the ways and means by which we can increase our exports and reduce the import of foreign goods...
Chapter III. Ways and means of increasing the exportation of our goods and decreasing our consumption of foreign goods
The mass of goods of the kingdom, in exchange for which we are supplied with foreign goods, is divided into natural and artificial. Natural wealth represents only that which we can allocate beyond what is necessary for our own consumption and export abroad. Artificial wealth consists of the products of our industry and also depends on the trade in foreign goods...
1. ...Although our state is extremely rich by nature, its wealth could still be increased by cultivating vast wastelands... for such crops that would not interfere with the income of other cultivated lands, but would help us get rid of the import of such goods such as hemp, flax, tackle, tobacco and various other items, which we now bring from abroad to our great ruin.
2. We may also reduce our imports if we give up the excessive consumption of foreign commodities in our diet and clothing, which, with frequent changes of fashion, only increases extravagance and expense, which vices are now more prevalent among us than in former times. These defects can easily be corrected by the introduction of such laws as are practiced in other countries against similar excesses, where the existence of orders for the consumption of goods of their own manufacture prevents the importation of foreign ones without any prohibition or insult to foreigners in their mutual trade relations.
3. When we export, we must take into account not
only our surpluses, but also the needs of our neighbors. For those goods that they need and which they cannot get anywhere else, we can (in addition to selling raw materials) win a lot by processing them and selling the resulting products at such high prices as possible without reducing the sales of these goods. But the surplus of our goods, which, although foreigners need, can also be obtained by them from other countries, or such goods, the consumption of which they can stop, replacing them with similar, but cheaper goods from other places, we must sell as cheaply as possible, just so as not to lose sales of such goods...
4. The value of exported goods can also be greatly increased if we ourselves export them on our own ships, since then we will receive not only the value of our goods in our country, but also the benefit that the foreign merchant receives, who buys them from us for resale in his homeland, as well as the amount of expenses for insurance and freight for transporting them overseas...
5. In the same way, economical consumption of our natural wealth would greatly increase its annual export abroad. And if we really want to be wasteful in our clothes, then let them be made from our own materials and industrial products, like cloth, lace, embroidery, etc...
6. The fish in his Majesty's seas in England, Scotland and Ireland are our natural wealth, and their production requires nothing but labor, which the Dutch willingly expend, and thereby annually make a very large profit for themselves, by supplying many places in Christendom with our fish; With the funds received from this, they satisfy their needs both in foreign goods and in money...
7. If we become a warehouse for foreign grain, indigo, spices, raw silk, cotton or any other goods imported from abroad, it will increase shipping, trade, the amount of money in the country and royal customs on the export of these goods back to the places where they are needed. This kind of trade served main reason the rise of Venice, Genoa, the Netherlands and some other countries, and England is most conveniently located for such a purpose and does not need anything for this except the diligence and diligence of its subjects.
8. We must also appreciate and give due credit to those branches of trade which we carry on with distant countries, so
how, besides increasing the shipping and the number of sailors, the goods sent there and received from there are of much greater benefit to the kingdom than trade with the neighboring countries...
9. It would also be very profitable to export our money, as well as goods, since if this is done only for the purpose of trade, it increases our wealth...
10. It will be a correct policy and beneficial for the state to allow goods made from foreign raw materials, such as velvet and other silks, cotton wool, twisted silk, etc., to be exported duty-free. These industries will provide employment to many poor people and will greatly increase the annual export of such goods abroad, which will increase the import of foreign raw materials, which will improve the receipt of government duties...
11. It is also necessary not to burden too much duties on our domestic goods, so as not to make them too expensive for foreigners and not thereby impede their sale. And this especially applies to foreign goods imported for further export, since in otherwise this type of trade (so important to the welfare of the country) can neither prosper nor exist. But the consumption of such foreign goods in our kingdom may be subject to heavy duties, which will be an advantage to the kingdom as regards the balance of trade, and thereby enable the king to save more from his annual income...
12. Finally, we should try to make as many of our own goods as possible, whether natural or artificial. And since there are much more people who live by crafts than those who extract the fruits of the earth, then we must most diligently support those efforts of the multitude in which the greatest strength and wealth of both the king and the kingdom lie, since where the population is numerous and crafts flourish, there should be extensive trade and a rich country...
(Mercantilism. L., 1933. S. 155-160).
