Adam Smith argued that “water carriage” opens a more extensive market than “land carriage.” David Hume noted that merchants who “possess the secret of importation and exportation” check the power of the ancient nobility and “tempt other adventurers to become their rivals in commerce.” In the 16th century, England and another smallish seafaring nation, the Dutch Republic, became the world’s first capitalist powers. The founders of modern economic liberalism saw numerous links between open seas and open societies. Land powers, by contrast, pursued a more authoritarian road to modernity: overbearing governments, standing armies necessitating efficient tax systems, dirigiste economies, and, above all, a hunger for yet more land (at its most monstrous manifestation, Adolf Hitler’s lebensraum). Sea powers, most notably Great Britain, created both the institutional and intellectual infrastructure of a distinctively liberal form of capitalism: limited government at home and free trade abroad supported by innovative stock markets and powerful navies. This is bad news for the future of both free trade and liberty. The United States, which has long flipped between being a land power and a sea power, is turning inwards once again.
Brexit means that the European Union is more than ever a land-power: dominated by Germany and France and looking eastward towards land-locked Mitteleuropa. China has ingested the great seaport of Hong Kong and may be planning to do the same to the island of Taiwan. Russia is trying to reassemble its old imperium by gobbling up first Crimea and now Ukraine.
Sages from Homer onwards have argued that land and sea powers generate different societies and we forget their wisdom at our peril.Įverywhere you look, land powers are on the march. But we shouldn’t forget the case for keeping a watchful eye on something more elemental - the relative fortunes of land powers versus sea powers. The obvious place to look if you want to understand the future is cyberspace - the birthplace of virtual worlds, artificial intelligence and other digital wonders.
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