So Far This Year

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So Far This Year

• 14th century
• Plague
• Earliest Sparks of the Renaissance
• Split between Eastern and Western Europe
• 1st Hundred Years War
• Italy is Solidifying its role as trading middle
  man
• Mongols rule in Russia
• 15th Century
• Renaissance Begins in Earnest
• Northern Renaissance
• Henry the Navigator is Exploring the coast of
  Africa
• Constantinople Falls to the Ottoman Turks
• Increased interest in African Slaves
• Habsburg-Valois Wars
• Rise of Renaissance Princes/New Monarchs
• Consolidation of Habsburg Empire
• Mongols kicked out of Russia
• 16th Century
• Age of Exploration

• 17th Century
• 2nd Half of the Wars of Religion (30 Years War)
• Witch hunts
• Rise of Absolutism in France, Prussia, Russia,
  Austria
• Constitutionalism in England and the Netherlands
  (English Civil War, Glorious Revolution)
• France becomes culturally dominant
• Spain falls
• Netherlands has a Golden Age
• Continuation of the Scientific Revolution
• Early Enlightenment
• 18th Century
• Heart of the Enlightenment
• 2nd Hundred Years War
• Enlightened Absolutism
• (2nd )Agricultural Revolution
• Population Explosion
• Early Industrial Revolution (ignited by Cottage
  Industry)
• Explosion of the Atlantic Economy and Associated
  Trade Wars

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Part I. 2nd Agricultural Revolution

• 1st Agricultural Revolution
• Development of farming
• replaced hunting and gathering
• 10,000 BC
• Animal power
• Land can only produce so much (nitrogen
  exhaustion)
• Slash and burn agricultural or limited population
  size
• Medieval Improvements
• Open Field system
• Strips of farmland
• Not easy to turn an ox
• Communal/The Commons
• Insurance against poor yield in one part of the
  field
• Fallow /Crop Rotation

• Medieval Limitations
• Fallow is Inefficient
• 1/3 of fields arent used
• Famine cycle
• 1 bushel of seed yields 5-6 bushels of crop
• Modern farmers are closer to 40 bushels of crop
• At the beginning of the 18th Century, farming was
  not significantly different than during the Old
  Stone Age
• These problems will be largely solved in the 18th
  century

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17c EuropeanAgrarianism
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A Cruel Cycle
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The Open Field System
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Gleaners
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Crop Rotation
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Agricultural Revolution

• Nitrogen restoring crops
• Turnips ? replace the fallow
• Fed to animals ? more manure ? more crops ? etc.
  
• Selective breeding
• New tools
• Seed drill
• Cotton gin
• Enclosure
• Why do it?

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Closed Field System

• Benefits?
• Scientific farming
• Invest in land if you own it
• Increases productivity
• Cheaper food
• End of famine cycle

• Negatives?
• Loss of the Common
• No safety net
• Proletariat
• Who will they become later?
• Lack of farmer independence

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18th Century Poem

• The law locks up the man or woman
• Who steals the goose from off the common
• But leaves the greater villain loose
• Who steals the common from off the goose.
• The law demands that we atone
• When we take things we do not own
• But leaves the lords and ladies fine
• Who take things that are yours and mine.

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Leaders The Dutch

• Who is close on the heels of the Dutch?
• Constitutionalism/ Protestantism makes sense
  here, right?

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Part II. Population Growth

• Mortality is reduced
• Black death dies out mysteriously
• Why? Two reasons!
• Better ability to spread food about because of
  improved infrastructure
• Better sanitation in cities
• New food sources from the New World
• Think Ireland!
• Not due to medical advances!
• People are generally not better off. Huh?

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18cPopulationGrowthRate
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Part III. Putting Out System

• Ironically, the increase in Agricultural
  Production actually increased the numbers of poor
  peasants. Why?
• Growing population but stable amount of land
• Profits to be made in farming encouraged the
  wealthy to buy up farmland
• Enterprising merchants in the cities devised the
  Putting Out System
• Take product to the countryside where landless
  farmers (proletariat) are desperate for work
• they produce in their homes or cottages
• Merchants buy the product and sell it in town

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Whats New About the Putting Out System?

• Peasants have always made handicrafts, but never
  before for sale- previously for personal use
• Capitalism before that word even existed
• Capital a store of wealth available for
  investment in a business
• Challenge to guild system
• More efficient than guild system
• No prying govt looking over your shoulder
• Weakens the grip of governments mercantilist
  control over the economy, which the governments
  dont like, but feel they have no choice.
• Why?
• What else do you do with mobs of hungry peasants?
  
• Starts in England and Spreads to the Continent
  more slowly
• First spark of the Industrial Revolution

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• Families worked together
• 1 weaver 4 spinners
• Drawback
• Not very organized from the perspective of the
  merchants running things
• Hard to increase production
• Holy Monday

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Cottage System
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Part IV. The Atlantic Trade War (aka The Second
Hundred Years War)

• During the 18th Century, the volume of trade in
  the Atlantic exploded
• European countries (mainly Spain, England, the
  Netherlands, and France) vied for shares of this
  trade
• Some have argued that this was the first world
  war, since the fighting occurred in Europe and
  the New World (and even a touch in India)
• England ended up the clear winner
• Fought first against Dutch (who fell out of their
  Golden Age as a result)
• Later against France
• Mercantilist economic policies created the sense
  of a zero-sum game
• If one country will gain from trade, others will
  lose out

