Capital Networks and Early Papermaking

Abstract

This chapter explores the emergence of the Dutch paper industry in the phase of Dutch capitalism starting from 1580. Swiftly earning acclaim as the most reputable paper industry in Europe and beyond, the chapter elucidates the distinctions between the primary paper production regions during this period, namely the Zaanstreek and the Veluwe. Offering an intricate analysis of the contrasting organization of employers and laborers, diverse politico-economic conditions and industrial integration, as well as variations in resource availability and pre-industrial innovation in each region, the chapter eloquently highlights the transitional and non-linear character of the succession from feudalism to capitalism during that era.

The story of [the transition from feudalism to capitalism] consists of a real dialectical unity, in which the stalled fragments of capitalist development in one country formed the elements of its further development in the next.

Brandon, P. (2011, p. 142)

The Dutch paper industry emerged in the phase of Dutch state building around 1580. Soon after, it was the most reputable paper industry in Europe and beyond. The first Dutch paper mill was erected in Dordrecht in 1586 by Hans van Aelst, an economic and religious refugee from Antwerp.¹ From then onwards, paper mills started spreading throughout the Northern Lowlands (now the Netherlands). In the first half of the seventeenth century, the papermaking process was similar across all Dutch paper mills and comparable to production processes abroad. Papermaking involved decomposing rags, which was labor-intensive and required special knowledge and training.² First, the lompen (rags) were sorted, then soaked in vast amounts of water and decomposed into fibers using a hamerbak (a heavy wood-pounder with nails). The so-called schepper (shoveller) shoveled the resulting pulp into a large container and formed it into a sheet of paper, using copper wire and a sieve. Thereafter, the so-called koetser (finisher) dried the paper sheets by bedding them in between felt, pressing the amounted stack and hanging it up. To make the resulting paper product into printable paper, it was soaked in animal-based glue and flattened out afterward. Depending on the degree of flattening mixed with further coatings, the paper reached a higher quality as it became more durable.

The initial rise in paper demand was driven by the establishment of book printing in the second half of the fifteenth century and comparably high rates of literacy throughout the Northern Lowlands at that time.³ With the fall of Antwerp in 1585 and the subsequent independence of the Seven United Provinces from the Habsburg Empire in 1588, two distinct regions became central to Dutch paper production: The Zaanstreek and the Veluwe. In the Veluwe, more and more peasants gradually shifted their second income stream (their first one being subsistence farming as well as selling over-produce at local markets) to paper production as local demand for paper products grew continuously. The Zaanstreek, on the other hand, attracted extensive capital investments from the merchant-capitalist class fraction, soon constituting a dense capital network and emerging into the main industrial region in the Netherlands—also for papermaking. Cooperation and contractual agreements enabled Zaansian paper producers to implement technological advances, sharing the risks and liabilities of expanding paper production. Furthermore, close relations between state authorities and the merchant-capitalist class fraction ensured the containment of rising workers’ revolts.

Dutch paper makers produced different paper qualities in these two regions. In the Veluwe resources were scarce and paper producers had to travel far across the countryside to collect rags, machinery, and other necessities for production. Nonetheless, Veluwian paper makers had access to clean water and, thus, produced the highest quality paper products in terms of low paper contamination.⁴ Also Veluwian water-driven mills were reliable in terms of continuous energy availability in comparison to wind-, horsepower- or tidal-driven ones.⁵ Paper producers in the Zaanstreek suffered from the irregularity of wind energy for their wind-powered mills to run the wood-pounder and, thus, exhibited lower production capacities than in the Veluwe. Yet, they profited heavily from being embedded in a network of other industries as well as the Amsterdam trade market and the adjacent harbor infrastructure for the cost-effective acquisition of raw material.⁶

Both the thriving dyeing industry and the sugar refinery industry were located in the Zaanstreek. Amsterdam emerged as a key center for the dyeing trade, with its favorable location near waterways facilitating the import of raw materials like dyestuffs, such as indigo, cochineal, and madder, from Dutch colonies across the globe. Particularly vast quantities of dyestuffs were extracted from colonies in Asia. Dutch dyeing techniques and expertise were highly regarded, leading to the establishment of numerous dye houses and workshops throughout the country. The industry primarily focused on the production of vibrant and high-quality dyes for textiles, including wool, silk, and linen. Amsterdam also became a central hub for sugar production and trade. The Dutch extracted raw sugar from their colonies, primarily Brazil and later the Caribbean, heavily relying on the intensive exploitation of enslaved laborers at colonial plantations. These raw sugars were then processed in Dutch refineries into white sugar, which was in high demand all across Europe. Rooted in colonial exploitation, the Zaanstreek industrial region and its associated industries, such as manufacturing, shipping, banking, and trade, continued to thrive.

