Commerce/trade as analogs to warfare ...

[allodial]

Both the Chinese and Greeks spoke about types of societies and their professions.

For both the Chinese and Greeks, a society where merchants and traders were the most prominent was the least moral.

Because it usually involves defrauding and stealing from the creative and the productive?

[shikamaru]

Both the Chinese and Greeks spoke about types of societies and their professions.

For both the Chinese and Greeks, a society where merchants and traders were the most prominent was the least moral.

[allodial]

Another problem with commerce, is that it has been exalted to a place in modern society where it ought not be and where a sane electorate should not allow it to be. Another trick has been the errant in making people think manufacturers and people who overall make things to be involved in commerce when commerce is the realm of bankers and retailers who make nothing and only wheel and deal in things that others make.

[shikamaru]

... as are law, civilization, religion, politics ....

... and love (reproduction) (Recall the phrase, "All is fair in love and war").

All the aforementioned are analogues of warfare.

Civilization is the process of making the uncivil civil.

What do I mean?

Behavior that is typically considered uncivil will become regulated as to who, what, when, where, why, and how it can be done.
Violence and aggression are regulated, redirected, or transmuted into other actions.

The problem with commerce/trade, in my opinion, is that people have been trained (brainwashing, psychological warfare) to act as 'sitting ducks' within it rather than building up one's fortifications and assembling troops.