State vs. Market

Hi,

To ataman
Sorry I had to provoc you. Early 19th century Russia was indeed very
powerful. Though, saying it was the most powerful european country is I
think a bite far to reach when you compere it to England

I think one has to admit pikeshot explanation was excellent.

Also I would like to add a few things. As pikeshot said modern market
and modern state developed together and their rise was linked. But if you
considere the situation in 1500 and the situation in 1800, one thing is
mighty obvious: a clear line has been drawn between where the state
acts and where the market plays (of course some important exceptions
remain). What is interesting is to look at how, while growing together and
helping each other, the state and the market have drawn this demarcation
line. Most likely there were conflicts. This line is not always in the same
place according to the country we're talking about, why?

Personaly, I guess (but can't really prove it yet) the State earned more in
the process than the market. Indeed, if the market was largely
independent from the state in the 15th century, in most places, it is
under the state's rule in 1800. Hence the state has used the market more
than the market has used the state. For example, the mercenaries have
almost disappeared during Napoleonic wars and the English joint stock
companies are not any longer the diplomatic means for the crown non-
European foreign policies. As a joke (what a joke) I call it the "trick of the
reason of state".

Voil�, ciao.

Edited by Maharbbal

My smart ass is now all chapped after what you did to it

To ataman: AE's great I've met the one and only Pole russian nationalist.
lol

Bye

Originally posted by Maharbbal To ataman Russia the strongest country of 18-19th centuries?

Of course. In that time Russia was stronger than Prussia, Austria, Ottoman Empire, Sweden and even France. So, was there any stronger country than Russia - this Russia which was 'a gendarme of Europa' in the first half of 19th c.?

Hi,
Maju, you pointed out something very true: the importance of land
property system in the shape a stata has. Also, feudal state doesn't
always equal big properties (latifundia) seen for instance Scotland.

Then I didn't exactly got what you meant about English and Dutch states.
But if you consider them as weak, I think you're extremely wrong. These
two weak states had the two best navies and some of the best equiped
and trained armies of the period. Ask to Philip IV, Louis XIV and Georges
Washington if they see English and Dutch state as weak entities.
What is true is that they were fairly liberal compered to ablolutist France
or Spain; but if you compere the taxe rate in France and in the United
Provinces, it is much higher in the latter. For Dutch republic it is precisly
the bourgeois class that backs up the state.
Please give me the references of a book about Navarre history.

Pikeshot are you lazy or upset?

Bye.

Originally posted by ataman Originally posted by Maju Feudal regions were those not where the entral state was weak such as Germany or Poland, Maju, what do you mean by 'entral state'?

He means central state.

 

Navarre was a non-feudal state for the most part. Navarrese or Basque law is not based in Roman law (at least as far as we know) and allows private property and the concept of indivisibility of the family property, so only one of the potential heirs get the house and the land (normally the youngest) - the rest had to search fortune elsewhere (military, sailing, priesthood, trade). Noblemen (lords, earls) were named by the King and were merely administrators with no possibility of transmission of their dignity to their heirs. This was actually behind many treasons of aristocrats that favored Castile and Aragon against Navarre. In the late centuries, Navarre slowly feudalized, but some detached Basque territories (annexed to Castile as separate states, like Biscay) kept a most pure form of the traditional law, with no feudalism or almost.

This allowed for a burgueois class and working class to appear rather easily, as what most hinders the developement of capitalism is the lack of "free" workforce. For this reason (plus iron deposits and strategic trade position), the Basque Country became one of the most developed areas in Spain, where most of the country was very feudal and, therefore, backwards.

...

I don't think that the options you show are realistic: there were just feudal regions and non-feudal or weekly feudal regions. The state was too weak anywhere to talk about such entity too much. Feudal regions were those not where the entral state was weak such as Germany or Poland, but those in which the workforce was tied to the land and great aristocratic property was dominant. Without a middle class of free peasants and burgueoises, those regions were bound to remain backwards until the force of the change in neighbour regions affected them indirectly.

That's why England and the Low Countries spearheaded the Industrial Revolution: because they had a more modern social composition with a relatievly strong middle class.

There was never any option for strong state nor remaining feudalist was any option that offered anymore than being a "thrid world country" of the time.