Zaansian paper makers particularly profited from the cheap availability of and easy accessibility to necessary resources, such as fishery nets, cordage, and textiles, often remnants of the dye and sugar industries. For example, blue shirts, which were popular in the fishery and shipping industries at that time, were the basis for the famous Zaansian blue paper.⁷ Other famous Zaansian paper products were known for their brightness and based on high-quality textiles traded at the Amsterdam market.⁸ Zaansian paper makers, nonetheless, faced one crucial problem: The absence of clean water. It was a continuous effort to innovate the provision of cleaner water, often in the form of cooperation among multiple paper makers.⁹

The merchant-capitalists were generally supportive of industrial innovation in the paper industry. They recognized the potential for increased profits and economic growth that could come with industrialization. By adopting innovative technologies and mechanized processes, the paper industry could enhance production efficiency, reduce costs, and meet the growing demand for paper. This aligns with the capitalist principles of maximizing profits and capitalizing on market opportunities. The merchant-capitalists also had a vested interest in promoting industrial innovation to maintain their competitive edge in the paper trade. Amsterdam was a key center for paper production and trade, and the merchant-capitalists played a crucial role in facilitating international commerce and establishing global networks. Embracing industrialization would allow them to produce larger quantities of paper, expand their market reach, and compete with other European paper-producing regions. They saw industrial innovation as a means to maintain their dominance and secure their position in the paper industry.

Furthermore, the merchant-capitalists recognized that industrialization in the paper industry could lead to increased specialization and diversification of paper types. This would enable them to cater to different market segments and capitalize on emerging industries, such as publishing, education, and bureaucracy, which relied heavily on paper. Embracing industrial innovation would allow to produce specialized papers more efficiently, opening up new avenues for profit and expanding customer bases. The merchant-capitalists’ eagerness to adopt industrial advancements in the paper industry conflicted with their stance toward the dyeing sector. Unlike paper makers, dyers functioned within guilds, thereby upholding a monopoly over the creation and trade of dyed fabrics. Consequently, the merchant-capitalists preferred to maintain the existing artisanal dye production system, which was exceptionally lucrative for them. By overseeing the production process and restricting competition, they could dictate elevated prices for their traded goods. Hence, while the adoption of industrial innovations and machinery in the paper industry promised increased profits for the merchant-capitalists, it could have jeopardized the established dominance of the dyeing industry, as it had the potential to disrupt established power dynamics and lead to heightened competition.

While Zaansian paper grades already stood in competition to the paper produced in the Veluwe, the products of the dyeing industry in the Zaanstreek were actually—without competition—renowned for producing high-quality and vibrant colors, achieved through meticulous manual processes and expertise. Hence, the merchant-capitalists were concerned about the potential impact of industrialization on the quality and reputation of these dyed textiles. Mechanical dyeing methods, though leading to increased efficiency and lower production costs, could severely compromise the quality and intricacy of the dyeing techniques. Additionally, machinery and automation would reduce the demand for skilled artisans and laborers, potentially leading to unemployment and social unrest. So while the merchant-capitalists resisted industrial innovation in the dyeing industry due to economic self-interest, concerns about sinking product quality, and social and economic ramifications, they supported industrial innovation in the paper industry. Here, they saw opportunities for increased profits, market expansion, and rising paper trade.

And they would not be wrong as one particular technological innovation turned the tide between the two core regions of paper production in the Netherlands, enabling a three times faster decomposition of cloth into pulp: The Hollander beater.¹⁰ In 1680, a Zaansian paper maker, who remained anonymous, invented this machine to beat cloth in order to retrieve its fibers. In the preceding decade, several paper makers of the Zaanstreek had already used metal blades to decompose cloth and tried to either request a patent for their invention or keep others from receiving such a patent.¹¹ Since metal blades stained the paper with rust, the Hollander beater was composed of several bronze blades, which rotated on a wooden or metal base. This invention spread throughout the Zaanstreek rather quickly and production facilities expanded rapidly, soon exceeding Veluwian production scales by far.¹² Since the resulting quality of paper produced by the Hollander beater was much lower in terms of strength and contaminants than that produced by a wood-pounder, Veluwian paper producers continued to use the less efficient wood-pounder. As a result, Zaansian paper makers grew to symbolize the Dutch paper nijverheid (zealousness) by the end of the seventeenth century for which the United Provinces gained worldwide fame.

