Successful Counterreformation and its effects upon affected states

nvm..

Tolni said:

But Spain and Portugal are a bit different than most Catholic countries; they had to retake their homeland from the Moors land by land, which made them a bit... fervours to say the least. That's why they kept to their religion, despite the consequences.

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Contact and war with the muslim kingdoms (both in the Iberian Peninsula and in North Africa) did not made the iberian catholics any less tolerant. Withe the opposite: it was common for the iberian kingdoms to ally with the muslim ones. In the 15th century there were still catholic bishops complaining to the king about "the embellishment of mosques which drew away the faithful from the true religion...". Jewish and muslim communities survived to be rediscovered in the 19th century in some isolated areas outside the reach and interest of the inquisition. The Spanish and Portuguese Inquisitions were institutions controlled by the crown, and at the service of crown policy.

Landes in "The Wealth and Poverty of Nations" presents a terribly flawed analysis of the decline of the "catholic kingdoms" and the rise of the protestant ones. It wasn't about religion, it was about two things: resources and political organization.

Northern Europe turned out to be far wealthier in the types of resources necessary for empire-building, that was why it took the lead in the 17th century. Wood, and later coal and iron and cooper, were far more abundant there. The industrial revolution, for example, could never possibly happen in the southern european countries, for the rather simple reason that they lacked the coal and iron necessary for it (not to mention the abundant river streams for the earlier mechanization).
Technically, the catholic southern Europe was at par with northern Europe in the 16th century. But industry prospers where there are the resources for it; and scientific research prospers where there is the demand by entrepreneurs for men of knowledge. Royal patronage helps artists, not so much scientists (even though it sometimes happens, and catholic France with its protected luxury industries was one example).

Political organization also played into the difference in development. Southern Europe went through a process of centralization before northern Europe. And suffered from that! An aristocracy turns out to be expensive to maintain: their social code prevents them from doing many useful things, which causing them to consume a lot of resources for the sake of affirming their social status. Kind of the landed gentry of England, much later: Portugal and Spain became inflected with those social parasites right from the beginnings of the 17th century. The economic organization of the country, so far as the crown could direct it, had an aim of providing political stability (it still does in most contemporary states...) even it that meant economic stagnation instead of economic development. Thus a centralized state could be detrimental to economic development. (again for a comparison with latter-days Britain, kind of like the corn laws in britain, which served the landed gentry but were opposed by the commercial and industrial lobbies). Portugal and Spain constructed centralized states (even if inside Spain the crown of Castile remained apart from the others) and acquired large empires early on. To build and maintain them they had to import raw products and tools from northern Europe, and also hire mercenaries there. And after the 17th century every effort in these southern states (which just happened to be catholic, but catholicism had nothing to do with it) was directed at stabilizing the social hierarchy. Industry was weak, trade was at least partially a crown monopoly, which meant that the landed interests were and remained the ones directing "national policy" insofar as we can use the term for those early modern times. The result was a conservative society which failed to keep up in technical know-how with northern Europe. That the Inquisition remained influential right until the french invasions was a consequence of a conservative society, not a cause of it. That even after these countries went through their own liberal revolutions in the aftermath of the french revolution they remained poor, was a consequence of a lack of some critical resources for an industrial revolution, not any evidence of an inferiority of "catholic states".

Clerical influence in Portugal and Spain, btw, declined sharply in the mid-18th century just as it did across the rest of western europe. There was no cultural divide at the Pyrenees.

Whether a nation became rich or poor had nothing to do with religion. It had to do with whether the people at the top would or would not allow the people at the bottom to be free and prosperous. If the people at the bottom are permitted to prosper based on their own work, then they will do so. And then the wealth of the country as a whole is lifted. The more they are restricted from doing so, the less prosperity the nation will experience.

