Seapower and socioeconomic change

Theory and Society

Volumn 35, Issue 1, 2006, Pages 71-108

  Kyriazis, Nicholas ^a  

^a UNIVERSITY OF THESSALY   (Greece)

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EID: 33645215809     PISSN: 03042421     EISSN: 15737853     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1007/s11186-006-6788-8     Document Type: Article

References (81)

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4. The emphasis is to be found in Douglas C. North "Institutions and Credible Commitment" Journal of Institutional and Theoretical Economies (JITE) 149-1, 1993, pp. 11-23.
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7. , and G. Hodgson, "How Economics forgot History. The problem of historical specificity in Social sciences", Routledge, London 2001. Concerning path-dependence in transition economies,
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13. R. Gilpin "The challenge of global capitalism" Princeton UP, 2002,
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16. In addition to the previously mentioned works by D.C. North, see also by the same "Structure and Performance: The Task of Economic History" Journal of Economic Litterature 16-3, 1978, pp. 963-978,
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19. "Institutions", Journal of Economic Perspectives 5-1, 1991 pp. 97-112,
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21. R.W. Fogel "Douglas C. North and Economic Theory" in J.N. Dorbak, J.V.C. Nye, editors, "The Frontiers of the New Institutional Economics" Academic Press 1997,
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23. B. R. Weingast "The political foundations of Limited Government, Parliament and Sovereign Debt in 17th and 18th century England",
24. P.T. Huffman, J.L. Rosenthal, "The Political Economy of Warfare and Taxation in Early Modern Europes: Historical Lessons for Economic Development", all four in J.N. Dorbak, J.V.C. Nye, editors, "The Frontiers of the New Institutional Economics" Academic Press 1997.
25. J. Schumpeter "The crisis of the tax state" International Economic Papers Vol. 4, 1954, pp. 5-38.
26. M. Roberts "Gustavus Adolphus: A History of Sweden 1611-1632, 2 volumes, Longman, London, 1953 and 1958,
27. G. Parker "The Military Revolution", Cambridge UP, 2nd edition 1996,
28. J. Black "A Military Revolution? Military Change and European Society, 1550-1800" MacMillan, London 1991.
29. C. Tilly "Coercion, Capital and European States AD 990-1990" Basil Blackwell, Oxford 1990,
30. B. Moore "Social Origins of Dictatorship and Democracy: Lord and Peasant in the Making of the Modern World", Beacon, Boston 1996,
31. J. Glete "War and the State in Early Modern Europe", Routledge, London, 2002.
32. R. Bean "War and the Birth of the Nation State" Journal of Economic History Vol. 33, 1973 pp. 203-221,
33. J.V.C. Nye "Thinking about the States Property Rights, Trade and Changing Contractual Arrangements in a World with Coercion", in
34. J. Drobak, J.V.C. Nye, "Thinking about the States Property Rights, Trade and Changing Contractual Arrangements in a World with Coercion", ibid. note 6.
35. B.M. Downing "The Military Revolution and Political Change" Princeton UP, New Jersey 1993.
36. In Weingast op.cit. (note 5) and B.R. Weingast "The Economic Role of Political Institutions: Market-Preserving Federalism and Economic Development", Journal of Law, Economics and Organization vol. 11, 1994, pp. 1-31. For readers not familiar with his writings to define England as a federal state may appear misleading. Weingast considers England as being a federal state, because regional and local authorities (counties, cities, towns) had a substantial degree of autonomy in decision making. Citation p. 25.
37. Op.cit. p. 35.
38. J. Glete, op.cit., N.A.M. Rodger "The Safeguard of the Sea" Harper Collins Publishers, London 1997,
39. N. Kyriazis and M. Zouboulakis: i) "Democracy, Sea Power and Institutional Change: An Economic Analysis of the Athenian Naval Law", European Journal of Law and Economics 17-1, 2004, pp. 117-132, ii)
40. "Private Law for Public Benefit: Property Rights Arrangements in Elizabethan England", Communication presented at the 19th Annual Conference of the European Association of Law and Economics, Athens September 19-21 2002. After 480 B.C., Athens developed into the most representative democracy up to that time, showing also the emergence of the first known market institutions, as fe a monetized economy, urbanization, "general" all purpose banks, insurance and share companies. Although Athens was defeated by the Peloponnesian Alliance during the Peloponnesian War, due to its many strategic blunders and only after the Peloponnesians became a sea power with the generous financial help of the Persian empire, path-dependence on the naval path persisted. Athens recuperated very fast after its defeat of 404 BC, and by 376 was again the leading naval and economic power in the Eastern Mediterranean, a position it has held till its final defeat by the Macedonians in 322 BC, when they also had become a seapower. Cohen has convincingly presented and analyzed the evidence for 4th century Athens concerning banking, the market economy etc.
