The capitalist system is usually associated with Anglo-Saxon culture, but the City of London and its advantaged daughter of Wall Street had a model of success to look to. This, in fact, was recognized as such already in the 18th century by Adam Smith himself. Because “the Netherlands was one of the pioneers of capitalism,” states the essay of the same name, “with an economy that, already in the 15th century and certainly in the western part of the country, was oriented above all to the market.” Among the satisfactions of Pioneers of Capitalism are several surprising theories. One of them is even structural, by extending the chronological range of the work more than predicted.
Significantly subtitled The Netherlands 1000-1800, this masterclass in economic history, with profuse touches of politics, sociology and religion, does not limit itself to dissecting the Dutch Golden Age. It deals, of course, and with radiographic depth, with that period with its epicenter in the 17th century. However, this work, signed by two eminences of the University of Utrecht, Maarten Prak, recently retired as professor of Economic and Social History, and Jan Luiten van Zanden, of Global Economic History, goes back to the origins of Dutch capitalism, and with it the universal, to times as unexpected as the early medieval times. Likewise, the speech does not interrupt in 1800, but a couple of decades later, with projections from then to the present.
Another original perspective, which is important in the essay, lies in its leitmotiv on the influence of ordinary Dutch citizens in the expansion, modulation and consolidation of the market economy and its institutions. It would have been a more horizontal and pragmatic introduction than one projected from high places. Also striking is the incorporation of feudalism and the Church into the forces that created medieval proto-capitalism in the Netherlands.
It is also worth highlighting the interesting economic re-readings that the volume invites of episodes such as the Black Death or the Flanders War. Or the pointing out of systemic contradictions, such as the freedoms essential for commercial flourishing in the metropolis while its colonialist side, embodied by the Dutch East India Company, exuded blood, slavery and oppression.
A highly informed work, studded with hard data, comparative tables and curve graphs, without ever sacrificing pedagogy. A new prescriptive reference on the birth and evolution of the prevailing economic order.