Dutch Republic was much stronger in decades after Tulip Mania

[David Farber <dave () farber net>]

Begin forwarded message:

> From: "Dirk van der Woude" <dirkvanderwoude () gmail com>
> Date: September 29, 2008 11:01:25 AM EDT
> To: dave () farber net
> Cc: "Dekker, Vincent" <v.dekker () trouw nl>
> Subject: Dutch Republic was much stronger in decades after Tulip Mania
> Reply-To: dhvanderwoude () gmail com
>
> Dave, for IP if you wish.
>
> Ehrr - the Tulip mania was in 1637 That's several decades
> before the real high power of the Dutch Republic, the years it
> kept the mightiest ever French King Louis XIV more or less
> under it's thumb. In the same periode the Dutch even managed
> to conquer the UK, get their Stadtholder William crowned as
> king etc. From 1688 for some two years London was patrolled
> by Dutch soldiers (or perhaps German soldiers in Dutch pay,
> my landspeople always being masters of outsourcing).
> So the decay, if there was one, certainly was started by the
> tulip mania related.
>
> The influence of the Dutch Republic waned after the 17e century,
> however not so much financially. Like up to the mid 1800's all of
> the USA debt was to Dutch financers - indeed the first foreign
> loan to the USA was 5 million guilders in 1782, secured by
> Mr John Adams. Other statistics show that even in the early
> 1800's the income per capita in the Netherlands was the
> second highest of Europe, albeit massively unfairly distributed.
>
> There is another theory, on the waning of the Dutch influence,
> to me much more plausible: the Dutch capital and brains in the
> mid 1600's and especially after the Glorious Revolution of 1688
> moved to the UK. Recently Lisa Jardine in a new book revived
> the vision of Charles Wilson in the 40's of last century. Below
> some excerpts of a review published this month.
>
> From Amsterdam,
> Dirk van der Woude
>
>
> http://tinyurl.com/3vdfkn
> 'Going Dutch' is elegant and thought-provoking
>
> By JONATHAN LOPEZ, For The Associated Press Mon Sep 15, 5:47 PM ET
>
> "Going Dutch: How England Plundered Holland's Glory" (Harper. 432  
> pages. $35), by Lisa Jardine: In November 1688, Prince William of  
> Orange, the elected leader of the Dutch republic, set sail from the  
> port of Hellevoetsluis in command of a 450-ship invasion fleet bound  
> for England.
>
> William's 20,000 troops landed on the coast of Devon, marched to  
> London and deposed King James II, who was allowed to flee to France  
> after a brief period of captivity. Coercing the approval of  
> Parliament, William and his wife then usurped James' throne,  
> assuming the roles of king and queen of England. Or, at least,  
> that's one way to describe what happened.
>
> This revisionist account of the Glorious Revolution — a watershed  
> moment that's more often seen as a rejection of James' abusive rule  
> by his own subjects — forms the centerpiece of London University  
> professor Lisa Jardine's elegant and thought-provoking new book,  
> "Going Dutch," a sweeping chronicle of the intellectual, political  
> and cultural links forged between England and the Netherlands during  
> the 17th century.
>
> "Going Dutch" opens with a simple question: Why has the Dutch  
> invasion of 1688 gone down in the history books as a popular English  
> uprising? "Why is there no trace of this mighty armada ... in  
> conventional historical accounts of the so-called 'Glorious  
> Revolution'?" Jardine asks. "Why are so few of us aware that at the  
> time of the English Parliament's 'welcoming' of William ... the  
> country was in the grip of a full-scale military occupation?"
>
> (...) Deftly tracing the movements of people and ideas in fields  
> ranging from monetary policy to garden design, Jardine evokes a  
> dialogue of civilizations in which attitudes on both sides of the  
> Anglo-Dutch divide developed in tandem. She argues that this pre- 
> existing web of cultural exchange helped smooth over the abrupt  
> transition from the reign of James to that of William and Mary, and  
> made it seem, in hindsight, less like a foreign takeover than a  
> purely internal English dispute.
>
> (...)
>
> In Jardine's view, the English and the Dutch developed a special  
> affinity that not only brought the two cultures together but also  
> disqualified other nations, to some extent, from participating in  
> the conversation. The English, for example, consciously emulated  
> Dutch financial practices, which were generally acknowledged to be  
> superior. And as England's financial institutions grew increasingly  
> similar to their counterparts in the Netherlands, both countries  
> decreased their transactions with France. The English and Dutch,  
> Jardine suggests, became birds of a feather who flocked together.
>
> (...)
>
> The subtitle of "Going Dutch," for example, is "How England  
> Plundered Holland's Glory," but we learn only on page 357 that  
> Jardine intends this phrase to refer to the declining cultural  
> influence of the Netherlands and the rising influence of Great  
> Britain during the 18th century. This discussion, which lies  
> somewhat beyond the scope and timeframe of "Going Dutch," seems very  
> much like a movie trailer for an upcoming sequel.
>
>
>
>
> On Mon, Sep 29, 2008 at 3:38 PM, David Farber <dave () farber net> wrote:
>
>
> Begin forwarded message:
>
> From: "Dave Wilson" <dave () wilson net>
> Date: September 29, 2008 9:00:00 AM EDT
> To: "David Farber" <dave () farber net>
> Subject: tulips
>
> I decided to reread the chapter on the Dutch tulip mania of the 17th  
> century from a 19th century tome, "Extraordinary Popular Delusions  
> and the Madness of Crowds" by an English journalist, Charles Mackay  
> (note that modern free market thinkers believe this account is BS,  
> because there can by definition be no speculative manias in a free  
> market). Anyway, I was struck by this paragraph, which details what  
> happened after a few years when the music stopped and the price of  
> tulip bulbs stopped going up (the subsequent decline marks,  
> coincidentally or not, the end of the Netherlands as a world power):
>
> " At last, however, the more prudent began to see that this folly  
> could not last for ever. Rich people no longer bought the flowers to  
> keep them in their gardens, but to sell them again at cent. per  
> cent. profit. It was seen that somebody must lose fearfully in the  
> end. As this conviction spread, prices fell, and never rose again.  
> Confidence was destroyed, and a universal panic seized upon the  
> dealers. A had agreed to purchase ten Sempers Augustines from B, at  
> four thousand florins each, at six weeks after the signing of the  
> contract. B was ready with the flowers at the appointed time; but  
> the price had fallen to three or four hundred florins, and A refused  
> either to pay the difference or receive the tulips. Defaulters were  
> announced day after day in all the towns of Holland. Hundreds who, a  
> few months previously, had begun to doubt that there was such a  
> thing as poverty in the land, suddenly found themselves the  
> possessors of a few bulbs, which nobody would buy, even though they  
> offered them at one quarter of the sums they had paid for them. The  
> cry of distress resounded everywhere, and each man accused his  
> neighbour. The few who had contrived to enrich themselves hid their  
> wealth from the knowledge of their fellow-citizens, and invested it  
> in the English or other funds. Many who, for a brief season, had  
> emerged from the humbler walks of life, were cast back into their  
> original obscurity. Substantial merchants were reduced almost to  
> beggary, and many a representative of a noble line saw the fortunes  
> of his house ruined beyond redemption."
>
> Archives        
>
>
>
> --
> A successful society is characterized by a rising living standard  
> for its population, increasing investment in factories and basic  
> infrastructure, and the generation of additional surplus, which is  
> invested in generating new discoveries in science and technology.
> --Robert Trout




-------------------------------------------
Archives: https://www.listbox.com/member/archive/247/=now
RSS Feed: https://www.listbox.com/member/archive/rss/247/
Powered by Listbox: http://www.listbox.com