41. See E.E. Cohen "Athenian Economy and Society, A Banking Perspective" Princeton UP, New Jersey 1992.
42. The idea of a successful adaptation as a response to an external challenge has been of course introduced by A. Toynbee "A Study of History" Oxford UP, 1946 and has been used by others in varying context,
43. as Glete, op.cit. and A. Greif "On the Political Foundation of the Late Medieval Commercial Revolution: Genoa during the Twelfth and Thirteenth Centuries" Journal of Economic History, Vol. 54-4, 1994, pp. 271-287, in explaining the introduction of the institution of the "prodesta" in 1170 when Genoa faced a severe external threat.
44. J. Glete "Navies and Nations", Almqvist and Wicksell International, Stockholm 1993, 2 volumes, makes an admirable analysis of the complexity of naval organisations, calling them "blueprints for organisations" (p. 17) while in his op.cit. (2000) p. 71 he writes: "The navies gradually became technologically and administratively the most complex organisations in early modern Europe". The cost of one "new style" fortification bastion for Rome was 10.000 t in 1542. At about the same time, the cost of the seven-kilometer enceinte of Antwerp with nine bastions and five monumental gates cost about 90.000 £ (1 million florins) while the 1012 actillery pieces on the fifteen new strongholds along the border with the Netherlands cost 50.000 £ sterling.
45. See G. Parker, op.cit. p. 12. During 1557 and 1558 at least £ 157,638 were spent by Queen Mary of England on dockyards and victualling. By 1590, the 690-ton "Merhonour" cost 13.600 to build, excluding her guns. During the course of the user with Spain, Queen Elizabeth spent 1.500.000 £ for the Navy, one third of total government spending. By 1588 the English fleet which fought against the Armada consisted of 110 ships, 26 of which purpose-built war galleons and the rest big armed merchantment, mounting in total over 2.000 guns. Taking the cost of "Merhonour" as a very rough benchmark, the capital outlay of the 110 English ships must have represented something like 300.000 to 400.000 £ sterling, excluding all necessary additional equipment. The 2.000 plus guns alone costed approximately at least another 100.000 £ .
46. See N.A.M. Rodger, op.cit. for these figures. During the next century, bigger ships were built, and the trend was the purpose built warships to replace merchantment, so that by the 1660's the main battle fleets of the European nations consisted almost exclusively of purpose-built warships. Taking into account also the numerical increase of fleets,
47. (see J. Glete, op.cit. 1993) the initial capital outlays for fleets increased manifold. In the British case, the cost per head of the Navy is typically between two and five times that of the army, the higher figure in peace, when the men were paid off but the ships and dockyards were still maintained. I owe this clarification to Prof. Rodger, who supplied these figures from his forthcoming book "The Command of the Ocean". Lastly, the cost of fighting the Napoleonic wars can be broken down into: pay 50%, food 16%, shipbuilding and repairs 15%, charter of sea transport 5%, clothing 4%, arms and ammunition 4%, building and construction 3%, horses 1%, barrack stores and POW 1% each. It can be seen from this list that ships were by then by far the largest single item of capital expenditure. All the rest, with the exception of horses, was running costs.
48. See P.K. O'Brien "The Impact of the Napoleonic Wars 1793-1815 on the Long-Run Growth of the British Economy", Review of the Fernand Braudel Center XII, 1989, pp. 335-367.
49. Ph. Masson "Istoire de la Marine", Tome 1, Charles Lavouzelles, Paris 1981.
50. For these demand effects arising out of the turns of the sea of Athens and England, on employment and some pre-industrial sectors like wood construction and metal founding see in particular Kyriazis-Zouboulakis (op.cit. 2003) who estimate the effects of the building of 200 new Athenian triremes during 482-481 BC on Athenian metallurgy (bronze and iron) through the casting of rams. Kyriazis Zouboulakis and Rodger (op.cit.) examine the linkages and the demand induced growth of the English iron metallurgy (foundries etc.) in order to equip the Elizabethan fleet with iron guns. Lastly in the last section of the present essay, the case of the United Provinces is examined, where demand for guns for the navy led to the development of the metallurgic sector in Holland, but also to capital export and the development of the sector in Sweden, which had rich iron ores, while the United Provinces had none.
51. The decision makers are of course not the same in every state. In Ancient Athens where decisions were taken through direct voting by every male citizen, the decision makers were all the adult male Athenians. They actually voted in 482 BC the Naval Law proposed by Themistocles that was Athens' first step towards the "turn to the sea". In Elizabethan England, decision makers were the Queen, her ministers, the court and influential nobles, merchants and financiers. (These characteristics were often united in one and the same person, as fe John Gresham, and Lord Howard of Effingham, John Hawkins and Francis Drake). For the decision makers in the United Provinces, see next section.
