How Transformative Innovations Shaped the Rise of Nations by Gerard J. Tellis and Stav Rosenzweig

Author:Gerard J. Tellis and Stav Rosenzweig
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Anthem Press

Empowering Women, Entrepreneurs, Investors and Traders

Empowerment was another key aspect of Dutch society that drove its innovativeness. From the late sixteenth to seventeenth centuries, the Dutch adopted policies and laws that led to empowerment in various spheres of economic and social life in the Republic. These policies and laws transformed the republic into a country of entrepreneurs.22 Openness to and empowerment of immigrants were key factors in this context, as explained above. The empowerment of women, farmers, property owners, traders and merchants was also very important, as explained below.

Women’s empowerment was a hallmark of the Dutch Republic in the seventeenth century. The Dutch seemed very particular about educating girls, especially in arithmetic and merchant accounting.23 Relative to women in other European countries, Dutch women had more opportunities to participate in commercial activity and consequently played a more important role in Dutch economic life. Indeed, despite Christian insistence on the essential inferiority of women, Dutch society seemed markedly less misogynistic than the rest of Europe at that time.24 Men did not worry about business continuity after their deaths because their wives could carry on in some of their trades. In fact, Dutch women enjoyed relatively higher economic freedom than those in other regions of Europe during the Dutch Golden Age.25 Even though women in other European countries (especially England) also actively participated in business and commerce during that time, Dutch women enjoyed more legal autonomy than women in England.26 Inheritance law was quite egalitarian in the Netherlands, unlike in other European regions. Various legal provisions gave women more economic leeway.27 As a result, more women contributed to the productivity and growth in the Netherlands than in other countries of Europe during this period.

Property rights in the Netherlands underwent a major change in the sixteenth century, empowering owners, encouraging leasing and fostering trade in lands. Before the sixteenth century, land ownership rights were very clearly established, but lease rights were not. In many parts of the Netherlands, peasants mainly owned land, and the holdings were small in size.28 Due to clear land titles, the land market was quite transparent and favorable in the Netherlands compared to other parts of Western Europe.

The clear rights to land in the Netherlands ensured that peasants were not at the mercy of a feudal system. In addition, the transparency in property rights and the absence of onerous taxation in the Netherlands compared to England and other northwestern European countries facilitated the easy buying and selling of land.29 From the fifteenth century onward, land was often sold in public auctions held in churches.30 These liberal policies toward land in the Netherlands encouraged both increased investment in land for higher productivity and the use of land as collateral in foreign trade.

Before the sixteenth century, lease rights in the Netherlands were not clearly established. During the course of the sixteenth century, however, dramatic changes occurred. In the first half of that century, authorities in the Netherlands started enforcing new rules for leasing land. Written lease contracts with clear termination dates

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