The Concept of 'commercial anarchy' in Fichte's 'The Closed Commercial State'

Fiche’s Der geschlossene Handelstaat presents a concept that, on the one hand, plays a role of primary importance for a critique of the ‘liberal liberty’ and, on the other hand, allows for a critical understanding of the aporias of today’s ‘neoliberal condition’. This concept is Handelsanarchie, the ‘commercial anarchy’ of a historical world that aspires to remove every political constraint in order to let the depoliticized economic become the undisputed master. In the following pages, we will conduct an examination of the Fichtean concept of Handelsanarchie in Der geschlossene Handelstaat, then we will outline some considerations (albeit impressionistic) about its critical scope in the current economic convergence of laissez-faire and neoliberal deregulation.