9 ms·

Age of Invention: How the Dutch Did It Better

111 points by tim_sw 4y ago

pipo234 4y ago
> The Dutch councils of state and war always included merchants who had experience of trading and living abroad [...] As eloquently described by Mike Dash in "Batavia's Graveyard" most Dutch explorer ships had merchants, sailors, soldiers and civilians on board — ranked in that order. That is, not the captain but the bean counter would have final say on important matters. https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/128824.Batavia_s_Graveyard https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/128824.Batavia_s_Graveya...
- beebeepka 4y ago
  I am not ashamed to say that I am jealous of the Dutch. Sometimes I wonder what built the society that is powering this genuinely incredible country. Thanks for the link
  - pipo234 4y ago
    The book is in't in Dutch, though. ;-) Incredibly well written, historically accurate (for as far I could tell) and entertaining to read. Warm recommend.
  - melvinmelih 4y ago
    > It has been estimated that during the 17th and 18th centuries, 660,000 to 1,135,000 enslaved people in total must have been transported to the territories under control of the Dutch East India Company. I wouldn't necessarily romanticize the exploitative colonialism of European explorers.
    - spyremeown 4y ago
      Even more so when the current economic prosperity of the colonizing countries is still very much derived from their past. Sadly, most people living in said countries today don't realize how set back the colonies really were due to exploitation and slavery.
      - inglor_cz 4y ago
        "Even more so when the current economic prosperity of the colonizing countries is still very much derived from their past." This does not pass the comparison test. Many highly prosperous European countries of today (Scandinavian countries, Northern Italy, Switzerland, Austria, Germany, Slovenia, Ireland) didn't have massive overseas holdings, or only for a short time. Portugal, Spain, Turkey and Russia, four huge empires that existed for centuries (one still extant) are on the poorer side of Europe. PT and ES got only moderately prosperous in the last two generations, after shedding their last colonial possessions.
        spyremeown 4y ago
        >poorer side of Europe Which is still much, much wealthier than most of colonized nations... except for Russia, due to the extreme political decline after the fall of the USSR. >Many highly prosperous European countries of today didn't have massive overseas holdings, or only for a short time. And I never said "colonies are needed for wealth". What is your point, exactly?
        hahaxdxd123 4y ago
        > And I never said "colonies are needed for wealth". What is your point, exactly? I think the point is that it's not this simple: "Even more so when the current economic prosperity of the colonizing countries is still very much derived from their past." Poor countries that were colonized are definitely held back by it. The colonial powers left extremely extractive institutions that focused on funneling power and profits into small groups of people. When they left, those institutions and that culture stayed. But isn't it difficult to say that Spain or Portugal's "wealth" today derives from colonial holdings years and years back? What did they extract that lasts today? In those 400 years, did they not spend most of their extracted silver and gold on things that are trivialities today (porcelain, tea, etc)? Or waste it buying arms during civil wars and dictatorships? I mean there was mass starvation during Franco's regime. It seems to me likelier that their wealth comes from the things they have in common with prosperous countries that never were colonial powers (Taiwan, South Korea, etc). Educated populace, functioning capital markets, property rights, rule of law, etc.
    - deleted 4y ago
      [deleted]
    - beebeepka 4y ago
      I am not disputing past atrocities or still ongoing exploitation. However, reducing everything to "they exploited others for X years" strikes me as dishonest. Some are born into wealth and don't accomplish anything. With others it's the exact opposite (but harder, duh). Could be just luck but I am not convinced. Take a look our neighboring Russia just across the Black Sea. By far the biggest country in the world, and yet their society sucks. I would like to know what drives these things
  - mtalantikite 4y ago
    There was quite a lot of genocide that it was built upon: https://foreignpolicy.com/2020/08/10/dutch-colonial-history-indonesia-villains-victims/ https://foreignpolicy.com/2020/08/10/dutch-colonial-history-...
    - jacquesm 4y ago
      Yes, there was a lot of that. Our colonial history is nothing to be proud of. But Dutch engineering prowess is something to be proud of. The whole country is essentially a giant machine and if we collectively stopped maintaining it within a surprisingly short time large chunks of it would cease to exist.
      - dekhn 4y ago
        I've told lots of people the US should get prepared to pay the dutch to build the Great Atlantic and Pacific Seawalls. We should probably get started soon...
        jacquesm 4y ago
        A decade ago or so... it's going to get terribly interesting in the next 20 years.