52. I use the term welfare here in a wider sense than the economic one, to include elements concerning freedom, religion and patriotism, which were important for all three cases of "turns to the sea" mentioned.
53. st (land regime) → 0.
54. For simplicity we do not distinguish here between organizations that belong to the state (fe admiralties or armies), enterprises (as in the United Provinces example of the rederij) or mixed forms (like the East India Company).
55. The figures used in Table 3 are from the following: A. Livesey "Battles of the Great Commanders", Tiger Books, London 1990,
56. A. Konstam "The Armada Campaign" Osprey Campaign Series 86, 2001,
57. J.F.C. Fuller "The Decisive Battles of the Western World 480 BC - 1757 AD", Paladin 1970,
58. W. Seymour "Decisive Factors in Twenty Great Battles of the World" Sidgwick and Jackson, London 1988,
59. J. Tincey "Edgehill 1642", Osprey Campaign 82, 2001,
60. C. Falls "Great Military Battles", Weidenfeld and Nicholson, London 1964,
61. O. Warner "Great Sea Battles" Weidenfeld and Nicholson, London 1963.
62. This section has drawn information from J. de Vries, A van der Woude "The First Modern Economy", Cambridge UP 1997,
63. F.S. Gaastra "The Dutch East India Company" Walburg Press 2003,
64. C.R. Boxer "The Dutch Seaborne Empire 1600-1800" Hutchinson, London 1965,
65. E.H. Kossman "The Dutch Republic", Chapter XII in "The New Cambridge Modern History, Vol. V, "The Ascendancy of France" Cambridge UP, 1990,
66. G. Parker "The Dutch Revolt" Pelican Books 1979,
67. M.t'Hart "The making of a bourgeois state", Manchester UP, 1996,
68. K. Davids and J. Lucasen, eds. "A miracle mirrored: The Dutch Republic in European Perspective" Cambridge UP 1995,
69. M.t' Hart "The Emergence and Consolidation of the "Tax State", in R. Bonney, ed. "Economic Systems and State Finance", Clarendon Press, 1995,
70. M.t' Hart "Intercity Rivalries and the Making of the Dutch State", in C. Tilly and W.P. Blockmans, eds. "Cities and the Rise of Europe AD 1000 to 1800", Westview Press, 1994,
71. J. Glete op.cit. 2002.
72. They served as models for French designs, (Saint Louis) Swedish (Vasa) and as late as the end of the 17th century, for Russia, when Peter the Great invited Dutch shipwrights to Russia in order to acquire a navy.
73. E.H. Kossmann "The Low Countries", in The New Cambridge Modern History, Vol. 4 "The Decline of Spain and the Thirty Years War", Cambridge UP, 1970 citations p. 363 and 365.
74. One anonymous referee raised the point of compatibility of the existence of wide alliances of interest in support of seapower, (of which the war navies were a part only) and the impressment of seamen in the British navy (during the French revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars). First, the existence of some coercion is not incompatible with the alliance of interests. Second, as Prof. Rodger pointed out in a communication to the author "The press gang is in economic terms an example of the state interfering in a market, in this case the labour market. The object was to insure that the Navy got a share of a particular scarce skill (able seamen and particularly topmen). The majority of ships' companies were usually volunteers. Skilled men were very scarce in wartime as wartime demand exceeded peacetime supply by two or three to one. Interference in markets was of course common, and all naval powers had to resort to some force to man their fighting fleets. The Dutch practice was to impose an embargo, forbidding merchant ships to sail, so that men had the choice of the navy or unemployment. This relatively limited interference was possible because they never attempted to keep their main fleet mobilized for long periods". As a conclusion, first, the alliance of interests was necessary for a state to become and to continue to be a seapower. During wars, a redistribution of manpower from the merchant marine to the navy took place. Within it, a small amount of direct coercion (press gang) or indirect (the Dutch method) could take place, but it was of a transitory nature, as long as the war lasted, while the alliance of interest was permanent for long periods. Lastly, for this redistribution to function, the precondition was the existence of a pool of experienced sailors, who existed because of the turn to the sea.
75. A "classic" example being that of Banningh Cocq, the central figure of Rembrandt's "Night Watch", who was the son of a poor German, who started his career in Amsterdam as a beggar, made a fortune and contracted a very successful marriage. The son rose to the rank of knight and burgomaster.
76. Boxer, op.cit., citation p. XXI.
77. Downing, op.cit. citation p. 250.
78. Downing, op.cit. citation p. 146. During the first part of the 17th century, revolts and civil war erupted in Bohemia in the Austrian Habsburg empire, in Catalonia in the Spanish Habsburg empire, in Poland (revolt of Cossacks in the Ukraine), in France (the Fronde) and in Great Britain between the king and the Parliament.
79. North, op.cit. 1993, citation p. 18.
80. This very important issue was raised by an anonymous referee.
81. Portugal had lost its independence and been absorbed together with its colonies by the Spanish Empire in 1580.