...

Only after England had completed the first phase of the Industrial Revolution, was the the state an important option: it became clear that open markets would only make the other countries dependent on British dominance in the global market and that the state had to protect national developement. Portectionism appeared as  trasitional tool for the local developement of capitalism, allowing continental states to reach up. The only exception to this rule may be the USA, but this was caused surely by the "unlimited" energy that the colonization of the West (a huge colonial area itself) introduced in the system.

...

Soon after the new powers were defying Britain for hegemony: race for Africa, WWI, WWII...

Originally posted by pikeshot1600 Maju: Please join in again.  There is much to discuss about capital and capitalism's development in the early modern age.

Sorry. I can't really follow the logic of this thread. I'm missing something in the evry definiton of the topic.

Halevi:

I think there is a lot of misunderstanding about how the "state" as we understand it formed, and why it did so in the way it did.

People seem to think that governing and authority in the seventeenth century was not too different from now since that was the beginning of "modern" times.  People have a very skewed view of the "absolute" monarchy.

There also seems to be a great misunderstanding of how things got paid for, and what was acceptable as payment.  All part of the Market.  The multinationals of their day were the trading companies (and their armed forces).

 

Edited by pikeshot1600

I would have liked to teach, but there were no jobs.  Something else worked out (much better income).

There is still plenty to be said.  Let's go into the Portuguese and the Dutch.  I think the Portuguese experience is quite remarkable considering how small the country was.

Maharbbal:

Sorry I didn't get back sooner.

As we discussed above, the embryonic "state" was an extension of private interest, i.e. the estate(s) of a ruler.....prince/duke/king.  As a private interest, he can hire whomever he wants to manage his lands or collect rents or brew beer.  Same with a ruler who wars with others.  He hires or retains a few experienced soldiers to recruit troops.  Example #1 above.

In order to be able to hire and armed force, the ruler either pays for it himself, or borrows the funds from (A) the soldiers like Frundsburg or Wallenstein, or (B) banking houses as Spain mostly did.  Example #2

Example #3 seems to be an additional item, but I think another applicable example is "tax farming."  The ruler may have troublesome social estates (as opposed to his property) towns, freeholders, etc.  In order to collect as much as he can, he uses local connections to collect and remit money or in-kind payment for fees or commissions.  Private revenue raising for public purposes.

Example #3 is a good point.  In order to tap into sources of wealth and income, and as that became a more complicated enterprise, money and resources were needed.  Portugal and the Dutch relied on private resources more than did Spain, but still privately owned ships were utilized by the Spanish seaborne empire.  A good deal of the silver and other New World plunder was privately owned in addition to the royal bullion, etc.

Before capital markets were better established, Portugal used the private resources of her nobility for exploration, trade and even her crusading efforts.  The Dutch in the 1590s established stock companies (especially the VOC, East India Company) to raise capital for resource extraction overseas.  This thing of course was an armed corporation with miniature armies and navies, and although private, was still an extension of the new State.  Investors were industrial interests, Amsterdam bankers, wealthy rentiers and Maurice of Nassau, his relatives and other private persons and corporate bodies.  I am sure some overseas "workers" in the VOC invested as well.  If not in capital, in concessions in the Indies, etc.

And yes, church interests were investors too, and not restricted to the Protestants.

All this activity depended on markets.  How much could the ruler afford to pay for his mercenary captains?  Could someone else out bid him? 

Was his credit with bankers good or bad; how much of the future revenues did he need to encumber to finance his activities or wars?  How much would the money cost?

If harvests were bad or subjects were rebellious, could the tax farmer collect, or would the ruler have to use his soldiers?  That carried costs that could be much higher than the ordinary method.

The wealth of trade was dependant to a good degree on prices and that was dependant on demand.  The period around 1590 to 1620 was very unstable economically.  The conflicts of Thirty Years War and all the rebellions and civil conflicts pretty much impoverished everyone except the Dutch with their carrying trade quasi-monopoly...out on the periphery mostly away from the conflicts.

It was after the mid seventeenth century that many of these costs were starting to be transfered from private to public accounts.  Certainly before that happened, the market was a great determining factor in the success of state formation. 

This hasn't scratched the surface of the social costs of "state" and intensified war after 1500.