The Self-Perception of Early Modern Capitalists

280 Pages·2008·2.225 MB·English

by  Margaret C. Jacob, Catherine Secretan (eds.)

The Self-Perception of
Early Modern Capitalists
Margaret C. Jacob and Catherine Secretan
Palgrave
macmillan
the self-perception of early modern capitalists
Copyright © Margaret C. Jacob and Catherine Secretan, 2008.
Softcover reprint of the hardcover 1st edition 2008 978-0-230-60447-6
All rights reserved.
First published in 2008 by PALGRAVE MACMILLAN® in the US - a
division of St. Martin’s Press LLC, 175 Fifth Avenue, New York, NY
10010.
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the world, this is by Palgrave Macmillan, a division of Macmillan
Publishers Limited, registered in England, company number 785998,
of Houndmills, Basingstoke, Hampshire RG21 6XS.
Palgrave Macmillan is the global academic imprint of the above
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Palgrave® and Macmillan® are registered trademarks in the United
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ISBN 978-0-230-61781-0 ISBN 978-0-230-61380-5 (eBook)
DOI 10.1007/978-0-230-61380-5
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
The self-perception of early modern capitalists / edited by Margaret
C. Jacob and Catherine Secretan.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
1. Merchants—History. 2. Commerce—History. I. Jacob, Margaret C.,
1943- II. Secretan, Catherine.
HF479.S45 2008
381.09—dc22
2007052833
A catalogue record of the book is available from the British Library.
Design by Scribe Inc.
First edition: August 2008
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
Transferred to Digital Printing 2008
Contents
List of Illustrations v
Acknowledgments vii
Introduction 1
Margaret C. Jacob (University of California at Los Angeles) and
Catherine Secretan (Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique)
Part I Prologue
1 Theological Roots of the Medieval/Modern Merchants’ 17
Self-Representation
Giacomo Todeschini (University of Trieste)
Part II Self-Images
2 Images and Self-Images of Sephardic Merchants in Early 49
Modern Europe and the Mediterranean
Francesca Trivellato (Yale University)
3 Merchants in Charge: The Self-Perception of Amsterdam 75
Merchants, ca. 1550–1700
Clé Lesger (University of Amsterdam)
4 Merchants on the Defensive: National Self-Images in the 99
Dutch Republic of the Late Eighteenth Century
Dorothee Sturkenboom (Roosevelt Academy Middelburg,
Utrecht University)
Part III Capitalism as Normative
5 “Merchants” and “Gentlemen” in Eighteenth-Century 125
Sweden: Worlds of Jean Abraham Grill
Leos Müller (Uppsala University)
iv Contents
6 Professional Ethics and Commercial Rationality at the 147
Beginning of the Modern Era
Jochen Hoock (University of Paris, Paris 7-Denis Diderot)
7 The Anxious Merchant, the Bold Speculator, and the 161
Malicious Bankrupt: Doing Business in
Eighteenth-Century Hamburg
Mary Lindemann (University of Miami)
8 Accounting for War and Revolution: Philadelphia 183
Merchants and Commercial Risk, 1774–1811
Cathy Matson (University of Delaware)
Part IV Individuals and Striving
9 Accounting for Science: How a Merchant Kept His 205
Books in Elizabethan London
Deborah E. Harkness (University of Southern California)
10 Coming of Age in Trade: Masculinity and Commerce in 229
Eighteenth-Century England
John Smail (University of North Carolina, Charlotte)
11 Success and Self-Loathing in the Life of an 253
Eighteenth-Century Entrepreneur
Matthew Kadane (Hobart and William Smith Colleges)
Index 273
Illustrations
2.1 Ottoman Jewish Merchant in Istanbul 61
2.2 The Dedication of the Portuguese Jewish Synagogue 64
in Amsterdam
3.1 Amsterdam’s City Maiden (Amsterdamse Stedemaagd, 86
by Reinier Vinkeles 1741–1816)
4.1 First economic print. Atlas van Stolk, Engelsche kraam 101
etc., no. 4318, Stichting Atlas van Stolk, Rotterdam.
4.2 The World of the Great. Detail from Atlas van Stolk, 102
Engelsche kraam etc., no. 4318, Stichting Atlas van
Stolk, Rotterdam.
4.3 Klaas as would-be gentleman. Detail from Atlas van 103
Stolk, Engelsche kraam etc., no. 4318, Stichting Atlas
van Stolk, Rotterdam.
4.4 Second economic print. Atlas van Stolk, Eerwaardigen 104
Nederlander, no. 4322, Stichting Atlas van
Stolk, Rotterdam.
4.5 Patriotic citizens following Reason. Detail from Atlas 105
van Stolk, Eerwaardigen Nederlander, no. 4322,
Stichting Atlas van Stolk, Rotterdam.
6.1 European production of commercial texts in the 150
sixteenth century
7.1 John Parish (1743–1829) 169

