Complementary currencies: a prospect on money from a retrospect on premodern practices

2005 ◽  
Vol 12 (1) ◽  
pp. 43-61 ◽  
Author(s):  
LUCA FANTACCI
Keyword(s):  
Eighteenth Century ◽  
Gold Standard ◽  
Long Distance ◽  
Local Economies ◽  
Real Money ◽  
Constituent Feature ◽  
Complementary Currencies

Debasement has generally been condemned as a defect of premodern money, that was eventually amended by the institution of the gold standard. Building on monetary history and thought from the sixteenth to the eighteenth century, this article argues that debasement was instead an instrument designed to maintain the metal standard where it was needed, in the circuit of long-distance trade, while preserving the possibility of an autonomous distribution within local economies. The theoretical distinction between monetary functions (measure and means of exchange) was made effective by the articulation of ideal and real money (via debasement and enhancement), providing complementary economic areas with complementary currencies. Moreover, the distinction between monetary functions also appears as a constituent feature of money from the perspective of a reappraisal of the milestones of monetary thought, from Smith to Keynes.

Researching Audience Behaviors in Nineteenth-Century Paris

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Katharine Ellis
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
Eighteenth Century ◽  
Gold Standard ◽  
Art Music ◽  
Concert Programs

This chapter starts by revisiting a now-familiar text: James H. Johnson’s book Listening in Paris (1995). On the basis of concert and opera reviews, images, and the paratexts of concert programs, Ellis reframes Johnson’s question “When did audiences fall silent?” as “Where and why did audiences fail to fall silent?” Multilayered answers show how (1) many of the noisier phenomena of the eighteenth century resurfaced in new guises from the 1850s onward; (2) the democratization of art music took place in contexts that could not always impose “religious” listening; and (3) there was a resurgent demand, possibly concomitant, for music as pure entertainment in venues where silence was neither required nor expected. The chapter argues that although attentive listening was a gold standard during the latter two-thirds of the nineteenth century in Paris, practice rarely lived up to such expectations, and it was in effect a niche activity.

Decline and Renewal (1713–1750)

1997 ◽  
pp. 195-215
Author(s):  
Jonathan Israel
Keyword(s):  
Eighteenth Century ◽  
Sixteenth Century ◽  
Population Growth ◽  
Jewish Population ◽  
Western Europe ◽  
Steady Increase ◽  
Economic Policies ◽  
Relevant Factor ◽  
Long Distance ◽  
Manufacturing Activity

This chapter explains that the period 1713–50 was one of sharp deterioration in European Jewry's demographic position. It is true that a steady increase persisted in many parts, but, from the second decade of the eighteenth century onwards, the population of Europe as a whole began to burgeon once more so that, other than in the eastern territories of Poland, Jewish population growth now lagged well behind that of the rest. Moreover, and a more immediately relevant factor in the economic and cultural decline of European Jewry during the eighteenth century, practically all the leading Jewish urban centres displayed a marked incapacity for growth. Previously, from 1570 down to 1713, the economic policies of the European states, concentrating on the promotion of long-distance commerce, had encouraged the increasing integration of the Jewish trade network into the European economy as a whole, and this had laid the basis for the revival of Jewish life in progress in central and western Europe since the late sixteenth century. After 1713, however, a less favourable trend set in. Whilst the European states were still ruled by mercantilist notions, they now adopted more comprehensively protectionist policies, concentrating on the promotion of manufacturing activity rather than long-distance trade.

Commemorating War in Eighteenth-Century China

1996 ◽  
Vol 30 (4) ◽  
pp. 869-899 ◽  
Author(s):  
Joanna Waley-Cohen
Keyword(s):  
Eighteenth Century ◽  
Qing Dynasty ◽  
Chinese History ◽  
Long Distance ◽  
The Past ◽  
Qianlong Emperor

Reviewing his long reign in 1792, the Qianlong Emperor (r. 1736–1795) hailed his military triumphs as one of its central accomplishments. To underscore the importance he ascribed to these successes, he began to style himself ‘Old Man of the Ten Complete Victories’ (Shi Quan Lao Ren), after an essay in which he boldly declared he had surpassed, in ‘Ten Complete Military Victories’ (Shi Quan Wu Gong), the far-reaching westward expansions of the great Han (206 BCE–220 CE) and Tang (618–907) empires. Such an assertion, together with the program of commemoration discussed below, served to justify the immense expense incurred by frequent long-distance campaigning; to elevate all these wars to an unimpeachable level of splendor even though some were distinctly less glorious than others; and to align the Manchu Qing dynasty (16–191 i) with two of the greatest native dynasties of Chinese history and the Qianlong Emperor personally with some of the great figures of the past.

