Dr Kat and "Tulip Mania"

hello and welcome back to the channel if you're new here hi you're very welcome this is reading the past and I'm dr. Kat and as the title for this video shows today I want to talk to you all about tulips I've recently been exploring the notion of financial bubbles and the crashes that followed them and of course you tend to start at the beginning and one of the earliest recorded of these crashes is the Dutch tulip mania or Dutch tulip crisis of the 17th century so today let's look at the history the fact the myth and the interpretation of the Dutch tulip crisis let's go economic history is littered I would say with economic bubbles crashes and crises as I mentioned at the start of this video the tulip crisis of 1636 to 1637 is commonly seen as one of the earliest forms of this but of course it does not sit alone in 1711 the South Sea Bubble as it would come to be known begins to grow finally collapsing in 1720 fast forward to the early 20th century and the Wall Street Crash of 1929 in which historically we know so many lives were ruined yet clearly these are not events that are confined to history at a hundred years removed the dot-com crash that happened between the year 2000 and 2002 and even more recently the subprime mortgage collapse from 2007 to 2010 for which we are still arguably feeling the effects economic crisis seems to be as much a part of economics as the money itself but how do we remember it and why to butcher the adage it is I would say a truth universally acknowledged that between 1636 and 1637 the folly of a vast majority of the Dutch populace came home to roost for the years preceding this they had been furiously bargaining in public houses and taverns over the notional purchase of tulip bulbs that didn't even exist yet we hear of chains of purchases a hundred people long all for something that was still in the ground forming almost as soon as this bubble had grown it bursts and people are left erect bankrupt and throwing themselves into canals the Dutch government is forced to try and step in in order to restore financial and also public order and I think perhaps we like this story because tulips seems like a foolish thing to become so enamored with and to risk the farm on so to speak perhaps we like this story so much because that couldn't possibly happen to us nobody in the 21st century world would become so passionate about something as foolish as a tulip bulb surely firstly I think we need to look at just what was being purchased and I will confess that I am no horticulturist in fact I can't have a plant because I cannot keep it alive I tend to overwater as a deeply anxious person I'm always thinking it needs more food nevertheless what I have found out in my research is that tulip bulbs take an incredibly long time to produce to go from seed to bulb takes apparently about 10 years these bulbs then themselves are alive and flowering for just a few years after that apparently if you clone those bulbs you can get them ready for growth within about three years so what we're looking at is something that takes an incredibly long time to be flowering or production ready on top of that the bulbs that are going for the exorbitant amounts of money in the 17th century are infected with a virus if either known as mosaic virus or tunic breaking virus as you can see from these images that I found the flowers are extraordinarily colored the virus has affected the way in which the petals grow what it also does is it makes the plants themselves take longer to become tulips these viruses don't affect the seeds so you can't propagate from this the only way to create more of the same species with this virus intact is to clone what is also relevant to us I think is that the particular variants that garnered the highest value and the most money at this time no longer exists now while we do have examples of tulips that have this mosaic virus so we can get an idea we don't know exactly what was earning the money we should perhaps also recontextualize the notion that the people involved in these buyers chains in the pubs and taverns were somehow foolish because they are putting down these vast sums of money for something that doesn't even exist yet or that isn't in front of them well that's how tulips are isn't it ten years from seed to bulb or three years from bulb two cloned bulb and longer if the tulip has the mosaic virus and on top of that when the tulip is in bloom it has to be in the field it can't be in the tavern on the table being traded over it's not safe to move it when it's in flower what you have to do apparently is wait for it to go back into the bulb and then it'd be safe to dig up and move much is also made of the apparent foolishness of the buyers involved we hear terrible tales of a single tulip bulb being sold for many times the annual salary of a skilled laborer or for the price for upscale home and yes this may sound foolish and naive in the extreme but is it really only foolish if it's the skilled labourer making the purchase I think it would be foolish for me to spend a thousand pounds on a pair of shoes or a face cream but it perhaps isn't foolish for somebody who has the money frivolous yes but not foolish and now I think it's the difference is that when reporting this historical event and arguably others the extreme is being presented as the norm and that can be a way that history becomes sensationalized and I believe that that may be what's happened with the tulip crisis when I first started researching for this video what I had in mind looked very different to how this video is actually going to turn out and I have to admit it it's because for the longest time my perception of tulip mania and the tulip crisis followed the frankly hysterical