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Diane Morgan. Tirdzniecîbas gars un kosmopolîtisms: Kants un Herders ðodien
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angelic. Indeed, as we will see, the gel used to bind together egotistical and greedy
humans draws its cohesive powers from these very mortal instincts. It is not dependent
on some miraculous moral conversion and can function even in a “nation of
devils”. 19
In nature, humans are divided amongst themselves by differences in religion and
language, which provoke, of course, much suspicion, hatred and an excuse for warmongering.
However, with a gradual rapprochement between the peoples of the
world, furthered by a basic agreement about fundamental principles, these same differences
can give rise to “lively competition” and between a variety of multicultural
forces a positive equilibrium can be found. Compared with the amalgamated uniformity
of identity desired by despots, such an irreducible divergence of socio–cultural
perspective is decidedly healthy. The community Kant is aiming for is one which
brings together people in their differences, even because of their differences. In his
analysis Kant relies on a force which is stronger than the respect for the concept of
cosmopolitan right and that is the wish for financial gain. It is this force which motivates
the spirit of commerce (Handelsgeist) whose transactions are alimented by difference,
whose links are cemented by mutual self–interest and which much prefers
the stability of peacetime to war for its business exchanges. 20
As we have seen, the Handelsgeist plays a major role in Kant and Herder’s vision
of a future cosmopolitan community and the latter specifically evokes its embodiment
in die Hanse as a model of unmediated, non–alienated, cross–cultural relations
of exchange and communication.
Retrospectively it could indeed be maintained that die Hanse was a period in the
history of commerce perched on the verge of, but not yet to be characterised as, nascent
capitalist manufacturing with its “objectified labour” and its colonial slavery.
Hence its attraction for Herder as he attempts to charts through the ages the fortunes
and achievements, misfortunes and wastages of human industry (Fleiâ).
Die Hanse was originally a loose association, or – to use Friedland’s word
“Schar”, of traders, authorised to carry out transactions abroad, who were not bound
indissociably together by an oath of allegiance (as guild members were), but rather
joined together by purposive self–interest necessitating reciprocal arrangements with
and guarantees from others. 21 However, the traders who chose to enter the League
themselves in turn belonged to their respective guilds which promoted the skills of
the various crafts, protected working conditions, controlled the quality of the artefacts
and regulated the size of the masters’ workshops thereby– according to analysts such
as Marx– thwarting their transformation into full blown capitalists22 . 23 The protectionism
of the guilds at least was able for a time to maintain the specificity of different
trades and crafts whilst, through the interface of the Hanseatic League, reaching foreign
markets – thereby making giving rise to a different vision of globalisation from
that experienced, enjoyed and suffered today, where multinationalists can be seen as
emitting the same commodities everywhere.
The inviting and intriguing image of globalisation I locate in the work of Kant
and Herder is one for which the local (regional, national, ethnic) particularity counts
and is not submerged under blanket categories. For instance Herder’s chapter on the
Slavs in the Ideen zur Philosophie der Geschichte der Menschheit traces their general