market welfare in the early-modern ottoman economy,a historiographic overview with many questions
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Market Welfare in the Early-Modern Ottoman Economy: A Historiographic Overview with ManyQuestions Author(s): Relli Shechter Source: Journal of the Economic and Social History of the Orient, Vol. 48, No. 2 (2005), pp.
253-276Published by: BRILLStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/25165092Accessed: 01-04-2015 13:30 UTC
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MARKET WELFARE IN THE EARLY-MODERN OTTOMAN ECONOMY?A HISTORIOGRAPHY OVERVIEW
WITH MANY QUESTIONS
BY
RELLI SHECHTER*
Abstract
In early-modern Ottoman economy the notion of market welfare proposed here meant a sys tem that partially stifled competition and efficiency for the sake of economic stability and
equity for those established within its boundaries.1 Such a system worked even in the face of
political decentralization when economic regulation from "above" (Istanbul and "the state") was seemingly on the wane. Discussing available research and raising questions for future
study, the article examines forms of regulation from the "middle" by local officials/notables,
courts, and economic institutions in cities throughout the Empire and the role of consumers
in economic regulation. The article further suggests why economic opening in a later era of
integration into the world economy gradually put an end to an inward-looking, early-modern economic life.
Dans l'economie ottomane du debut de l'ere moderne (17e-18e siecles), la notion, proposee ici, de bien-etre par le marche signifiait un systeme qui decourageait voire etouffait par tiellement competition et efficacite dans le but d'assurer une stabilite et une equite
economique a ceux compris dans son perimetre. Un tel systeme fonctionnait toujours meme
dans un contexte de decentralisation politique, alors que la regulation economique venue ? d'en haut? (d'lstanbul et de ?l'Etat?) semblait etre en train de s'affaiblir. Considerant la
recherche effectuee a ce sujet et soulevant des nouvelles questions pour une future enquete, le present article etudie des formes de regulation emanant du ? milieu ? et etablies locale
ment par des fonctionnaires/dignitaires, des tribunaux, et des institutions economiques dans
des villes a travers l'Empire, ainsi que le role joue par les consommateurs dans ce proces sus. L'article tente aussi d'expliquer pourquoi l'ouverture economique durant la periode
posterieure, celle de 1'integration dans l'economie mondiale, a mis fin, progressivement, a
une vie economique tournee vers 1'interieur qui a caracterise le debut de l'ere moderne.
Keywords: Markets, welfare, economic history, consumption, Ottoman Empire, early modern
* Relli Shechter, Department of Middle East Studies, Ben-Gurion University, Beer She va, Israel, [email protected] 1 The author would like to thank Iris Agmon, Nimrod Hurvitz, and Dror Ze'evi for com
menting on earlier versions of this article. I would also like to acknowledge the contribution
of the two anonymous readers who made many useful suggestions.
? Koninklijke Brill NV, Leiden, 2005 JESHO 48,2 Also available online - www.brill.nl
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254 relli shechter
Introduction
How are we to understand past economies? What economic goals guided them? Under what principles, social, political, and cultural (religious), did they operate? I approach these questions as a modernist, an economic historian who is a visitor to the study of Ottoman history, but one who has followed the lit erature emerging from this field for the past fifteen years or so. What triggers
my interest in asking such questions is the opportunity to look at a past, differ ent model from the current economic system, but also at a model that has made a lasting impact on contemporary Middle Eastern economies. I am particularly interested in the effect of a local value system on the nature of Ottoman eco
nomic life.
Recent Ottoman historiography of the early-modern era (roughly correspond ing to the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries) put much effort into refuting older perceptions of the Empire's economic "decline" and counterfactual analy sis, based on perceptions of Ottoman vs. European economic development. As a result, few attempts have been made to offer a broad overview of the princi ples governing the Empire's economic life.2 My intention here is to put forward such an overview of what I consider the centerpiece of early-modern Ottoman
economy, namely the notion of welfare through the market, which, consciously or not, guided the economy during this period.
By welfare through the market (or market-welfare), I mean an economic sys tem that partially stifled competition (and efficiency/growth) for the sake of eco nomic stability and a certain level of equity for those established within its boundaries. Although it had some commonalities with social-welfare and char
ity in providing a safety net for urban dwellers, my discussion of market wel
2 Three such endeavors, which also inspired this article, are Halil Inalcik, "The Ottoman
State: Economy and Society, 1300-1600," in An Economic and Social History of the Ottoman
Empire, 1300-1914, ed. Halil Inalcik and Donald Quataert (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1994), see especially the section "The Ottoman Economic Mind," 44-54; ?evket Pamuk, "Institutional Change and the Longevity of the Ottoman Empire, 1500-1800," Journal
of Interdisciplinary History 35, 2 (Autumn, 2004): 225-247; Ariel Salzmann, "An Ancien
Regime Revisited: 'Privatization' and Political Economy in the Eighteenth-Century Ottoman
Empire," Politics and Society 21, 4 (Dec. 1993): 393-423. Pamuk's A Monetary History of the Ottoman Empire (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000) further provided a broad perspective on Ottoman economics. See also: Mehmet Bulut, "Reconsideration of the Economic Concepts of the Ottomans and Western Europeans during the Mercantilist Ages" (2002) in http://cas.uchicago.edu/workshops/meht/papers03/Bulut.doc; M.S. Meyer, "Economic Thought in the Ottoman Empire in the 14th-Early 19th Centuries," Archiv Orientali 57 (1989): 305-318; Ahmet Tabakoglu, "Outlines of the Ottoman Economic
System," in The Great Ottoman, Turkish Civilization, vol. 2, ed. Kemal ?icek (Ankara: Yeni
TUrkiye, 2000), 7-24.
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MARKET WELFARE IN THE EARLY-MODERN OTTOMAN ECONOMY 255
fare only briefly touches upon such matters in the case of waqfs (term explained
below). My main purpose here is to set the framework for a better understand
ing of economic and legal institutions, rather than social ones, that provided economic relief to cities. This is not to assert in any way that social and private action did not contribute to welfare. Even more so, in many cases, such as the
guilds, it is hard to distinguish between an economic and a social institution.
The boundaries created here are therefore methodological rather than real ones, to help me better develop the notion of market-welfare.
To the discussion on the historiography of Ottoman economic institutions and
legal systems in the first part of the article, I later add an analysis of the often
neglected demand and consumers' agency in determining the nature of Ottoman
markets (and market-welfare). The unique nature of Ottoman commerce in an
age of European mercantilism is further studied, to demonstrate the interplay between supply and demand in contemporary markets. The article thus offers an
understanding of market welfare that created a "good-enough" economy, but
one that would eventually crumble under external and internal pressures embod
ied in the semi-peripheralization of the Empire as it integrated into the world
economy. It further raises questions for future research along these lines.