    - boplicity 4y ago
      Interesting that the article, subtitled "A refusal to confront colonial atrocities persists in the Netherlands," lead to you getting downvotes. Coincidence? I think not. The so-called "civilizing mission" continues to this day, with glorification of Dutch ideas and ideals, even though those ideals indeed led to mass atrocities. Such atrocities were often cited as "necessary," in order to impose "improvement" upon the victims society. This "civilizing mission" is often seen as worth it -- it includes many good ideas, after all. Even to this day, the respect for "civlizing" ideas remains, while the acknowledging of mass atrocities is often ignored, or covered up. Even worse, many of the people who committed atrocities are thought of as heroes.
      - 4y ago
  - SanderNL 4y ago
    I’m curious. What is so incredible about it?
    - jacquesm 4y ago
      That by rights this country shouldn't exist, and that if we aren't careful soon it will stop to exist.
      - jeremyw 4y ago
        Any recommended material to learn about fragility in the Dutch system? You've made a number of comments in this vein. Do you see it as apart from the cycle of the successful? Wherein we slowly relax the effort is took to make success. And then deny these efforts altogether, and create fantasies of what _really_ brought success.
        WJW 4y ago
        I think jacquesm means that rising sea levels (due to climate change) is a particular problem for a country where much of the land is below sea level.
        jacquesm 4y ago
        Yep.
        jacquesm 4y ago
        I'm writing this from ~sea level, and there are large parts of the country around me that are below sea level, some more than just a little bit, think 2 to 3 meters and in extremes more than 6. As the sea level rises the risk of storm surges increases quite a bit. We have essentially barricaded the country against the sea up to a certain point. But beyond that the country would flood much like a bathtub would and even if all those barriers are closed the rivers will pour in water from the other side. Managing all this is tricky in the short term, difficult in the mid term and quite possibly impossible in the longer term if the sea level rise is more than anticipated when these defenses were built. And you can only raise them so much, if rivers no longer flow out then you'll end up flooded anyway.
  - nebula8804 4y ago
    Sure they have clean streets, quiet cities and pretty quaint scenery...but have you seen their toilets? They are so freakin tiny. The dutch are skew on the taller side so I don't know how they deal with this. As a 6' 2 in person I hate it. Also the food isn't anything to celebrate. Having lived in both Amsterdam and the US, I greatly prefer the US and our larger houses with proper sized toilets.
    - Aeolun 4y ago
      Wut? What is your beef with Dutch toilets? I’m 6’4” and I can’t say it ever bothered me. The food is ok. It’s just that Dutch people seem to be a bit more utilitarian about food consumption (something I didn’t know until leaving the Netherlands).
      - nebula8804 4y ago
        >Wut? What is your beef with Dutch toilets? I’m 6’4” and I can’t say it ever bothered me. I explained already: they are too tiny. [1]: Dutch toilet: https://i0.wp.com/noplacelikeanywhere.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/09/20160911_133649.jpg https://i0.wp.com/noplacelikeanywhere.com/wp-content/uploads... [2]: American toilet: https://www.amazon.com/American-Standard-211AA-104-222-Toilet-Linen/dp/B006TIEOW2?th=1 https://www.amazon.com/American-Standard-211AA-104-222-Toile... The bathrooms are typically smaller as well. It can often be claustrophobic. (Although the bathrooms in France are the worst, I once couldn't even close the door because my legs were too long) >It’s just that Dutch people seem to be a bit more utilitarian about food consumption (something I didn’t know until leaving the Netherlands). Restaurant quality seemed poor during my time living there. Bitterballen is delicious the first time, afterwards its just grease food. Other than good cheese I can't seem to point to any particular Dutch foods that really stand out.
        lucumo 4y ago
        > I explained already: they are too tiny. Hard to say without anything for scale. They look about the same size to me. They're different models though. The standing one would be considered a bit old-fashioned here. New toilets don't touch the ground for easier cleaning of the floor. And the flush compartment will be hidden in the wall just because it looks nice.
