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If you're behind a web filter, please make sure that the domains *.kastatic.org and *.kasandbox.org are unblocked. If you're seeing this message, it means we're having trouble loading external resources on our website. If you're behind a web filter, please make sure that the domains *.kastatic.org and *.kasandbox.org are unblocked. TRANSCRIPT: Traditionally in the West, we've always told the story the other way around, in which the key to the story is that the Europeans find this supply of silver, and the Europeans are the ones who want spices, silk, porcelain, et cetera. They go out to China. They don't have very much to sell that the Chinese want. And so they sell silver. When you tell the story that way, then it always sounds as if it's European demand, European desire, European initiative that drives the whole story. And the Chinese are treated essentially as passive. They had goods the Europeans wanted, but the Europeans had no goods they wanted. Why would that be? Why would these people have no consumer desires? That's a little odd from a modern perspective. And so the story then always becomes that silver is money that is given to the Chinese to cover what we would today call a balance-of-payments deficit. Well, there are two big problems with that story. One is the one that I already mentioned, that the Chinese were sucking silver out of Japan, well before they started sucking it out of Latin America. But the second is that, interestingly enough, during the same period in which these huge amounts of silver are flowing into China, small but not trivial amounts gold are actually going in the other direction, out of China towards Europe, because the exchange rate between silver and gold is more favorable for gold in Europe, so the gold flows that way, the silver flows the other way. The reason why this really matters (is) because it makes us see that it's not "money" in the modern sense that the Chinese were demanding; it's a particular commodity—silver—that they want to use in certain ways, partly for money but also for candlesticks and hair pins and jewelry and all sorts of other things. And once you see it that way, once you see this not as a balance-of-payments deficit caused by a lack of Chinese demand for anything, but simply a commodity trade in which the Chinese have a very strong demand for this commodity that they can't produce, mainly silver, while the Europeans have a demand for certain commodities they can't produce at that point, such as silk and porcelain, and later, tea, then you see a world in which the Chinese are every bit as much active, desiring, consuming, and so on and so forth as the Europeans are. And previously, we had tended to have a story in which either we treated the Chinese as being somehow so virtuous that they had no consumer needs or no consumer desires, and so the Europeans had to give them this "money." And, in fact, there's one famous scholar who writes about how all the silver of Latin America was dug up from the ground in Latin America only to be shipped across the Pacific and eventually to be buried again in China. There's this sort of image of passivity, inertness ... the silver comes to China and "does nothing." Well, no, it doesn't "do nothing"; it fuels this enormous demand for a medium of exchange. It's tremendously important. So we either saw the Chinese as, sort of, so virtuous that they were above commerce, or so undesiring and uncurious and so forth, that they had no consumer demand. That also makes them sound peculiarly "unready" for modernity. But in fact, they're right in there. They're demanding a particular commodity for which they have a tremendously important use. Read Online (Free) relies on page scans, which are not currently available to screen readers. To access this article, please contact JSTOR User Support . We'll provide a PDF copy for your screen reader. With a personal account, you can read up to 100 articles each month for free. Get StartedAlready have an account? Log in Monthly Plan
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journal article Born with a "Silver Spoon": The Origin of World Trade in 1571Journal of World History Vol. 6, No. 2 (Fall, 1995) , pp. 201-221 (21 pages) Published By: University of Hawai'i Press https://www.jstor.org/stable/20078638 Read and download Log in through your school or library Alternate access options For independent researchers Read Online Read 100 articles/month free Subscribe to JPASS Unlimited reading + 10 downloads Purchase article $14.00 - Download now and later Abstract Global trade emerged with the founding of Manila in 1571, at which time all important populated continents began to exchange products continuously. The silver market was key to this process. China became the dominant buyer because both its fiscal and monetary systems had converted to a silver standard; the value of silver in China surged to double its worth in the rest of the world. Microeconomic analysis leads to startling conclusions. Both Tokugawa Japan and the Spanish empire were financed by mining profits--profits that would not have existed in the absence of end-customer China. Europeans were physically present in early modern Asia, but the economic impact of China on Western lands was far greater than any European influence on Asia. Journal Information Devoted to historical analysis from a global point of view, the Journal of World History features a range of comparative and cross-cultural scholarship and encourages research on forces that work their influences across cultures and civilizations. Themes examined include large-scale population movements and economic fluctuations; cross-cultural transfers of technology; the spread of infectious diseases; long-distance trade; and the spread of religious faiths, ideas, and ideals. Individual subscription is by membership in the World History Association. Publisher Information Since its establishment in 1947, University of Hawai'i Press has published over 2,000 books and over 900 journal issues. Within the worldwide scholarly community, University of Hawai'i Press is recognized as a leading publisher of books and journals in Asian, Asian American, and Pacific studies. Disciplines covered include the arts, history, language, literature, natural science, philosophy, religion, and the social sciences. The University of Hawai'i Press also serves as a distributor for more than 140 scholarly publishers in North America, Asia, the Pacific, and elsewhere. Rights & Usage This item is part of a JSTOR Collection. What did the influx of silver do to the Spanish economy?Influx of silver and getting rid of Jews and Muslims and demand for products causes a massive inflation in economy of Spain. The country was rich but wasn't producing anything because of their low manufacturing class and large demands for goods. This caused Spain's economy to collapse.
Which of the following was a long term impact of the new global silver trade in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries?Which of the following was a long-term impact of the new global silver trade in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries? The Chinese economy became more commercialized than ever before.
Why did a majority of silver end up in Spain and China?Why did a majority of silver end up in Spain and China? Silver was an important and essential in connecting countries an ocean away. It originated in Spain then made its way to Afro Eurasian countries.
What role did Europeans primarily play in the global trade in silver in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries?What role did Europeans primarily play in the global trade in silver in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries? Europeans served as middlemen funneling American silver to Asia. It was the Europeans who served as middlemen transporting silver and trading it for goods produced in Asia.
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