Link to Chronology
Natural liberty
A History of Europe by Henri PirenneUniversity Books, first published 1938 but written during the Great War
Book Nine
The Renaissance and the Reformation
Chapter I
The Transformation of Social Life From the Middle of the Fifteenth Century
2. The Renaissance in the Rest of Europe
p515 ... The great novelty that appeared at this time was capitalism...
From... [the end of the 12th century] capitalism, to the north of the Alps... was hindered, supervised, restricted. It could operate only by evading the regulations, and it had little vitality, being crushed by Italian competition. The ecclesiastical and civil laws with regard to lending money at interest were also not without effect...
p516 But this situation began to undergo transformation as early as the first half of the 15th century. A new class of capitalists began to make its appearance almost everywhere in Flanders, France, and England, and in those cities of Southern Germany which maintained commercial relations with Venice. It consisted of new men; it was not in any sense the continuation of the old patriciate. It was a group of adventurers, of parvenus, like all those groups that made their appearance during each economic transformation. They did not work with old, accumulated capital. This they acquired only at a later stage. Like the mercatores of the 12th century, and the inventors and industrialists of the late 18th and the 19th century, these pioneers bought, [brought?] as their sole investment, their energy and their intelligence or cunning.
Their device, the device of the conquistadors of wealth, was liberty. It was liberty that their predecessors of the 12th century had demanded -- enfranchisement from the shackles of the agricultural and feudal system, which prevented the expansion of commerce. The liberty that the new men demanded was that which would enfranchise them from the urban regulations of the monopolies enjoyed by the trade corporations, the restrictions imposed upon sale and purchase, the control of the markets, the fixing of wages by the law, the official apprenticeship, and the privileges which, in every city, reserved commerce for the burgesses and reduced the stranger to the status of pariah. What they claimed was the common right to engage in industry and commerce, which must be rescued from municipal exclusivism, and disencumbered of those privileges which were doubtless indispensable when industry and commerce were in their infancy, but which were now preventing their development. What they wanted was "natural liberty," liberty without qualification, not a restrictive liberty as understood by the bourgeois, which was as incompatible with the "general liberty" as the "liberty" of the nobles had been with that of the villeins. [It would be interesting to reevaluate the founding documents of the United States with this sense of "liberty" in mind.] They wanted the cities to be accessible to all, so that all could share in their commerce; so that they would no longer exist merely for their own burgesses. But they also wanted the power to industrialize the countryside, to draw upon that great reservoir of labor, to employ hands that were accustomed to guide the plough, and by their aid, thanks to the law of tariff of wages, [I don't know what this means] to compete with the trade guilds of the cities: and all the more victoriously, inasmuch as, not being subject to their regulations, they could manufacture, at their own pace, as much as they wished, employ such methods as were convenient or useful, follow the changes of the fashions, market their products where they chose, and conclude such contracts as suited them.
p517 These adventurers... were favored by the political changes no less than by the inability of the cities to maintain their privileges in the midst of a progressive civilization. The princes, who required more and more money as the cost of wars increased, had need of them. It was more convenient to make use of these men of business than to parley with the States-General for taxes... now the native man of affairs was beginning to replace the Italian [at the courts of Philip the Fair and Edward III]. In Austria the Fuggers obtained the right to exploit the silver mines of the Tyrol, Bohemia and Hungary, thereby laying the foundation of their fortune outside the cities... [Goethe may have had this in mind when he wrote about Mephisto and mining in Faust.]
p518 These new capitalists did not appear in consequence of an extension of the market... nor had the population increased, but in consequence of the unaccustomed necessities which arose in the course of the formation of new States.
...The cities could not contend on equal terms against these newcomers, who had their agents everywhere, forestalling and monopolizing, and supporting the new political powers. By means of their capital new industries were established in the countryside... a "new" textile industry had been established in Flanders, at Hondschoot and Armentieres, despite the opposition of the cities... The same thing happened in England, where new manufacturing centers were established. For example, the making of tapestries became a rural industry. And a rural industry was a capitalist industry. [This reminds me of something Jane Jacobs wrote about in Cities and the Wealth of Nations. She described corporations building isolated facilities in rural areas -- usually with tax credits -- that had very little multiplier value to the local community because they were simply a cog in a national or international machine, with no urban industrial vitality.] A completely novel mode of production made its appearance. The supervision which the trade guilds imposed upon the workers and the market was replaced by liberty. The peasant turned weaver contracted with a "master," but his wages and his labor were not subject to regulation... The small workshop survived, but it became degraded... it lost its independence by subordinating itself to a new system -- the system of manufacture. The urban industry, encompassed by its privileges, like a rampart raised against capital, managed to survive by producing for the local market. Its guilds and corporations continued to exist until the end of the ancien regime... The whole of the new industrial development, from the 15th century onwards, was opposed to it and outside it. The urban cloth industry of Flanders, the great export industry of the Middle Ages, lapsed into decadence after the middle of the 14th century. Owing to its excessive prices and its conservatism, it could not cope with the competition of the new English cloth trade and the rural weaving industry. The linen industry which replaced it until the age of factories was entirely rural.
