A Carrie Full-Text 
Electonic Library Book

06. Commercial identity
by H.B. Paksoy

     1. Not every corner of the world is endowed with all the resources the earth is capable of bestowing.

     2. In order to acquire some of the goods not available locally, but in other geographic regions, a polity will have to engage in trade.

     3. These goods not available locally may well include foodstuffs, which will impart quite a bit of urgency to trade.

     4. When a polity cannot acquire what it deems necessary to sustain life or life-style, they may well be prepared to go to war to obtain what they think they are entitled. Not much profit may be gained at this stage by trying to reason with them.

     5. Conversely, other polities may want those goods and commodities only found in this polity. These will include natural resources, and other polities will be prepared to use military force to obtain what they think is due them.

     6. When unbalanced mutual trade is joined between polities, one of the first casualties is mutual trust. This will manifest itself in arguments over quality, supply quantities, and timing of delivery.

     7. Next will come the issue of balance of payments. If a polity A is buying goods from polity B, then polity A must pay for them. Usually in some form of currency.

     8. Polity A spending currency to purchase goods from polity B will cause a drain on the treasury of polity A, especially, when the polity A has not much to sell to the polity B. 9. At that point, polity A might even decide to go to war with polity B, in order not to pay what it owes to polity B.

     10. Thus, the principle of a balance of payments must be kept in mind when trading.

     11. Over time, the specialized goods produced in one polity may gain fame under their identity. This will be followed by trademark recognition. Perfumes, cheese, shoes, wine and the like produced by one polity will come to mind when the name of the polity is mentioned.

     12. When the commodities produced by one polity gains fame, other polities will begin to produce the same. The copying polities may even use the same or similar brand names.

     13. The polity initiating a commodity brand name, whose goods are copied will object and take action to force the copiers to stop using the original designations. This will cause trade wars. This is one example of protecting the identity of the initiating polity.

     14. In selling their commodities, polities will develop not only specific brand names, but also the notion, presented as 'fact,' that the commodity in question is best when coming from that polity with the specific identity.

     15. This will cause a move toward trade monopoly of a certain item or commodity.

     16. A trade monopoly will cause authoritarianism in governance, with all the trappings in personnel and institutions.

Return to: Identities: How Governed, Who Pays? Index.