Hostname: page-component-76fb5796d-45l2p Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-04-25T23:36:20.268Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Changes in factor markets in the Ottoman Empire, 1500–1800

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  20 April 2009

ŞEVKET PAMUK
ŞEVKET PAMUK
Affiliation:
Ataturk Institute for Modern Turkish History, Bogaziçi University, Istanbul, and European Institute, London School of Economics and Political Science.
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

The most important determinant of Ottoman economic institutions and their evolution in the early modern era needs to be sought in the Empire's social structure and political economy. Merchants and producers were never in a position to influence the state elites and to push for institutional changes that would favour the growth of the private sector. As a result, many of the key institutions of the Ottoman order, including the state ownership of land and the urban guilds, remained intact until the nineteenth century. In contrast, institutions related to state borrowing changed significantly. This difference in the political power of different groups explains – better than geography or resource endowments, Islam or culture – the striking divergence in the trajectory of different factor markets.

L'évolution des marchés de facteurs de production dans l'empire ottoman, 1500–1800

C'est dans la structure sociale et l'économie politique de l'Empire ottoman qu'il faut aller chercher ce qui a le plus influencé les institutions économiques ottomanes et leur évolution au cours de l'ère moderne. Marchands et producteurs n'ont jamais été en position d'influencer les élites de l'Etat ni d'agir pour obtenir des modifications des institutions susceptibles de favoriser la croissance du secteur privé. Il s'ensuit que la plupart des institutions de base de l'ordre ottoman, y compris la terre propriété de l'Etat et les corporations urbaines, restèrent inchangées jusqu'au 19e siècle. Par contre, les institutions concernant les emprunts d'Etat changèrent de façon significative. C'est cet écart entre les pouvoirs politiques des différents groupes qui explique, mieux que la géographie ou les dotations en capital, mieux que l'Islam ou la culture, la divergence frappante de développement qu'ont connue les marchés de facteurs de production.

Faktormärkte im wandel im osmanischen reich, 1500–1800

Die Faktoren, welche die ökonomischen Institutionen und ihre Entwicklung im osmanischen Reich am stärksten beeinflussten, sind in der Sozialstruktur und der politischen Ökonomie zu suchen. Kaufleute und Produzenten waren niemals in der Lage, die staatlichen Eliten zu beeinflussen und auf institutionelle Veränderungen zu drängen, die ein Wachstum des Privatsektors begünstigt hätten. Infolgedessen blieben viele der Schlüsselinstitutionen des osmanischen Reiches, wie etwa das Staatseigentum am Boden und die städtischen Zünfte und Gilden, bis ins 19. Jahrhundert intakt. Die mit der staatlichen Kreditaufnahme verbundenen Einrichtungen dagegen veränderten sich grundlegend. Diese markanten Divergenzen im Entwicklungspfad der unterschiedlichen Faktormärkte lassen sich durch Unterschiede in der politischen Macht verschiedener Gruppen besser erklären als durch den Verweis auf Geographie oder Rohstoffausstattung, den Islam oder die Kultur.

Type
Research Article
Information
Continuity and Change , Volume 24 , Special Issue 1: FACTOR MARKETS IN GLOBAL ECONOMIC HISTORY , May 2009 , pp. 107 - 136
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2009

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

ENDNOTES

1 For a recent argument, see Pamuk, Şevket, ‘Institutional change and the longevity of the Ottoman Empire, 1500–1800’, Journal of Interdisciplinary History 35 (2004), 225–47.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

2 Kuran, Timur, ‘The Islamic commercial crisis: institutional roots of economic underdevelopment in the Middle East’, The Journal of Economic History' 63 (2003), 417–49CrossRefGoogle Scholar, and ‘Why the Middle East is economically underdeveloped: historical mechanisms of institutional stagnation’, Journal of Economic Perspectives 18 (2004), 71–90.

