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• Pioneers of Capitalism
• the authors aim to explain the origins of the Dutch market economy. They consider why it was the Netherlands that became a pioneer in the history of capitalism, and attempt to distinguish what effect the capitalist market economy had on the nature of Dutch society.
• A visiting monk described how around the year 1015, merchants of the then-principal commercial town of Tiel organized themselves and had certain independent rights bestowed on them by the German Emperor.
• In fact, they were a merchant guild, and other guilds would follow. They enjoyed rights to self-rule, were permitted to pool capital and resources, and maintained their own system of justice.
• The location on the geographical fringes of Europe meant that central power by the German empire or the French King was hard to establish. This led to the growth of relatively strong local towns and regions, which would evolve into the Dutch provinces. Feudalism existed in the South (Zealand, the River area), but was not as strong as elsewhere in E...

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