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.