I have chosen to focus largely on examples from four urban markets?
Aleppo, Cairo, Istanbul and Izmir. I used as my selection criteria their substan
tial size and the fact that these four markets represented a variety of Ottoman
experiences: Aleppo and Cairo were well-established commercial centers when
the Ottomans captured them and continued to be so throughout most of the
period under discussion.3 During the same era, Izmir developed from a small
town into a boom city with transit markets oriented to international commerce.
Its history well reflects the fortunes of other port-city markets in the Empire, as
the latter was gradually integrated into the world economy. Istanbul's markets
were unique in serving as a centrifugal/pulling economic force that siphoned economic surplus from other parts of the Empire. Even more so, it was in
Istanbul that the state implemented its "classical" policies on the market most
carefully. Ottoman markets were not limited to the cities discussed above; those in
smaller towns and villages throughout the Empire were of no less importance for the majority of the population living in these areas and for the Ottoman state
in general. The relevance of the market-welfare notion to towns and villages can only be gauged from the discussion below, and needs further research.
Large city markets, however, were significant economic engines for Ottoman
3 I cite the relevant literature on the four cities in the appropriate discussion below.
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256 RELLI SHECHTER
hinterlands; transitions in such markets had a marked impact on the countryside as well. Furthermore, we only have sufficient research on those markets for
comparative analysis on which to base certain generalizations regarding the Ottoman
economy.
Current historiography and the project ahead
The debate over Ottoman economic "decline" has focused mostly on the
function and the comprehensiveness of the Ottoman command economy and
the impact of political decentralization on early-modern Ottoman economic life.
The term "command economy," sometimes implied by the notion of oriental
despotism, suggests an economy managed by the state from above, with little
interference from society.4 The sultan and the central state bureaucracy, it was
argued, tightly controlled economic surplus by efficient collection, which further
meant restricting capital accumulation beyond the state's elites. Resources were
later re-distributed according to principles denoted by the state.
The notion of "decline" started as long ago as that era itself, with some
Ottoman writers lamenting the departed "golden-era" glory of the Empire as against
grim present realities.5 The theme was taken up by generations of twentieth-cen
tury Ottomanists, further inspired by more recent Turkish atavistic (state-cen
tered) approaches to the economy, essentialist understandings of the Empire, and/or modernization theory.6 Scholars documented an erosion of state control over the economy, which they equated with state deterioration because the state
4 On oriental despotism see Huri Islamoglu-Inan, "Introduction: 'Oriental Despotism' in
World-System Perspective," in The Ottoman Empire and the World-Economy, ed. Huri Islamoglu Inan (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1987), 3-7. In earlier historiography of the
Ottoman Empire, the notion of oriental despotism mostly designated a centralized political system and raison d'etat; past research devoted only scant attention to the Empire's econ
omy, considering it secondary and redundant for exploration of its cultural/religious and
political "essence." For further discussion on the oriental despotism paradigm in Middle Eastern Studies see: Peter Gran, "Modern Middle East History beyond Oriental Despotism, World History beyond Hegel: An Agenda Article," in New Frontiers in the Social History of
the Middle East, (Cairo Papers in Social Science, vol. 23, 2), ed. Enid Hill (Cairo: The
American University in Cairo Press, 2001), 162-198. 5 On the writing of Ottoman historians in early seventeenth century see Gabriel Piterberg,
Ottoman Tragedy: History and Historiography at Play (Berkeley: The University of Cali
fornia Press, 2003). For a briefer analysis of the genre of advice literature of the period see
Suraiya Faroqhi, Approaching Ottoman History: An Introduction to the Sources (Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press, 1999), 151-156. 6 For a critical discussion of the "decline" paradigm in Ottoman economic history see:
Roger Owen, "Introduction: The Middle East Economy in the Period of So-called 'Decline'," in his, The Middle East in the World Economy, 1800-1914 (London: LB. Tauris, 1993
[1981]), 1-23.
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MARKET WELFARE IN THE EARLY-MODERN OTTOMAN ECONOMY 257
seemingly lost its power and failed to follow its older economic raison detat
based on three principles: provisioning of cities, army, palace, and state offi
cials; increasing the fiscal revenue of the state (by encouraging economic
activity); and preservation of the traditional order.7
More recent historiography, however, shows that a hierarchical and central
ized state never existed independently of peripheral forces, and that the two
closely interacted.8 Consequently, with the exception of Istanbul, a "classical"
Ottoman command economy never fully materialized. Indeed, as suggested by Eldem, ". . . Istanbul constitutes an aberration of a rather paradoxical nature: it
corresponds largely to the dominant ideological and ideal perception of the Ottoman
state in terms of its economic configuration while in fact it represents the most
blatant exception to the general rule of the incapacity of the state to impose this
model on its own territories."9 As we shall see, contemporary scholars also
reconsider decentralization in more favorable terms, demonstrating the benefits
of a more flexible system to the economy as a whole.
Closely related to the notion of "decline" has been the standard convention
of using European mercantilism (comparison with Europe or different countries
in Europe) as an external yardstick to measure economic performance in the
Empire. Such comparisons usually expose the "rigidity" of Ottoman economic
institutions, political system, and ideology/religious belief, which resisted
7 See analysis of the Ottoman command economy in: Mehmet Gene, "Ottoman Industry in the Eighteenth-Century: General Framework, Characteristic, and Main Trends," in
Manufacturing in the Ottoman Empire and Turkey, 1500-1950, ed. Donald Quataert (Albany, NY: SUNY Press, 1994), 59-68; Dina Rizk Khoury, State and Provincial Society in the
Ottoman Empire, Mosul, 1540-1834 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1997), 3-10;
Pamuk, Monetary History, 11-13; Traian Stoianovich "Cities, Capital Accumulation, and the
Ottoman Balkan Command Economy, 1500-1800," in Cities and the Rise of States in Europe, A.D. 1000 to 1800, ed. Charles Tilly and Wim P. Blockmans (Boulder, CO: Westview, 1994), 63-65.
