Free House of Steel: The Honorverse Companion by David Weber

economies of the People’s Republic’s other member systems.
    “They see the star systems they control as a closed internal market, one they can lock other producers out of with protectionist measures to create a situation in which market demand can be satisfied only out of their domestic industry. Protectionism is supposed to create a situation in which market pressures will support the development of the industry their top-down system hasn’t generated, and they don’t care if that drives their subjects’ standard of living down by driving prices up . And they intend to concentrate all of that new industry in the Haven System and their older daughter colonies. I believe they used to call that sort of thinking ‘mercantilism’ back on Old Earth.”
    The crown prince shook his head, his expression grim.
    “I think your analysts are missing that because from the perspective of the PRH and its citizens as a whole, it’s very, very bad policy. But from the perspective of the Haven System—which is all the Legislaturalists are actually concerned about at the moment, when all’s said—it makes good short-term sense. In essence, they’re looting the economies of the systems they’re conquering—excuse me, peacefully annexing—” his irony was withering “in order to prop up and grow their own domestic economy in Nouveau Paris. In the end, it’s going to wind up costing them far more for manufactured goods and they’re going to take a hammering on lost foreign markets for their own products, but it will force the growth of their own heavy industry in the systems which are most important to them. And because it’s an ultimately ir rational policy from the perspective of the PRH as a whole, your rational analysts missed it.”
    Seawell started to say something, then made himself stop and closed his mouth firmly. He sat that way for several seconds before he nodded grudgingly.
    “You may— may , I say—have a valid point there, Your Highness. I’ll certainly sit down with my staff and examine all of our models in the light of what you and Dame Alice have just said. Having said that, however,” he continued, rallying gamely, “the fact remains that increasing the Navy budget yet again is going to place a very serious strain on the economy as a whole. Because of that—”

    “You did well, Roger. Very well,” Samantha Winton said, sipping her tea. “I was particularly impressed when you didn’t reach across the table and pull his tonsils out through his nose.”
    “I thought I concealed my unhappiness rather well, actually, Mom,” he replied, sitting back with a tankard of cold beer while Monroe purred across the back of his chair. “Besides, if I wanted his tonsils, I’d ask Monroe to extract them. His claws are a lot better equipped for that kind of surgery.”
    Samantha chuckled, and Monroe reached out to smack Roger gently on top of the head with a true-hand. Roger smiled, but there was a carefully hidden darkness behind that smile as he looked at his mother. She’d aged noticeably over the last couple of years, and something inside him raged at her increasing frailty, the slight bend in her spine that defied everything the doctors could do. It wasn’t right—it wasn’t fair !—for her to be visibly fading in front of him when she was barely thirty T-years older than he was.
    “Don’t go giving Monroe any ideas,” she said sternly after a moment. “’Cats are very direct souls. If you give him the idea that he can go around dissecting cabinet ministers, it’s going to get very messy.”
    “Not if he and I make a few salutary examples right up front, surely!” Roger replied. “Just one or two. I’m sure the others would get the idea and begin deferring suitably to my tyrannical whims.”
    “I wish,” Samantha said with rather less humor.
    She set down her teacup and leaned back in her chair, closing her eyes for a moment, and Roger felt a fresh pang as Magnus looked down at her