I would say the Dutch success seems a counter to the argument that northern Europe was somehow just generally advantaged. The Low Countries are mostly slush, and the Dutch had to dredge their country up from the bottom of the sea, more or less. That exercise was excellent for giving them the kinds of knowledge they needed to make themselves a success, but I can't really find any natural resources or advantages at their disposal at the outset?

Traitorfish said:

You'd be hard pressed to find a historian of the Kaiserreich who would describe Prussia's role as one of "dominance". (Hegemony, sure, but hegemony acknowledges mutual interest and negotiation, while domination implies a degree of coercive authority which simply was not there.)

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Also by "Protestant Prussia" we mean "Prussia, who's King was a Protestant." And by "Catholic Rivals" we mean "German states with who's Monarchs were Catholics." It's not like Catholics were alien to the Prussian state, or that they represented some sort of natural underclass.

Verbose said:

I would say the Dutch success seems a counter to the argument that northern Europe was somehow just generally advantaged. The Low Countries are mostly slush, and the Dutch had to dredge their country up from the bottom of the sea, more or less. That exercise was excellent for giving them the kinds of knowledge they needed to make themselves a success, but I can't really find any natural resources or advantages at their disposal at the outset?

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Yes, that's accurate to an extent. The issue being that the Dutch specialized in exactly the kind of stuff that didn't require natural resources readily available in Europe. The Dutch dominance of sugar refining and the spice trade are good examples of this phenomenon. The Belgian efflorescence which led the Dutch one was built with the same kinds of constraints. It started with wool weaving and soon exhausted domestic supply. To make up the gap it began importing English wool. These profits were re-invested into silk, sugar refining, pepper and spice retail and banking the resources underpinning which were (with the exception of banking) not generally available in Europe. This meant that nobody had a decisive edge and that a smaller state with fewer resources could still compete.

Cutlass said:

Whether a nation became rich or poor had nothing to do with religion. It had to do with whether the people at the top would or would not allow the people at the bottom to be free and prosperous. If the people at the bottom are permitted to prosper based on their own work, then they will do so. And then the wealth of the country as a whole is lifted. The more they are restricted from doing so, the less prosperity the nation will experience.

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I don't think those at the bottom of European society can ever be described as having "prospered". Pre-1914, you wouldn't be able to venture much more than "survived".

Traitorfish said:

I don't think those at the bottom of European society can ever be described as having "prospered". Pre-1914, you wouldn't be able to venture much more than "survived".

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Maybe. Let me put it this way. I've seen it explained that in the traditional British class system there were the lords, the 'middle class' (which in the US would be called the 'upper class'), which was wealthy commoners, and everyone else, the lower class. Which would include most tradesman, artisans, mechanics, small professionals, as well as the general run of labor and the truly poor. Now what changed is that the property rights of the people was no longer just limited to the 'middle class' and the lords. Once that lower class had some protection of their property rights, some just access to the courts, some protection from arbitrary taxes and seizure of their property, then that is when true economic wealth in the modern sense began to take off.

Now most of those people certainly remained poor. But much of the creation of the wealth of the industrial era came out of that class. Most of the rise in productivity came out of that class. Most of the innovation which made the industrial revolution a reality came out of that class.

But those people would only do those things once they had some measure of security in the belief that they themselves would prosper from their work, and their lords wouldn't take it all.

Cutlass said:

Maybe. Let me put it this way. I've seen it explained that in the traditional British class system there were the lords, the 'middle class' (which in the US would be called the 'upper class'), which was wealthy commoners, and everyone else, the lower class. Which would include most tradesman, artisans, mechanics, small professionals, as well as the general run of labor and the truly poor. Now what changed is that the property rights of the people was no longer just limited to the 'middle class' and the lords. Once that lower class had some protection of their property rights, some just access to the courts, some protection from arbitrary taxes and seizure of their property, then that is when true economic wealth in the modern sense began to take off.

Now most of those people certainly remained poor. But much of the creation of the wealth of the industrial era came out of that class. Most of the rise in productivity came out of that class. Most of the innovation which made the industrial revolution a reality came out of that class.

