6 - Eastern and Western merchants from the sixteenth to the eighteenth centuries

Summary

Current opinion in the West is quick to speak of the backwardness of the Oriental economies (leaving aside Japan and the little tigers around it) and of the innate inferiority of their representatives (even though Lebanese and Saudi bankers can create a cold sweat on the Paris, London and New York stock exchanges nowadays). The weakness of the GDPs or GNPs in certain countries by comparison with the developed nations and the very obvious poverty of many towns and villages encourage these feelings, which in the pre-Independence era were often accompanied by a contemptuous attitude on the part of the colonizers towards the colonized and by discriminatory measures. This sort of pride could be dismissed as ingenuous if its consequences were not so grave, and it is still apparent even today. The resulting tendency has been to move from a study of economic situations to a study of economic structures from the present day to the immemorial. Of course few historians today will look at things this way. But the old vulgate is periodically revived and still has its adepts. It has unquestionably left its mark on many historians – whether they like it or not – influencing their way of presenting the facts. So I thought it would be a good thing to remind you about it, if only as a salutary warning.