The sixth element is the endowments which, although not aspects of trade in themselves, determine so much of the society in which trade happens. The endowments are inalienable properties which are dedicated, either in their use or the income derived from them, to charitable and educational purposes. In most traditional societies before the rise of the modern welfare state, welfare and social needs were catered for by these means.
The welfare state is based on loans from banks, the servicing of which ultimately make its purposes unachievable, as we see today with the progressive dismantling of hard-won free medical and educational services, the disappearance of pension funds and the clear admission that there is no solution to the problem of the ageing population.
The endowments are based on the reliable productivity of land, so that in some historical contexts, such as nineteenth century Ottoman society, almost two-thirds of real estate was held in the form of private endowments devoted to such charitable purposes as hospitals, soup-kitchens, educational establishments for every section of society and endowments to take care of the natural environment in various ways that are hard for modern man to conceive of, so radical are they. For example, one such charity was dedicated to taking care of migratory storks, which through exhaustion had to interrupt their migrations. Another was dedicated to looking after and feeding hungry wolves in the hills of Anatolia.
Such endowments meant that society as a whole was not engaged in a Darwinian struggle for survival but rather was able to give the fullest expression to its most creative and altruistic instincts since basic needs were taken care of. Naturally such a view of existence does not suit banks and the modern state which saw to the demise of endowments by the simple expedient of seizing them. This was then followed up with a series of studies purporting to show them as weakening and pacifying the population, contrary to the dynamic activity created by banking. However, a cynical view might suggest that this apparent dynamism consists of modern men and women running furiously to service their debts, just to stay in the same place.
This list is not exhaustive but covers some of the indispensable aspects of genuine open and fair trade. Although we have referred to past practice and history, there is no sense in which these elements are recovered by ‘going back in time’ or ‘turning the clock back’. The fact of their practicability in actual historical societies means that we are not yet again positing ‘ideas’ and ‘ideals’ since this has been the bane of the modern world as we discover, often traumatically, the defects of our ideas. Rather, as the inevitable contradictions of a usurious economy break down society, we will discover that these elements were indeed formed to stand the test of time, and indeed, we are well advised to be active in their recovery now.