The Dark Side of Dutch Prosperity: A 17th-Century Mercantile Empire

2025-01-30
The Dark Side of Dutch Prosperity: A 17th-Century Mercantile Empire

The Dutch Republic, in the 17th century, was Europe's most powerful mercantile power. Its prosperity, as Julie Berger Hochstrasser notes, was built on the foundational elements of capitalism: rapacious resource extraction and privatization, exploitation of waged and unwaged labor, colonial theft, profit from trade, and the concealment of these exploitative practices. As Marx highlighted in *Capital*, the visible marketplace contrasts sharply with the hidden realities of production. Simon Schama's *The Embarrassment of Riches* showcases Amsterdam's opulent streets, filled with goods from around the world, while obscuring the suffering in plantations, ships, mines, and refineries that made this abundance possible.