"At that time merchants controlled trade." Yes, dear student. That is the DEFINITION of a merchant.
I still remember when we caught Scott Adams red-handed around 2011 making fake accounts on MetaFilter to pump himself up, acting like he was a fan posting random fawning comments. I sent a link to Nick Denton and he published it all on Gawker, then it came out Scott had more sockpuppet accounts on reddit doing the same thing, arguing in favor of Scott Adams and his brilliance.
He's always been an awful human being.