Acknowledgments
The editors wish to thank the Center for Seventeenth and Eigh-
teenth Centuries Studies at UCLA and its director, Peter Reill, who
made possible the conference out of which these essays emerged.
Our authors have been especially diligent about the timetable we set
for producing their final texts, and for that we are also very grateful.
Funding for this project came from both the CNRS, and UCLA and
its then dean, Scott Waugh. Finally, the editors would like to acknowl-
edge their mutual enjoyment and enrichment from this rewarding
international collaboration.
4
Introduction
Margaret C. Jacob,
University of California at Los Angeles
and
Catherine Secretan,
Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique
S
ince antiquity, the handling of money and the urge to profit have
generally been regarded with suspicion. Within cultures that had for
so long juxtaposed material wealth to spiritual possessions only to find
the first of far less merit, earthly pursuits were suspected of being
inspired by greed, and merchants were seen as acting solely in their
own interest. In fostering mistrust toward mercantile activity, Aris-
totle’s Politics, Holy Writ, and the patristic tradition (St. Ambrose,
St. Jerome) contributed greatly. Their common prohibition of usury,
combined with the value that the Church attached to poverty as the
Christian perfection, gave little meaning to the pursuit of riches.
But there were also social stigmas associated with republican ideol-
ogy, views that identified the “capitalist” as a “monster of fortune,
a man with a heart of brass, and who has only metallic affection.”1
He is an architect of social inequality. How then did people who
sought to make profit—striving to acquire and expand their money—
view themselves? If the social utility of the mercatores never ceased
2 Introduction
to be asserted from medieval theology to eighteenth-century phi-
losophy, protecting one’s reputation remained a chief preoccupation
among merchants.
Self-perception deserves special attention in the case of early mod-
ern “capitalists”—a term only introduced in the eighteenth century—
because it concerns individuals coping with a problematical moral
identity who are also living on the cusp of a fundamental transfor-
mation in the nature of the European economy. For the most part
they are living before the triumph of homo economicus: seen as selfish,
materialistic, and always imagined in modern and classical economic
theory as governed by self-interest. Perhaps early modern merchants
are better understood by recourse to more recent models of the eco-
nomic actor. They postulate a human disposition to cooperate with
others and to punish those who fail to promote that societal goal, i.e.,
normative constraints like self-discipline, politeness, and respectability
play important roles in economic behavior.2 If that more recent model
of economic actors seeks validation, its advocates need only take a
close look at the chapters before us.
The wide range of cases and contexts analyzed in these chapters offer
a unique chance to place the question of moral identity in a compara-
tive historical perspective. Topics as complex as “self perceptions”—
even definitions of capitalism—can be more reliably addressed when
seen from that wider perspective. At the same time, although no
archetype of a merchant exists, a closer examination of each case study
reveals how similarities in mentality, behavior, and self-images recur.
The chapters ahead attempt to understand how early capitalists under-
stood themselves, and each author seeks to locate similarities as well
as differences. Whether we are looking at Catholic or Protestant or
Jewish merchants—in Elizabethan London or eighteenth-century
Amsterdam or Hamburg—we see certain patterns. Struggling with
the vagaries of the market raised moral or ethical issues. All required
thought and elicited emotions from fear to self-congratulation. From
the medieval theologians who learnedly addressed worldly interests
to a mid-eighteenth-century Leeds merchant who literally agonized
about the threat posed to his salvation by his worldliness, the market
fascinated and elicited thought and feeling.
Living within the framework of commercial capitalism—and even-
tually, by the early nineteenth century, within the ethos of industrial
capitalism—was not the same thing as living with money. Money is
not capital. It becomes capital when it is used to make more money,
i.e., profit. Wages are not capital, but they can become capital if saved
for the purpose of ventures or enterprises intended to make capital.