How did the Netherlands become so rich? Nigerian girl reacts

Video by Economic Raven ( I do not own any rights to this video)
• Netherlands: Digging D...
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[@DenUitvreter]

I've been exploring that question for a while. What we know is that at it's peak, around 1650, the VOC had 140 merchant ships (war ships on top of that but those cost money). The entire Dutch merchant fleet of that is estamited to have consisted of over 20.000 merchant ships, an estimate by the envious British back then. The Dutch had more ships than the rest of Europe combined and did more than half of all Europe's shipping, while peak VOC couldn't match the good old herring trade in turn over and profit. What people tend to forget is that it took a year to sail to Asia, and another year to sail back, the VOC did more trade within Asia than between Asia and Europe. A VOC ship coming drew a crowd because of all the exotic stuff, but the big money was in the big volumes of week in week out shipping of bulk goods, to the Dutch Republic but also between countries around the Baltic Sea (the "mother negotion"), and even between harbours within those countries), the North Sea and the Mediterrranean. Trade with Asia was high risk high profit, but relatively tiny. Yes, the owners of the most beautiful canal houses in Amsterdam had VOC and WIC shares, but that's what rich people do, buy shares, spread risk and draw ROI. But they most likely got that rich with shipping wheat, wood, beer and daily stuff like that. Europe was not on a diet of nutmeg wearing silk enjoying Japanes art. Also the VOC only started to pay dividend in 1633, while the Dutch Republic was already in tulip mania, a symptom of the excessive wealth. The cultural enrichment was huge of course. It was post VOC when the Dutch Indies trade organization was important. When the Netherlands was basically bankrupt after the Napoleontic occupation the total profit of the Dutch Indies through that state company was between 5 and 15% of the government budget around the 1820's, I'v read different estimates. but goverment budget was of course a much smaller part of the economy back then. So I guess we can safely say the VOC was less than 1% of GDP at it's peak. So negligable these days allthough old money counts. When an Irish politician was asked why they gave such huge tax breaks to American companies only for them to cause housing to be unaffordable the answer was that they needed to attract the capital this way because unlike the Dutch they had no old money. So that 17th century money is part of the head start of the Netherlands in global capitalism and the VOC is a tiny part of that too. After the "glorious invasion" of 1688 the Dutch modernized the British economy and kicked off the British Empire, this saw a lot of Dutch as the inventors of modern capitalism move their money just as easily to London over the next century, often more than 30% of the shares were Dutch owned, in the time global trade grew much bigger. So the Dutch probably profitted more from British colonialism than from their own colonialism. The VOC is made far bigger than it was, partly for internal political reasons in the 1870's, partly for a current political narrative, and partly because of the English narrative that comes with the English language. The English saw a lot of the VOC back then, because sailing to Asia on gun ships they could do too, allthough not as well. Competing in European trade they couldn't, so they would not sea lot of the true origin of Dutch wealth. Besides the cultural enrichment through the VOC and the benefits of being a world power, the Dutch were only surpassed as the world''s biggest traders by the British around 1800, it started of course as part of the war effort, to take the war for independence overseas. As the famours early 17th century Dutch human rights violator Jan Pieterszoon Coen put it: There can't be war without trade and there can't trade without war. It was the 80-years war against the Spanish Empire for independence and religious freedom. If we had lost that war we would probably still get a red hot spike up our but and be burned at the stake for not being a good catholic. The calvinist Coen truly believed he was doing god's work, the VOC board believed he overdid god's work and reprimanded him for the excessive violence (he killed 1200 Bandanese in retalliation and ethnically cleansed the islands of the rest, shipped them out and shipped Javanese 'workers' in), but was very happy with the result. The only nutmeg islands in the world were firmly in Dutch hands with all structure for rebellion gone. That was part of a solid base for an Asian trade network and a trade network was a necessary base for military presence ot fight the Portuguese, which were part of the Spanish Empire, the enemy. Of course it all became about greed later on. But the cultural and geopolitical influence was much bigger and has much more effect until today than it's tiny contribution to the Dutch GDP of that day.

[@DenUitvreter]

The VOC also became corrupt from top to bottom. With that kind of experience in corruption it's no wonder it stays hidden from international corruption indices. As long as corruption doesn't cause dysfunctional institutions, you can get away with a lot.

[@zaniwoob]

Great comment with lots of facts I didn't know.