2.1 Growing Capital Networks

State-industry relations were crucial for paper production, especially in the Zaanstreek. The entrepreneurial Zaansian capitalists belonged to a group of wealthy Baptists, who built a network of trade connections and financial relations. This network of wealthy merchant families also held strong ties with the most powerful of Staten-generaals (state generals), Raadspensionarissen (grand pensionaries), and Stadhouders (governors).¹³ Throughout the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, the Dutch Republic was “a federal state with strong features of bourgeois self-government”.¹⁴ The establishment of the first Dutch nation-state was driven by unifying nationalistic themes, such as land and growth, “[…] based in the [proclaimed] superior virtue and corresponding economic wealth of the Dutch people”.¹⁵ The Amsterdam-Holland merchants were the main agents behind this nationalistic project¹⁶; they were either in charge of political offices, so-called regenten (patricians), or making sure that their interests were heard in the manifold council meetings of representatives of the government, corporate bodies, and commercial entities. The rise of the Dutch Republic to global hegemonic status was, thus, “a multi-dimensional network of individuals and the institutions in which they wielded power, dynamically creating and recreating themselves and attempting to project their authority and views […]”.¹⁷

Additionally, the merchant-capitalist class fraction fostered and legitimized the national identity through expanding their colonial activities. The use of Dutch-quality paper was essential for this nationalist project of identity building and colonial exploitation. The merchant-capitalists were the main purchasers of Dutch paper, in order to print maps, books, and propaganda material to ‘inform’ the Dutch public about their colonial ventures.¹⁸ This propaganda material entailed “[mills] as symbols of modernity and ingenuity, but also as solitary stalwarts in the landscape working for profit in the community by grinding grain, milling paper, or pumping water”.¹⁹ The profit-seeking merchant-capitalist class fraction had a great interest in displaying the nexus between national industrial growth and ‘colonial trade’²⁰ in this propaganda material. In turn, the growing commission for propaganda material directly benefited national paper producers. The Dutch paper industry was, thus, closely intertwined with Dutch colonialism and early capitalism, being inter-related forces themselves.²¹

The expansion of the Zaanstreek needs to be understood alongside two further aspects: The introduction of secondary markets and subsequent institutionalization of colonial activities. Initially, secondary financial markets were established for the Vereenigde Oost-Indische Compagnie (VOC, United East India Company) and other rederijen (shipping companies) to buy and sell bonds and shares.²² Through issuing transferable shares, liquid capital became easily available, also for investing in Dutch paper production. In the beginning, the rederijen comprised a narrow circle of financiers, commonly connected through family bonds and often holding shares of several different companies simultaneously, including shares of paper mills.²³ Through a rigid system called contracten van correspondentie (contracts of correspondence), a range of economic activities, whether in terms of national industrial or colonial trade activities, were monopolized and cartelized.²⁴ In fact, “all governmental and state-chartered corporate spoils in Holland [were divided] among families through a system of rotating offices that generally excluded families outside the oligarchy”.²⁵ Through such a cartel-like division of the market, the merchant-capitalists and state authorities were able to steer and control the majority of national and international economic activities.

Additionally, this nexus of powerful elites made sure that property-rights and tax systems were organized in a way that would operate at the cost of everyone else except them. Public debt, for example, which underpinned the Dutch naval and military power, “formed both a secure outlet for capital investment and a source for state-demand”.²⁶ Strictly following the principle of over-taxation, the burden was carried by the urban proletarian class instead of the capital-owners:

Overtaxation is not an incident, but rather a principle. In Holland, therefore, where this system was first inaugurated, the great patriot, DeWitt, has in his ‘Maxims’ extolled it as the best system for making the wage labourer submissive, frugal, industrious, and overburdened with labour.²⁷

Essentially, the organization of the politico-economic realm was dominated by networks in the form of institutionalized overlaps between political and entrepreneurial-merchant functions as well as dense family bonds, giving the early Dutch state project its title of “state monopoly capitalism”.²⁸

