¶9 While we are speaking of economic factors, we shall take the opportunity to point out an illusion that is too widespread on this subject, and which consists in imagining that relations established in the field of commercial exchanges can serve to bring peoples closer together and to an understanding between them, whereas, in reality, they have exactly the opposite effect.1 Matter, as we have already said many times, is essentially multiplicity and division, therefore a source of struggles and conflicts;2 thus, whether it concerns peoples or individuals, the economic domain is and can only be that of rivalries of interests.3 In particular, the West cannot count on industry, any more than on the modern science that is inseparable from it, to find common ground with the East;4 if the Easterners come to accept this industry as a regrettable and moreover transitory necessity – for, in their eyes, it could never be anything more – it will only ever be as a weapon enabling them to resist Western invasion and safeguard their own existence.5 It is important that one know well that it cannot be otherwise: the Easterners who resign themselves to envisaging economic competition with the West, despite the repugnance they feel for this kind of activity, can do so only with a single intention: that of freeing themselves from a foreign domination that rests only on brute force, on the material power that industry puts precisely at its disposal; violence calls forth violence,6 but one must recognise that it is certainly not the Easterners who will have sought the struggle on this ground.7
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Summary

Guénon points out a widespread illusion that commercial exchanges can bring peoples closer together, arguing that in reality they have the opposite effect because matter is essentially multiplicity and division, and thus a source of struggles and conflicts. The economic domain, whether concerning peoples or individuals, can only be that of rivalries of interests. He states that the West cannot rely on industry or modern science to find common ground with the East. If Easterners accept industry at all, it is only as a regrettable and transitory necessity, and solely as a weapon to resist Western invasion and safeguard their own existence. They resort to economic competition only to free themselves from a foreign domination based on brute force, and it is certainly not they who have sought the struggle on this ground.

General notes

  1. illusion des échanges commerciaux comme facteur de rapprochement entre les peuples — Rendered as ‘illusion of commercial exchanges as a factor of rapprochement between peoples’. Guénon denounces here an idea widespread within modern thought (notably among liberals and advocates of globalisation): that international trade naturally creates bonds of peace and mutual understanding between nations. For Guénon, this illusion ignores the profound nature of matter, which is division and conflict. ↩︎
  2. matière = multiplicité, division, source de conflits — Rendered as ‘matter = multiplicity, division, source of conflicts’. Guénon recalls a fundamental metaphysical principle: matter, by its very nature, is the principle of individuation and fragmentation. It divides what was united and sets in opposition interests that could be harmonised at a higher level. Economic conflicts are therefore not accidental; they are inherent in the material nature of commercial exchanges. ↩︎
  3. domaine économique = rivalités d’intérêts — Rendered as ‘economic domain = rivalries of interests’. Guénon affirms that the economy, by its essence, is the place of competition and antagonism. Contrary to the ideal of a ‘natural harmony of interests’ (formulated by Adam Smith and the classical economists), economic relations are necessarily conflictual because they bear upon limited material goods and oppose particular wills. ↩︎
  4. impossibilité d’une entente Orient-Occident sur le terrain industriel — Rendered as ‘impossibility of an East-West understanding on industrial ground’. Guénon opposes the idea (supported by some minds at the beginning of the 20th century) that industrial development could bring Eastern and Western civilisations closer together. For Guénon, industry is a typically Western product, foreign to the spirit of the traditional civilisations of the East. Any rapprochement on this ground would be superficial and deceptive. ↩︎
  5. l’industrie comme arme défensive pour l’Orient — Rendered as ‘industry as a defensive weapon for the East’. Guénon foresees that the peoples of the East, constrained by Western domination, might adopt industry not by choice or by adherence to its values, but as a means of defence. Industry would then become a ‘weapon’ to resist Western economic and military aggression, not a ground for understanding. ↩︎
  6. la violence appelle la violence — Rendered as ‘violence calls forth violence’. Guénon states a law: the use of force (economic, military, political) by one civilisation provokes its use in return by those who are its victims. The West, by imposing its material domination, naturally gives rise to a reaction of the same nature. The use of violence never creates peace, but a spiral of conflicts. ↩︎
  7. les Orientaux n’ont pas recherché la lutte sur le terrain économique — Rendered as ‘the Easterners have not sought the struggle on economic ground’. Guénon specifies that Eastern civilisations have no intrinsic interest in entering into economic competition with the West. If they do so, it is by constraint and in reaction to prior aggression. The responsibility for the global economic conflict therefore falls upon the West and its material expansionism. ↩︎