[@Busfles984]

Philips today is actually a dwarf compared to Samsung and the likes. Philips has sold its lighting, consumer electronics and home appliances divisions. Philips now produces only medical equipment such as MRI scanners and shavers. So all other products with Philips logo, which you find in electronics stores are produced by others under trademark licensing, which means that Philips does control the quality of the product. Shell and Unilever today are British companies because they closed their Dutch head office due to lower dividend tax rates in the UK (i guess they will be back before 2030). The worlds most renowned furniture store company with stores in almost all countries in the world is actually Dutch. Also the world's fifth-largest automaker, is headquartered in the Netherlands.

[@shootingsportstransparency7461]

As an old Dutch born Dutchman I like to learn from the opinion of a new fresh Dutchman

[@josphineogugua]

I’m glad you do🤗

[@RednasXYZABC123]

about nexit, most people i know are against war and against european intervention in Ukraine. that play's a big part on this. also european laws and import is a big part. with the decline of farmers and unlogical climate laws are thus also a big part. furthermore is trust in goverment rapidly declining. with politicians talking down on the civilians and WEF shady buisness, distrust in foreign meddling is at a high point. most dutch i know follow these topics on every move. also people are not forgetfull, if someone lies and decieves all trust is gone. i guess nexit is realy a way to have independince and to keep the country as beatifull as it is praised to be. but this all realy depends on where you are asking. almost all of the north is angry at how things are going while the south think everything is fine as it is. from my standpoint the country is slowely getting cut in half. with the north as traditionalistic and the south progressive. for a simple example, no lgbtq+ buisness in the north and no original sinterklaas in the south. so plainly it is realy depending on where you ask. Amsterdam will give totaly different awnser then Assen.

[@josphineogugua]

Thank you for sharing

[@RednasXYZABC123]

@@josphineogugua no prob, glad you like it

[@transient_]

It's easier for a rich man to earn more money. And that the VOC went bankrupt doesn't mean there were no rich people anymore. Like the video said the Netherlands were/are a trading nation, which means the Netherlands stayed rich.

[@SideWalkAstronomyNetherlands]

We grew many more plants not just Tulips, that was just a fringe trade. Cheese, herring, Fibres etc... Textiles, Ceramics.. Gin, there always was industry. Fishing. Farming. Germany traded through the Netherlands via the river Rhine. Still does.

[@josphineogugua]

Thank you for sharing. It’s just interesting to see how the Dutch positioned themselves in foreign trades over the years

[@DenUitvreter]

I believe Dutch drapery/textile was famous. No coincidence the microscope and microbiology was invented by a Dutch draper. Shipbuilding was of course so huge that the sailors on Dutch ships were half foreign. The gun industry was big, Delft blue was china for the middle class, and the painting industry was actually quite big too, mostly for the Dutch market. Not the Dutch masters, but a lot of mediocre paintings were made for the ordinary middle class people. The estimate is that up to 1672, when the painting market crashed never to recover, 70.000 paintings a year were produced, for 1.5 million people.

[@douwepouwe]

@@DenUitvreter and ofc weed.

[@nielsklarenberg5871]

@@douwepouwe That has lost it's fame over the years, other countries have taken over on that department.

[@burgienl]

Practically nothing remains of the wealth gathered by the VOC. The VOC was one of the first Private Military Companies, and they exploited the situation of a lack of laws and being able to arm themselves. One of the weird things was that at the time slavery was illegal in The Netherlands themselves but somehow they did manage to get away with overseas slavery. The Netherlands as a whole did not really benefit from the VOC activities, but it did make some individuals very wealthy. That wealth did end up in cities like Amsterdam, where those individuals would build houses and such. But the VOC did go bankrupt in the end. And the country did go pretty much bankrupt in WW2. So pretty much nothing remains of the VOC wealth today except for some buildings.

[@DenUitvreter]

