The enemies of commerce
The enemies of trade. A moral history of property is a historical, social, political and economic investigation focused on the communist movement. The work was written by the Spanish essayist, philosopher, jurist and author Antonio Escohotado. Its length is such that it is divided into three volumes: the first of them was published in 2008, the second, in 2013, and the third in 2016. All the books were published and distributed by Planeta.
In an effort to show a little more wisdom and equanimity, coupled with the old age that was coming to him at that time, Antonio Escohotado decided to undertake an almost titanic task: to write the book of his life. Initially, his small project was aimed at explaining who, why and with what results someone came up with the following sentence: "They have maintained that private property is theft and trade is its instrument."
Synopsis for Enemies of Trade
A prevailing need to delve into the past of the man of the communes
When Antonio Escohotado began his studies on the subject chosen for his new book, He quickly understood that he had to travel to the past, to the times of Plato and Sparta, if he wanted to make himself understood and gain a broader perspective on the matter. Likewise, he stopped at the opinions of the Essene Jewish sects and the Ebionist creed, who interpreted the sixth Biblical commandment as “you shall not trade”.
Similarly, the author alludes to the Sermon on the Mount. All these studies are taken into account to create a contextual analysis on the principles of the slave society. In turn, it is in this thought where the birth of the messianic leaders originates. We are talking, then, of those rulers of "superior morality" whose purpose is to wash away the evils in the world and grant revenge or restitution against the high command of the hegemony of centralized power.
First volume (2008)
En the times of In ancient Greece, civil wars were already considered as a means to achieve social progress.. Later, the German philosopher Karl Marx promulgated it as a law for the class movement. On the other hand —although following the same path of reflection—, the author replaces economic concepts hated and loved in equal parts by a variety of communist sects. Within these it is possible to find: the peasant wars, the Renaissance, the Reformation and the Counter-Reformation, respectively.
All these ideals create a convergence that proposes to leave behind Ebionist thought, which praises and dignifies poverty. In this way, Christians first and peasants later have the opportunity to become prosperous and far-sighted people. Antony Escohotado mentions other contexts and ideologies, such as The fable of the Mandeville bees, The great Revolution French and the Conspiracy of Equals.
Second volume (2013)
While reading the second volume of the trilogy it is easy to draw a comparison between democratic socialism and messianic socialism. Already situated in the first half of the XNUMXth century and beyond, Antonio Escohotado examines the models imposed by controversial rulers such as Ahmadinejad and Chávez.
The author commented that his research led him to change his mind every time he came across a different idea. This fact moved him from prejudice to judgment. Thus, it would be logical to deduce that The enemies of commerce It is a text designed from impartiality, with the purpose of creating a chronology that explains the events that affected the economic, political, and social behavior of one or several specific periods that, in short, converge and are the origin of a single movement that tends to branch out into several aspects.
Third volume (2016)
Antonio Escohotado's research on communist thought and application was extended to a third volume. In this, the writer plunged into a search like no other. In this sense, for the first time, the communist ideological debate confronts the social economic debate. The book also covers the large parallel institutions, such as the union, private companies, intellectual property, the different social security systems...
In the culmination of Antonio Escohotado's trilogy, the last years of Lenin's dictatorship are broken down, along with other movements, such as the totalitarian tendencies that took place in Latin America. The latter still exist and have been reflected in European countries, a continent that, far from leaving for more central directions, are the epicenter of parties such as Podemos, in Spain, or Syriza, in Greece.
About the author, Antonio Escohotado Espinosa
Antonio Escohotado
Antonio Escohotado Espinosa was born in 1941, in Madrid, Spain. The author claimed to have a single compass: study. As passionate about learning things and facts, he trained in law and philosophy.
His current was that of Ortega y Gasset. During the sixties he had access to other philosophical currents, such as those raised by Freud and Hegel. The latter was the inspiration for the writer to carry out his doctoral thesis, called the unhappy conscience, and published in 1972.
This is the basis of his intellectual and literary production, together with studies such as Reality and substance (1985). His research in this regard is related to metaphysics and pure logic. Later, after the end of Francoism and the well-received democracy, focused on conducting studies from the observation of the phenomena of reality (that is, an investigation closer to scientific knowledge).
From this fact stems his need to disclose the principles, manifestations and evolution of a diversity of human entities, whose impersonal propositions do not represent anything more than their own complexity. This means that, Beyond quantifiable events, there is nothing. The philosophy related to that current is something that he maintained until the moment of his death, in 2021.
Other books by Antonio Escohotado
- Marcuse, utopia and reason (1968);
- The unhappy conscience. Essay on Hegel's Philosophy of Religion (1971);
- From physis to polis (1982);
- Reality and substance (1986);
- Philosophy and methodology of the social sciences (1987);
- Majesties, crimes and victims (1987);
- General history of drugs (3 volumes 1989);
- the book of poisons (1990);
- the spirit of comedy (1991);
- Learning from drugs: uses and abuses, prejudices and challenges (1995);
- Whores and Wives: Four Myths About Sex and Duty (1993);
- Drugs: from yesterday to tomorrow (1994);
- Elementary history of drugs (1996);
- The hemp issue: a constructive proposal on hashish and marijuana (1997);
- portrait of the libertine (1997);
- General history of drugs (including the appendix "Phenomenology of drugs" (1999);
- chaos and order (1999);
- Sixty weeks in the tropics (2003);
- facing fear (2015);
- My private Ibiza (2019);
- Milestones of meaning (2020);
- The Forge of Glory: A Brief History of Real Madrid Told by an Amateur Philosopher (2021)