retelling of that particular moment of crisis clearly and I can't quite tell you why I found something satisfying maybe even pleasurable in imagining scores a 17th century Dutch men and women sat around in taverns hollering out prices they were prepared to pay for these notional juleps however the more I researched the more I realized that I'd misinterpreted or perhaps being led astray and I decided to still make the video because the misinterpretation I think needs to be addressed we often hear the past as a different country they do things differently there and the way in which the Tudor crisis is told I think fits into that these odd people from history who behave in these peculiar and fevered ways over something as silly as a tulip bulb but I don't believe that I don't believe that the past is a completely different country and I don't believe that people do things differently I don't think that we are that evolved over the course of written history that we are so very different from people who live 200 300 500 600 years ago I think that in our core human beings want very similar things and are beset by very similar foibles they may be directed differently but we are motivated in very similar ways I believe but just where does this notion or narrative about the turret crisis come from well currently the finger is firmly pointed at this man his name is Charles Mackay and he is a Scottish Journal list author poet and arguably sociologist he wrote one of the early studies on crowd psychology the I would say polemically titled extraordinary popular delusions and the madness of crowds from 1841 the book is divided up into three volumes philosophical delusions peculiar follies and national delusions and included in these national delusions is both the South Sea Bubble and tulip mania Charles Mack xtext is seen as being essentially the sustaining narrative for this interpretation of the tulip crisis indeed on the 3rd of February 2014 Dan pipe and brings article for The Paris Review called tulip mania quotes him at length saying the following the demand for tulips of a rare species increased so much in the year 1636 that regular Mart's for their sale were established the tulip job has speculated in the rise and fall of the tulip stocks and made large profits by buying when prices fell and selling out when they rose many individuals grew suddenly rich a golden baked hung tempting me out before the people and one after the other they rushed the tulip Mart's like flies around a honey pot nobles citizens farmers mechanics seamen footmen maid servants even chimney sweeps and old clothes women dabbled in tulips people of all grades converted their property into cash and invested it in flowers houses and lands were offered for sale at ruinously low prices or assigned in payment of bargains made at the tulip marked in the smaller towns where there was no exchange the principal tavern was usually selected as the in quotes showplace where high and low traded in tulips and confirmed their bargains over sumptuous entertainments these dinners were sometimes attended by two or three hundred persons and large vases of tulips in full bloom were placed at regular intervals upon the tables and side boards for their gratification during a past dan pipe and brings choice to quote Charles Mackay in this incredibly long-form way is I believe symptomatic of the joy that both of these men share despite being separated by centuries and the joy they share is in the notion of there being this fever or mania for tulips they are reveling in the Bakken alien or gistic sale of these flower bulbs the notion of people high and low gathering in taverns and spending fortunes on something as transitory as a flower bulb is thrilling and I don't think that these men are alone we also cling to the notion of these naive people overwrought with this desire for a rare flower it's as pleasing to us as it is to them my question is why do we find it this thrilling and why do we cling to this as the narrative because as this video I hope will show recent research points to the fact that it wasn't quite the mania or fever that we have so long believed it to be in addition to this long-form quotation from Charles Mackey's book pipe and bring also recounts other moments from the text pipe and bring is pleased to inform his reader that quote Mackey also recounts the story of a sailor who ate a merchants chudat bulb thinking it was an onion he rushed in jail most edifying of all though is a list of various articles that were delivered for one single root of the rare species called the Viceroy which gives an astonishing sense of just how inflated the flowers value was to lasts of weeks for lasts of ri4 fat oxen ate fat swine twelve fat sheep two Hawks head of wine four tons of beer two tons of butter one thousand pounds of cheese a complete bed a suit of clothes a silver drinking cup however to his credit pipe and bring also points out that the interpretation of this moment of history is also shifting with great analysis he explains today economic historians are inclined to believe that Mackey's report is something of an embroidery given the constraints of 17th century record-keeping one suspects he wasn't exactly poring over the data and crunching numbers yet he also follows this up and concludes the article by saying but I for one choose to regard popular delusions as possible truth if only because the image of a thousand pounds of cheese being relinquished for a single bulb is too fantastic to be fiction and that's something that I want to hold in our minds the notion of something being too fantastic to be fiction what do you think about that how does that make you feel about the way in which we interpret all sorts of moments in history are we misinterpreting