- skrebbel 4y ago
  This is because they weren’t explorer ships. They were trading ships first and foremost, owned by a large public for-profit corporation. It’s more like Maersk than like a navy. Exploration, or conquest, was not a goal. If it happened, it was just a means to an end. Thing is, trade is the most profitable when you get monopoly contracts with suppliers, especially when those suppliers are the only (known) suppliers of $THING. How do you get a monopoly contract? You make the supplier an offer they can’t refuse. All that fighting and fort building was only to enforce monopoly contracts, not empire building. Basically, to make sure the Portuguese didn't get their hands on those spices, so the price could stay high. Sometimes suppliers broke those deals and the Dutch took out the guns, and that’s what the soldiers came along for. Eg in the Travancore battles linked in another comment. They lost that one, but often they did not: For example, one day the people of the Banda islands, then the only source of nutmeg in the world, broke the monopoly deal they had made with the Dutch and sold nutmeg to the British too. The Dutch went in fully loaded, killed everybody (the entire archipelago population), and replaced them with Dutch settlers to farm the nutmeg. Problem solved, monopoly restored! No hard feelings, it’s just business. So yes! I concur! There’s just so much to learn from the Dutch East India Company! Who cares about all the genocide, we even have a VC fund[0] named after them, that’s how proud we are. [0] https://voccp.com/ https://voccp.com/
- jillesvangurp 4y ago
  My home country was a republic at the time. Made for some pragmatic leadership. While the French and the Spanish were basically pyramid schemes where wealth flowed to the top, the Dutch Republic was basically prospering on trade and attracting talent from all over Europe. Basically all the intellectuals and outcasts. Spanish Jews, French Huguenots, various refugees from German warring city states, etc. That made for a potent mix of wealth, trade, science, and relative religious freedom. The UK had their revolution in the 17th century, invited a Dutch king on the throne, and essentially copied all the best parts of Dutch practices. Basically, that's how they bootstrapped the British empire. The bank of England was created around the same time. Meanwhile the Dutch empire prospered for a while but fizzled out. Napoleon put an end to the republic. And after it's defeat, the British turned it into a monarchy.
rajandatta 4y ago
Points 2, 3, 4, 6 .. 13 seem like an excellent set of principles and fundamentals for a society or country even today. Verg well said. Also helps that the author contrasts them with England. Most countries would not meet these standards even today.
sn41 4y ago
A little known fact of history: there was an Indian kingdom, Travancore, which defeated the Dutch in a naval battle in 1741 [1]. (This might be the only major naval victory of an Asian kingdom over European navies until the Russo-Japanese war of 1905.) The Dutch never recovered, and did not colonize India. The king of Travancore then used the captured Dutch commander, Eustachius De Lannoy, to modernize the armed forces [2]. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Colachel https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Colachel [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eustachius_De_Lannoy https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eustachius_De_Lannoy
- bobthepanda 4y ago
  Fun fact, the De Lannoys share their surname with the Delanos, as in Franklin Delano Roosevelt (although not the only presidents related to that family, and the original Delano is not related to the nobility)
  - azepoi 4y ago
    Delannoy is a relatively common name from northern France, Lannoy is a commune, or more commonly a place (modern french l'aulnaie) planted with aulnes (Alders). Same meaning, different graphy, for Delaunay, as in Delaunay triangulation.
- Someone 4y ago
  Are you sure that was a naval battle? Reading Wikipedia (“The Mukkuvars Played a major role in defeating the Dutch East India company entering into colachal port”, “As the Dutch approached the shore, the Travancore army had made a retreat, and the locals fled the area. It was not enough for the Dutch to bombard a place and then barge in. To continue the war they required fortifications, trenches, and make-shift sheds and storerooms.”, “On 5 August, a cannonball fired by the Travancore army fell into a barrel of gunpowder inside the Dutch garrison”), it looks like a failed invasion.
  - umeshunni 4y ago
    Yeah - most sources (e.g. https://books.google.com/books?id=oNekDAAAQBAJ&pg=PT183#v=onepage&q&f=false https://books.google.com/books?id=oNekDAAAQBAJ&pg=PT183#v=on...) state it simply as a battle and the victory as a 'decisive victory' rather than a 'naval victory'.
__MatrixMan__ 4y ago
> Encouragement for inventors of new products, techniques, and import trades, who received rewards from the state, and not just temporary monopoly patents. I think we should explore this one. It's better to solve a problem permanently than to create an industry around solving it temporarily. I'd happily pay into a fund that rewards people for doing so if it meant fewer subscription-type relationships and more now-I'll-never-have-that-problem-ever-again moments.
- contingencies 4y ago
  We've tried using the state and other authorities as the arbiter of value. It hasn't turned out so well.
  - ClumsyPilot 4y ago
    It hasn't? Who decides where to build highways? The state does. How do they decide? By judging where they provide value.
    - contingencies 4y ago
      Yeah, straight toward Crimea.
steele 4y ago
A little known fact of going Dutch history: splitting the bill several ways should merit extraordinary tips in places where tipping is a necessary component to service worker income.
- WJW 4y ago
  We pay our waiting staff a normal salary, tipping is not a major thing here.
- tremon 4y ago
  "where tipping is a necessary component to service worker income" is not part of Dutch history FAFAIK.
  - tabtab 4y ago
    Something else the Dutch did right.
- Etheryte 4y ago
  Tipping is not a thing in the Netherlands, where are you getting this idea from? By and large the people who tip are tourists who are not familiar with the local customs.