The strange is that the VOC was involved in slavery, servitude or other kinds of human bondage (it was diffuse but the VOC further obscured it) almost right from the start, while the WIC had to and did set slaves on captured Spanish ships free until 1637. That was when a Brazilian plantation colony was captured from the Portuguese and the governor claimed he couldn't run it without blacks. The WIC board had been renewed and what a coincidence, some theologists showed up with a biblical excuse for slavery, and the WIC board gave him permission to capture a Portuguese slave fort too. Elmina in today's Ghana it was. The WIC and Dutch government's condition was that the slaves, descendants of Ham (Chaam) now, had to be set free after 7 years and had to be taught in christianity in the mean time. The Portuguese recaptured Dutch Brazil within those 7 years, but the taboo was off and the Dutch started supplying slaves to British, French and later Spanish and Portuguese plantation colonies. They industrialized the slave trade, became good friends with the Ashanti slave traders, and had their ships converted into slave ships with them, so ordinary cargo ships left the Dutch Republic and ordinary cargo ships returned in the triangular trade. For a short while they were the biggest Atlantic slave trader but the British copied the Dutch and knew better hygiene en managed to keep more slaves alive, giving them the competitive edge. But in the Dutch Republic itself everyone on shore was free by law. Black people had no issue living here, Rembrandt had black neighbours in the Jodenbreestraat, the mostly men married Dutch women. I got a bit complicated when a Surinamese slave owner, a black woman btw, brought a slave to the Dutch Republic. The slave went back to Suriname, but claimed to be free now, because he had been legally free while being there, and therefore could not be legally re-enslaved just by leaving the Dutch Republic. So the judges declared him free. The Dutch were not allowed to enslave, legally that is. A Norwegian captain in service of the Dutch on a Dutch slave ship was send to prison for enslaving Africans at the African West-Coast to add to his shipment of bought slaves.

[@burgienl]

@@DenUitvreter it makes you wonder how things got so screwed up. One part of the governement allows slave ownership and another part doesn't. Or was it simply a case of if we don't see it, it doesn't exist?

[@DenUitvreter]

@@burgienl I think the triangular nature of the transatlantic slave trade making ordinary cargo ships leave and ordinary cargo ships return helped a lot. But the WIC started out as a decent pirating (only the enemy) and trading company. It's main boss Usselyncx but also captains like Piet Hein were the "all people are children of god" calvinists, they loathed slavery as a practice those evil catholics did. They started out friendly with the native Americans too and didn't believe people in far away lands should become victim of the European wars. But the VOC was of course mostly dealing with local rulers, not topple them. They sailed into a world were slavery and other forms of human bondage were still normal. For the WIC it was much more a matter of yes or know.

[@JHatLpool]

To get you started ... The Netherlands is a social democracy with high levels of education and healthcare. The country has sound government at the national and local level (Mark Rutter seems like a reliable guy). Sitting next to an economic giant (Germany) also helps.

[@urbandiscount]

Don't get me started on the serial lying by Mark Rutte and the fact that as a junior minister he was convicted of racism

[@JHatLpool]

@Yuri R. Do not waste your time in responding. You clearly do not know what you are talking about.

[@SideWalkAstronomyNetherlands]

The VOC was less than 1% of the income. The "Mother trade" "moeder negotie", was with the baltics, trade in grain and wood, and wine, here in Europe. The VOC needed money to be set up, huge investments.

[@josphineogugua]

Interesting. I do need to dig deeper and learn more

[@DenUitvreter]

The VOC initially quite modest, get some contacts, bring silk and kick some Portuguese ass. But when over there it saw huge possibilities and wanted to reinvest it's profits instead of paying the dividend it was legally obliged to. But many shareholders were ordinary people, craftsmen, maids even, they couldn't wait decades for ROI, it was part of their pension. They couldn't wait so the stock exchange was invented to allow the VOC to grow much bigger, people who needed the cash back could simply sell their share to a richer, more patient person.

[@urbandiscount]

Until the 1920s, when the Ducth East Indies became a "proper"colony. Also: "cultuurstelsel"

[@SanderSA-ny3lh]

@@urbandiscount According to racists and.... nobody serious who did the math. Let's not confuse racism with economics.

[@SideWalkAstronomyNetherlands]

We import roses from Kenya for example.

[@shank3380]

I notice in Kenya and Ethiopia exist many flower farms owned by dutch people

[@urbandiscount]

@@shank3380 And they destroy local agriculture and move it from food production to the production of flowers.

[@SAMUDRAMAC]

Importing is automatically everything that comes in through Rotterdam. Goods for Germany for instance first enter the country and shortly after leave the country (are exported). This generates a lot of imports and exports, but just on paper.

[@josphineogugua]

Ohhh that’s good to know. I was thinking more of buying goods from other countries to resell for profit.

[@ronaldderooij1774]

The Dutch economy has nothing left from VOC times. Remember that in the mean time we were stripped bare by France (Napoleon), Germany (by Hitler) and in certain ways also by the UK stripping us of most of our colonies. The only indirect benefit to wealth from that time I think might be Shell who begain oil trade in Indonesia when that was still Dutch. But also Shell HQ left the Netherlands some years ago for tax reasons. Some people call slave trade and slave labour as one of the foundations of the economy now, but that is not true for the reasons stated above. Besides that, it even back then was only a small portion of the economy (it sounds heartless, and I am against slavery, believe me). So, the Netherlands, as many other countries had to start over again some times. What remains why the Netherlands is rich is, location, high education standards (even in the 17th century most people, even women could read and write because of sea faring men and calvinism). The Dutch economy nowadays really earns its money by banking and insurance trade. That was not in this video, but that is where the money is made (at the Amsterdam Zuidas).

