There must be an alliance of a particular kind which we may call a covenant of peace (foedus pacificum), which would differ from a treaty of peace (pactum pacis) in this respect, that the latter merely puts an end to one war, while the former would seek to put an end to war for ever. This alliance does not aim at the gain of any power whatsoever of the state, but merely at the preservation and security of the freedom of the state for itself and of other allied states at the same time. The latter do not, however, require, for this reason, to submit themselves like individuals in the state of nature to public laws and coercion. The practicability or objective reality of this idea of federation which is to extend gradually over all states and so lead to perpetual peace can be shewn. For, if Fortune ordains that a powerful and enlightened people should form a republic,—which by its very nature is inclined to perpetual peace—this would serve as a centre of federal union for other states wishing to join, and thus secure conditions of freedom among the states in accordance with the idea of the law of nations. Gradually, through different unions of this kind, the federation would extend further and further.-- I. Kant, Perpetual Peace A Philosophical Essay, translated by Mary Campbell Smith [8:356]
I have, in the past, (recall) emphasized the differences between Adam Smith and Kant on the role that commerce can play in generating peace. I suggested that Kant exhibits a liberal faith in the pacific role of commerce (which I think was first really articulated by Addison), whereas -- to my surprise -- Adam Smith is more cautious; Smith is clearly worried that mercantile interests can capture the state for imperial and colonial projects from which they may well benefit (at the expense of foreign victims and other citizens) [see also this fine paper by Paganelli and Schumacher]. I did so because I wanted to note that there are really two liberal positions in the eighteenth century (for more on Kant's Perpetual Peace and, say, public choice, see here.) Of course, I did not want to deny, which after reading Samuel Fleischacker's (1996) Values behind the Market: Kant's Response to the Wealth of Nations, would be silly anyway, that there are lots of Smithian resonances in "Perpetual Peace," "Idea for a Universal History," "What is Enlightenment?," and "Theory and Practice." Here I would like to add another, somewhat speculative such resonance which I believe has not been remarked upon yet.
In the passage quoted above ("if Fortune ordains that a powerful and enlightened people should form a republic"),* Kant may be alluding to the American experiment (then two decades old). If so, it provided a remarkable existence proof for the possibility of a large republic--something often doubted by folk who saw that the few remaining republics (Holland, Venice, Geneva, Switzerland), while sometimes very wealthy, were relative small and increasingly in retreat against the developing nation-states (France, UK, Brandenburg/Prussia, etc.) Either way, with the appeal to fortune, Kant rejects here (and in multiple other ways), tacitly, the possibility of a Rousseau-style divine legislator who found such a republic. Rather, not unlike Plato (recall) and Smith (recall) he tends to think that good regimes require luck to get off the ground.+
Now, in the passage Kant assumes that a commercial, liberal democracy will be pacific. I call this his 'liberal faith,' but I don't want to deny that Kant has genuinely sober arguments for these (having this do with risk-aversion and sober cost-benefit analysis). These arguments generate a prediction that brings Kant unexpectedly close to Smith: when the citizens can shift the costs of war onto others -- Kant is thinking about the role of war-debts ("the National Debt (Art. 4) is another standing danger to the peaceful co-existence of nations")-- then they will be more willing to take on military adventures. So, both Kant and Smith urge us to think about ways profit-driven interests (Smith calls this 'mercantile spirit') can capture a state's foreign policy and undermine the possible, pacific and economic benefits of commerce.
What Kant has in mind are regional, federated blocks of commercial, liberal democracies with four characteristics: (i) within the blocks, war becomes unthinkable, perhaps even impossible; (ii) they become magnets of prosperity and peace such they grow gradually (the gradualism is important); (iii) each such block redefines its foreign policy interest in part in ideological fashion: to protect and promote the flourishing of other liberal, regional federated blocks; (iv) one embraces a pacific policy toward the other such regional, commercial republican blocks.** This is really distinctive about Kant's position and is, I believe, original with Kant.++
Okay, now let me get to the speculative part. As I have noted before (recall here and here), in the face of the American disturbances, Adam Smith advocated for a bold experiment. After noting that the very idea "of representation was unknown in ancient times," he proposed what he calls the "completion" of the "British constitution:" "the union of Great Britain with her colonies." by way of an Atlantic "assembly." Smith expects that over time, the "seat of the empire would then naturally remove itself to that part of the empire which contributed most to the general defence and support of the whole." (Wealth of Nations, 4.7.2)*** In Book 5, he calls this project "the states general of the British empire, a fair and equal representation of all those different provinces." Such a union would also include better representation for the Irish. (I have discussed some of the limitations of the project here.)
That is, the idea of an expansive, federated commercial republic or liberal democracy, could have suggested itself to Kant by way of Smith's idea of such an Atlantic, States General. For, what Kant and Smith are both drawing on, is the idea of an empire of peace. Unlike the involuntary Ancient empires, the new glue of such voluntary empires (recall my post on Hazony and Brexi), would be trade and representation. It's an open question if such glues are sufficient.
*Here I stipulate that when Kant uses the phrase 'republic' he means what we tend to call a representative or even liberal democracy one with separation of powers and a genuine legislature with a 'spirit of commerce.' There is a lot of Montesquieu in Perpetual Peace.
+If he is alluding to the American experience, then 'fortune' here refers to the role of war in founding it. The British could have kept their empire, after all.
**It is notable how much this anticipates Mazzini. For some of the contrasts with Wilsonian liberalism, see here.
++I am not claiming there are no influences on Kant; in addition to Smith, clearly Montesquieu and (as I learned from Pauline Kleingeld) Cloots are in the background.
***Smith hopes that thereby the balance between the democratic and monarchic (that is executive) is strengthened in the UK. Notice that for Smith representation need not be universal, but grounded in willingness and capacity to pay. (THis is why for him "every tax, however, is to the person who pays it a badge, not of slavery, but of liberty.")
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