Consequently, the emergence and expansion of state monopoly capitalism during that time was not solely based on national industrial production, but also driven by colonial exploitative practices, which were facilitated and legitimized through state-sponsored corporate bodies like the VOC. Not mentioned often enough,

the record of Dutch brutality in enslaving the indigenous peoples (literally and metaphorically) or in depriving them of their means of livelihood, and in using violence to break their resistance to the policies of the Company, matched or even surpassed the already abysmal standards established by the crusading Iberians throughout the extra-European world.²⁹

It is through such means that, in the seventeenth and early eighteenth century, the Dutch merchant-capitalist class fraction, located in Holland as the political and economic decision center of the Netherlands, expanded internationally by first controlling foreign trade routes and then the majority of the world trade market. Hence, both local industry investments and colonial investments were of vital importance for the accumulation of wealth during the so-called Dutch ‘Golden Age’. In fact, inland products comprised the main part of (re-)export, followed by European goods and lastly by colonial goods.³⁰ Only toward the end of the eighteenth century did colonial goods start outnumbering the (re-)export of inland and European products.³¹ Hence, state monopoly capitalism depended on the unique ensemble of national industrial activities and colonial exploitation.³² In essence, a deep interconnection between national production and colonial trafficking in the Dutch Republic existed, contesting the common historical depiction of the Dutch Republic as a merchant-capitalist nation focusing solely on trade and commerce.

To sum up, Zaansian paper production more specifically and national industries more generally need to be understood against the backdrop of colonial exploitation. Not only did Zaansian paper producers rely on second-order trading materials such as cloth and fabric entering through the Amsterdam colonial trade market but more importantly, this as well as other national industries served as profitable investment outlets for the merchant-capitalist class fraction. Contracts of correspondence were pivotal to ensure that the merchant-capitalists’ fortunes—made through colonial exploitation—remained in the hands of a few families once they were reinvested. Zaansian paper mills, too, were owned and managed by (share-)capital holders, who reinvested their profits from the slave trade and colonial exploitation under the premise that these would remain in their families for generations.

This nexus of colonial and national industrial capital was enabled by close networks between the merchant-capitalist class fraction, mainly Baptist entrepreneurs, and political authorities. And it is precisely these cartel-like network structures, which are characteristic of state monopoly capitalism. Nicely summed up by Sutton (2015), the aforementioned printed propaganda materials are “artifacts of the dynamic networks and actions of government officials, merchants, and publishers within a complex social structure where visuality complements history, positivism and rationalization, and the concomitant rise of the Dutch nation-state and its capitalistic economy”.³³ The nationalist project of forming the Dutch state was based on the relentless expansion of the merchant-capitalist class fraction’s profits through investing in colonial and national industrial activities. The symbiotic relationship between colonial trade and the national industry in the United Provinces was shaped by a capital network. This network was characterized by the merchant-capitalist oligarchy, who passed down their capital through generations, tightly bound within their family connections. This practice served to solidify their hegemonic power for decades to come.

2.2 Fire Insurances and Other Cartels

Zaansian paper makers were foremost entrepreneurs, who engendered capitalist logics of accumulating and reinvesting capital in order to expand their market shares with a view on ever-increasing profits. During the late seventeenth century, these paper makers were able to maintain their dominant market position by exporting their products to Spain, Portugal, England, Austria, Sweden, Poland, and Russia.³⁴ Simultaneously, they invested in foreign paper production, mainly in France. In conjunction with these investments, the expertise and machinery of Dutch paper production, for example, the Hollander, was introduced to production sites abroad.³⁵ Consequently, the first half of the eighteenth century was marked by the widespread replication of paper grades common to Dutch paper by foreign competitors, leading as far as falsifying Dutch watermarks and copying unique recipes for papermaking.³⁶ In addition, a range of European states took protective measures to nurture their national paper industries during the eighteenth century. The Dutch state, in contrast, lacked a centralized, political authority to provide protective legislation for its national industries; additionally, the dominant class fraction of merchant-capitalists pushed for liberal trade policies.³⁷ As a result, Dutch industries, including paper manufacturing, were exposed to increased competition, which in turn accelerated the growing density and scale of cartel structures.³⁸

To counter heightened competition, Protestant paper mill owners in the Zaanstreek shared rising financial risks of investments through establishing partenrederijen (shareholder companies).³⁹ Partenrederijen were copied from similar organizational forms in the shipping industry and divided the ownership of paper mills into parten (shares). These legal entities held shareholders responsible for proportionate investments into machinery and stock, the payment of losses, and eligibility for profits.⁴⁰ In the context of Zaansian paper mills, these shares were fragmented across a limited network of families.⁴¹ Such forms of sharing risks were only able to secure the stability and longevity of paper mills to a certain extent as expensive machinery, high labor costs, and large scales of production persisted. At that time, the scale of production in a Zaansian paper mill amounted to double the production of a mill in the Veluwe.⁴² This fact shall not be mistaken for a generally larger production output in the Zaanstreek than the Veluwe, as mill numbers in the Veluwe still surpassed those of the Zaanstreek by far during the eighteenth century.

