Kicking Away the Ladder. Development Strategy in Historical Perspective

12

Kindleberger 1996, p. 109.

13

Ramsay 1982, p. 59; Davies 1999, p. 348.

14

Ramsay, 1982, p. 59.

15

This is reminiscent of the policies used by Japan and Korea during the postwar period to control ‘luxury consumption’, especially concerning imported luxury goods. On this, see Chang 1997.

16

Davies 1999, p. 349; also see Davis 1966, p. 281.

17

I must thank Erik Reinert for drawing my attention to this book both through his work (e.g., Reinert 1996) and personally.

18

Defoe 1728, pp. 81-101.

19

Defoe 1728, p. 94. However, Defoe got his facts wrong here. Prior to his coronation in 1485, Henry VII spent his exile years in Brittany and France, not in Burgundy (Gunn 1995, p. 9). Given that Burgundy had a long association with the Yorkists (Elton 1997, pp. 5-6), it would in any case have been impossible for the young Henry, a Lancastrian fleeing the Yorkist regime, to seek exile in Burgundy. Of course, this factual mistake by Defoe does not change the basic point that the focus of the British catch-up effort under Henry VII was the Low Countries, including Burgundy. I thank Tom Penn for raising this important point.

20

According to Defoe, Henry VII ‘set the Manufacture of Wool on Foot in several Parts of his Country, as particularly as Wakefield, Leeds, and Hallifax, in the West Riding of Yorkshire, a Country pitch’d upon for its particular Situation, adapted to the Work, being fill’d with innumerable Springs of Water, Pits of Coal, and other Things proper for carrying on such a Business’. (Defoe 1728, p. 95).

21

According to Defoe, Henry VII ‘secretly procured a great many Foreigners, who were perfectly skill’d in the Manufacture, to come over and instruct his own People here in their Beginnings’ (Defoe 1728, p. 96).

22

Ramsay 1982, p. 61.

23

Henry VII realised ‘that the Flemings were old in the business, long experience’d, and turn’d their Hands this Way and that Way, to new Sorts and Kinds of Goods, which the English could not presently know, and when known, had not Skill presently to imitate: And that therefore he must proceed gradually’ (Defoe 1728, p. 96). So he ‘knew … that it was an Attempt of such a Magnitude, as well deserv’d the utmost Prudence and Caution, that it was not to be attempted rashly; so it was not to be push’d with too much Warmth’ (ibid., p. 96).

24

Henry VII ‘did not immediately prohibit the exporting the Wool to the Flemings, neither did he, till some Years after, load the Exportation of it with any more Duties than he had before’ (Defoe 1728, p. 96). As for the ban on raw wool export, Defoe says Henry VII was ‘so far … from being able to compleat his Design, that he could never come to a total Prohibition of exporting the Wool in this Reign (ibid., p. 96). Thus, although Henry VII ‘did once pretend to stop the Exportation of the Wool, he conniv’d at the Breach of his Order, and afterwards took off the Prohibition entirely’ (ibid., p. 97).

25

Defoe 1728, pp. 97-8.

26

Defoe 1728, pp. 97-101.

27

Cloth exports (mostly woollen) accounted for around 70 per cent of English exports in 1700 and was still over 50 per cent of total exports until the 1770s (Musson 1978, p. 85).

28

See Wilson 1984, pp. 164-5, on the evolution of early Navigation Acts.

29

As cited in List 1885, p. 40. In List’s view, this ‘for centuries had been the ruling maxim of English commercial policy, as formerly it had been that of the commercial policy of the Venetian Republic’ (ibid., p.40).

30