Who knew tulips could be so contentious?!
Mike Dash's Tulipomania: The Story of the World's Most Coveted Flower & the Extraordinary Passions it Aroused explores the evolution of what appears to be the most interesting flower in history.
First and foremost, Dash's work on the Ottomans leaves much to be desired. I don't know if anyone else read it the same way, but I interpreted his treatment to be along the lines of see? even these conquering, bloodthirsty conquerors became enamored with tulips! Is that not quaint? For instance, Dash wrote, "Europeans who traveled to Istanbul ... were generally surprised not merely by the city's size and opulence but by its masters' manners and good taste," (17). Dash, it would seem, shared in that sentiment; or, at the very least, utilizes the cruel yet flower loving Ottomans to lend the plant a sort of mysticism. In part I think he is attempting to argue that tulips moved west as a result of European views, but, again, it would appear that he shares in some of them. All in all, Dash certainly takes an uncritical approach to his work; and that, I think, creates issues most of you have picked up on in other areas.
As far as this work fitting into our broader discussions on commodities, I tend to agree with Susan's summation. Dash certainly proves that tulips not only traveled great distances, but also transcended what he claims to be wildly different cultures. That alone, I should think, proves that tulips came to possess a social life; in that the people growing, trading, and buying them ascribed certain values to them that changed over time. Whether tulips only existed as a 'fad' or within a specific caste is of no consequence. Tulips had demand and they had cultural significance - the latter points proving to be evidence of that. I found numerous correlations, in that regard, with Kris Lane's work on emeralds. Both tulips and emeralds found niche markets and were really only open to (available to) and desired by select groups. Further, I would question the existence of a standard in any of the products we have viewed. Off the top of my head I can think hierarchies existing for all of our subjects.
Overall, I found this work to be an easy and interesting read; but I also found it unbelievably frustrating. There was too much left untouched and I just couldn't get over the Ottoman issues.
Wednesday, December 3, 2014
Bursting Your Bubble
Mike Dash's Tulpomania is a fascinating read, but perhaps a drop in the bucket of literature on the Holland Tulip Bubble. Some interesting facts about the book's place in academia, the book as been cited a bit more than 100 times (source: Google Scholar), in contexts as varied as Emily Martin's 2007 book Bipolar Expectations: Mania and depression in American culture and Evelyn Brannon's 2005 book Fashion Forecasting: Research, Analysis, and Presentation.
Since 1980, the "tulip bubble" has gained in popularity, even outstripping the housing bubble sometime during the mid-1990s. But wait, wasn't the housing bubble a product of the 21st-century? Not exactly, UK Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher's legacy included riding the wave of several asset bubbles (source: The Guardian). In fact, if anything, Dash's book reminds us that asset bubbles have been with us since at least the 16th-century.
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| In case you were wondering, these are tulips.... |
Chris Martenson offers his "crash course" on the collapse of the housing market in the U.S. in the 21st-century as well as bubbles over on his website in a series of informative videos. He discusses the tulip bubble as well, in fact this is where I first heard about this historical event. I highly recommend taking a weekend to watch his videos, it might help answer any questions you have about bubbles, exponential growth, Federal monetary policy, etc.
I have first hand experience of this most recent asset bubble, working as a bankruptcy paralegal in central Florida, specifically the Middle District, which is one of the busiest districts in the nation. During the housing bubble years (c. 2007-2012) over 213,000 Chapter 7 bankruptcies were filed. This is roughly 6% of the total population of central Florida. Interestingly, only some of our firm's clients at this time were speculators. Mostly, we helped people who worked in industries connected to the housing market: construction, sales, repairs, etc. There were also several small business owners who used the new found equity in their homes to capitalize an expansion of their businesses. When their homes lost equity, in many cases falling below its original value, these individuals wound up paying interest on undersecured loans. Not a great situation to be in.
So when I read about the housing bubble or the tulip bubble, I think about all of the people who were either raised up or dashed to bits by these things. Dash talks about the charity that used a tulip auction as a means to amass a small fortune. This would be akin to a nonprofit organization taking out an equity loan on its real estate holdings in order to expand its facilities only to suddenly find that the value of these holdings have fallen dramatically. Perhaps not as dramatically as tulips, which are of course still flowers, but a shallow drop on an economic roller coaster can still turn stomachs.
Commodity or roulette wheel?
What is the culture that can be attached to the commodity of the tulip? After all, if it is a commodity, it must have some kind of social life.
