Read Online The relentless revolution: a history of capitalism by Joyce Appleby, Joyce Oldham Appleby - Free Book Online Page B
Authors: Joyce Appleby, Joyce Oldham Appleby
Tags: General, History, Economics, Business & Economics, Historiography, Capitalism - History, Economic History, Capitalism, Free Enterprise
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vast Commerce consists in being supply’d from All Parts of the World, that they may supply All the World again.” 11 But the Dutch were not just traders; they were also accomplished craftsmen. They finished the products that other countries grew or mined, and they benefited handsomely from the value that they added to goods. They took raw wool and turned it into dyed draperies; they transformed timber into wainscoting for the dining rooms of the rich; they made fine paper for the printing presses that abounded in their country; they rolled tobacco into excellent cigars. They even constructed a network of canals to carry goods and passengers that confirmed their ability to fund and organize complex projects. The sailing vessels moored at their wharves looked like so many moving forests; their quays and warehouses spilled over with crates, tubs, barrels, and packages, with cranes moving back and forth to unload silk from China, grain from the Baltic, coal from Newcastle, copper and iron from the mines of Sweden, salt from Spain, wine from France, spices from India, sugar and tobacco from the New World, and timber from Scandinavia. The slaves they took from West Africa to sell in the New World were never brought home. 12
Needless to say, the aristocrats in the societies abutting the Netherlands spoke with disdain of a people so devoted to making money. In their eyes the Dutch were crude, greedy, and cursed by bad manners. The men and women of the Netherlands were notoriously frugal; they were also devoted to their homes. They supported hundreds of artists and artisans who engraved, designed, and crafted adornments for themselves and their houses. Dutch artists contributed a whole new genre of painting depicting ordinary people at ordinary tasks. Without noble patrons, the arts found new sponsors in the growing prosperous middle class that also supported engravers, book designers, and musicians. With artists like Rembrandt and Vermeer, the Netherlands had little to be ashamed of when it came to culture.
The Portuguese too felt the sting of Dutch commercial assertiveness. They claimed to be lords of the “conquest, navigation, and commerce of Ethiopia, India, Arabia, and Persia,” but Dutch sailors who had served on Portuguese ships brought back home descriptions of this vast trading empire. They also reported that Portuguese control was not as effective as their titles suggested. 13 An even more egregious insult came when the Dutch occupied the richest part of Brazil between 1635 and 1644, an invasion the Dutch paid for by seizing the Spanish silver fleet.
Like most Dutch trading ventures, the first one to Java was financed cooperatively by a group of diverse investors. Despite an awkward maiden voyage, this Dutch fleet of three ships returned with enough pepper to cover its costs. The rivalry among Dutch merchants launched a dozen more ventures in the next decade. This led the States-General to form the Dutch East India Company in 1602 with monopoly trading privileges west of the Strait of Magellan and east of the Cape of Good Hope. It also received the right to exercise sovereign authority in the name of the Dutch Republic. Though impressive, such a charter was actually a hunting license; it would be in the waters and islands of the East Indies that the Dutch would have to make good their claims. Twenty years later a Dutch West India Company was chartered with a commercial monopoly in West Africa and the New World. Like its model, the company was granted the quasi-governmental powers of maintaining an army and navy, making war within its ambit of operation, and assuming judicial and administrative functions in its region.
Within one generation the Dutch had established themselves as the dominant power in the Malay Archipelago. With breathtaking efficiency, they supplanted the Portuguese, driving them back to a few fortified positions, which they held until the twentieth century. The Dutch East India Company had to fight
Needless to say, the aristocrats in the societies abutting the Netherlands spoke with disdain of a people so devoted to making money. In their eyes the Dutch were crude, greedy, and cursed by bad manners. The men and women of the Netherlands were notoriously frugal; they were also devoted to their homes. They supported hundreds of artists and artisans who engraved, designed, and crafted adornments for themselves and their houses. Dutch artists contributed a whole new genre of painting depicting ordinary people at ordinary tasks. Without noble patrons, the arts found new sponsors in the growing prosperous middle class that also supported engravers, book designers, and musicians. With artists like Rembrandt and Vermeer, the Netherlands had little to be ashamed of when it came to culture.
The Portuguese too felt the sting of Dutch commercial assertiveness. They claimed to be lords of the “conquest, navigation, and commerce of Ethiopia, India, Arabia, and Persia,” but Dutch sailors who had served on Portuguese ships brought back home descriptions of this vast trading empire. They also reported that Portuguese control was not as effective as their titles suggested. 13 An even more egregious insult came when the Dutch occupied the richest part of Brazil between 1635 and 1644, an invasion the Dutch paid for by seizing the Spanish silver fleet.
Like most Dutch trading ventures, the first one to Java was financed cooperatively by a group of diverse investors. Despite an awkward maiden voyage, this Dutch fleet of three ships returned with enough pepper to cover its costs. The rivalry among Dutch merchants launched a dozen more ventures in the next decade. This led the States-General to form the Dutch East India Company in 1602 with monopoly trading privileges west of the Strait of Magellan and east of the Cape of Good Hope. It also received the right to exercise sovereign authority in the name of the Dutch Republic. Though impressive, such a charter was actually a hunting license; it would be in the waters and islands of the East Indies that the Dutch would have to make good their claims. Twenty years later a Dutch West India Company was chartered with a commercial monopoly in West Africa and the New World. Like its model, the company was granted the quasi-governmental powers of maintaining an army and navy, making war within its ambit of operation, and assuming judicial and administrative functions in its region.
Within one generation the Dutch had established themselves as the dominant power in the Malay Archipelago. With breathtaking efficiency, they supplanted the Portuguese, driving them back to a few fortified positions, which they held until the twentieth century. The Dutch East India Company had to fight
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