8 Karen Barkey suggested a mechanism by which the central state co-opted local forces,
thereby reducing the "costs" of governing a large Empire. See her Bandits and Bureaucrats:
The Ottoman Route to State Centralization (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1994). Regional elites, on their part, went through a complimentary process of Ottomanization in which they
adopted Ottoman socio-cultural and political practices as their own. See: Ehud Toledano, "The Emergence of Ottoman-Local Elites in the Middle East and North Africa, 1700-1900," in Middle Eastern Politics and Ideas: A History from Within, ed. Ilan Pappe and Moshe
Macoz (London: Tauris Academic Studies, 1997), 145-162. For case studies that further
demonstrate this point see: Jane Hathaway, The Politics of Households in Ottoman Egypt: The Rise of the Qazdaglis (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1997); Khoury, State and
Provincial. 9 Edhem Eldem, "Istanbul: from Imperial to Peripheralized Capital," in The Ottoman City
Between East and West, Aleppo, Izmir, and Istanbul, by Edhem Eldem, Daniel Goffman, and
Bruce Masters (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1999), 141.
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258 RELLI SHECHTER
change and blocked the way to imported novelties. Such inflexibility stands in
binary opposition to dynamic (evolving) European structures, which facilitated
the development of new technologies, financial institutions, and trade, and
enjoyed export-led growth. This comparison is so widespread that its validity is
usually taken for granted. In using an external economic model, however, scholarship anachronistically
assumed that performance was indeed the Ottomans' main criterion. Furthermore, I argue that in the early-modern Empire growth was one criterion among a
wider set of values related to the function of the economy, and that stability was no less important. My argument is corroborated by recent and more
internally oriented appreciation of the Ottoman economy, emphasizing flexibil
ity and viability of existing institutions in providing the Empire with an ade
quate economic infrastructure,10 thus compensating for the lack of novel ones
like those developed in Europe. A good example here is Hanna's study, which
shows the multi-purpose role of well-established Ottoman courts in supervising contractual transactions and financial services such as credit, deposits, and loans
under one roof.11
The debates over the command economy and the comparisons with Europe suggest that Ottoman historiography is gradually moving away from contrasting
temporally or specially-removed ideal types with early-modern economic reali ties. Yet how are we to understand such realities more fully? Currently, early
modern Ottoman history "unfolds" between two distinct periods. It was preceded
by an earlier, "classical" era of Empire building that lasted roughly until the late sixteenth century, when the Ottomans expanded their territories, placed new
economic resources (mainly agricultural lands) under state control, and engaged in large-scale commercial building projects to revive local economies and
develop trade. The early-modern era was followed by another distinct period that began around the middle of the eighteenth century, but became more
significant throughout the nineteenth century and lasted until World War I
(WWI), when the Ottoman economy went through a process of semi-peripher alization as it gradually merged into the world economy.12 The study of
10 See, for example, Pamuk, "Institutional Change." 11 Nelly Hanna, Making Big Money in 1600: The Life and Times of Ismacil Abu Taqiyya,
Egyptian Merchant (Syracuse, NY: Syracuse University Press, 1998). See especially chapter three, for the dominant place of the court in the professional life of the merchant Isma'il Abu
Taqiyya, the protagonist of her book. 12 On Ottoman integration into the world economy see Kenneth M. Cuno, The Pasha's
Peasants: Land, Society, and Economy in Lower Egypt, 1740-1858 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1992); Peter Gran, Islamic Roots of Capitalism: Egypt, 1760-1840 (Austin:
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MARKET WELFARE IN THE EARLY-MODERN OTTOMAN ECONOMY 259
Ottoman economic history of both the "empire building" and the "integration into the world economy" period is established within these two frameworks; the
task of economic historiography of the early-modern Ottoman Empire is still to
define the modus operandi of contemporary economy and, even more so, to
explain its meaning.
Ottoman "privatization" and the "circle of justice"
Salzmann's revisionist work on changes in the political economy of the
Empire transformed the way we now consider early-modern Ottoman decentral
ization.13 Her work examined shifts in the iltizam and later malikane methods
of landholding and surplus extraction as a more or less conscious attempt by the ruling elites to reform a malfunctioning economic system and adjust it to
contemporary needs. Such reforms further encouraged stronger alliances between political elites in Istanbul and those of various provinces within the
Empire, based on the creation of the "vazirite firm," a vertical integration that
relied on patronage, whose aim was to compete successfully for state contracts.
Taxes and other sources of revenue farming supplied the growing needs of the
Ottoman state for cash and served to raise large sums in advance when the state was in critical financial straits. The overall effect of such shifts on the Empire as a whole was a more efficient economic system, more workable in the con
temporary conditions of a mature Empire.
Although providing a good political-economic framework, Salzmann's work does not cover the effects of such "privatization" on the economic welfare of
Ottoman subjects. This was a significant aspect of contemporary transitions because
the iltizam and malikane in effect broke or at least weakened existing top-down mechanisms of checks and balances, which were embodied in the older system and justified by the principles of the Ottoman "circle of justice" (sometimes called "circle of equity"). According to the latter, the state was responsible for
political-economic equilibrium, expressed as follows: "A ruler could have no
power without soldiers, no soldiers without money, no money without the well
being of the subjects, and no well-being without justice."14 I would suggest that
University of Texas Press, 1979); Islamoglu-Inan, Ottoman Empire', Re?at Kasaba, The Ottoman Empire and the World Economy: The Nineteenth-Century (Albany, NY: SUNY
Press, 1988); Owen, Middle East, ?evket Pamuk, The Ottoman Empire and European Capitalism, 1820-1913: Trade, Investment, and Production (Cambridge: Cambridge Univer
sity Press, 1987). 13
Salzmann, "Ancien Regime." 14 Bulut, "Reconsideration," fn. 10, n.p., cited from H. inalcik, "The Nature of Traditional
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260 RELLI SHECHTER
such a modus vivendi meant settling for an economy whose guiding principles were quite different from our own economic thinking, emphasizing socio-politi cal cohesion over performance and growth through competition; the Ottomans were ready to settle for a "good-enough" economic system that met such a goal.
With a more hierarchical (centralized) government and command economy
type control, the sultan and his immediate ruling elite were (in principle at least) in a better position in the past to cater to the socio-economic welfare of their
subjects. This was by controlling intermediaries within the ruling elite, who oth erwise might squeeze the population. Indeed, the commercialization of taxation
and surplus extraction meant a system where maximization of profits was cen
tral; with it came the potential increase of exploitation, especially as the new
system did not officially provide new ways to curtail such injustices by the cen
tral government. This was true for agriculture, but also for industry, commerce, and services in the city, all impacted by decentralization.