deliberately because they are simply too fantastic or wonderful or joyful for us to be fiction we're prepared to hold the incorrect thing as being true because it's more enjoyable let me know what you think in the comment section down below Peter Garber is one such of the economic historians that pipe and Bryn is referring to in his text famous first bubbles from 2001 he explains that the trade in common bulbs was no more than a meaningless winter drinking game played by a plague-ridden population that made use of the vibrant tulip market however for even more in-depth reassessment of the tulip crisis its causes and after-effects an golga is a really great person to read and I am going to leave links to all of the articles and books that I've referenced in this video in the description box down below in both her book and the article that she details her research in gold gar makes a number of coherent and cogent challenges to the general perception of this crisis how it played out and why for example she points out that it's not irrational tulip bulbs were exotic luxury collectible products it is no more irrational than somebody collecting artwork or clothing or shoes today they are bought to be a sign of the good taste of their owners high prices are perhaps to be expected because of the scarcity or rarity of those really hard to cultivate varieties that were the most popular Bolger also challenges the notion that this was some buying frenzy rather she counters that her research shows that these markets and the trade in tulips was actually fairly well controlled and regulated it was an organized system of purchasing she cannot find many examples of these chains of a hundred buyers long it's a far smaller number that she has been able to locate the effect of the plague that Peter Garber made reference to is also somewhat challenged by golga she says that it perhaps had a far less effect on the purchasing habits of people than was previously believed yes she says perhaps people had inherited money from people who died of plague and so they had some spare cash and they chose to invest it in something they found personally beautiful collectible desirable and exotic it's not necessarily the fact that plague is driving this trade it's people who have survived who then have a bit of extra money in their pockets she also sees claims about the naivety of new buyers being the cause for the crash to have been massively overstated according to the research that she has done I'd like to quote gold directly in the article she wrote about her research where she says the following prices could be high but mostly they weren't although it's true that the most expensive tulips have all cost around five thousand guilders the price of a well-appointed house I was able to identify only 37 people who spent more than 300 guilders on bulbs around the yearly wage of a master craftsman many turrets before cheaper with one or two exceptions these top buyers came from the wealthy merchant class and were well able to afford the bulbs far from every chimney sweep or Weaver being involved in the trade the numbers were relatively small mainly from the merchants and skilled artists and class and many of the buyers and sellers were connected to each other by family religion or neighborhood sellers mainly sold to people they knew no one drowned themselves in can I found not a single bankrupt in these years who could be identified as someone dealt the fatal financial blow by Schulich mania if tulip buyers and sellers appear in the bankruptcy records it's because they were buying houses and goods of other people who had gone bankrupt for some reason they still had plenty of money to spend the Dutch economy was left completely unaffected the government not a very useful term for the Federal Dutch Republic did not shut down the trade and indeed reacted slowly and hesitantly to demands from some traders and City Council's to resolve disputes the provincial courts of holland suggested that people talk it out among themselves and try to stay out of the courts no government regulation here Volkers work is well researched and in depth and clearly laid out it's also over a decade old so I'm left wondering why does so many of us not know about her work why do so many of us still cling to the original narrative of how the Tunick crisis played out Dan pipe and bring was writing after golga do we like him still see the story that we've been told of the Tudor crisis as being too fantastic to be fiction and if so why what amusement or is it comfort do we get in trotting out this well-worn narrative of the folly of the entire Dutch Republic in their mad grab for tulip bulbs does it perhaps make us feel better as we face our own anxieties and potential crises do we return again and again to these well-worn but seemingly overstated narratives because they make us feel more secure I'd love to know what you think so please let me know in the comment section down below also come and find me over on my social media or leave the links in the description box you can follow me there and we can continue the conversation I hope you've enjoyed this video and found it useful if you did please let me know by clicking the like button please also subscribe to my channel and click the bell icon so that YouTube tells you when I've next uploaded I hope you're gonna have a great day whatever you're doing I look forward to speaking to you in my next video take care of yourselves bye bye for now [Music] [Music]

Channel: undefined

Views: 14,349

Rating: 4.9790578 out of 5

Keywords: Bubble and Crash, Tulip Crisis, Tulip Mania, Education, Literature, Culture, History, Early Modern, Renaissance

Id: TRuNloZnUsw

Length: 20min 22sec (1222 seconds)

Published: Fri Mar 15 2019