To raise their competitiveness toward Veluwian paper production, Zaansian paper makers decided to complement their partenrederijen with so-called ‘fire insurances’ worth up to 240,000 Guilders for its members in 1775.⁴³ More so than insuring against possible fire damages and loss of production, these paper makers’ contracts were similar to the aforementioned contracts of correspondence, in that they intended to stifle competition among Zaansian paper producers. In these contracts, the Zaansian paper makers determined the quantity and quality of production and the sales conditions of paper products. The mill managers’ adherence to the verbal, but nevertheless contractually binding agreements made within these ‘fire insurances’ was controlled through regular inspections of the associated mills.⁴⁴ Hence, the label ‘fire insurances’ was a mere camouflage-tactic as these agreements were outright cartel structures.

Such practices among Zaansian paper producers exemplify the capitalist paradox of, on the one hand, the need for continued accumulation of capital through competition, and, on the other, capitalists seeking to stifle competition, either through cartels or economic concentration.⁴⁵ Zaansian paper mills were owned by a network of family-bound shareholders, which led to severe concentration regarding ownership. National competition, in combination with high investment risks, posed a meaningful threat, even in light of the rising demand for paper products. Zaansian paper makers were also threatened by international competitors and decreasing prices for paper products due to growing international supply, mainly from France, England, and Germany. During the eighteenth century, the paper makers’ contracts were only one form of cartelization to countervail competitive pressures and stay competitive at the same time. The major Dutch paper producers cooperated in further cartels to seek sectoral regulations on product criteria, market share allocations, and price determination.⁴⁶ Especially, the cooperative practice among Zaansian paper makers to collectively buy paper mills in order to then shut them down and, thus, reduce local competition, illustrates the paradoxical nature of the capitalist competition regime.

The Zaansian cooperation practices to erode competition stand in stark contrast to the hinterland paper production in the Veluwe, where financial and cooperative ties between the numerous, smaller paper producers were rare.⁴⁷ The business of lending money and interest-bearing usury, common among the Zaansian paper makers, was frowned upon as unchristian by the predominantly Catholic farmers in the Veluwe. The different branches of Christianity practiced at that time in the United Provinces were quite influential on the daily practices and work ethics of the paper millers. While Catholic believers under no circumstances engaged in businesses of lending money, usury, or banking, this was a common activity among Zaansian paper makers and bankers, also referred to as Lombardiers. In contrast, in the Southern regions of the United Provinces, including the Veluwe, peasants’ “[…] attitude toward capitalism was the old-fashioned Christian attitude which admonished each person to acquire no more worldly possessions than were absolutely necessary”.⁴⁸ As a consequence, the Veluwian paper mills were auxiliary ventures next to farming. The peasants had to rent the land and property, including the mills, from the local nobles and pay tax to the stadthouderate (province) for usage of water and other resources.⁴⁹ The family and relatives living and working on the actual farming grounds carried these costs. Their mills were centered on local markets and peasants specialized in producing certain, locally demanded paper products, quite independent of the paper trade at the Amsterdam stock market.

Throughout most of the seventeenth century, the Veluwian farmers did not compete in the production of paper because the demand outreached the supply of paper produced in the region. As cooperation was family-bound in the Veluwe, family members supported each other in repairing machinery or lending labor power when needed. Even though Veluwian paper grades were highly demanded, in times of lowered sales-numbers Veluwian paper makers were to halt their production. This constant state of precarity was further fueled by the landownership structure and unavailability of financial capital. Consequently, the majority of Veluwian paper mills had a rather short lifespan. Only a limited number of Veluwian paper mills are still known at present under their original family names, such as Orges, Pannekoek, Van Delden, Schut, Sanders, and Berends.