3 See Douglass C. North, Institutions, institutional change and economic performance (Cambridge University Press, 1990), and, more recently, Daron Acemoglu, Simon Johnson and James Robinson, ‘Institutions as the fundamental cause of long-run growth’, in Philippe Aghion and Steve Durlauf eds., Handbook of economic growth (Amsterdam and London, 2005), 385–471; also Elhenan Helpman, The mystery of economic growth (Cambridge MA, 2004), and Rodrik, Dani, Subramanian, Arvind and Trebbi, Francesco, ‘Institutions rule: the primacy of institutions over geography and integration in economic development’, The Journal of Economic Growth 9, 2 (2004), 131–66.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

4 Acemoglu, Daron, Johnson, Simon and Robinson, James, ‘The rise of Europe: Atlantic trade, institutional change and economic growth’, American Economic Review 95 (2005), 546–79.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

5 One should add the qualification that for most societies in the late medieval and early modern periods, it is difficult to talk about an economic sphere separate from the political, administrative and fiscal; see Edward Miller, ‘France and England’, in M. M. Postan, E. E. Rich and E. Miller eds., ‘The economic policies of governments’, The Cambridge economic history of Europe, vol. 3 (Cambridge, 1963), 282–91.

6 İslamoğlu, Huri and Keyder, Çağlar, ‘Agenda for Ottoman history,’ Review, a Journal of the Fernand Braudel Center 1 (1977), 31–55.Google Scholar

7 Carlo Cipolla has argued that there was virtual identity between the merchants and the state in the trading towns of medieval Italy: ‘More than once the action of the guild of merchants seemed to imply the affirmation, l'etat c'est moi’ (Carlo M. Cipolla, ‘Currency depreciation in medieval Europe’, Economic History Review 15 (1963), 397). Ottoman merchants during the early modern era could not possibly make a similar claim. Instead, as Udovitch has concluded for the merchants of eleventh-century Egypt, Ottoman merchants could at best proclaim ‘l'etat n'est pas contre moi’ (Udovitch, A. L., ‘Merchants and amirs: government and trade in eleventh century Egypt’, Asian and African Studies 22 (1988), 53–72Google Scholar).

8 Genç, Mehmet, ‘Osmanlı iktisadi dünya görüşünün ilkeleri’, İstanbul Üniversitesi Edebiyat Fakültesi Sosyoloji Dergisi 3, 1 (1989), 175–85Google Scholar; Halil Inalcik, ‘The Ottoman state: economy and society, 1300–1600’, in H. Inalcik and D. Quataert eds., An economic and social history of the Ottoman Empire, 1300–1914 (Cambridge, 1994), 44–54.

9 Inalcik, ‘The Ottoman state: economy and society’, 48–52 and 179–379; see also Palmira Brummett, Ottoman seapower and Levantine diplomacy in the age of discovery (Albany, 1994), 131–74.

10 See Miller, ‘France and England’, 290–340, and C. M. Cipolla, ‘The economic policies of governments: the Italian and Iberian peninsulas’, in Postan, Rich and Miller eds., The Cambridge economic history of Europe, vol. 3, 397–429.

11 The Ottomans were not unaware of mercantilist thought and practice. Early-eighteenth-century historian Naima, for example, defended mercantilist ideas and practices and argued that if the Islamic population purchased local products instead of imports, coinage would stay in Ottoman lands; see Naima, Tarih-i Naima, ed. Zuhuri Danışman (Istanbul, 1968), vol. 4, 1826–7, and vol. 6, 2520–5.

12 Gilbar, Gad, ‘The Muslim big merchants-entrepreneurs of the Middle East, 1860–1914’, Die Welt des Islams 43, 1 (2003), 1–36.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

13 J. Wansbrough and H. Inalcik, ‘Imtiyazat’, Encyclopedia of Islam (2nd edn, 1973).

14 See Genç, ‘Osmanlı iktisadi dünya görüşü’.

15 Sabri F. Ülgener, ‘İslam Hukuk ve Ahlak Kaynaklarında İktisat Siyaseti Meseleleri’, Ebülula Mardin'e Armağan, Kenan Matbaası (Istanbul, 1944), 1151–89; Mübahat S. Kütükoğlu, Osmanlılarda Narh Müessesesi ve 1640 Tarihli Narh Defteri (Istanbul, 1983), 3–38. For the texts of late-fifteenth and early-sixteenth-century laws regulating the markets in large Ottoman cities, see Barkan, Ömer Lütfi, ‘Bazı büyük şehirlerde eşya ve yiyecek fiyatlarının tesbit ve teftişi hususlarını tanzim eden kanunlar’, Tarih Vesikaları 1, 5 (1942), 326–40Google Scholar; 2, 7 (1943), 15–40; and 2, 9 (1943), 168–77.

