Doctrina economiei universale

• Atitudinea anticilor față de comerț

• Doctrina economiei universale (propriu-zisă)

– (Douglas A. Irwin, Against the Tide. An Intellectual

History of Free Trade, Princeton University Press,
1996, cap. 1)
Atitudini antice față de comerț

• Atitudine ambivalentă, confuză față de comerț (aprobare/dezaprobare)

– Vizibilă, de pildă, în atitudinea față de mări:
• Favorabilă: (Plutarh) ”This element, therefore, when our life was savage and
unsociable, linked it
together and made it complete, redressing defects by mutual assistance and
exchange and so bringing
about cooperation and friendship… the sea brought the Greeks the vine from India,
from Greece
transmitted the use of grain across the sea, from Phoenicia imported letters as a
memorial against
forgetfulness, thus preventing the greater part of mankind from being wineless,

• Defavorabilă: (Horațiu) ”In vain has God in his wisdom planned to divide the land
by the seațs
separations, if, for all that, ungodly ships are crossing the waters that he placed aut
of bounds.”
– Atitudinea (ambivalentă) față de comerțul propriu-zis
• Teoretizarea ambivalentă a schimbului

– Aristotel operează cu ambele versiuni de teorie a schimbului (echivalență și

dublă asimetrie)
 – Identificarea incipientă a beneficiilor diviziunii muncii:

• Platon (Republica): ”The result [of such a division], then, is that more things are
produced, and better
and more easily when one man performs one task according to his nature, at the right
moment, and at
leisure from other occupations”; ” it is practically impossible to establish the city in a
region where it
will not need imports”

• 4 elemente (Jacob Viner, The Role of Providence in the Social Order,

Princeton University Press, 1976, 27-54):

– Credința stoic-cosmopolitană în fraternitatea universal umană (”toți suntem frați”)

• Sau o fi creștină?
– Descrie beneficiile pe care schimbul/comerțul le aduc umanității
– Resursele economice sunt distribuite inegal pe glob

• (anticipare a legii ricardiene a asocierii și a modelului Heckscher-Ohlin-Samuelson

sau al
”înzestrării factoriale”)
• Problema egalității
– Atribuie situația (”fericită”) intervenției divine, care are în vedere prin promovarea
comerțului cooperarea/apropierea între oameni
 Autori care au expus-o:
• Seneca (cca. 4 î.Hr. – 65 d.Hr.):

– observa că Providența a aranjat elementele naturale astfel încât ”the wind has made
communication possible between all peoples and has joined nations which are
separate geographically”
• Philon din Alexandria (cca. 15-10 î.Hr. – 54 d.Hr.):

– ”He [God] has made none of these particular things complete in itself, so that it
should
have no need at all of other things. Thus, through the desire to obtain what it needs, it
must perforce approach that which can supply its needs, and this approach must be
mutual and reciprocal. Thus, through reciprocity and combination…God meant that
they should come to fellowship and concord and form a single harmony. And that a
universal give and take should govern them, and lead to the consummation of the
whole world”(cca. 185 – cca. 254):
• Origen

– ”Lack of the necessities of life has also made things, which originate in other
places, to
be transported to those men who do not posses by them the art of sailing and
navigation; so(cca.
• Libanius that for
314these reasons
– cca. 394): one might admire providence”

– ”God did not bestow all products upon all parts of the earth, but distributed His gifts over
different regions, to the end that men might cultivate a social relationship because one
would have need of the help of another. And so He called commerce into being, that all
men might be able to have common enjoyment of the fruits of earth, no matter where
produced.”

• Exprimare ”canonică” a doctrinei economiei universale, citată adesea în secolele

următoare
• Sf. Vasile cel Mare (cca. 330 – 379):
– The sea ”becomes a patron of wealth to merchants, and it supplies the needs of life,
providing for the exportation of superfluous articles by the prosperous and granting to the
needy the remedy for their wants”.
 • Problema surplusului: condiție suficientă, dar nu necesară pentru apariția schimbului.
• Sf. Ioan Hrisostom (”Gură de Aur”; cca. 347 - 407):

– Student al lui Libanius în tinerețe; consideră că marea leagă diferitele regiuni,

preîntâmpinând descurajarea relațiilor cordiale între oameni, și transformând pământul
într-o singură casă locuită de toți.

• Teodoret (”al Cirului”; cca. 393 – cca. 457)

– ”For the Creator, wishing to instill harmony into human

beings, made them depend on one another for various needs.
For these reasons we make long voyages on sea, seek our
needs from others, and bring back cargoes of what we want;
nor has providence allocated to each section of the earth all
the needs of mankind lest self-sufficiency should militate
against friendship. Accordingly the sea lies in the center of the
earth, divided into countless bays like the market place of a
huge city, providing an abundance of every necessity, and
receives many sellers and buyers and brings them from one
place to another and back again”.