But those people would only do those things once they had some measure of security in the belief that they themselves would prosper from their work, and their lords wouldn't take it all.

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I don't think that's supported by the historical record. British economic ascendency began in the late eighteenth century and was a noted Thing by the mid-19th century, but British workers were legally servile until the 1870s and most were politically disenfranchised until 1918, which hardly indicates a class of hardy freeman with the suite of rights and protections you describe. When things eventually do improve, they don't accompany any sort of renewed economic vigour, but rather Britain's fall from pre-eminence as it becomes overshadowed by foreign manufacture, above all from the United States.

I mean, you can make the arguments your making, that capitalism works better when the lower strata are legally and economically protected, when there consumer demand is high, etc.,etc., and I think you'd be right at least so far as ideal models go. But we can't infer historical trajectories from ideal models, and even if we can find what appear to be reflections of these models at a certain moments in history- the point about legal protections might have some mileage in the US, for example- we shouldn't let that confuse us into thinking the logic of the models precedes the actual history of capitalism.

Cutlass said:

Now most of those people certainly remained poor. But much of the creation of the wealth of the industrial era came out of that class. Most of the rise in productivity came out of that class. Most of the innovation which made the industrial revolution a reality came out of that class.

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The Victorian - or indeed Thatcherite - myth of the workman's son who became rich through ingenuity and hard work was little more than a myth, and indeed the exceptional people who did follow that pattern - George Stephenson being the archetype - were held up as examples and talked about in wonder precisely because they were exceptions. The British class system is more complex than you give it credit for, but the key ingredients in creating an invention which can affect how people do things on a large scale - namely technical expertise, the time to sit down, think and design and the money to manufacture it - were all denied to working-class people until well into the last century. Most inventors and innovators of the Industrial Revolution were middle-class, or the disinherited of the upper classes - second and third sons of minor aristocrats, for example - and a class apart from those who actually ended up working with their inventions. Richard Trevithick worked in the mines, but his father had been a manager rather than a digger and the son was employed as a 'consultant' on the strength of his father's reputation, William Murdoch got into his first job with James Watt, himself the son of a prosperous businessman and local dignitary, to whom he was connected by the mutual acquaintance of James Boswell. Brunel's father was himself an engineer, the second son of a French country gentleman. In fact, most of the great engineers of the Victorian period - Robert Stephenson being the finest example - were themselves sons of less distinguished engineering men.

Flying Pig said:

The Victorian - or indeed Thatcherite - myth of the workman's son who became rich through ingenuity and hard work was little more than a myth, and indeed the exceptional people who did follow that pattern - George Stephenson being the archetype - were held up as examples and talked about in wonder precisely because they were exceptions.

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Wouldn't be possible that many other George Stephensons lived but were forgotten?

Well, yes, it's possible, but these were well-documented times in which the wealthy - particularly the newly wealthy - usually left their mark, usually inscribed into a public building constructed with their help. It's certainly true that the overwhelming majority of working-class people lived and died in exactly the same station in which they were born, perhaps moving to the city or changing trade but never really moving up the social ladder. Social mobility depends on ability, for sure, but it takes a tremendous amount of ability and good fortune to be able to compete against people with the advantages of education, connections and capital.

My argument comes from "Why Nations Fail". And it seems pretty well documented to me.

Verbose said:

I would say the Dutch success seems a counter to the argument that northern Europe was somehow just generally advantaged. The Low Countries are mostly slush, and the Dutch had to dredge their country up from the bottom of the sea, more or less. That exercise was excellent for giving them the kinds of knowledge they needed to make themselves a success, but I can't really find any natural resources or advantages at their disposal at the outset?

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The dutch did specialize in trade and banking, successfully. But so had resource-poor Portugal in the south. And Castile and Aragon with their overseas empires. The dutch were advantaged in that their geographic position gave them better links to the most populated portions of Europe; disadvantaged in that warfare (and the damage it brings about) was more common there. All of these states lost influence as the Industrial revolution came about.

