The concept of “commercial economy” is quite independent of the existence and extent of a “capitalist” economy, that is, economic activity oriented to capitalist calculation. In particular, the normal type of commercial economy involves meeting need through a monetised economy. It would be wrong to assume that the existence of capitalist economic activity developed in step with the increased use of money to meet need, hence, that it entirely followed the course taken in the Occident. Rather, the opposite is the case. The increased extent of a money economy could be accompanied (1) by the increasing mo nopolisation of
Chancen of making large profits on the part of a ruler’s household. This occurred in ancient Egypt during the time of Ptolemy, for which domestic account books show that the money economy was very developed, but they also show that this did remain a form of monetary accounting based on the household, and never became capitalist calculation. Or (2) with the rise of a money economy, the farming out of fiscal
Chancen could arise, resulting in a traditionalist stabilisation of the economy (as in China, which will be discussed at the appropriate point). Or (3) the capitalistic valorisation of monetary property could be directed towards investments other than those oriented to exchange
Chancen in a free goods market, and hence not oriented to acquisitive
Chancen represented by the production of goods (which is almost exclusively the case outside the modern occidental economic region).
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