Alas Terry takes my name in vain [though i dunno why since i did not
speak to this issue before] and misrepresents my position and/or
mis-undersands what - IMHO! - really went on.
Chapter 3 of my forhtcoming book is entitled
MONEY WENT AROUND THE WORLD AND MADE THE WORLD GO ROUND.
It documents the flow of silver, about half of which ended up in China!
Like Terry, it denies [the common thesis of ] inflation in Asia. But it
explains that in sort of MV=PT terms as an increase of M and of V
leading to a large increase of T [and None of P], and it also supplies
direct evidence on the same. In fact, the new money increased production
and population growth MORE and FASTER in Asia, espeecialy China but
also India, than in Europe. Terry continues to look under the European
streetlight and to miss the much more crucial evidence of what was really
going on in the REAL world, in which Europe continued to be a minro
marrginal player [excepr that it did distribute this silver around the
world, whgich as Jim Blaut says and Adam Smith already recognized, was
just about the ONLY thing it did and COULD do.
Terry you will NREVER see what went on untuil you take of your European
glasses.
cheers
gunderOn Thu, 27 Feb 1997, Terry
Boswell wrote:
> Date: Thu, 27 Feb 1997 02:17:35 EST5EDT
> From: Terry Boswell <TBOS@social-sci.ss.emory.edu>
> To: WORLD SYSTEMS NETWORK <wsn@csf.colorado.edu>
> Subject: Money is the root.
>
> Two points seem to be missing in the recent discussion of the impact
> colonial silver on the rise of Europe. First is the monetary effect
> of the huge import of American silver, in effect an import of money,
> into the Euroasian economy in the 16th and 17th centuries. The
> discussion sometimes reads as if the European colonizers simply
> bought global dominance. Adding money to a market causes inflation,
> in this case, a massive inflation that lasts perhaps 150 years in W.
> Europe. The long term inflation tended to commodify relations in
> general and to favor merchants over producers, manufacturers over
> landlords, and commercial states over landed states in particular.
> The result was a fundamental transformation away from a slow changing
> landlord dominated economy with limited monetarization, and toward an
> ever expanding and increasingly commodified economy dominated by
> commercial interests (I will avoid the "c" word in the hopes that
> this time point does not get lost in a debate over semantics).
>
> As far as I can tell, no comparable inflation occurs in E. Asia,
> yielding a relative decline in the value of Asian goods, despite
> what some suggest may have been a greater apriori degree of market
> relations. One reason for this critical difference is that European
> corporate merchants (especially the Dutch East India Co.) held a near
> monopoly on the Euroasian trade. Moreover, they colonized the
> "spice islands," capturing the massive profits at both ends. Other
> explanations focus on Chinese state and class relations. Frank has
> suggested some possible demographic factors as well, and one could
> point to other reasons. Which combination of factors one highlights
> is less important than recognizing that the result is the rise of W.
> Europe.
>
> The second point, briefly, is that this fundamental transformation
> occurs in the "long 16th century," not the 19th century. I do not
> understand how Gunder and others can repeatedly and emphatically
> insist on the central importance of American silver in the rise
> of Euorpe, yet refuse to recognise the fundamental commercial
> transformation it wrought.
>
> TBos
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> Terry Boswell
> Department of Sociology
> Emory University
> Atlanta, GA 30322
>