Cutlass said:

My argument comes from "Why Nations Fail". And it seems pretty well documented to me.

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I said that I didn't doubt that it happened. Some people did start as entirely ordinary working-class men and become the owners of great companies. What I was saying is that these cases were exceptional, and the vast majority of influential and successful men remained wealthy and from wealthy families even into the 20th century. Conversely, the overwhelming majority of dirt-poor working-class men remained dirt-poor working-class men. The myth of the self-made man has its advantages: it encourages people to keep plugging away at menial jobs in factories and the coalfaces because they just might make it like George Stephenson did. Derby's Cabinet of 1866 had a grand total of five people without titles of nobility - of these, Walpole was an old Etonian and a Cambridge graduate, Hardy's father was a major industrialist in Bradford and had sent him to Oxford, Peel was a general - obtained by purchase - and the younger brother of Robert, Lowry-Corry was an earl's second son, and Disraeli was Disraeli. The great majority of influence, wealth and innovation came from men like these, not working-class social climbers. Of course, the presence of a free working class rather than an enslaved one allowed innovation to flourish; there's no advantage in being the best inventor in a system where success goes to the man who starts off with the most slaves, and where a businessman can't sell his goods to his workers.

I like the sort of argument that Robinson and Acemoğlu make and I think it's a reasonable take on how why Western world did so well in the post-war world. But I don't think you can take that argument and extrapolate it backwards in time or outwards into the non-Western world because the forces acting on us - now and then - are totally different to the forces acting on say Indonesia in the 1950s or Indonesia in the here and now. (Actually that's my biggest gripe with the book, most of the non-Western examples just don't work. For a better mediation on Asian development that fits within a broad 'liberal' development paradigm, I'd encourage you to read Joe Studwell's 'How Asia Works').

Cutlass said:

My argument comes from "Why Nations Fail". And it seems pretty well documented to me.

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"Why Nations Fail" is an economic text, though, not a history one, so they're trying to establish general principles of economic development, not a record of economic development as it actually occurred. So they can say thinks like "a free working class promotes economic growth", but that doesn't imply that economic growth indicates the existence of a free working class. As I mentioned previously, Britain saw enormous economic growth in the early-to-mid 19th century, but this was a period in which British workers remained legally servile, which made activities such as e.g. trade union organising a criminal offence. History precedes models.

Also, if we take it a step back further, the era that preceded and initiated the Industrial Revolution saw a massive transfer of wealth and priveledges away from the lower classes into the hands of the powerful.

It's not just that English growth after the Reformation was achieved under a system slow to allow wealth and power into the hands of ordinary people, it was achieved under a system actively hostile to the lowest classes, and during a long campaign of deliberately and violently trying to stop the lower classes from being "free and prosperous."

ParkCungHee said:

Also, if we take it a step back further, the era that preceded and initiated the Industrial Revolution saw a massive transfer of wealth and priveledges away from the lower classes into the hands of the powerful.

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I suspect this too is a myth, and 'the good old days of Merry England' were in reality just as grim as those of the industrial revolution. After all, something was attracting people to come from the countryside into the cities. It's true that a pre-industrial countryman was usually shorter than a city-dweller, while the reverse is true after the growth of industry, but this probably reflects more on the fact that most poor people were rural and most town-dwellers were tradesmen, merchants or educated people who worked with writing and letters - the average height of a poor person probably didn't change all that much.

Oh, the countryside was hardly ideal, because it was in the countryside that this repression was most brutally felt.

The dissolution of the monasteries, the various poor laws and enclosure acts, and innumerable other policies largely sealed off whatever good was to be had in the British Countryside to countless people. The flight to the cities was in part based on certain allures, but also on the extremely dire conditions of the countryside at the time as the result of these broad policies, which aimed to concentrate wealth and power in the hands of a consolidated landowning class.