To conclude, paper makers in the Veluwe were commonly subjugated to feudally organized land-payments and demand-driven production scales, cooperating in terms of lending machinery and labor power. In contrast, Zaansian paper makers cooperated in close-knit networks, which were inaccessible to peasant paper makers from the Veluwe. Zaansian networks were outright cartels, intended to foster the Zaanstreek paper industry. Furthermore, these forms of networked capital provided a link between a few, rich Zaansian paper makers and the merchant-capitalist class fraction. The latter tolerated these cartels as they themselves sought to expand and increase their profits from colonial and national industrial investments. Nonetheless, as the next section demonstrates, laborers continued to pose a meaningful threat to the profitability of national industrial investment outlets for the merchant-capitalist class fraction.

2.3 Labor Revolts

In the Dutch Republic of 1588, cities gained influence in the government through obtaining seats in the States of Holland and the States General. As a consequence, cities soon started to not only compete for political influence on a national level but also for economic wealth.⁵⁰ The cities’ new plethora was to maintain public order and acquire skilled workers for their industries. The fact that the Dutch Republic represented a “new alliance between the bourgeoisie and the nobility” helped to safeguard capitalist class relations.⁵¹ Soon, the pressing class struggles were effectively confronted through illegalizing and prosecuting previously successful forms of labor revolts.

At that time, the majority of laborers originated from Flanders and France. They were commonly referred to as knecht (servant) and highly influenced by foreign cultures of workers’ upheavals.⁵² These knechten organized to fight against income inequity, hazardous working conditions, and other work-related issues. If conflicts became more structural and could not be solved, the knechten commonly refused to work and even left the city altogether to find work elsewhere, called uitgang.⁵³ As uitgang was one of the most drastic forms of labor upheavals during the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, cities were quick to enact new laws, which obliged laborers to possess a paper stating that their previous work contract was terminated under mutual consensus. Workers’ abilities to leave unjust working conditions were eliminated, if they wanted to be employed again in other cities of the United Provinces. Additionally, employers started forming networks, in which they comprised lists of so-called blackballed workers, who had left their job in irregular ways. These networks, just as the ‘fire insurances’, were producer cartels with manifold functions. Not only did they enable technological progress and stifle competition, but they also enabled the merchant-capitalist class to curb labor radicalism and enforce peace.

As the division between capital and labor power was taking on the form of modern capitalism, laborers found new ways of organizing. From 1600 onwards, laborers’ meetings became a vital part of the proletarian social life outside of work, in which they discussed important issues and supported each other. As an immediate response, city-states enacted laws, under which such meetings were limited to 12 times a year or banned altogether from taking place in certain areas or settings. In response to this, court vergadering (court meetings) became a viable practice to informally solve conflicts between employers and workers.⁵⁴ Even though city-states illegalized these practices, employers and workers continued to solve their disputes via such trials. Commonly, the party judged guilty had to pay a fine. In turn, such “fines were sometimes immediately used to buy drinks for all those in attendance, and in other cases they were donated to the city’s poor fund”.⁵⁵ For the employers and laborers, these court meetings portrayed a much more viable, fair form of conflict negotiation than the legalized options of official law courts and guilds committees.

By the early eighteenth century, proletarianization was on the rise and most of the described practices of labor organization became limited to the growing city-states, particularly regions like the Zaanstreek (see Table 2.1). Industrial clustering was of utmost importance in the Zaanstreek region, employing roughly 60 percent of the male labor force in the Netherlands.⁵⁶ Most of the laborers in Zeeland and Holland were working in the fishing and trading fleet, employed by the VOC, Dutch West India Company (WIC), or navy. All three had bad reputations for belated payments and poor working conditions, with respect to workers’ safety and insurance.⁵⁷ The working conditions and organizing situations of sailors and industrial workers cannot be compared. Sailors often stayed in their jobs for only a few years before settling down in the colonies. Industrial workers, on the other hand, were increasingly forced to not only stay within their profession but also within the same country or city due to the aforementioned decree of employers’ appraisal.

Table 2.1 Comparing Dutch paper production regions, sixteenth to eighteenth centuries

To subtend the often conflicting relationships with their direct supervisor as well as the owner of the production facility, paper mill workers (usually around 25 laborers per paper mill) started organizing themselves.⁵⁸ The provincial government labeled such organizing as complots, observed them carefully, and ultimately managed to efficiently suppress them. As “the government could rely on a loyal standing army [to maintain] public order” workers’ organizations were rarely influential, except in the textile industry.⁵⁹ Not surprisingly, the government was highly selective with respect to the forms of industrial organizing it tolerated or even supported and which ones it illegalized. While employers’ cartel structures and organizing to list ‘unruly’ workers, among others, were welcomed by state officials, various forms of workers’ organizations were illegalized as soon as they gained popularity. Solidarity between workers was essential to oppose political authorities and the owners of production alike. Protests of the eighteenth century were driven by a code of honor among the workers, which demeaned anyone who continued to attend their work during a strike. Additionally, protests and related fights between workers and employers were to happen in public, never in the private space of a house or a workshop.