The answer is easy if you are talking about non-western views on the flower. Islamic people, notably the Ottomans, loved the flower because of its beauty, blood red color, and links to fertility and love. Remember that one of the first impressions of the flower was that it was a herald of spring. The flower also came to be seen as a mark of heaven or paradise. In the same way that green emeralds became linked to the prophet Muhammad, tulips became symbols of garden paradises. As the author points out, this is hardly surprising considering that those who saw the flower lived in arid, unfavorable lands. Finally, the flower also became tied (albeit slightly) to life and death. Given that the chief gardeners functioned as executioners and that the tulips blood red color could be tied to death, commanding the tulip could be seen as one owning the powers of life and death. Again, this links back to how emeralds related power in Muslim courts.
That said, what are tulips to westerners, namely the Dutch? Primarily, it is best known as a money-making scheme. And that, it seems, does not seem to be tied into any particular Dutch cultural practices. The boom seemed to arise out of chance: the flowers happened to grow in Dutch soil and there happened to be a demand for them among rich Dutchmen. that said, the latter does speak to Dutch taste: while Europe was buying red dye for their clothes, the Dutch were buying flowers. Still, much of the tulips and tulip trade was handled by people who couldn't care less about the bulbs; their only interest (again, perhaps in true Puritan fashion) was the bottom line. The money. Susan makes this point, as the sellers of the bulb weren't interested in the flower but were caught in the "get rich quick" atmosphere of the time. If there is a cultural link between tulips and the Dutch, it might be seen as an extremist stance of Puritan thrift and trading logic. Do away with government control! Trade freely with each other! Enrich yourself with your own virtue!
Susan also points out that fungibility does not create a commodity on its own. While I agree, I do not believe the tulip can count as a commodity because it rested on shaky cultural ground.
There didn't seem to be a cultural basis for it. Indeed, the sections and walks of Dutch life that weren't trading in bulbs were protesting against it because it was too risky. Again, we return to Puritan logic, albeit less extreme: work hard and be frugal. And the tulip trade went against both ideals.
Luke argues that the tulip is a commodity in that it reflected the period. Again, I disagree. In this case, anything that becomes popular or valuable becomes a commodity. Stocks in the 1920s along with Moon Shoes in the 90s. While many of the commodities we have looked at have had a "fad" period in which they were found everywhere, none of them seemed to have disappeared entirely. They have had some cultural ground to throw roots down it. Mahogany tables are still sought. Sugar, while no longer having a "culture" about it is still used frequently. Even commodities like cochineal have not faded entirely in the sense that cultures still value vivid reds.
But tulips? They are only known as a product of their adaptive country along with wooden shoes and windmills. Only a symbol, if that. Certainly a commodity no more.
The answer is easy if you are talking about non-western views on the flower. Islamic people, notably the Ottomans, loved the flower because of its beauty, blood red color, and links to fertility and love. Remember that one of the first impressions of the flower was that it was a herald of spring. The flower also came to be seen as a mark of heaven or paradise. In the same way that green emeralds became linked to the prophet Muhammad, tulips became symbols of garden paradises. As the author points out, this is hardly surprising considering that those who saw the flower lived in arid, unfavorable lands. Finally, the flower also became tied (albeit slightly) to life and death. Given that the chief gardeners functioned as executioners and that the tulips blood red color could be tied to death, commanding the tulip could be seen as one owning the powers of life and death. Again, this links back to how emeralds related power in Muslim courts.
That said, what are tulips to westerners, namely the Dutch? Primarily, it is best known as a money-making scheme. And that, it seems, does not seem to be tied into any particular Dutch cultural practices. The boom seemed to arise out of chance: the flowers happened to grow in Dutch soil and there happened to be a demand for them among rich Dutchmen. that said, the latter does speak to Dutch taste: while Europe was buying red dye for their clothes, the Dutch were buying flowers. Still, much of the tulips and tulip trade was handled by people who couldn't care less about the bulbs; their only interest (again, perhaps in true Puritan fashion) was the bottom line. The money. Susan makes this point, as the sellers of the bulb weren't interested in the flower but were caught in the "get rich quick" atmosphere of the time. If there is a cultural link between tulips and the Dutch, it might be seen as an extremist stance of Puritan thrift and trading logic. Do away with government control! Trade freely with each other! Enrich yourself with your own virtue!
Susan also points out that fungibility does not create a commodity on its own. While I agree, I do not believe the tulip can count as a commodity because it rested on shaky cultural ground.
