Hence the preponderant role of the colonial system in those days. The new god proclaimed the making of surplus value to be the sole end and aim of mankind. The colonial system, with its seaborn commerce and its trading wars, served as a forcing house. That is why the credit system first struck firm roots in Holland. Hence, logically enough, the modern doctrine that a nation grows richer the more deeply it is in debt.
Public credit becomes the credo of capital.
With the rise of the system of national debt, want of faith in this institution comes to be regarded as the unpardonable sin, the sin against the Holy Ghost. The public debt becomes one of the most powerful stimuli of primary accumulation. The creditors of the State, in actual fact, surrender nothing, for the money that they lend is tranformed into public bonds, easily negotiable, bonds which for practical purposes can serve as so much hard cash. From the first, the great banks, decorated with national titles, were merely associations of private speculators, who took up their stand by the side of goverments, and, thanks to the privileges they received, were in a position to advance money to the State. Hence the accumulation of the national debt has no more infallible index than the successive rises in the stock of these banks, whose full development dates from the foundation of the bank of England in 1694.