Incorporation of the Ottoman Empire into the Capitalist World-Economy, 1750-1839
In 1977, Immanuel Wallerstein proposed a research agenda to answer the question: When and by what process did the Ottoman Empire become incorporated into the capitalist world-economy? He also asked whether incorporation was a single event or a series of events for the different regions of the Empire--Rumelia, Anatolia, Syria, and Egypt. He suggested the answer be sought in Ottoman production processes and trade patterns between 1550 and 1850.
By 1980, Wallerstein had answered his own question. When the European base of the capitalist world-economy began to develop its boundaries in the sixteenth century, the Ottoman Empire remained outside the system. Between 1750 and 1839, the process of incorporation into the capitalist world-economy was complete and the Ottoman Empire had been peripheralized. Wallerstein did not comment whether incorporation was a single event or a series of events.
In this paper, I argue that current scholarship fails to support Wallerstein's version of incorporation of the Ottoman Empire into the capitalist world-economy. I examine Wallerstein's arguments and critique his discussion based on my own interpretation of recent work by Ottoman and Balkan historians pertaining to Rumelia (Southeastern Europe).
According to Wallerstein, a world-economy is a single social economy containing multiple state or political structures that operates on the basis of a capitalist mode of production and in which ceaseless accumulation of capital guides the system. Wallerstein recently added the word "ceaseless" (his italics) to his definition in order to distinguish his paradigm of the capitalist world-economy with its origins in the sixteenth century from other paradigms that trace the origins to earlier points in history.
The capitalist world-economy comprises a core, a periphery, and a semiperiphery. Nation-states reach the core by successfully exploiting other geographic areas in the periphery. The semiperiphery forms a buffer zone, where geographic areas can move up into the core or down into the periphery. Geographic areas outside the world-economy are relegated to the external arena. They are eventually and inevitably incorporated into the system, however.
In the 16th century, the Mesopotamia had served as an intermediate for trade between Europe, Africa, and Asia. It was also an important supplier on food goods on foreign trade, especially silk and cotton. Other than the Ottoman Empire who had control over it, they also had there competitive rivals, the Persian Safavids who also had control over it. The Persians Muslim faith clashed with the Ottoman’s devotion to Sunnism. Both groups had fought economically for the control over the western trade routes to the East. The Ottomans had captured Europe’s largest city, Constantinople, in May 1453. After it was captured, the Ottoman’s had renamed it Istanbul, as it became the city capital of The Ottoman Empire.
The Ottoman Empire was one of the longest running empires in history, spanning 624 years. The women of the Ottoman empire were often limited to the household of their husband’s and held back by Ottoman lawmakers and authorities. The point of view of outsiders was varied, but there were both positive and negative views.
The Ottoman Empire were Muslims and included Hungary, Syria, Egypt, Bulgaria, and Albania, and they marched on land. The Ottoman Empire is said to have first appeared somewhere around the 1300’s, and can be related to the decline of the Byzantine Empire. They began conquering Christian lands and by the late 1600’s all Christians were afraid of the “terrible Turk”. It is no wonder that many other people were afraid of the Ottoman Empire since they seem to be really rather powerful and they conquered a lot of land. It was in the 1330’s when the Morroccan Abu Abdallah Ibn Battuta passed through Constantinople and became impressed with the Ottomans who seemed to be gaining power rather quickly, he noticed that they had close to 100 forts and
However these were not the only aspects that saw the emergence of capitalism, there were also other coalescence events hat also saw the emergence of capitalism such as itinerant merchants, who were merchants that traveled long distances to sell good town to town. Itinerant merchants bought commerce and commercial intercourse to Europe which had sunk to trade less memorial stagnation, also allowed economic interdependence to form.
Özcan, Azmi. "Empire, Ottoman." Encyclopedia of Western Colonialism since 1450. Ed. Thomas Benjamin. Vol. 1. Detroit: Macmillan Reference USA, 2007. 407-416. World History in Context. Web. 30 Apr. 2014.