There didn't seem to be a cultural basis for it. Indeed, the sections and walks of Dutch life that weren't trading in bulbs were protesting against it because it was too risky. Again, we return to Puritan logic, albeit less extreme: work hard and be frugal. And the tulip trade went against both ideals.
Luke argues that the tulip is a commodity in that it reflected the period. Again, I disagree. In this case, anything that becomes popular or valuable becomes a commodity. Stocks in the 1920s along with Moon Shoes in the 90s. While many of the commodities we have looked at have had a "fad" period in which they were found everywhere, none of them seemed to have disappeared entirely. They have had some cultural ground to throw roots down it. Mahogany tables are still sought. Sugar, while no longer having a "culture" about it is still used frequently. Even commodities like cochineal have not faded entirely in the sense that cultures still value vivid reds.
But tulips? They are only known as a product of their adaptive country along with wooden shoes and windmills. Only a symbol, if that. Certainly a commodity no more.
Tulipomania
In Tulipomania by Mike Dash we are presented with the story of flower that found its way from the Himalayas, to the gardens of Istanbul, and to the greenhouses of Dutch horticulturists. The tulip bulb's transformation from accidental dinner to something worth risking the farm over is a perfect example of the kind of power the 'social life of things' can have on a society. Most surprising, the myriad types of people involved in the tulip trade show that although it was in many ways a luxury good the trade itself involved the interaction of many people who were not wealthy or powerful. Thus, the tulip bulb bubble is a warning to those who would leave the machinations of markets to the those questionably rational creatures we call people. Moreover it raises questions over the nature of a commodity. Is participating in the futures market for tulip bulbs the same as participating in the trading of the bulbs themselves? How much does the social life of a thing depend on the social environment in which the thing exists versus the social environment the thing creates? Joe's critique about the fungibility of tulips with regards to the wildly speculative prices they were traded in casts doubt on whether the 'commodity' nature of tulips were what caused the crash but doesn't necessarily show that tulips were not a commodity.
So are tulips a commodity? I would say yes because they were more than something that was bought and sold. Tulips, for a time, inhabited a space in the consciousness as well as daily life for many Dutch people in the 1630s, so even though the kind of price speculation that caused the crash was not reflective of the activities of most Dutchmen the tulip bulb still transformed the life of people in the Netherlands.
So are tulips a commodity? I would say yes because they were more than something that was bought and sold. Tulips, for a time, inhabited a space in the consciousness as well as daily life for many Dutch people in the 1630s, so even though the kind of price speculation that caused the crash was not reflective of the activities of most Dutchmen the tulip bulb still transformed the life of people in the Netherlands.
Tuesday, December 2, 2014
fungi-what
I'm not sure I understand the concept of fungibility enough to decide it if it necessary for a good to be a commodity. But then we haven't defined exactly what a commodity is either...a dilemma. I don't think that just because a good is popular or unique means it can't be a commodity. Clearly, the Mona Lisa is not a commodity, but are diamonds? Emeralds? Things can have artistic value beyond the standard set for it as a traded commodity. Tulips are reproducible and are grown in many places (today), so they would be a commodity just as the roses from Colombia. They were definitely a fad (I still have a Princess Diana beanie baby somewhere...). The Coffee Paradox defined a commodity as "goods in a world market where all the actors recognize a
standard of quality that is not attached to processing or manufacturing". We haven't agreed on that definition but it could be a good place to start. And using that definition, I think tulips are a commodity.
Monday, December 1, 2014
Tulips and the Commodification of Beauty
In Tulipomania: The Story of the World's Most Coveted Flower and the Passions it Aroused, Mike Dash shows how simple commodities such as tulips can be imbued with diverse cultural meanings. He begins by looking at the Turks for whom tulips were laden with symbolic, religious, and sexual meanings. They were linked to ideas like fertility, perfection, eternity and modesty. Pious Muslims also treated the red mountain tulip as a religious relic, Dash tells us. When the plant reached the Lowlands of Europe via trade networks, it was, like most of our commodities, eyed by physicians as a potential medical resource. It proved useless for doctors, but the unpredictable beauty of the commodity led connoisseurs and careful growers to affix cultural significance to the item, and rare bulbs became a highly sought-after symbol of status, wealth, and good taste. As Dutch culture became comfortable with conspicuous display and the market for tulip bulbs began to strengthen, the scarcity of the commodity led to a greater demand and higher prices. This is when, Dash suggests, things took a distasteful turn.
