[mere beginning of] Chapter 7
How the British Got That Way
Josiah Child arguing against guild regulation of cloth (quoted in Lipson, Hist., p., 118, q.v.): “if we intend to have the trade of the world we must imitate the Dutch.” And so they did, in many things: naval, financial, etc.
British imitation of Dutch in late 17th C. Defeat in the Solent? Other reasons? Puritans. Cf. New England: internal colonization by non-conformists. Much larger than New England. But small.
England was just acquiring an admiration for a bourgeois version of the virtues as Holland came to its height. … Sprat writes of how commendable it is that “The merchants of England live honorably in foreign parts” (my italics), while “those of Holland meanly, minding their gain alone.” Shameful. “Ours [have] in their behavior very much the gentility of the families from which so many of them are descended. The others when they are abroad show that they are only a race of plain citizens.” Appallingly plain bourgeois, those Dutch. Perhaps, Sprat notes, that is “one of the reasons they can so easily undersell us.” It may be.
It might be helpful to compare here a few characteristics of British market share before and after they began to copy the Dutch. They were after all only small contributor until after this point. Once others discovered (and I use discovered here because it ties into the idea of Bourgeois Inventive nature and their need for information) that a process was working correctly can we see others jumping on to the bandwagon. Is there a traceble line of “X copies the Dutch and began to profit, Y seeing this then copied X”? – This could indicate an initial copying of a foreign custom but once performed by British merchants it no longer could be considered foreign and therefore a bit more acceptable.
Written by Ryan Larkin on May 1st, 2007.Dear Ryan:
Good idea. One example is drainage of wetlands, a very Dutch project taken up vigorously by the English in the late 17th century.
Deirdre
Written by Deirdre McCloskey on May 9th, 2007.