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The Impact of Mercantilism

• Do we remember this theory?
• Hoard bullion
• Export but dont import
• Why?
• Colonies existed for the benefit of the mother
  country
• Why does Mercantilism puts countries at odds with
  each other?
• Not everybody can export someone must import!
• Protectionist tactics
• Goods from the English colonies can only be
  traded to England on English ships so that all of
  the profit stays with England, etc.
• This angers other countries and sometimes the
  colonists themselves. Why?
• Roots of this kind of trade war can be found in
  the English Navigation Acts
• Passed originally by Oliver Cromwell
• England had a unique form of Mercantilism
• Protectionist policies aided the merchant classes
  as well as the gov

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The Growth of EnglandsForeign Trade in the 18c
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Battles in Europe and New World

• War of the Spanish Succession
• War of the Austrian Succession
• Seven Years War

• Queen Annes War
• King Georges War
• French and Indian War

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2nd HYW (more detail)

• War of Spanish Succession
• Fight over?
• Results?
• Treaty of Utrecht
• England gets New World Land and Asiento
• War of the Austrian Succession
• Frederick the G takes Silesia
• Also ends up as an inconclusive battle in the New
  World
• Seven Years War
• On the Continent, Europeans gang up on Frederick
  the Great
• Eventually he is saved by Peter III in Russia,
  who in turn is toppled because of his softness
• England routes France in North America
• Dont forget, England can divert troops from
  homeland defense as an island
• George Washington!
• France is booted out of the New World
• Treaty of Paris (1st!)

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• Side Issue of this time period
• England and Scotland merge as Great Britain
• Later, England, Scotland, Wales, and Ireland will
  become United Kingdom (under essentially English
  leadership)

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Continuing Importance of the Colonies

• Colonies, especially American colonies, became
  lucrative
• plantation/slave economy
• Became vital for Englands trade
• Their goods were increasingly refused on the
  continent
• Protectionism for domestic cottage industries
• growing colonies provided an alternative market
  for industrial (cottage industry) goods
• This tremendous demand will be one of the sparks
  of the
• I.R.

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Part V. Capitalism

• A Rejection of Mercantilisms Zero Sum Game
• All sides can benefit from trade.
• Proof
• Country A can make 20 computers an hour and 10
  cars an hour
• Country B can make 10 computers an hour and 10
  cars an hour
• Both work for an hour
• If each country spends a half an hour on each
  job, there will be 15 computers and 10 cars made.
  
• If country A focuses on computers and country B
  focuses on cars (relative advantage) and then
  they trade, they will produce 20 computers and 10
  cars. By trading, 5 extra cars are magically
  produced, even though country B isnt better at
  producing ANYTHING than country A.

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The Wealth of Nations (1776)
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Adam Smith- Profit of Capitalism

• Argues that the government moves too slowly to
  regulate the economy efficiently
• Instead, choices must be made by the masses
• These choices will be made correctly due to the
  natural laws of
• Supply and demand
• the invisible hand
• the principles of self-interest
• These three principles reward good producers
  and eliminate bad ones
• Or, in other words, the invisible hand moves
  capital to the most productive part of an
  economy.
• Discuss
• There are only three occasions when the
  government should interfere with the economy
  (according to Smith)
• Maintain internal
• Maintain external order
• Provide a small number of goods that the market
  wont provide naturally
• Example freeways
• All merchants gain from a freeway, but who will
  invest the capital to pay for them???
• Example Fire stations
• If you dont pay for them, wont society have to
  work to put out a fire in your house anyway?
• This is known as laissez-faire economics

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There, there it is againthe invisible hand of
the marketplace giving us the finger.
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Why It Called Capitalism?

• Capital extra wealth available for investment
• According to capitalism, capital should be
  allowed to flow freely
• The result will be that it will be moved by
  supply and demand/ the invisible hand/ self
  interest to the most productive place

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Adam Smith Quotes

• Every individual...generally, indeed, neither
  intends to promote the public interest, nor knows
  how much he is promoting it. By preferring the
  support of domestic to that of foreign industry
  he intends only his own security and by
  directing that industry in such a manner as its
  produce may be of the greatest value, he intends
  only his own gain, and he is in this, as in many
  other cases, led by an invisible hand to promote
  an end which was no part of his intention.
• The Wealth of Nations, Book IV Chapter II

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• It is not from the benevolence of the butcher,
  the brewer, or the baker, that we expect our
  dinner, but from their regard to their own
  interest. We address ourselves, not to their
  humanity but to their self-love, and never talk
  to them of our necessities but of their
  advantages.
• The Wealth of Nations, Book I Chapter II

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Other 18th Century Themes

• Marriage
• Europe was probably always nuclear, not extended
• Late marriage
• Farmers sons must wait for dads death
• Village elders prevent poor from marrying young
  to prevent children who need community care
• Cottage industry increased young marriage
• no need to wait for the land
• Even usually the very poor could set up a cottage
  industrialists
• Increasing fluidity of society under cottage
  industry (and later industrial revolution)
  society, let to rising illegitimacy
• If village elders cant keep an eye on you and
  shame you into proper behavior, you have the
  freedom to backslide

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• Childrearing
• Less attachment to children
• Hey, theyll probably die anyway.
• Education
• Protestant nations led the way
• Makes sense- you believe everyone must directly
  access the scriptures
• Growing literacy rates
• Medicine- not so good
• No understanding of the Germ Theory
• Surgery without sanitation
• Horrific hospital conditions
• Many to a bed
• Improvements in inoculations
• Edward Jenner and small pox
• Idea taken from Ottoman
• Medical experiments didnt cut mortality much,
  but laid the groundwork for a 19th century
  medical boom