Former tradesmen (and they all are men, no women ever worked in the tulip trade, apparently), like weavers pawned their looms, styled themselves "florists" and began buying and trading tulips. This new type of buyer cared nothing for the beauty of the commodity, they simply wanted to make a quick buck. Dash paints a very unsavory picture of these traders whom he labels greedy, inexperienced, and short-sighted. They thrived on the unregulated and unconfined trading scene, often conducted in a "haze of inebriation" in tavern rituals designed to boost the self-importance of the florists. They wrecked the traditional, common-sense rules of tulip trading by making it year-round thus boosting the futures market and leading to short-selling and potential fraud. "It became perfectly normal for florists to sell tulips they could not deliver to buyers who did not have the cash to pay for them and had no desire ever to plant them." It is little surprise that this volatile market with no safeguards eventually crashed in a spectacular way. The message Dash is offering is that unregulated capitalist situations are weak and prone to bubbles that can destroy markets, individual livelihoods, and the psyche of an entire nation.
In a post below, Joseph rejects the idea that the tulip is not a commodity because it lacks fungibility, which he defines as an accepted standard for trade. The finest tulips, because they were rare anomalies, were part of a fad and not a commodity, he writes. It is an interesting idea, but I disagree with the premise. Fungibility cannot be the only criteria for a commodity, and I reject that because a commodity becomes temporarily popular and expensive, it loses commodity status. Fungibility to me, simply means replaceable, as Marcy Norton mentions in Sacred Gifts, cacao beans were a fungible wealth, competing with precious metals as a currency." (64) Cacao beans could act in place of silver as money. In the blood banking book, also, Swanson says that a donation to a blood bank was a fungible unit, creating a credit was inserted in place of a pint of blood. (57) Even if my definition of fungible is off, though, I still believe that it cannot be a sole criteria for what constitutes a commodity. The most important criteria, I think, is that a group of people agree that a concept or item has a value, and that they are willing to pay for that thing. This suggests a cultural significance that is more important than fungibility. As Norton shows us with chocolate and tobacco, these goods were never just "things" in that they always existed in conjunction with their symbolic associations. Consumption is as much cultural as it is somatic and biological, therefore a commodity must be culturally framed and valued, as tulips were for a brief, majestic turn.
Former tradesmen (and they all are men, no women ever worked in the tulip trade, apparently), like weavers pawned their looms, styled themselves "florists" and began buying and trading tulips. This new type of buyer cared nothing for the beauty of the commodity, they simply wanted to make a quick buck. Dash paints a very unsavory picture of these traders whom he labels greedy, inexperienced, and short-sighted. They thrived on the unregulated and unconfined trading scene, often conducted in a "haze of inebriation" in tavern rituals designed to boost the self-importance of the florists. They wrecked the traditional, common-sense rules of tulip trading by making it year-round thus boosting the futures market and leading to short-selling and potential fraud. "It became perfectly normal for florists to sell tulips they could not deliver to buyers who did not have the cash to pay for them and had no desire ever to plant them." It is little surprise that this volatile market with no safeguards eventually crashed in a spectacular way. The message Dash is offering is that unregulated capitalist situations are weak and prone to bubbles that can destroy markets, individual livelihoods, and the psyche of an entire nation.
In a post below, Joseph rejects the idea that the tulip is not a commodity because it lacks fungibility, which he defines as an accepted standard for trade. The finest tulips, because they were rare anomalies, were part of a fad and not a commodity, he writes. It is an interesting idea, but I disagree with the premise. Fungibility cannot be the only criteria for a commodity, and I reject that because a commodity becomes temporarily popular and expensive, it loses commodity status. Fungibility to me, simply means replaceable, as Marcy Norton mentions in Sacred Gifts, cacao beans were a fungible wealth, competing with precious metals as a currency." (64) Cacao beans could act in place of silver as money. In the blood banking book, also, Swanson says that a donation to a blood bank was a fungible unit, creating a credit was inserted in place of a pint of blood. (57) Even if my definition of fungible is off, though, I still believe that it cannot be a sole criteria for what constitutes a commodity. The most important criteria, I think, is that a group of people agree that a concept or item has a value, and that they are willing to pay for that thing. This suggests a cultural significance that is more important than fungibility. As Norton shows us with chocolate and tobacco, these goods were never just "things" in that they always existed in conjunction with their symbolic associations. Consumption is as much cultural as it is somatic and biological, therefore a commodity must be culturally framed and valued, as tulips were for a brief, majestic turn.
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