The situation of organized labor was very different in the countryside. While the agrarian sectors near the industrialized regions of Holland (including Friesland and later Groningen) were already commercialized, peasants throughout the regions of Gelderland, Drenthe, and Overijssel were not part of the urban communities of workers. The Veluwian paper production as an industrial side-stream of feudally organized agriculture was based on patriarchal⁶⁰ family structures. One of the men in the household commonly organized production, determined every family members’ involvement and duties, and actively engaged in the production process. Usually between four and six people worked at these mills, of which one-third were children.⁶¹ They received little to no payment. The division of capital and labor in the Veluwe also manifested in the rent payments toward the land-owning nobles and the dependence of peasants on urban merchants to sell their end-products. Hence, Veluwian paper production could be considered as an example of the Industrious Revolution, a significant shift in how people approached work and leisure in Europe during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, resulting in increased productivity and economic growth.⁶² Veluwian paper production was ultimately a family business, relying on local markets and resources to secure the profitability of the papermaking side-stream. Zaansian paper production, on the other hand, could be considered an example of early industrialization. Zaansian paper makers were the foremost investors of family-bound money made through colonial exploitation. Close ties to the merchant-capitalist class fraction allowed for costly, technological innovations to be developed and implemented.

The analyzed differences between the Zaansian and Veluwian paper production concerning each of the four dimensions during Dutch capitalism are striking (see Table 2.1). Regional differences in the organizing of employers and laborers, the different politico-economic circumstances and industrial embeddedness of each region, and the differences in resource availability and pre-industrial innovation of the Zaanstreek and the Veluwe beautifully illustrate the transitional and non-linear character of the succession from feudalism to capitalism. In the words of Federici (2004), “[t]he concept of ‘transition’ then, helps us to think of a prolonged process of change and of societies in which capitalist accumulation coexisted with political formations not yet predominantly capitalistic”.⁶³ Consequently, feudally organized paper production in the Veluwe coexisted alongside more capitalistic organized paper production in the Zaanstreek.

Ultimately, the phase of economic growth in the Dutch Republic, which reached its zenith in the 1650s, was followed by a general decline in labor power, prices, production, and profit. Starting in 1670, decreasing Dutch colonial power and economic stagnation took its toll on both paper regions, the Zaanstreek and the Veluwe. These struggles were interlinked with the four Anglo-Dutch wars and

[…] the seventeenth century crisis, which reduced prices of staple exports and demand for luxury goods [and dragged] the other sectors of Dutch production down. As a result, Dutch élites withdrew into ‘extra-economic’ strategies and investment in politically constituted property such as public office.⁶⁴

Many wealthy merchant families, constituting the majority of capital investors, no longer saw national industrial investments as secure and viable outlets. Instead, they started investing into foreign financial markets. The rule of William III, the king of Ireland, England, and the United Provinces, added to the economic devastation and political isolation of the United Provinces at that time. As he granted the Royal Charter in 1694 to the Bank of England, the central role of Amsterdam as the world capital city quickly diminished.⁶⁵ In 1702, William III died and left behind a financially exhausted Dutch Republic, the world trade center having shifted to London.⁶⁶ The flight of capital, monetary destabilization, and the inability to compensate for these developments through emergency taxation measures intensified under Napoleon’s rule from 1795 to 1813.⁶⁷ International trade diminished vastly and the Dutch paper industry shrunk alongside other national industries. While resource prices rose, prices of paper products declined. Lastly, the ban on importing rags and high taxation on the national usage of rags led to the shutdown of a vast number of paper mills in the Veluwe as well as the Zaanstreek.⁶⁸ In the following phase of monarchic liberalism, these circumstances demanded new forms of networks to bolster and restructure Dutch papermaking.

Notes

• 1. Linssen (1988, p. 14).

• 2. Voorn (1975, pp. 17–19).

• 3. Bouwens (2004, p. 21).

• 4. De Vries (1957, p. 13).

• 5. De Wit (1990, p. 8).

• 6. Ibid., p. 9.

• 7. De Vries (1957, p. 15).

