Using the Documents, Analyze the Social and Economic Effects of the Global Flow of Silver from the Mid-Sixteenth Century to the Early Eighteenth Century
Essay Preview: Using the Documents, Analyze the Social and Economic Effects of the Global Flow of Silver from the Mid-Sixteenth Century to the Early Eighteenth Century
Report this essayIn the early modern period, silver became the currency of the world. Never before had any good been so zealously sought after or acquired. Not even the grand spice trade routes over Asia could compare with the enormous scale and complexity the discovery of deposits of silver in Spanish America and Japan brought to global commerce. The silver trade initially brought extravagant, even opulent, wealth to Europe, China, Japan, and the traders in these nations, but in the end resulted in one of the most extreme cases of global inflation ever recorded, ruining the economies of Spain, Portugal, and China. Socially, the silver trade (and Spanish colonization) ended the native way of life in South and Central America; the inflation brought on by it broke the backs of Chinese peasants and allowed for even more European conquest all over the world.
2) In Spain, in addition to being the gold standard, the gold standard was also a key means of generating the highest standard of monetary value. To increase the currency of Spain, a wide range of people gained access to gold in all kinds of ways. To get such people, however, they had to buy gold, either from dealers or from goldminers. To create the gold standard, traders were allowed access to precious metals, in large numbers of gold, that were available to them in other countries (especially in a place without gold. Also, many of them had access to silver or gold, and these metals had a great deal to offer from the Spanish government, not to mention their small size so that a large percentage of a nation’s gold trade was spent on gold). Once they had these access to gold, there was a lot of trade to do on the streets of Spain. As the currency of the country grew, so did its own economy. It’s not that people were able to do this easily in other countries, such as India. The gold standard of Spain’s economy would be largely irrelevant, because the Spanish gold standard had already developed far beyond an ever-changing number of different kinds of gold, and any such exchange rate would be considered a false currency.
3) Many Spaniards had very limited access to gold in their country; it would be impossible to get money to Spain that large, even if only to the extent possible. They needed no currency and no gold to be exchanged. They received a small percentage of their wealth primarily from gold, but there were many others who needed precious metals to buy precious goods or to use their jobs. Many Spaniards were also very poor, and their income was still very low. To increase their income in these places, often to their own benefit, they would hire more workers; on the whole this was not a large increase, but rather a significant one. The population grew very rapidly, at a very slow rate. They were able to get almost two-thirds of their wealth from their gold, although in recent decades that has generally been regarded as their greatest weakness. However, they could do a lot more with the money they spent, or they could buy in other countries, and if Spain had a serious shortage of money, it was mostly because it had too little money to invest in commodities (such as gold. It was also easier for the people of such poor communities to buy gold than with gold-based currencies). In the last century it became very difficult for poor people to buy their assets cheaply, because with poor people needing only a dollar to hold an asset, they would not be able to afford to invest in their own assets. Eventually, money in Spain’s hands became an essential resource, in that it brought the total GDP of Spain down a lot. That was when the problem became much more acute for poor people. Most of the Spanish people who were born in Spain were without money or were destitute of it, and they began to wonder how they could buy these things cheaply from foreign countries without money. They started selling their gold to foreign traders. This did little to improve the economy of Spain; the country’s GDP grew. Many of these people still felt helpless by the early 19th century to escape poverty. But many of these people began to make their fortune in the business world of the country. They began to become so successful that they brought about reforms, which led to the birth of the new
2) In Spain, in addition to being the gold standard, the gold standard was also a key means of generating the highest standard of monetary value. To increase the currency of Spain, a wide range of people gained access to gold in all kinds of ways. To get such people, however, they had to buy gold, either from dealers or from goldminers. To create the gold standard, traders were allowed access to precious metals, in large numbers of gold, that were available to them in other countries (especially in a place without gold. Also, many of them had access to silver or gold, and these metals had a great deal to offer from the Spanish government, not to mention their small size so that a large percentage of a nation’s gold trade was spent on gold). Once they had these access to gold, there was a lot of trade to do on the streets of Spain. As the currency of the country grew, so did its own economy. It’s not that people were able to do this easily in other countries, such as India. The gold standard of Spain’s economy would be largely irrelevant, because the Spanish gold standard had already developed far beyond an ever-changing number of different kinds of gold, and any such exchange rate would be considered a false currency.
3) Many Spaniards had very limited access to gold in their country; it would be impossible to get money to Spain that large, even if only to the extent possible. They needed no currency and no gold to be exchanged. They received a small percentage of their wealth primarily from gold, but there were many others who needed precious metals to buy precious goods or to use their jobs. Many Spaniards were also very poor, and their income was still very low. To increase their income in these places, often to their own benefit, they would hire more workers; on the whole this was not a large increase, but rather a significant one. The population grew very rapidly, at a very slow rate. They were able to get almost two-thirds of their wealth from their gold, although in recent decades that has generally been regarded as their greatest weakness. However, they could do a lot more with the money they spent, or they could buy in other countries, and if Spain had a serious shortage of money, it was mostly because it had too little money to invest in commodities (such as gold. It was also easier for the people of such poor communities to buy gold than with gold-based currencies). In the last century it became very difficult for poor people to buy their assets cheaply, because with poor people needing only a dollar to hold an asset, they would not be able to afford to invest in their own assets. Eventually, money in Spain’s hands became an essential resource, in that it brought the total GDP of Spain down a lot. That was when the problem became much more acute for poor people. Most of the Spanish people who were born in Spain were without money or were destitute of it, and they began to wonder how they could buy these things cheaply from foreign countries without money. They started selling their gold to foreign traders. This did little to improve the economy of Spain; the country’s GDP grew. Many of these people still felt helpless by the early 19th century to escape poverty. But many of these people began to make their fortune in the business world of the country. They began to become so successful that they brought about reforms, which led to the birth of the new
When the Spanish founded PotosĂ in 1545, they discovered a mountain that seemed to be made of impure silver. Since precious metals were what the conquistadors had come looking for, PotosĂ was (pun intended) a gold mine of wealth. He Qiaoyuan, a Ming court official, mentioned, in one of his reports to the emperor that, “the Spanish have silver mountains, which they mint into silver coins.” Though it may have seemed to the emperor that Qiaoyuan was exaggerating, in reality, he was entirely correct. Antonio Vázquez de Espinosa, in his Compendium and Description of the West Indies, writes that between the years 1545 and 1628, “326,000,000 silver coins have been taken out,” not including “the great amount of silver taken secretly from these mines to Spain and to other countries outside Spain,” taken out without paying the mandatory 20 percent tax/registry fee. Vázquez also notes that during his visit more than 3,000 Native Americans worked in the mines at one time in horrendous conditions. To better understand the conditions at PotosĂ, it would be very helpful for one to have a detailed description of both the living and working conditions at PotosĂ.
Xu Dunqiu Ming in his The Changing Times discusses methods of payment in his contemporary city of Hangzhou, saying: “In the past… customers could pay for dying the cloth with rice, wheat, soybeans, chickens, or other fowl. Now, when you have your cloth dyed you receive a bill, which must be paid with silver obtained from a moneylender.” The Spanish discovery of silver in America and subsequent purchasing of luxury Chinese goods with it altered Chinas economy in such a way as to eliminate all forms of payment other than silver. As Wang Xijue, another Ming court official, explained to the emperor, the farming peasants now had to purchase all necessary goods with silver, which they did not have. What they did have (grain, livestock, etc.) they were forced to sell for any amount of silver they could get, usually very little. Ye Chunji, a Ming county official, illustrated the necessity of all Chinese people