This sound so much like the story of industry in the U.S.A. following the 1960s. There's something else I'm noticing here, because Pirenne has taken a good deal of trouble that I should: One of the curious characteristics of the domainal order was that there was no incentive for innovation. A domain had a relatively fixed population and a fixed requirement for food and goods. All that was necessary was that this requirement be met. A surplus was not needed. More efficient production didn't get you much. The rise of the bourgeois cities changed this and encouraged innovation and increased production for a wider market. But then the petit bourgeois guild system again created an order where innovation was undesirable. It was in the interest of the masters, at least, that production and prices remained stable. Guilds were basically local monopolies. Now, we are seeing how the next level of capitalism is again introducing innovation and the "liberty" of the capitalist to reduce both the cost of goods and the cost of production. I don't expect Pirenne will get to the rise of European cartels in the 20th century. I.G. Farben was a way of creating a new kind of monopoly on a new scale of production, but the aim was the same as with the guild masters. Osram was the purest -- or most clever -- version of the cartel monopoly trend of that time. Siemens and AEG simply combined their respective lighting businesses in that market and offered one line of products and split the profits. Once again there would be no incentive to innovate as there was little outside competition. (That's not entirely the case, as there would still be an advantage in reducing the cost of production. But if your profit is guaranteed anyway, there's no reason to go to the trouble since you can simply raise prices if you need a higher profit.)]
p520 ... The example of Bruges is characteristic. As early as the middle of the 15th century its cosmopolitan customers were beginning to desert it for the young port of Antwerp. Here business was not burdened by tradition; commerce was able to organize itself from the very outset in accordance with the new spirit. This was a city which was adapted to future needs; for economic history shows us clearly how new needs were accompanied by a displacement of social classes and business centers. In England the "merchant adventurers" made their appearance, while the Dutch merchant fleet began to replace that of the Hansa. [I can't help wondering, without actually knowing anything, if the inaccessibility of the port of Bruges, compared with Antwerp, also may have played a role here. Just as New York superseded Philadelphia at least in part because it is difficult and slow to sail a ship into Philadelphia, the Medieval advantage of Bruges -- less accessible to Viking raiders -- became a disadvantage over time and that disadvantage would only increase as ships grew larger. If Bruges had been better placed, perhaps the factors Pirenne writes about could have been overcome, but with Antwerp available as a handy alternative, why even bother?] At the moment when this development had already made considerable progress an unlimited field of enterprise was opened by the discovery of the New World. This so completely transformed the surface of the globe that it seemed almost like a planetary catastrophe... the transformation of so many peoples, the hybridization of some, the annihilation of others, and the appearance of so many new products, which modified the conditions of life: tea, coffee, and tobacco, which conquered the markets of Europe, the introduction of cotton, and of our domestic animals, in America; and lastly, the gigantic achievements which were to open new highways for world traffic -- Suez, Panama. Of course, all of this did not happen all at once, and the immortal mariners who "saw new stars emerging from the waves" neither desired nor could have divined the future that they were opening up for Europe. [I have to pause here. He hasn't even mentioned the potato! The initial impact of the European discovery of the New World was what we would today call "academic." It would not have affected the average person, or average business person in the least. Now the formation of the Dutch and English East Indies companies would have repercussions both in the acquisition of wealth and in the kitchen. Many of the worst crimes of European history came from the efforts of multiple states to monetize the Americas. For the Spaniards this meant developing the silver trade. For the Dutch, French, and English it started with the sugar trade which lead directly to the slave trade and then the cotton trade (I believe.) American silver would come to bolster Spain and was the foundation of Habsburg power for a time while it at the same time held dire consequences for the Ottoman Empire. While sugar changed Europe -- in ways that are revealed in Dutch portrait painting -- the humble potato truly changed the world from Ireland and Scotland to Germany to Afghanistan.]... The Europe of the 15th century was not overpopulated; it had no need of colonies, and Portugal in particular... was not conscious of the least need of extending her commerce. There was nothing of the mercantile prince about Henry the Navigator. He was actuated by scientific curiosity and the desire to propagate the Faith. They were purely spiritual aspirations that gave rise to the discovery of the lands of gold and spices... But it must be admitted that without the development attained by Mediterranean navigation at the beginning of the 15th century these discoveries would have been impossible...