The Tanzimat: Reform in the Ottoman Empire. During its prime, the Ottoman Empire was one of the largest and most powerful empires in the entire world. Unfortunately for the Ottomans, various problems arose, and eventually the empire started to decline. This resulted in a period of reform, known as the Tanzimat.
Hooker, Richard. "The Ottomans: The 17th and 18th Centuries." Washington State University - Pullman, Washington. 1996. Web. 06 Apr. 2011. .
Are Jewish people ruling the world? How comes that all Jews are rich people? These kind of questions are considerable asked by Turkish people. Lots of conspiracy theories are created and they engage people’s attention. In other words, this issue creates lots of question marks in people’s minds. It would be pretty hard to find out who rules the world for an undergraduate paper but it is clearly possible to mention that Jewish people has always been in a special position in different countries. Jews has always been in a privileged position for the Turkic states as well, especially for the Ottoman Empire and the Turkish Republic. This essay aims to make references to the related issues about the Jewish people and their economic lives. In order to understand the position of Jewish people in the Ottoman Empire, it is beneficial to comprehend the political, economic and social atmosphere in the Ottoman Empire.
Ultimately, by the time of Peter Romanov in the late seventeenth century, Russia had done little to keep up with the modernizing European continent. Technologically and culturally, it fell centuries behind. It had no Renaissance, no Reformation, no Scientific Revolution. It’s as if Russia was stuck in the European Middle Ages. Its army and navy lagged miserably behind, its Orthodox clergy govern education, there was no quality literature or art of which to tell, and even no emphasis on maths or science. In Western Europe, the seventeenth century was the time of Galileo and Newton, Descartes and Locke. It was a century of a growing merchant division. Rural peasants moved to growing cities for new work. As serfhood faded off in the West, it was growing in the Russia inherited by Peter Romanov. And while Western Europe, with its numerous warm-water passageways, sailed the seas and brought in unprecedented profits from subjugated colonies, Russia pushed eastward, finding nothing but frigid shore, cold taiga, and the remnants of a deformed Mongolian Empire that had depended more on plunder than infrastructure.
The Ottoman Empire reached the peak of its power in the 1500s. While other empires were experiencing their downfalls, the Ottoman Empire’s power seemed to be increasing. In fact, this empire can be ranked as the strongest power due to its tactical internal organization of power, minorities, and religion, due to its physical expansion which provided more resources, more advancements, and more people to support the empire, and due to its large military strength that provided security, reduced rebellion, and challenged the other powers.
It is clearly seen that during the early half of the Nineteenth Century, many people and groups of people promised many things to others for support in wars or revolutions. Most of these promises were never meant to be kept, nor where they kept. As seen in these documents, Russia, Mexico, and the Middle Eastern territories of the Ottoman Empire all experienced turmoil during this time. England and France had their eyes set on Ottoman land for after World War I, whereas Mexico was dealing with their own revolution and Russia was experiencing their own political change.
...mpant Ottoman forces from gaining a strategic foothold in the central Mediterranean." History Today 57.1 (2007): 12+. World History in Context.
Throughout the chapters assigned, Dicken focuses on the patterns and processes of global shifts, on the forms produced by the globalization of economic activities and on the forces producing those forms. He builds his arguments around three interconnected processes, which in his view are the reasons for reshaping the global economic map. Those are Transnational Corporations (“TNC”), States, and Technology.
Much like that of the Byzantines before them, the Ottoman Empire served as a link between Europe and Asia, and greatly benefited from the profits of the exchange that was perennially flowing over these geographic boundaries; this era came to be known as the Golden Age of the Ottoman Empire. Although there can be many identifications and definitions for the means by which the Ottoman Empire was able to exert such a powerful degree of influence, military right, and cultural dynamism. It will be the purpose of this analysis to discuss and analyze the means by which a continual process of centralization can ultimately be understood as one defining force, that allowed the Ottoman Empire to thrive throughout this period of the “Golden Age.”
Shawki, Ahmed, Paul D’Amato (2000), “Briefing: The Shape of World Capitalism,” International Socialist Review, [http://www.isreview.org/issues/11/world_capitalism.shtml], accessed 19 May 2012.