The course of life and the path of suffering of the State founded by sea nomads, as has been stated above, is determined by commercial capital; just as that of the territorial State is determined by capital vested in realty; and, we may add, that of the modern constitutional State by productive capital. The sea nomad, however, did not invent trade or merchandising, fairs or markets or cities; these preëxisted, and since they served his purpose, were now developed to suit his interests. All these institutions, serving the economic means, the barter for equivalents, had long since been discovered.
Here for the first time in our survey we find the economic means not the object of exploitation by the political means, but as a coöperating agent in originating the State, one might call it the “chain” passing into the “lift” created by the feudal state to bring forth a more elaborate structure. The genesis of the maritime State would not be thoroughly intelligible, were we not to premise a statement concerning traffic and interchange of wares in prehistoric times. Furthermore, no prognosis of the modern state is complete, which does not take into account the independently formed economic means of aboriginal barter.
(a) TRAFFIC IN PREHISTORIC TIMES
The psychological explanation of barter has brought forth the theory of the marginal utility, its greatest merit. According to this theory, the subjective valuation of any economic good decreases in proportion to the number of objects of the same kind possessed by the same owner. When even two proprietors meet, each having a number of similar articles, they will gladly barter, provided political means are barred, i. e., if both parts are apparently equally strong and well-armed, or in the very early stage, are within the sacred circle of relationship. By barter, each one receives property of very high subjective value, in place of property of very low subjective value, so that both parties are gainers in the transaction. The desire of primitive people for bartering must be stronger than that of cultured ones. For at this stage man does not value his own goods, but covets the things belonging to strangers, and is hardly affected by calculated economic considerations.
On the other hand, we must not forget that there are primitive peoples for whom barter has no attraction whatever. “Cook tells of tribes in Polynesia, with whom no intercourse was possible, since presents made absolutely no impression on them, and were afterward thrown away; everything shown them they regarded with indifference, and with no desire to own it, while with their own things they would not part; in fact, they had no conception of either trade or barter.”[58] So Westermarck is of the opinion that “barter and traffic are comparatively late inventions.” In this he stands in opposition to Peschel, who would have it that man in the earliest known stage of development engaged in barter. Westermarck states that there is no proof “that the cave-dwellers of Périgord from the reindeer period obtained their rock-crystals, their shells from the Atlantic, and the horns of the Saiga antelope from (modern) Poland by way of barter.”[59]
In spite of these exceptions, which admit other explanations—perhaps the natives feared sorcery—the history of primitive peoples shows that the desire to trade and barter is a universal human characteristic. It can, however, take effect only when these primitive men on meeting with strangers are offered new enticing objects, since in the immediate circle of their own blood kinsmen every one has the same kinds of property, and in their natural communism, on the average about the same amount.
Yet even then, barter, the beginning of all regular trading, can take place only when the meeting with foreigners is a peaceable one. But is there any possibility for peaceable meeting with foreigners? Is not primitive man, through his entire life, and especially at the period when barter begins, still under the apprehension that every one of a different horde is an enemy to be feared as the wolf?
After trade is developed, it is, as a rule, strongly influenced by the “political means,” “trade generally follows robbery.”[60] But its first beginnings are chiefly the result of the economic means, the outcome of pacific, not warlike, intercourse.
The international relations of primitive huntsmen with one another must not be confused with those existing either between the huntsmen or herdsmen and their peasants, or amongst the herdsmen themselves. There are, undoubtedly, blood-feuds, or feuds because of looted women, or possibly because of violation of the districts set aside for hunting grounds; but these lack that strong incentive, which is the consequence of avarice alone, of the desire to despoil other men of the products of their labor. Therefore, the “wars” of primitive huntsmen are scarcely real wars, but rather scuffles and single combats, carried on frequently—as are the German student duels—according to an established ceremonial, and prolonged only up to the point of incapacity to fight, as one might say, “until claret has been drawn.”[61] These tribes, numerically very weak, wisely limit bloodshed to the indispensable amount—e. g., in case of a blood vendetta feud—and thus avoid starting new vendetta blood feuds.
For this reason, pacific relations with their neighbors on an equal economic scale are much stronger, and also freer from the incentive to use political means, both among huntsmen and among primitive peasants, than among herdsmen. There are numerous examples where the former meet peaceably to exploit natural resources in common. “While yet in primitive stages of civilization, great masses of people gather together, from time to time, at places where useful objects may be found. The Indians of a large part of America made regular pilgrimages to the flint grounds; others assembled annually at harvest time at the Zizania swamps of the lakes of the Northwest. The Australians, living scattered in the Barku district, assemble from all directions for the harvest festivals at the swamp beds of the corn bearing Marsiliacae. When the bonga-bonga trees in Queensland produce a superabundant crop, and a greater store is on hand than the tribe can consume, foreign tribes are permitted to share therein.”[63] “Various tribes agree on the common ownership of definite strips of territory, and likewise of the quarries of phonolite for hatchets.”[64] Numerous Australian tribes have common consultations and sessions of the elders for judgment. In these, the remainder of the population form the bystanders, a custom similar to the Germanic “Umstand” in the primitive folkmoot.[65]