[@josphineogugua]

Thanks so much for sharing. I think I’m receiving history lessons and it’s good to hear everyone’s opinion on this🤗

[@aheroyaheroyalproductions7631]

The Netherlands is rich because, they stole the money from the Groninger Gaswinning, and all major projects in the Netherlands were paid for from this. the people of Groningen have been exploited for decades, all money goes to the Randstad (north and south Holland) that's why the Netherlands seems rich ! Groningen itself has broken houses, caused by gas quakes, and the rest of the Netherlands lives happily. (also search, ..Dutch Desease)

[@urbandiscount]

This is not true. You're downplaying an economic effect that has been well described

[@robertgrijsen1006]

I am Dutch, 60 years young and as far I know, the not talking about money has always been there :)

[@RH-ro3sg]

Not flaunting your wealth has different roots. First one would be Calvinism that has historically been an influence for centuries with its ethic of 'work hard, live frugally, and don't boast about what you have achieved for we are all sinners that need redemption' . So that root would go back to at least the 16th-17th century. Then, there's of course the egalitarian impulse which may be related to the first, but seems more a 20th/21st century thing- it's not considered in good taste to show off in any respect (money, or social status, education, or whatever) - even though we all know these differences really do exist.

[@JHatLpool]

Agreed.

[@kasiss9]

Hi Josphine, Great video! Can you recommend a good books which are light enough to have a pleasure when reading but information about Dutch society and history is a big part of the story ?

[@DenUitvreter]

It has always been like that with wealth. Look at all the ornamentation on 15th and 16th century buildings in Flanders, the much richer Dutch Republic build much more modestly. If you row down the Vecht and see the beautiful 17th century summer houses of the rich, they were being modest. There was far more money than on display. The Dutch are the first capitalists, they know it's about wealth accumulation and than living off the ROI, they have known very long that hard work doesn't make you rich, acquiring capital does. They like to be modest while getting their wealth together, the are glad they don't have to show off, that's too expensive. They also like to be equal, while enjoying the good end of wealth inequality. Don't feel better than anyone else, just know you're richer. From a comfortable middle class family growing up in the wake of the Dutch disease in a poor region of the country, I was raised to never make my friends or my friends parents feel any income difference. That would have been rude. Especially the children had to made feel equal. Don't mention butter if they put margarine on bread at a freinds house, don't mention you have more meat in the nasi goreng at home (yes I did, no idea meat was expensive while that nasi was much better because it was a Surinamese family, that got me in trouble). No reason to rub it in.

[@nlbergsma]

To isolate England Napoleon made overseas trade illegal . The so called Continental System. The Dutch wealth was based mainly on overseas trade and therefore the Netherlands were totally impoverished when the Napoleonic era came to an end. The economy had to be rebuild from scratch. The bill was payed to an extend by the Dutch East Indies (modern Indonesia), through the very exploitative "Cultuurstelsel". A system that forced the farmers to cultivate cash crops that could be marketed in the the NL.

[@josphineogugua]

Thanks for sharing. I do have to catch up on a lot of history

[@SideWalkAstronomyNetherlands]

The Netherlands is no so rich at all. I can't afford a car, or holidays, can't go to a restaurant... What we have we got by working very hard. And our trade with the Baltics helped. And no, it is not the colonial trade that made us rich. That most of the time only cost money.

[@urbandiscount]

That's entirely untrue. Anecdotes do not make evidence

[@SanderSA-ny3lh]

You took a picture of yourself with a € 1500+ telescope, a € 90+ branded hat, live in expensive Zwolle and host your own website and you are whining about being poor? Gast, als je liegt, maak het dan niet zo transparent. Je hebt een uitgavenprobleem.

[@mariadebake5483]

Our money mostly came from the Baltic trade, timber and grain

[@nlbergsma]

That's right. The Baltic trade was called "the moeder negotie", the mother trade.

[@mariadebake5483]

@@nlbergsma True

[@urbandiscount]

In the early 1920s much of the surplus came through the East Indies. Debates in parliament at the time clearly point out the economic loss for the Dutch balance sheet of potential Indonesian independence

[@burgienl]

A weird fact about Dutch agriculture is that it doesn't have enough farmland to feed its own people. The Dutch are very good at producing specific agricultural products the country is suited for. They produce more of those products than they need, so that they can export them so they can afford to import the products they can't produce themselves. And there has always been tension between the government and the farmers. I remember the 80s when a large number of Dutch grain farmers emigrated to the Ukraine, because they felt there was no space for them in the Netherlands.