Can we suggest the continuation of an economic modus vivendi emphasizing welfare through the market even though the centralized system that supported it
in the past was on the wane? I argue that implementing such a system did not
require a fully centralized, state-led command economy. Indeed, in a period of
decentralization, with the exception of Istanbul, it was local economic institu
tions, such as religious endowments (waqf) and guilds (tariqa, ta'ifa, hirfa, in
Arabic or esnaf in Turkish) that operated midway between government and pri vate interests to uphold economic welfare through tight market regulation. The
qadi and the court system also played a significant role in upholding justice in markets. Furthermore, consumers (sometimes in the form of public opinion) resisted economic injustices, and their agency in deciding what to buy was more
significant than any written law. In Polanyi's terms, while centricity gradually receded, redistribution and reciprocity took other, local forms that kept market
welfare a lively principle of the economy.15 The system outlined above provided (mostly urban) populations with minimal
standards of living through fixing quantity and prices of commodities, especially in times of shortage. In addition, it guaranteed industries a more or less regular
supply of affordable raw material. Welfare through the market also meant pro tection of employment, and perhaps also stabilizing commercial rents through
Society," in Political Modernization in Japan and Turkey, ed. R. Ward and D. Rustow
(Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1964), also N. Itzkowitz, The Ottoman Empire and
Islamic Tradition (New York: n.p., 1972). No page mentioned for both citations; Meyer, "Economic
Thought," 307; based on N. Berkes, Turkiye iktisat tarihi, vol. 2 (Istanbul: n.p., 1972), 325. 15 Karl Polanyi, The Great Transformation (Boston: Beacon Press, 1957). See especially
chapter four.
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MARKET WELFARE IN THE EARLY-MODERN OTTOMAN ECONOMY 261
the operations of local waqfs. The crux of my argument here is that the Empire's economy continued to be highly regulated even after decentralization. However, such regulation was carried by a broad consensus from the middle (in both geo
graphical and social terms) rather than being a top-down affair (regulated by a
command economy "from above"). Such economic regulation did not provide equality in the market for all. As
Raymond has emphasized, Ottoman city dwellers were far from being equal in
their earnings or their housing facilities.16 Moreover, it did not mean that city inhabitants were immune from being squeezed by local officials, for example,
by special taxation (avariz). However, this economic system did support exist
ing interests of large social segments such as organized labor. It further allowed
preferential treatment to city dwellers in face of newcomers from the country side, and protected them from extreme hardship (starvation). Its existence indi
cated a wide interest in economic stability, which was expressed from the mid
dle as well as from above and manifested a desire for a moral economy in
which markets were embedded in socio-cultural and political relations that
secured such interest.
Another gap in market regulation and the welfare through the market that it
implied was the treatment of the peasantry. The majority of Ottomans living in
the countryside were less protected from economic distress and natural or man
made disasters. Peasants surely resisted being squeezed of surplus in a variety of ways, ranging from hiding part of the crops to abandoning the land or even
resorting to armed struggle. They also petitioned local officials or even the sul
tan, and aired injustices in court. While such manifestations of peasant agency should not go unnoticed, the main beneficiaries of the existing economic system
were cities' middle-strata whose voice (and actions) counted more in contem
porary Ottoman political and economic settings.
Waqfs, guilds, and market welfare
In light of the above, I now further elaborate on the notion of regulation from the middle and market welfare by discussing the role of religious endowments and guilds in early-modern times. During an initial period of Empire building, the waqf, an old Islamic economic and welfare (redistributive) institution, served as a key tool for state economic development projects. The growth of
markets in Istanbul, Aleppo, and Cairo after the Ottoman conquest illustrated
16 Andre Raymond, "Islamic City, Arab City: Orientalist Myths and Recent Views," British Journal of Middle Eastern Studies 21, 1 (1994): 3-18.
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262 RELLI SHECHTER
well its efficiency in enhancing urban economies and the potential inherent
in the new Empire, which would reap the benefits of new economies-of-scale
for local agriculture, industry, and commerce.17 Even after this "classical" era
of concentrated state-sponsored development, the waqf institution remained
dynamic and its presence was far from diminishing economic transformation, as past literature sometimes implied.18 During early-modern times, some waqf revenues were surely siphoned off to support administrators, especially in cases
where they were descendants of the waqf's founder, and such "carrying
charges" did not benefit the community at large. Nevertheless, waqf institutions were important in the day-to-day running of the city economy.19 The waqf was
a significant player in commercial real-estate markets and as such it had a
major role in determining rents. While requiring future research, it may be
argued that the waqf provided economic stability by keeping low rents. Taken
from another era, Geertz's discussion of the role of the habus (the local waqf) in Sefrou, a medium-sized Moroccan city in the 1960s, may provide some illus
tration to this point.20 In its other capacity as a redistributive mechanism, the waqf channeled funds
directly from markets (rather than through the state) to religious establishments
and facilitated religious practice, for example, in paying for the provisions of
mosques, and religious seminars (madrase).21 It also provided immediate eco
17 After the occupation of Istanbul, Mehmet the Conqueror reconstructed and built new
markets in the city in order to revive the economy of his new capital and the Empire at large (Inalcik, "Ottoman State," 18-19). The presence of Empire significantly reduced security costs and facilitated a more or less unified legal and taxation system, enhancing local, inter
regional, and international commerce. This was demonstrated well in the case of Aleppo and
Cairo, which benefited from the incorporation of the Mamluk state into the Ottoman Empire. Masters showed that construction of commercial establishments in Aleppo was a proxy for economic growth: their number more than doubled the commercial core of the city (al
madina) in the first half century of Ottoman rule (Bruce Masters, "Aleppo: the Ottoman
Empire's Caravan City," in Ottoman City, 26). Raymond discussed for Cairo a similar but
slightly smaller growth of about a third in the same period. According to Raymond, during Ottoman times we find 57 new markets out of a total of 144 in the city, and 228 new cara
vanserais out of a total of 348. See his contribution to "Suq" in Encyclopaedia of Islam (EI), vol. 9 (Leiden: Brill, 1997 [new edition]), 792.
18 Miriam Hoexter," Waqf Studies in the Twentieth Century: The State of the Art," Journal
of the Economic and Social History of the Orient 41, 4 (1998): 479-481. 19 Ibid. 480-483. 20
Clifford Geertz, "Suq: The Bazaar Economy in Sefrou," in Meaning and Order in
Moroccan Society, Three Essays in Cultural Analysis, by Clifford Geertz, Hildrad Geertz, and
Lawrence Rosen (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1979), 123-244. 21 The role of waqfs as social and economic welfare providers was recently discussed in
Michael Bonner, Mine Ener, and Amy Singer, eds., Poverty and Charity in Middle East Con texts (Albany, NY: SUNY Press, 2003); Mine Ener, Managing Egypt's Poor and the Politics
of Benevolence, 1800-1952 (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2003), chapter one.
