England’s debt to the Dutch

In his latest work ‘The Age of Revolutions’, Fareed Zakaria argues that the world’s first revolution that transformed the relations between the state and its citizens and ushered in the modern ideas of liberalism was not the American, French or the English revolutions. It was instead the Dutch Golden Age.

Feudalism never took root in the Netherlands. Thanks to its unique geography, there never was much land in the first place. Due to this, the land always belonged to the people who salvaged it from the sea. With a limited role in agriculture, most of the population were engaged in trade, transportation and manufacturing. During the 16^th and 17^th centuries, the Dutch expanded trade networks through outposts in New Amsterdam (NY), Cape Town and Batavia in the Netherlands. The fierce competition with the Spanish and the Portuguese fueled Dutch innovations in seafaring and mercantile capitalism. It created the Bank of Amsterdam, established a thriving stock market, launched the VOC as a joint stock company and embraced science to engage with the world. Luther’s Protestant Revolution further added fuel to the Dutch’s deep suspicion of authority. (It is even believed that the interior lives that Rembrandt and Vermeer portrayed in their art was caused by the bar on painting Catholic saints and martyrs). Amsterdam became a haven for persecuted Protestants. In fact, two of the greatest continental philosophers of Europe – Spinoza and Descartes lived and worked in the Netherlands.

In England, when James II came to the throne after years of Civil War, he openly began expressing his intent to bring back Catholicism to the island. This sent the country into a tizzy and James II’s son-in-law – William of Orange was invited to take over the throne (Earlier post on the English Civil War). William, who was the titular head of the Dutch Republic, brought with him to England, the best that the Dutch had to offer.  The establishment of institutions such as the Bank of England, the rule of law, decentralization, and a tolerance of dissent and religious denominations were all offshoots of this move. England soon overtook Amsterdam as a haven for Protestants fleeing bloodshed.

So within a century, when the steam engine transformed social relations in England, the political system was ready to grapple with the changes and adapt. The island thus escaped the bloodshed that France experienced with the Revolution of 1792.