The Organisation of Global Trade: the Monopoly Companies, 1600–1800

2014 ◽  
Vol 22 (1) ◽  
pp. 106-115 ◽  
Author(s):  
Pieter Emmer
Keyword(s):  
Eighteenth Century ◽  
Early Modern ◽  
Institutional Environment ◽  
Early Modern Period ◽  
Small Companies ◽  
Long Distance ◽  
Dominant Form ◽  
Modern Period ◽  
Rapid Economic Growth ◽  
Atlantic Economy

In the early modern period (1500–1800), shipping and trade within Europe were the domain of individual merchants and small companies organised on a temporary basis. Outside Europe, however, new financial and commercial institutions such as permanent joint stock companies came into existence in order to limit the risks. These large institutions played an important role in inter-continental trade and shipping, albeit that their role in Asia differed from that in the Atlantic, where small companies as well as individual merchants remained the dominant form of organisation. In addition, privateers played an important role in the Atlantic economy in times of war while piracy could flourish in those parts of the overseas world where the Iberian trade circuits bordered on those of France, England and the Dutch republic. The conclusion points to the fact that a direct link between the overseas expansion of Europe and its industrialisation might be difficult to construct, but that the creation of long distance trading companies created the institutional environment that must have facilitated Europe's rapid economic growth after the middle of the eighteenth century.

GLOBAL COMMERCE AND THE QUESTION OF SOVEREIGNTY IN THE EIGHTEENTH-CENTURY PROVINCES

2004 ◽  
Vol 1 (1) ◽  
pp. 3-25 ◽  
Author(s):  
EMMA ROTHSCHILD
Keyword(s):  
Eighteenth Century ◽  
Adam Smith ◽  
Economic Science ◽  
Long Distance ◽  
Political Consequences ◽  
The North ◽  
Interesting Insight ◽  
Global Commerce ◽  
Global Connections ◽  
Theories Of Sovereignty

The paper is concerned with disputes over sovereignty and global commerce in the 1760s and 1770s. The eighteenth-century revolution in economic science has been identified with agricultural reforms, and with the definition of national economies. The economists of the time, including Turgot, Mirabeau, Dupont de Nemours, Baudeau and Adam Smith, were also intensely interested in the merchant sovereigns of the French, English and Dutch East India companies, and in the new colonial ventures of the post-Seven Years War period. Their writings on global commerce were sometimes extraordinarily detailed (about herrings, for example, or bye-laws) and often untheoretical. Turgot was for a brief period minister of the navy and of the colonies. The older Mirabeau described the “Spaniard” as “the true Mogul of America,” and the cod of the North Atlantic as “the inexhaustible Peru of the Dutch.” But the economists’ writings on global connections were the occasion for some of their most profound reflections on the political consequences of laissez-faire, on theories of sovereignty, on the difficulties of transporting information or instructions over very large distances, and on the changing relationships between power, law and commerce. The disputes over long-distance commerce provide an interesting insight, the paper suggests, into ways of thinking which were at the same time scientific and administrative, global and provincial.

Financing Long-Distance Trade: The Joint Liability Rule and Bills of Exchange in Eighteenth-Century France

2015 ◽  
Vol 75 (3) ◽  
pp. 690-719 ◽  
Author(s):  
Veronica Aoki Santarosa
Keyword(s):  
Eighteenth Century ◽  
Early Modern ◽  
Early Modern Period ◽  
Liability Rule ◽  
Long Distance ◽  
Trade Finance ◽  
Joint Liability ◽  
Modern Period ◽  
Fundamental Information ◽  
Bill Of Exchange

Over time, international trade expanded beyond the reach of an individual's personal networks. How was long-distance trade among strangers financed without using banks? I argue that the joint liability rule enabled the medieval bill of exchange to become a major form of payment and credit in the early modern period which in turn supported an unparalleled expansion of trade. This article empirically examines the role that joint liability played in ameliorating fundamental information problems in long-distance trade finance.