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MARKET WELFARE IN THE EARLY-MODERN OTTOMAN ECONOMY 263
nomic relief for the poor through imaret (kitchen soup) complexes attached to
large city mosques. Waqfs further routed foodstuffs and raw material from the
countryside to cities. Through such a direct, and possibly indirect (rent) welfare
mechanisms, religious endowments demonstrated a socio-cultural preference for
redistribution of private wealth through social projects, as opposed to accumu
lation and re-investment of economic resources. Even more so, waqfs stabilized urban economic life and provided a safety net for mostly city dwellers, with lit
tle involvement by the central government.
Early modern guilds regulated professional life in cities and ensured much
stability in industry and commerce. They also shielded established economic actors against the encroachment of newcomers of various sorts (local and for
eign) by raising high legal barriers to entry into markets. In this they served as
another pillar of social welfare through the market. The analysis above further
finds support in recent scholarship arising from the debate on the place of the
guilds between state and society. For Lewis, and later Baer, the guild was an institution through which the
state and local authorities regulated the economic and personal behavior of indi
viduals.22 The guilds also served as conduits for surplus extraction from urban
subjects. Mantran and others took an opposite approach, which emphasized the autonomy of guilds as craft unions (and a nascent "civil society"). From this
perspective, the guilds mediated internal conflicts and served as a collective
bargaining tool in their negotiations with other players in the market. This
approach further emphasized the sovereignty of guilds as social mechanisms aimed at ensuring a stable labor market by providing security at work, protec tion from unrestrained competition, and a grip on price of labor, number of
employees, and production quotas.
Contemporary research on Ottoman guilds suggests an intermediary position between the role of guilds from above and from the middle. Eldem has sug
gested that for Istanbul ". . . the guild structure was a two-edged sword which both granted a form of autonomy and self-control to the esnaf, and potentially contributed to their relative neutralization and easier control by the state."23 Ghazaleh reached the same conclusion for Cairo: ". . . we should postulate nei
ther state control nor autonomy to understand the structure and role of the
22 For the contour of the historiographie debate on guilds see Suraiya Faroqhi, "Crisis and
Change, 1590-1699," in Economic and Social History, 586-589. Pascale Ghazaleh, "The Guilds between Tradition and Modernity," in The State and Its Servants, Administration in
Egypt from Ottoman Times to the Present, ed. Nelly Hanna (Cairo: The American University in Cairo Press, 1995), 60-69.
23 Eldem, "Istanbul," 161.
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264 RELLI SHECHTER
guilds in Cairo in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. An examination of
the guilds' internal organization further demonstrates the guilds' complex rela
tionship with the state and society, on the one hand, and the scope of their inde
pendence concerning decision-making on the other."24 Marcus developed a sim
ilar argument for Aleppo "[T]he guild system operated outside government, but
not independently of it. The latitude of the guilds was restricted by the interests
of other groups, by the existing laws, and by the economic policies and inter
ests of the state. Although not entirely instruments of government, they did sub
mit to various forms official oversight which affirmed the limits of their inde
pendent authority."25 The quotes above reinforce the impression that the guilds were part of a "decentralized urban regime" of notables, suggested by Chal
craft,26 which sits well with my argument of market welfare regulated from the
middle.
Economic justice and governance through the legal system
Although economic welfare through both guilds and religious endowments was not solely dependent on its implementation from above, it did require legit
imacy and the occasional use of force to impose the law; the institutions that
regulated the local economy were dependent on mechanisms outside the market to maintain their efficacy and control over economic affairs.
The legal system played a major role in the daily running of guilds as their
members brought their internal affairs to court. The court also resolved griev ances between guilds and other players, including state officials who operated in the same sphere. It further empowered the guilds in restricting competition from outside, by creating legal barriers for entry into already established mar
kets. McGowan suggested that during the eighteenth century, due to migration into towns, the most common complaint of guilds to the courts was against pressure of entry by newcomers into trades.27 The courts facilitated cross
Ottoman and cross-Islamic economic activity (e.g., the case of Muslim Indian
traders in the Empire),28 and even substituted modern financial institutions by
24 Ghazaleh, "Guilds," 65.
25 Abraham Marcus, The Middle East on the Eve of Modernity, Aleppo in the Eighteenth
Century (New York: Columbia University Press, 1989), 173. 26 John Chalcraft, "The Striking Cabbies of Cairo and Other Stories: Crafts and Guilds in
Egypt, 1863-1914," unpublished dissertation (New York University, 2001), 9-15. 27
Bruce McGowan, "The Age of the Ayans, 1699-1812," in Economic and Social History, 697. For Jerusalem see: Dror Ze'evi, An Ottoman Century: The District of Jerusalem in the
1600s (Albany, NY: SUNY Press, 1996), 158. 28
Faroqhi, "Crisis and Change," 524-525.
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MARKET WELFARE IN THE EARLY-MODERN OTTOMAN ECONOMY 265
allowing complicated transactions.29 Ottoman courts supported the administra
tion of waqfs as well, providing the legal framework for establishing endow
ments and overseeing future matters related to their management. The legal system contributed to welfare through the market more immedi
ately, through direct interference in markets. Significant to our discussion here, but still awaiting adequate treatment in the literature, are the transitions over
time in the tasks of the muhtasib (the market regulator assigned by the qadi) and his many lieutenants.30 A major difficulty in evaluating their role is that any
investigation of locally-based officials would reflect geographical differences in
their functions, and even their mere existence. Thus, before the eighteenth cen
tury in Aleppo, the hisba disappeared altogether.31 In Egypt, the position of the
muhtasib was abolished only under Mehmet Ali.32 In Istanbul, the seat of gov ernment, the hisba also lasted until the tanzimat (reforms) of 1826.33 However, the co-existence of muhtasibs in Cairo and Istanbul did not necessarily mean
that they carried the same weight and responsibilities. The qadi, who was in charge of the muhtasib, was also responsible for other
market officials such as the kayyal (the person responsible for weights and mea
sures) and for the regulation of prices by determining narh (ceiling) prices, the
latter especially in times of economic hardship.34 Research has to pay more
attention to the role of officials in markets, and the degree to which narh actu
ally determined prices, before we can better evaluate the immediate impact of
legal-religious players in early-modern markets.
