State vs. Market

Oh, I see . I couldn't understand this sentence.

But here are my 2 cents.

I can't agree with this sentence above. The strongest European country of the 18th and 19th c. was Russia which (at least) until 1864 was by no means a feudal country.

Originally posted by Maju 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.

Ok, I think Maharbbal wants to explore state formation as it occurred in sixteenth and seventeenth century Europe, and when there was little or no strong central authority.  In order for an entity/polity like Spain or France or Sweden to function as a "state" it needed two things: capital and cooperation of elites.

To make war on the scale of post 1500 conflicts, the king or prince needed far more than the resources of his own property.  He had to make use of the resources of others and they had to see that as worthwhile.  Military contractors had to have return on investment, and mercenaries would not fight for free.

So, how to pay for that?  Over what the king might be able to afford, the military contractor (entrepreneur/owner of companies or regiments; or the owners of ships) risked their own capital resources in anticipation of a return on that.  If the war was unsuccessful, they could lose that investment.

The return might be any combination of royal lands and rents assigned to the contarctor; money indemnities; de praeda militari (i.e. legal loot); and on the seemy side, ransoms, extortion etc.   

If this sounds primitive, it was.  The "state" existed only insofar as the interests of the king/prince or oligarchy were impacted, and secondarily the interests and condition of the subjects.  Of course, the impoverishment or reduction of subjects, and the merchants and factors, affected the "state."

The main idea, it seems to me, is that the early modern concept of state implies the "fiscal-military state."  That is how a polity can find and mobilize resources to do what the state did in those times - wage war or try to deter it.  The available mechanisms were barely sufficient to do that, but even very poor "states" like Sweden accomplished it with a combination of inventiveness and circumstance.  Spain had done it differently, and the Dutch did it in their own way.  England was still another example, and so was France.  All had their different methods that accomodated their respective needs and circumstances.  And before elite interests were aggregated and coopted, there were civil-religious wars, Frondes and revolts, etc.  It was hardly perfect, and there had to be baby steps as it developed.

The common thread is that, in those early times, resource mobilization required utilizing private sources of capital for "public" purposes.  The Market dominated that.  Private persons or corporate bodies (towns, provincial estates, syndicates) would not put their capital at risk without a good chance for a return.  Mercenaries had to be paid.  Banking houses would want more interest for a greater credit risk, etc.

These conditions changed only slowly after like the 1660s after much of the nobility had been coopted to the interests of the "state."  The king and the elites formed a progressively stronger symbiotic relationship where their mutual interests coincided more than before.  And mostly it had to do with wealth.  Who got what and how much, and often how much a noble (or a bourgeois) might have to pay to get a lucrative venal office or military commission.  As usual, it was about the money.

The market and the developing early modern state were inextricably linked.

I have a headache now.

And it's too early for a drink.

Oh, yeah, that doesn't help a headache

Nationalism? Do you think that my opinion about 19th c. Russia is nationalism? Well, as a Pole, I might be the last, who will love 19th c. Russia, but it doesn't change historical facts - it was feudal Russia which won with Napolean. It was feudal Russia which decided about the fate of Europe in the first half of 19th c. And it was Russia wich was a gendarme of Europe in that time.

Maharbbal:

Surely up until about 1800, imperial economy was driven by mercantile economic thinking....control of resources and production, as well as end-users as markets.  How does the Market fit in?

The British East India Company ruled much of India until the mutiny of 1857.  An exception to the primacy of the state?

Ok, so let's compare ammounts of armies.

in 1816: Russia had 800 000 soldiers; GB had 255 000

in 1830: Russia had 826 000 soldiers; GB had 140 000

in 1860: Russia had 862 000 soldiers; GB had 347 000

And Russia could use bulk of its army in continental Europe, while GB had to disperse its army around the world. So...?

If so, how do you explain that this 'extremely weak' feudal country defeated European powers in that time?

Paul Kennedy in his 'The Rise and Fall of the Great Powers' claimed that what made every country (including GB) wealthy was agriculture. It was at least until 1850.