[@Benny_000]

The discovery of gas fields in the north and in the North Sea are one of the main factors we are rich today.

[@josphineogugua]

Interesting. I was thinking oil didn’t contribute as much as trade and manufacturing

[@urbandiscount]

@@josphineogugua Gas revenue has financed much of NL's social security system. And much infrastructure

[@SanderSA-ny3lh]

@@josphineogugua Cheap gas meant very competitive agricultural exports in the 1970's and early 1980's. On a macro-scale with hindsight you could argue it was a disaster to use gas for low-price crops like tomatoes, especially on poorly constructed single pane glass greenhouse. But back then this fueled quite an expansion. Agricultural sector doesn't really create any jobs though, so that's mostly felt in the form of cheaper food prices and a handful of farmers becoming very rich and that having some knock-on effects.

[@therobertsonadventures]

Great video as always! Did I hear the sound of a new little one in the background? Hope you and your family are doing well! Hugs from Canada 🇨🇦

[@josphineogugua]

Hi Robert, you indeed heard well😆. We are all doing well, thank you so much🤗

[@AlexK-yr2th]

Just want to mention that the video you are watching is not an authority of any kind but a channel that collects data and facts from websites and wikipedia and then slam it all together, basically coming with a statement and look for arguments online to state the claims. I mean, if you want to "proof that a square is actually round, it is out there. These vidoes are completely without context and actual knowledge. It's a typical story, as we say in The Netherlands, "de klok horen luiden maar niet weten waar de klepel hangt" (or, as I recently heard, "de melk horen klotsen maar geen idee waar de tepel is").

[@SideWalkAstronomyNetherlands]

Poverty is a problem for about 10% of the people, could be more, we even have "food banks" now, am very ashamed about that!

[@josphineogugua]

Im learning this too. It’s sad to hear. I’m thinking it has a lot to do with COVID and also the war afterwards. Hike in cost of living … I mean it’s not been easy

[@SanderSA-ny3lh]

Go visit one. Count which percentages of the people there have the newest smartphones, and/or stink of cigarettes or booze. Nearly 100%. These is no poverty other than self-inflicated poverty. The only actually poor people are entrepreneurs whose business fails. They have no safety net to catch them.

[@bangibabs]

If you want to see corruption come to Africa 😫😭😓. The struggle is real

[@josphineogugua]

It is indeed 🥺

[@ylvafreijters2535]

De gewone burger in Nederland wordt steeds armer dankzij onze fijne regering. 1 miljoen mensen leven onder de norm en er zijn nog nooit zoveel rijen geweest voor de voedselbank.

[@rustyfmj2388]

The V.O.C. has nothing to do with today's wealth. The V.O.C. was a private company and the average citizen didn't profit from that in any way. In the following centuries well after the disappearance of the V.O.C. the country has seen multiple crises. The current wealth and living standards have all been achieved within the last century

[@Benny_000]

Yes and a large part or our currrent wealth is because of the discovery of gas fields.

[@urbandiscount]

You forget that NL had (parts of) the East Indies until the early 1960s. BY the 1920s the East Indies were a "proper", modern colony. Also: "cultuurstelsel"

[@erikloupias7642]

Don't say from the slave trade.

[@nlbergsma]

(slightly exagerating:) You may have opened a box of Pandora, Josephine! 😏. Many topics you mention are subject of heated discussions in the Netherlands!

[@richsiwes]

Well,we sure didn’t get this rich in an honest way🤷🏻have a good evening and a great weekend☺️👍🏼✨

[@mariadebake5483]

We did actually

[@therealdutchidiot]

At the turn of the 20th century the country was poor. Very poor. All of the current wealth was made over the last century.

[@Benny_000]

The discovery of gas fields in the north and in the North Sea are one of the main factors we are rich today.

[@mauricevdlaar-iz6jw]

Easy slave trade

[@marcusfranconium3392]

On the V.O.C it was the worlds first publicly traded compagny it created the stock market , futures markets ,short selling . it created modern global economy . That is how the V.O.C changed global trade .

[@dejavu9040]

Do you know The Dutch colonized Indonesia for 350 freaking years 🗿

[@SanderSA-ny3lh]

How can that possibly be? Indonesia hasn't even existed for one century yet.