The impact of the qadi and the court went beyond regulating and adminis
trating practical solutions in the day-to-day running of markets. Their deep involvement in market life meant that the courts were crucial in upholding the
principles guiding such economy. It may even be argued that they served as a
29 In her Making Big Money, Hanna demonstrates the regularity at which merchants went
to the courts, convincingly pointing out their significant role as facilitators of commercial life.
See especially chapter three. 30 On the hisba (ihtisab in Ottoman sources), the institution of market regulation see:
"Hisba," in EI, vol. 3, 485-490. The muhtasib operated according to a religious mandate of
"commanding right and forbidding wrong" when assuming (theoretically at least) three tasks:
enforcing just business conduct among those who made a living in the market in both indus
try and trade, intervening in markets in times of crisis to secure minimal standards of living, and taxing the working population. 31
Marcus, Middle East, 173. 32 Gabriel Baer, Egyptian Guilds in Modern Times (Jerusalem: The Israel Oriental Society,
1964), 44. 33 R. Mantran in "Hisba;' in EI, vol. 3, 489. 34 M. S. Kutukoglu in "Narh" in EI, vol. 7, 964-965. Inalcik ("Ottoman State," 46) con
sidered the narh a central tool in an Ottoman "economy of plenty."
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266 RELLI SHECHTER
buffer between transitions in state politics and local economic transformation.
This argument resonates well with Masters' discussion of the centrality of
Islamic law in prohibiting structural economic change in Aleppo's economy: "The law's interpretation could change. We have evidence of this in the allow al
of interest under the legal guise of terming it profit rather than usury and in the
seemingly antiguild rulings of eighteenth-century Aleppo. But even in these
cases, the underlying ideology of justice in the marketplace, including the idea
of fair pricing, the sanctity of contract, and the right for labor to receive a just wage, makes us wonder whether conditions for a capitalist protoindustry such as arose in Europe could ever have appeared in Aleppo without a total collapse of the Ottoman system of government, with its courts and bureaucrats."35
Although we are less interested in "preconditions" that would make the
Empire's economy more like Europe's, Masters is right in emphasizing the cen
tral place of the courts and law in safeguarding the principles of the Empire's economy. Such principles would only collapse when a new Ottoman political economy was shaped under the (external and internal) impact of the integration of the Empire into the world economy, especially during the nineteenth century. The re-centralized (post-tanzimat) state stipulated new commercial laws and
reformed the court system. Furthermore, an important sector of foreign and
minority businessmen now running lucrative chunks of the local economy
totally circumvented local courts and developed European-like financial institu
tions that would take on many of the courts' earlier tasks.
Provisioning, consumption, and stratification
So far I have centered the discussion on economic institutions, the legal sys tem, and their impact on the supply side of the economy. However, demand was
also regulated; its study is significant in outlining the influence of market wel
fare on consumption in the Empire. In Ottoman economic orthodox thinking,
provisioning replaced a value-free market equilibrium by socio-cultural and
political principles of redistribution, which determined differential levels of con
sumption outside the marketplace. Provisioning aimed at two main goals: first, it stood for financially rewarding the bureaucracy and the military for running the state. Second, it was to ensure an adequate supply of foodstuffs and com
modities to markets in large cities where most state elites lived, and where
35 Bruce Masters, The Origins of Western Economic Dominance in the Middle East:
Mercantilism and the Islamic Economy in Aleppo, 1600-1750 (New York: New York
University Press, 1988), 221.
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MARKET WELFARE IN THE EARLY-MODERN OTTOMAN ECONOMY 267
political unrest, the result of insufficient resources, could seriously threaten Ottoman
authority. As research demonstrates, neither of these tasks was ever simple because the
state constantly competed with other players over availability and price. In fact,
provisioning was used on a regular basis only in Istanbul, the principal seat of
government and the largest city in the Empire, and even there not always suc
cessfully. For example, during the early seventeenth century there was much
timber smuggling from northwestern Anatolia, an area designated to send wood to the Arsenal in Istanbul because prices for wood in Cairo were much higher.36
Although other cities did not exert enough economic (and political) domi nance to allow such an efficient siphoning off of surplus, and provisioning poli cies were less strictly imposed, local authorities did pay much attention to sec
uring minimal standards of living for city dwellers. Indeed, supplying Damascus
with reasonably-priced grain was important enough to serve as an index for
good governance.37 Grain was crucial for the survival of the city's inhabitants.
Its availability in city markets in times of scarcity meant that local authorities were savvy or powerful enough to organize its supply in face of competition from other players who interfered with the local grain market to enhance their
profits. Provisioning of cities in times of crisis would be a cause of much pull from the countryside, where the authorities cared less about such matters.
The introduction of coffee in the mid-sixteenth century and of tobacco at the turn of the seventeenth well demonstrate the political economy of consumption
regulation in the Empire in this period.38 The introduction of these two com
modities was highly contested by the authorities on religious and moral grounds, as well as for hygienic, health, and financial reasons. Tobacco smoking was
also deemed unsafe as a fire hazard. Taking either substance was initially out
lawed, at times under the strictest penalties. But they were both enthusiastically adopted by users of various social backgrounds, and their consumption became a leading socio-cultural practice. The cases of coffee and tobacco well exem
plify how changing consumer preferences played an active part in shaping local demand even when banned by the state and condemned by religious authorities.
36 Faroqhi, "Crisis and Change," 493.
37 James Paul Grehan, "Culture and Consumption in Eighteenth-Century Damascus,"
unpublished dissertation (Austin: University of Texas, 1999), 110. 38
On coffee see: Ralph S. Hattox, Coffee and Coffeehouses: The Origins of a Social
Beverage in the Medieval Near East (Seattle: University of Washington Press, 1985); Cengiz Kirli, "The Struggle Over Space: Coffeehouses of Ottoman Istanbul, 1780-1845," unpublished dissertation (Binghamton, NY: Binghamton University, State University of New York, 2000),
chapter one. On tobacco see Relli Shechter, Smoking, Culture, and Economy in the Middle East: The Egyptian Tobacco Market c!850-2000 (London: LB. Tauris, forthcoming), chapter one.
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268 RELLI SHECHTER
The interplay between Ottoman sumptuary laws and local dress codes is
another illustration of the relations between market regulation and the agency of consumers seeking to break away from it. Ottoman sumptuary laws, first
codified during the time of Suleiman Qanuni, aimed at creating social distinc
tions for different ethnic and religious communities and professional affiliations.
