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The economic history of the Netherlands (1500–1815) is the history of an economy that Jan de Vries calls the first "modern" economy It covers the Netherlands as the Habsburg Netherlands, through the era of the Dutch Republic, the Batavian Republic and the Kingdom of Holland. After becoming de facto independent from the empire of Philip II of Spain around 1585 the country experienced almost a century of explosive economic growth. A technological revolution in shipbuilding led to a competitive advantage in shipping that helped the young Republic become the dominant trade power by the mid-17th century. In 1670 the Dutch merchant marine totalled 568,000 tons of shipping—about half the European total. Pillars of this position were the dominance of the Amsterdam Entrepôt in European trade, and that of the Dutch East and West India Companies (VOC and WIC) in intercontinental trade. Beside trade, an early "industrial revolution" (powered by wind, water and peat), land reclamation from the sea, and agricultural revolution, helped the Dutch economy achieve the highest standard of living in Europe (and probably the world) by the middle of the 17th century. Affluence facilitated a Golden Age in culture typified by the great artist Rembrandt van Rijn (1606–1669). However, around 1670 a combination of politico-military upheavals (wars with France and England) and adverse economic developments (a break in the upward "secular trend" of price levels) brought the Dutch economic boom to an abrupt end. This caused a retrenchment of the Dutch economy in the period up to 1713, in which the industrial sector was partly dismantled, and growth in trade leveled off. The economy struck out in new directions, including colonial plantations in Suriname, whaling, and new types of trade with Asia). However, these riskier ventures often failed to bring commensurate gains. The VOC embarked on a period of "profitless growth." The financial strength proved more durable, enabling the Netherlands play the role of a major power in the European conflicts around the turn of the 18th century, by hiring mercenary armies "off the shelf" and subsidizing its allies. These conflicts put an enormous strain on the resources of the Republic, however, and for that reason the Republic (like its opponent, the France of Louis XIV) was deeply in debt at the end of the War of the Spanish Succession. The regents of the Republic more or less abandoned its Great-Power pretensions after 1713, cutting down on its military preparedness in a vain attempt to pay down this overhang of public debt. That debt brought a significant ''rentier'' class into being that helped change the nature of the economy from one invested primarily in trade and industry, into one in which a significant financial sector played a dominant role. By the end of the 18th century the Republic was the major market for sovereign debt, and a major source of foreign direct investment. Wars with Great Britain and France at the end of the 18th century, and attendant political upheavals, caused a financial and economic crisis from which the economy was unable to recover. After the successors of the Republic (the Batavian Republic and the Kingdom of Holland) were forced to enforce the policies of economic warfare of the French Empire, which were disastrous for Dutch trade and industry, most of the gains of the previous two centuries were rapidly lost. The newly independent Kingdom of the Netherlands was faced in 1815 with an economy that was largely deindustrialized and deurbanized, but still saddled with a crippling public debt, which it was forced to repudiate (the first time that the Dutch state defaulted since the dark pre-independence days of the Revolt). ==First modern economy== While the inland provinces retained their premodern character for much longer, the Dutch Republic by about 1600 had maritime provinces Holland, Zeeland, Friesland, Groningen, and a part of Utrecht that possessed: * Reasonably pervasive and free markets for both commodities and factors of production * An agricultural productivity sufficient to sustain a far-reaching division of labor * A political structure which guaranteed property rights, enforcement of contracts, and freedom of movement * A level of technology and organization capable of sustained economic development and of supporting a material culture that could sustain market-oriented consumer behavior The Dutch economy established a leadership role in Europe that was widely admired, and copied in part in England.〔De Vries and Van der Woude, p. 693〕 Through productivity-enhancing investments in fixed capital, the use of a large amount of energy (heat energy from peat as an industrial fuel, wind power) per worker, and a substantial investment in human capital (as witnessed by the high literacy rate), the Dutch managed to raise labor productivity above the levels prevailing in other European countries. This is illustrated by the fact that in the mid-17th century the agricultural sector, employing less than 40 percent of the labor force, could already almost be a net food exporter (which it became by 1800), and the fact that nominal wages between 1600 and 1800 were the highest in Europe. In the open economy of the Republic such a wage gap could only be sustained by enduring productivity differences.〔De Vries and Van der Woude, pp. 694-695〕 Another essential characteristic of a modern economy: the continuous accumulation and effective preservation of capital presented a problem (productive employment of capital) that for the Dutch capitalist was solved by a broad array of investment options, mediated by the ''Beurs'', and later the merchant banks. Eventually, these financial structures proved unable to withstand the crises of the Revolutionary and Napoleonic era, but the determining criterion here is that they were at least present during the period in question. A defining characteristic of a modern economy is diversification and an advanced division of labor. By the mid-17th century under 40 percent of the labor force was employed in agriculture, whereas 30 percent was engaged in a highly diversified industrial sector, the balance of the labor force being engaged in commerce and other "service" industries. The numerous cities formed a complex web of interdependencies, with the lesser ports performing specialized functions to the major ones; the industrial towns specializing in specific types of production; the countryside becoming highly differentiated by agricultural specialization, with the villages evolving into service centers (or later sometimes centers of "out-sourced" industrial production). However, the integration of specialized agriculture and industry with the growing entrepôt functions of the ports (at least before these functions became disaggregated again in the 18th century) imparted a special dynamism to the Dutch economy during the Golden-Age economy.〔De Vries and Van der Woude, pp. 696–697〕 A counterargument against the "modernity" of the Dutch economy may seem to be the undeniable fact of the decline in per capita income growth at the end of the 18th century. However, at closer inspection it will become clear that this actually was a "modern" process of restructuring in the face of adverse circumstances, as may be seen in current modern economies, like the U.S.A. and European countries, that also undergo major structural upheavals. The 18th-century deindustrialization was in large part a consequence of a too-high real wage level, combined with protectionist policies of foreign governments, closing access to major markets. The agricultural depression was a general European phenomenon. The crisis in foreign trade was answered, and partly parried, with commercial innovations. The financial and fiscal crisis, that proved the Republic's undoing was altogether modern in nature (unlike the comparable crises that regularly brought the Spanish Crown to its knees), but simply happened before the modern means of dealing with it (expansion of the tax base and/or monetary inflation) were at hand.〔De Vries and Van der Woude, pp. 698–699〕 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Economic history of the Netherlands (1500–1815)」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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