16 Narh lists were issued most frequently during the periods 1585–1640 and 1785–1840, times of monetary and price instability; see Pamuk, Şevket, ‘Prices in the Ottoman Empire, 1469–1914’, International Journal of Middle East Studies 36 (2004), 451–68Google Scholar. Otherwise there were long stretches, often decades, when no narh lists were issued in the city of Istanbul.

17 Istanbul was a giant, consuming city dependant on its vast hinterland. The classic work on the economy of the capital city and the nature of state intervention in that economy remains Robert Mantran, Istanbul dans la seconde moitié du XVIIe siècle (Paris, 1962), chapitre II, 233–86; see also Inalcik, ‘The Ottoman state: economy and society’, 179–87.

18 See, for example, Inalcik, Halil, ‘Bursa and the commerce of the Levant’, Journal of the Economic and Social History of the Levant 3 (1960), 131–47Google Scholar, B. Masters, The origins of western economic dominance in the Middle East: mercantilism and the Islamic economy in Aleppo, 1600–1750 (New York, 1988), and Daniel Goffman, Izmir and the Levantine world, 1550–1650 (Seattle, 1990).

19 Ş. Pamuk, A monetary history of the Ottoman Empire (Cambridge, 2000), 66–76, 88–111.

20 Barkan, Ömer Lütfi, ‘H. 933–934 (M. 1527–1528) mali yilina ait bir bütçe örnegi’, Istanbul Üniversitesi Iktisat Fakültesi Mecmuasi 14 (1953–1954), 251–329.Google Scholar

21 Inalcik, ‘The Ottoman state: economy and society’, 103–79.

22 For Ottoman pragmatism and flexibility in the administration of the frontier provinces, see goston, Gabor, ‘A flexible empire: authority and its limits on the Ottoman frontiers’, International Journal of Turkish Studies 9 (2003), 15–31.Google Scholar

23 Caglar Keyder and Faruk Tabak eds., Landholding and commercial agriculture in the Middle East (Albany, 1991).

24 Stanford J. Shaw, The financial and administrative development of Ottoman Egypt, 1517–1798 (Princeton, 1962); Kenneth Cuno, The pasha's peasants: land, society and economy in lower Egypt, 1740–1858 (Cambridge, 1992).

25 Compare Stoianovich, Troian, ‘Land tenure and related sectors of the Balkan economy, 1600–1800’, The Journal of Economic History 13 (1953), 398–411CrossRefGoogle Scholar, with Keyder and Tabak eds., Landholding and commercial agriculture.

26 Suraiya Faroqhi, Towns and townsmen of Ottoman Anatolia: trade, crafts and food production in an urban setting, 1520–1650 (Cambridge, 1984).

27 Faroqhi, Suraiya, ‘The fieldglass and the magnifying lens: studies of Ottoman crafts and craftsmen’, Journal of European Economic History 20 (1991), 29–57Google Scholar; Yildirim, Onur, ‘The transformation of the craft guilds in Istanbul during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, 1650–1826’, Revue des Etudes Sud-est Européennes 38 (1999–2000), 91–109.Google Scholar

28 For a recent discussion of the classical Islamic views on interest, see N. A. Saleh, Unlawful gain and legitimate profit in Islamic law: riba, gharar and Islamic banking (Cambridge, 1988), 9–32.

29 Jennings, R. C., ‘Loans and credit in early 17th century Ottoman judicial records’, Journal of the Economic and Social History of the Orient 16 (1973), 168–216.Google Scholar

30 Masters, The origins of western economic dominance, 146–85, and A. Cohen, Economic life in Ottoman Jerusalem (Cambridge, 1989).