• 8. Ibid., p. 52.

• 9. De Wit (1990, p. 13).

• 10. De Vries (1957, p. 16).

• 11. Stichting Papiergeschiedenis Zaanstreek de Hollander (n.d.).

• 12. De Vries (1957, p. 51).

• 13. Brandon (2011, pp. 120–123, 131, 138) and Lachmann (2000, p. 162).

• 14. Brandon (2015, p. 6).

• 15. Sutton (2015, p. 130).

• 16. E.g. Adams (1994, p. 516).

• 17. Sutton (2015, p. 23).

• 18. Dekker (1990, 368).

• 19. Sutton (2015, p. 53).

• 20. For lack of a better term I use ‘colonial trade’ as a description of the relations between conquering and conquered populations, in which the conquered populations are “forced to engage in structurally dependent relationship[s] with the [conquering populations] by engaging in unfair and exploitative trade relations”. Kieh and Wong (2014, p. 16, italics added).

• 21. Anievas and Nisancioglu (2015).

• 22. Gelderblom and Jonker (2004, p. 643).

• 23. Davids (2006, p. 560).

• 24. Adams (1994, p. 516).

• 25. Lachmann (2000, p. 164).

• 26. Brandon (2011, p. 116).

• 27. Marx (1867, p. 534).

• 28. Arrighi (2010, p. 181).

• 29. Ibid., p. 159.

• 30. De Vries and Van der Woude (1997, p. 499).

• 31. Ibid.

• 32. Selwyn (2013) and Brandon (2011).

• 33. Sutton (2015, p. 5).

• 34. Bouwens (2004, p. 31).

• 35. De Vries (1957, p. 34).

• 36. Bouwens (2012, p. 194).

• 37. Findlay and O’Rourke (2007, p. 395).

• 38. Bouwens (2004, p. 32).

• 39. Bouwens (2012, p. 193).

• 40. Gelderblom and Jonker (2004, p. 645).

• 41. Davids (2006, p. 560).

• 42. De Vries (1957, p. 310).

• 43. Ibid., p. 121.

• 44. Bouwens (2004, p. 349) and Davids (2006, p. 564).

• 45. Wigger and Buch-Hansen (2013, pp. 607–609).

• 46. Bouwens (2004, pp. 33–38) and Davids (2006, p. 22).

• 47. Kokke (1961, pp. 13–15).

• 48. Hyma (1938, p. 327).

• 49. Kokke (1961, p. 12).

• 50. Dekker (1990, p. 398).

• 51. Federici (2004, p. 49).

• 52. Van Vree (2008, p. 169).

• 53. Dekker (1990, p. 391) and Van Vree (2008, p. 7).

• 54. Dekker (1990, p. 393).

• 55. Ibid, p. 394.

• 56. Bouwens (2004, p. 26).

• 57. Dekker (1990, p. 406).

• 58. Bouwens (2004, p. 28).

• 59. Dekker (1990, p. 387) and Van Vree (2008, p. 169).

• 60. Patriarchy, being a pivotal organizing principle for and under capitalism, was, of course, also common in the more industrialized and commercialized regions of the Netherlands (for further exploration see Adams [1994, 2005] and Hartsock [1983, pp. 291–293]). The patriarchal custom of passing on family capital and ownership through arranged marriages was closely related to the system of Contracts of Correspondence. This is how, for example, Van Gelder Zonen was established: “[…] Pieter Smidt van Gelder decided to become a manufacturer early on in his life. He started working for Maarten Jansz Schouten, the only associate of the company Maarten Schouten & Co. and since 1774 the owner of the paper mill ‘De Eendragt’ te Wormer. On 30st November 1783, Pieter Smidt van Gelder was matrimonially arranged to marry the only daughter of his employer Dieuwertje Schouten. A year later, his father in law made him shareholder of the company. The accession of Pieter Smidt van Gelder into the managing board of Schouten & Co. was the starting point for the well-known family firm van Gelder (en Zonen), which was passed on for generations” (Sanders, 1995, p. 280, own translation).

• 61. De Wit (1990, p. 15).

• 62. Vries (2008).

• 63. Federici (2004, p. 62, italics added).

• 64. Brandon (2011, p. 135).

• 65. De Jong (2011, p. 51).

• 66. Anievas and Nisancioglu (2015, pp. 196–198, 261–262).

• 67. Van Zanden and Van Riel (2004, pp. 52–52).

• 68. Bouwens (2004, p. 35).