p522 The voyages of Christopher Columbus... would have been inconceivable without the science of the Renaissance... His plans were too audacious for the Portuguese court, but the Spaniards allowed themselves to be persuaded... on October 3rd, 1492... [his caravels] reached the Antilles. There was still more than half the circumference of the earth between them and the Indies! The world was much larger than Toscanelli had supposed; all his calculations were erroneous, but, as so often happens, the very errors of science were fruitful, and in this case they led to the discovery of America. The subsequent voyages of Columbus (1492-1502) and the voyage of his compatriot Sebastian Cabot, who entered the service of Henry VII of England, revealed the stupendous nature of the discovery, by reaching the American mainland... Cabot [discovering] the coast of Labrador... [Where he discovered the Basque fishing fleet drying their catch on the shore. How exactly is is a "discovery" when you stumble upon the the place generations of Europeans have been working?] It was not until 1513 that the Pacific Ocean was seen from the heights of the Isthmus of panama...
p523 From the first years of the 16th century the consequences of these marvelous discoveries were manifested in the economic life of Europe. The first of these consequences was that the headquarters of the Oriental trade was removed from the Italian ports of the Mediterranean to the shores of the Atlantic Ocean. The spices which the caravans brought to the ports of the Levant, whence they were carried by the trading vessels of Genoa and Venice, could not long compete, either in quantity or in price, with those which the Portuguese and Spanish ships brought direct from the Equatorial countries in which they were produced. Italy... found that the springs of her prosperity were drying up, and the drought was a prolonged one. Until the day when the piercing of the Suez Canal (1869) made it the highway to the Indian Ocean, the Mediterranean lost the great commercial importance which it had enjoyed without interruption since the dawn of civilization. But neither Spain nor Portugal took its place; neither Cadiz nor Lisbon was the heir of Venice and Genoa. The commercial hegemony which these ports had hitherto enjoyed fell to the lot of Antwerp.
...It is not enough that ships should bring merchandise to the port; they must also be able to obtain wares in exchange... the manner in which the trade in spices and precious metals was carried on in Portugal and Spain prevented the establishment of powerful commercial houses. The Crown, as the possessor of the overseas factories and colonies, excluded foreigners from them, and reserved for itself, as a monopoly, the greater part of the import trade. Its agents were entrusted with the sale of the imported products, and in order that they might sell them more promptly and more readily the Crown took good care not to exclude those very foreigners who were forbidden access to the country where the merchandise was produced. Accordingly, from the beginning of the 16th century the capitalist merchants of Antwerp maintained at Cadiz, and above all in Lisbon, factors who were entrusted with the purchase of the precious wares. Consequently the seaport of the Scheldt became the great international emporium for spices. Only there did they become the objects of commercial transactions and enter into circulation... Never has any other port, at any period, enjoyed such world-wide importance, because none has ever been so open to all comers, and, in the full sense of the word, so cosmopolitan. Antwerp remained faithful to the liberty which had made her fairs so successful in the 15th century. She attracted and welcomed capitalists from all parts of Europe, and as their numbers increased so did their opportunities of making their fortune. Germans, Englishmen, Frenchmen, Portuguese, Spaniards and Italians, all hurried thither. And there was not a single great bank or commercial house without its representatives in Antwerp. The great financial power of the 16th century, the Fuggers, had their headquarters at Augsburg, but it was their Antwerp branch that made the most enormous profits. This rendezvous of contractors, merchants, sailors and adventurers became the center of the commercial world... There was no supervision, no control: foreigners did business with other foreigners as freely as with the burgesses and the natives of the country at their daily meetings. Buyers and sellers sought one another out and came to terms without intermediaries. Prices were fixed, and credits were opened by the commercial companies, and speculation claimed its first victims. From the year 1531 all this commercial activity was concentrated under the galleries of a special building constructed at the expense of the city, the Bourse, the forerunner and model of the future Exchanges of London and Amsterdam.
I'm going to break here so we can bask in the glory days of what would one day be Pirenne's Belgium..
No comments:
Post a Comment