31 A. L. Udovitch, Partnership and profit (Princeton, 1970), 268–9; Ashtor, Eliyahu, ‘Banking instruments between the Muslim East and the Christian West’, Journal of European Economic History 1 (1972), 554–62Google Scholar, and H. Sahillioğlu, ‘Bursa kadı sicillerinde iç ve dış ödemeler aracı olarak “Kitabü'l-Kadı” ve “Süftece”ler’, in O. Okyar and H. Ü. Nalbandoğlu eds., Türkiye iktisat tarihi semineri (Ankara, 1975), 103–44.

32 Inalcik emphasizes the use of hawala in state transactions; see H. Inalcik, ‘Hawale’, Encyclopedia of Islam (2nd edn).

33 Mandaville, J. E., ‘Usurious piety: the cash waqf controversy in the Ottoman Empire’, International Journal of Middle East Studies 10 (1979), 289–308.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

34 See M. Çizakça, A comparative evolution of business partnerships: the Islamic world and Europe with specific reference to the Ottoman archives (Leiden, 1996).

35 Çizakça, A comparative evolution, 131–4.

36 Udovitch, Partnership and profit, 170–217, and Çizakça, A comparative evolution, 66–76.

37 In essence, this was identical to the commenda of Europe. For discussions of the Islamic origins of European commenda, see A. L. Udovitch, ‘At the origins of the Western commenda: Islam, Israel, Byzantium’, Speculum 37 (1962), 198–207, and Ashtor, E., ‘Banking instruments between the Muslim east and the Christian west’, Journal of European Economic History 1 (1972), 553–73Google Scholar, and Çizakça, A comparative evolution, 10–32.

38 Çizakça, A comparative evolution, 65–85 and 126–31; see also M. Çizakça, ‘Financing silk trade in the Ottoman Empire: 16th–18th centuries’, in S. Cavaciocchi ed., La seta in Europa secc. XIII–XX (Prato, 1993), 711–23.

39 Inalcik, ‘The Ottoman state: economy and society’, 212–14.

40 Linda T. Darling, Revenue-raising and legitimacy, tax collection and finance administration in the Ottoman Empire, 1560–1660 (Leiden, 1996); İnalcık, H., ‘Military and fiscal transformation in the Ottoman Empire, 1600–1700’, Archivum Ottomanicum 6 (1980), 283–337.Google Scholar

41 M. Genç, ‘A study of the feasibility of using eighteenth century Ottoman financial records as an indicator of economic activity’, in Huri İslamoğlu-İnan ed., The Ottoman Empire and the world economy (Cambridge, 1987), 345–73.

42 Çizakça, A comparative evolution.

43 Salzman, Ariel, ‘An ancien regime revisited: “privatization” and political economy in the eighteenth-century Ottoman Empire’, Politics and Society 21 (1993), 393–423.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

44 Genç, ‘A study of the feasibility’.

45 Yavuz Cezar, Osmanlı maliyesinde bunalım ve değişim dönemi: XVIII. yy.dan tanzimat'a mali tarih (Istanbul, 1986), 81–3; see also Genç, M., ‘Esham’, İslam Ansiklopedisi 11 (1995), 376–80.Google Scholar

46 Cezar, Osmanlı maliyesinde bunalım, 128–34, 198–200.

47 My estimates are based on central government budget documents and estimates of per capita income in the Ottoman Empire; for the latter, see Ş. Pamuk, ‘Estimating economic growth in the Middle East since 1820’, The Journal of Economic History 66 (2006), 809–28.

48 G. Parker, ‘The emergence of modern finance in Europe, 1500–1730’, in C. M. Cipolla ed., The Fontana economic history of Europe, vol. 2 (London, 1974), 560–82. For the case of France, the country most likely to have influenced the changes in Ottoman institutions of public finance during the eighteenth century, see Eugene N. White, ‘France and the failure to modernize macroeconomic institutions’, in Michael D. Bordo and Roberto Cortes-Conde eds., Transferring wealth and power from the old to the new world: monetary and fiscal institutions in the 17th through the 19th Centuries (Cambridge, 2001), 59–99.

49 S. R. Epstein, Freedom and growth: the rise of states and markets in Europe, 1300–1750 (London and New York, 2000), 16–29.

50 My calculations as presented in Pamuk, A monetary history of the Ottoman Empire, 191–2.