Atlantic Trade and Commodities, 1402–1815

2012 ◽  
Author(s):  
David Hancock
Keyword(s):  
Eighteenth Century ◽  
The Netherlands ◽  
Atlantic Ocean ◽  
Long Distance ◽  
Trading System ◽  
Goods And Services ◽  
Atlantic Trade ◽  
Long Eighteenth Century

This article reviews the transfer of goods and services between the continents bordering the Atlantic Ocean. It shows that the demands of long-distance trade, particularly but not solely across the Atlantic, encouraged innovation in technologies and methods, transformed commercial institutions, and required traders to develop novel ways of managing their businesses. After regaining independence from Spain in 1640, Portugal created a transatlantic trading system that was more vigorous than what had existed before 1580. The long eighteenth century witnessed a precipitate decline of France as an Atlantic commercial power and a steady rise of England. Paradoxically, France's Atlantic trading burgeoned, at least at first. While Britain and France struggled for Atlantic control, the Netherlands flourished, albeit in slightly different channels than before. The increase in the efficiency of shipping, the dematerialisation of finance, and the spread of information were substantial results of a burgeoning Atlantic trade. They also forced changes in traders' and governments' ideas about how commerce should be managed.

An evaluation of sleepiness, and sleep on-route in South African long- distance truck drivers

2002 ◽  
Author(s):  
◽  
Michelle Lydia Baker
Keyword(s):  
South African ◽  
Sleep Duration ◽  
Gold Standard ◽  
Epworth Sleepiness Scale ◽  
Nrem Sleep ◽  
Truck Drivers ◽  
Long Distance ◽  
Validated Questionnaires ◽  
Drive Time

The hypothesis that South African long-distance drivers are sleepy at the wheel, and have shortened sleep duration on-route at truck stops arose. The possibility of using gold standard questionnaires for employment in operational settings was also considered. Although many questionnaires, and simulator studies have been used to assess sleepiness in long-distance truck drivers, few studies have monitored drivers on-route, whilst driving. The subjective component involved the use of both the Epworth Sleepiness Scale (ESS) and the Sleep Wake Activity Inventory (SWAI), which are validated . questionnaires developed for assessing sleepiness. Objectively on-route physiological polysomnography (PSG), using specific parameters, was used to record the occurrence of microsleeps and Stage1 NREM sleep, according to international criteria, to monitor drivers, whilst driving, as well as sleep, at a truck stop (N=16). The objective polysomnographic results showed an overall propensity to lapses in consciousness (microsleeps) and progression to sleepiness (Stage1 NREM). A mean total sleepiness score of 19% was calculated across the total drive time, which averaged four hours. This was extrapolated to alcohol levels of BAC 0.05 - 0.1 as described by Williamson & Feyer, (2000).

Exchanges

2021 ◽  
pp. 47-72
Author(s):  
Jagjeet Lally
Keyword(s):  
Eighteenth Century ◽  
North India ◽  
Long Distance ◽  
Single Process ◽  
Political Structures

By tracing the flow of goods from sites of production to sites of consumption, this chapter shows that long-distance trade was made up of numerous exchanges. Closely examining these exchanges, it demonstrates how caravan trade integrated the lives of even relatively remote peasants and pastoralists—not to mention bureaucrats, bankers and craftsmen—into larger economic and political structures. In the eighteenth century, the hub of caravan trade in north India shifted to Multan in western Punjab, its environs the site of trade-related production and home to the kinsmen of the pastoralists who plied the caravan routes, and its cities containing the workshops of artisans and the business houses of north-Indian magnates heavily involved in long-distance exchange. By comparing similar but very separate phenomena in Punjab and Bengal, this chapter reveals that globalisation was not a single process but a multiplicity, and one that could create disconnection just as much as greater connectivity.

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