Even more, they were to differentiate between the ruling bureaucratic, military, and religious elites and their subjects. This avenue of social stratification, how
ever, proved as dependent on consumer choice as on top-down enforcement of
the law. In the late eighteenth century local officials in Aleppo enforced sump
tuary laws to demonstrate authority, or simply to extort money or humiliate the
Christian minority of the city.39 Nevertheless, it was Ottoman consumers who
ultimately decided what to wear, based more on personal and group preferences than on official dictates. In fact, we may probably time the emergence of new
fashions in attire by the dates on which sumptuary laws re-emerged.40 For the
eighteenth century, Zilfi suggested that the many laws that attempted to re
impose past dress codes in fact clearly indicated an anxiety over erosion in the
power of the Ottoman government and over breakdown of communal identities
associated with past clothing regimes.41 Jirousek argued that between 1550 and 1800 men's wear changed slightly.42
Women's clothes began to change earlier, around the turn of the eighteenth cen
tury, because while encouraging inter-elite competition this was kept indoors?
literally, within the Ottoman harems, and symbolically, within the boundaries of
the state elite. In this context, women's clothing and other forms of conspicu
ous consumption replaced older modes of internal elite competition, and stratifica
tion through consumption became politically important. The introduction of new fashions also led to the gradual destabilization of textile production and
the growing impact of foreign commerce on the local economy.43 Noteworthy here is the fact that the Ottoman ruling elite, supposedly the guardians of the
Empire's economic traditions, played a subversive economic role in developing new demands.
39 Marcus, Middle East, 98-99; Masters, "Aleppo," 58-59.
40 Donald Quataert, "Clothing Laws, State, and Society in the Ottoman Empire, 1720
1829," International Journal of Middle East Studies 29, 3 (1997): 404. 41 Madeline C. Zilfi, "Goods in the Mahalle: Distributional Encounters in Eighteenth
Century Istanbul," in Consumption Studies and the History of the Ottoman Empire, 1550
1922: An Introduction, ed. Donald Quataert (Albany NY: SUNY Press, 2000), 297. 42 Charlotte Jirousek, "The Transition to Mass Fashion System Dress in the Later Ottoman
Empire," in Consumption Studies, 211, based on Hiilya Tezcan and Selma Deliba?, The Top
kapi Saray Museum: Costumes, Embroideries, and Other Textiles (London: n.p., 1986), 26. 43
Eldem, "Istanbul," 179-196; Donald Quataert, Ottoman Manufacturing in the Age of the
Industrial Revolution (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1993), 3-4.
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MARKET WELFARE IN THE EARLY-MODERN OTTOMAN ECONOMY 269
In the early eighteenth century (the tulip era) notions of intra-elite compe tition and stratification-through-consumption materialized in the unprecedented
building of palaces along the banks of the Bosphoros. This activity raised the
demand for imported household and other luxury items, and changed elite food
consumption habits.44 The era itself received its name from the renewed craze
for outdoor gardens planted with expensive tulips and the decoration of a vari
ety of commodities in the shape of the tulip. In 1730, however, such conspicu ous consumption was fiercely resisted, and brought to a halt by a revolt that
erupted from the most densely populated quarters of Istanbul.45
The revolt reflected dissatisfaction with contemporary politics (mainly the fall
of Tabriz to the Iranians, which triggered a sense of insecurity among the inhab
itants of the capital) and was not directed against upper class consumption itself; such consumption provided work for many in Istanbul. Nevertheless, the
revolt did set itself against the use of much needed public space for planting
tulips, and against lavish private spending at a time when the majority of the
city's population experienced economic hardships and insecurity. It implied that
conspicuous consumption could be tolerated only in periods of relative peace and prosperity, and when serving the interest of the community as a whole
through stimulating local production and commerce. The overthrow of Ahmet
III as well as the destruction of Saadabad palace and its tulip gardens sounded a call for a return to a moral economy in this new time of need, one that would
improve the welfare of Istanbul's residents at large. The ending of the tulip era marked a temporary setback in elite consumption
preferences, but this process proved unstoppable in the changing economic and
political sphere of the Empire. During the eighteenth century a new commercial
bourgeoisie consisting of ethnic and religious minorities and a relatively small
group of Muslims took over this trend, and even outpaced state and military elites in its adoption and adaptation of Western consumption patterns.46 It was
44 TuTay Artan, "Aspects of the Ottoman Elite's Food Consumption: Looking for 'Staples,'
'Luxuries,' and 'Delicacies' in a Changing Century;" Ariel Salzmann, "The Age of Tulips: Confluence and Conflict in Early Modern Consumer Culture (1550-1730)," both in
Consumption Studies, 107-200 and 83-106 respectively. 45 On the revolt and its consequences see Salzmann, "Age of Tulips," 94-98. The revolt was not the first instance in Islamic history of acts against the elite's conspicuous consump tion. See, for example, Hanbali criticism of court consumption habits in Baghdad in Nimrod
Hurvitz, "From Scholarly Circles to Mass Movement: The Formation of Legal Communities in Islamic Societies," The American Historical Review 108, 4 (October, 2003), 994-998. I
thank the author for bringing this information to my attention. 46 Fatma Miige Gocek, Rise of the Bourgeoisie, Demise of Empire: Ottoman Western
ization and Social Change (New York: Oxford University Press, 1996), chapter 3.
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270 RELLI SHECHTER
only during the nineteenth century that mass consumption patterns began to
change. However, the development of new consumption habits among the rul
ing elites and later the commercial bourgeoisie paved the way for future
changes in local demand. Such changes are little discussed in much of the
literature on the integration of the Empire into the world economy, where the
European impact on local markets is most often studied. Still, it has great poten tial for explaining why some Ottoman players gradually replaced the notion of
market welfare with that of free market, which better suited their interests.
Capitulations, breaking away from the "old" economy, and market welfare
Regulation and the market welfare it supported could only be maintained as
long as the Empire's economy was inward-looking and relatively secluded from
other economies. Faroqhi and Quataert rightly emphasize that we should not
over-estimate the significance of European (and international) commerce in Ottoman
markets during the period under discussion or even later during the nineteenth
century.47 This is true for the volume of imported as opposed to local trade and
for the financial contribution of imports and exports to the Ottoman economy. Still, the impact of cross-border commerce was more significant than its imme
diate (concrete) contribution in "freeing" Ottoman markets from regulation and
leading the way to integration with the world economy. The Ottomans themselves were aware early on of the potentially subversive
role of foreign trade, and while acknowledging its importance attempted to con
trol it via the capitulation system.48 The Ottomans were also ready to allow such commerce locally by ethnic and religious minorities, which would be dependent on elite patronage and find it difficult to translate money into power outside the
existing system.49 However, forestalling major change in their political-econ
47 Suraiya Faroqhi, Subjects of the Sultan: Culture and Daily Life in the Ottoman Empire
(London: LB. Tauris, 2000), 50; Donald Quataert, The Ottoman Empire, 1700-1922
(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000), 126. 48 The Ottomans regulated international trade by giving favorable trading rights to amica
ble states. In the capitulations the Ottoman government seceded some of its sovereignty by
allowing European traders to conduct commerce in the Empire under favorable conditions. In
allocating restricted political and economic rights to chosen states, the Ottomans improved their political ties with these countries. The capitulation also assured the inflow of needed raw materials, foodstuffs, and luxury items, the latter much sought after by the local elite.
They further enabled the Ottomans to fill their coffers from customs duties on imported
goods. Thus, the Ottomans' favorable trading rights bestowed on friendly countries were also
beneficial to their state. Halil Inalcik, "Ottoman State," 188-190. 49 Curtin suggested that apart from direct military intervention, cross-cultural trade was a
powerful external stimulus of change and disruption in any existing socio-economic system.
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MARKET WELFARE IN THE EARLY-MODERN OTTOMAN ECONOMY 271
omy, they would not allow significant stray from their orthodoxy of keeping
significant economic-turned-political actors at bay. Thus, Pamuk rightly sug
gested that: "Despite the general trend toward decentralizations of the empire
during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, merchants and domestic pro ducers?the leading proponents and developers of mercantilist policies in
Europe?never became powerful enough in the empire to sway the Ottoman
government to deviate from its traditional ways."50 To prove the Ottomans right in their suspicion of cross-boarder commerce,
the discussion below highlights the role of international trade in transforming the local economy and gradually ending early modern regulation and market
welfare.
During the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, as the Ottomans remained a
significant power in respect of Europe, they kept tight control over foreign trad
ing communities, and capitulation agreements were honored only selectively.51
Supervision of the implementation of the capitulations was also intentionally
delegated to relatively low-level officials, to emphasize the unequal relations between
the Empire and subjects of European states. European merchants had to play the
local power game to be allowed access to markets. This was well demonstrated
in the organization of foreign merchant communities (called "nations"). Consuls, whose appointment was approved by the Ottoman state, headed these commu
nities, and their sovereignty over their communities and in relations to other
players in the market depended on their ability to negotiate with central and
local officials. As Eldem puts it for Istanbul: ". . . similarly to the Ottomans
themselves, French traders consciously relied on non-economic interventions
provided by their own political agents or imposed on the bureaucratic structures
of the Ottoman state itself."52 Foreign merchant communities were thus inte
grated into the Ottoman political economy that governed local markets.
One significant outcome of the above was that the implementation of capit ulations in various urban markets depended on center-periphery relations within
the Empire. The presence of strong local officials or potent local notables meant
that the state found it hard to enforce agreements it signed, even after a foreign consul would send his complaint to Istanbul. During the first part of the seven
Delegating such necessary evil to relatively weak social groups largely mitigated the poten tial threat of international trade. Philip D. Curtin, Cross-Cultural Trade in World History
(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1984), 1. 50
Pamuk, "Institutional Change," 246. 51
Daniel Goffman, "The Capitulations and the Question of Authority in Levantine Trade,
1600-1650," Journal of Turkish Studies 10 (1986): 155-161. 52
Eldem, "Istanbul," 192-193.
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272 RELLI SHECHTER
teenth century, foreign consuls in Izmir cooperated with strong local powers at
the expense of the central government.53 The capitulations were most strongly adhered to in Istanbul, under the close supervision of the Ottoman government.
Regulation of international trade through the capitulations system was so
significant that the breakdown of its initial rules of the game, and their gradual substitution by ones presenting European dominance, had a profound effect on
the Ottoman economy. In 1740 a renewed Franco-Ottoman capitulations agree ment became a turning point, at which a strong European state dictated and
backed new terms of trade, which clearly favored French merchants.54 As a
result, foreign merchants and their consuls gradually became significant pro moters of export-led revenues and local power brokers in their own right, at
times even at the expense of central and local Ottoman ruling elites. This was
one of the most significant factors leading to the semi-peripheralization of the
Ottoman economy in the newly established European world economy. Economic
integration, however, took place not only at the behest of European powers but
also as a result of local interest groups (producers, merchants, and consumers) who had a stake in the process. Such opening up of the economy meant the
beginning of the end for an inward-looking and highly regulated early modern
economy, which benefited the state, local elites, and urban middle-strata.
Conclusion
The article argued for a broader view of the early-modern Ottoman economy,
expressed from the perspective of market welfare, which was embedded in the
local value system and the institutions that regulated economic life. This con
tinued to be the case even when a top-down command economy (of sorts) grad ually disappeared and was replaced by local regulation from the middle. The Ottomans opted for a "good enough," stable economy that protected the inter ests of those established in the system.
During the early-modern era of decentralization, the classical "circle of jus tice" maxim was re-translated into local action rather than taken up by the sul tan and his entourage. City provisioning was adhered to as a proxy of good governance, especially at times of economic trouble (food shortages). Further
more, the qadi and local courts administered the law in ways that facilitated
protectionism, catering to the interests of local production and commerce in the
53 Daniel Goffman, "Izmir: from Village to Colonial Port City," in Ottoman City, 91-92.
54 Eldem, "Istanbul," 191-192.
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MARKET WELFARE IN THE EARLY-MODERN OTTOMAN ECONOMY 273
name of social justice. The same can be argued for Ottoman guilds and reli
gious endowments, both shielding city inhabitants against a variety of economic
upheavals. City took over state-led economic governance (to the extent that such
governance had existed in the past) in guiding the local economy. Although
treating such an arrangement as "civil society" in practice would be an anachro
nism, regulation from the middle (socially) or the city-level (geographically) is
a far cry from past research that suggested a vacuum in city regimes.55 The early-modern Ottoman economy is hard to envision today, as we are
caught in a modern, neo-liberal paradigm that idealizes the economy as a free
and potentially ever-growing entity. We need to step out of such contemporary conventions if we are to avoid misconceptions created by looking through them at bygone economies. The inward-looking economy gradually crumbled as the
Ottoman government and powerful local players lost interest in protecting it (or benefited from its dissolution), and external forces grew (politically and eco
nomically) strong enough to meddle in its affairs. Nevertheless, change did not come without a struggle; the Ottoman middle had much interest in the existing
system, and a free market mostly spelled economic hardships for those earlier
benefiting from the old economy. If this analysis sounds familiar, it is not
because it has often been applied in the context of the Ottoman Empire, but
because it echoes the economic dilemmas of Middle Eastern societies today.
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