  - jtwaleson 4y ago
    I always tip 10%-15%. Lived here all my life :')
    - Aeolun 4y ago
      Are you Dutch? What area of the country is this? Can’t say I’ve ever done this in Amsterdam area.
      - jtwaleson 4y ago
        Yep, all over but mostly in the randstad. It’s absolutely not ingrained in the culture or suggested on your receipt like in the US. But staff know how to handle it and I believe it’s quite common.
sirpilade 4y ago
we might see a similar situation with cryptocurrency-friendly countries in the near future
- tabtab 4y ago
  Sometimes deregulation is a great recipe for short-term growth, but catastrophic crashes. You can surf chaos for profit for only so long.
  - sirpilade 4y ago
    I agree and actually think that countries that will regulate first the use of these tools will have and advantage. Switzerland is setting up many cryptofriendly places (Zug, Lugano) where Btc and Tether are used for small payments and cashback points, and Hong Kong is also planning next moves in this direction. Ethiopia is planning to use blockchain for education records and might expand its use in other directions. All these applications require identification and are a step towards regulation
- crote 4y ago
  You should probably read up on the Tulip Mania, just to stay on topic about the effect of a relevant Dutch invention.
  - sirpilade 4y ago
    https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/there-never-was-real-tulip-fever-180964915/ https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/there-never-was-real-...
- DonHopkins 4y ago
  Hey wait, haven't you crypto shills all switched to shilling AI now instead? Didn't you get the memo? At least with ChatGPT you all sound so much more literate and well punctuated.
d_burfoot 4y ago
The modern equivalent of the Netherlands is Singapore. SG has better public policies, in every area, than any Western country. As a result they are much richer, have far less crime, better education, incomparably better infrastructure, better health care, etc, etc. Countries by PPP per capita (131K vs 75K for US): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_GDP_(PPP)_per_capita https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_GDP_(PPP)... Countries by homicide rate (0.2 vs 6.5 in US): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_intentional_homicide_rate https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_intention... PISA rankings by country (SG tops all categories, far above US): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Programme_for_International_Student_Assessment https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Programme_for_International_St... Life expectancy by country (83 yrs vs 77 for US): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_life_expectancy https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_life_expe... Countries ranked by infrastructure quality (SG tops): https://www.statista.com/statistics/264753/ranking-of-countries-according-to-the-general-quality-of-infrastructure/ https://www.statista.com/statistics/264753/ranking-of-countr...
- axlee 4y ago
  Singapore is a city, let's not pretend we can compare it with countries proper. If you compare it with affluent cities, it's great but not as great as the stats would say. And when it comes to governance, let's not forget that Singapore is a dictatorship.
  - warning26 4y ago
    A benevolent dictatorship is, while it lasts, arguably the ideal form of government. The problem is that they tend to descend into malevolent dictatorships given enough time.
    - axlee 4y ago
      A benevolent dictatorship isn’t a form of government: it is only a dictatorship, but with a leader that is somehow deemed less bad for his people than most dictatorships out there.
jahantaila 4y ago
[flagged]
hyperthesis 4y ago
The Dutch seemed really advanced, controlling the spice islands (modern day Indonesia), and all the qualities listed in the article... so... how did England get ahead? (I guess, via the Industrial Revolution, which is what the blog is about.) Also: today's semiconductor fabs rely on Dutch equipment. Surely, they get a large share of the profits of biggest industry of recent times. I am curious: was the investment that made this possible somehow facilitated by the profitability of the Dutch East Indies Company? The past extends into the future...
- tinco 4y ago
  Yes, of course. Philips (the Dutch company that initially invested in both TSMC and ASML) was founded on old tobacco money. But that's like saying Microsoft has to thank William Gates Sr. profitable lawyer career for their success. It's technically true that without that career the circumstances would likely not have facilitated the founding of Microsoft. But it's just one of the great many factors in their story. After being founded on Tobacco money, Philips was successful in producing high quality lightbulbs. I think they're also comparable to companies like Sony/Samsung that started out as a place where cheap labor was available, and that gradually grew into more and more high tech and intellectual property. I think that's also an interesting side note. Despite the Dutch as a country becoming super wealthy, historically the people in The Netherlands have always been poor, there always was a very large wealth gap. I'm not a historian but I think the closing of this wealth gap (in terms of living standards, not money per se) is something that started after WW2, could be wrong.
Animats 4y ago
The Dutch traders pioneered dull, boring, profitable sea commerce in commodities. Most of the other sea powers were thinking "ventures", where someone funded a ship to go someplace and maybe make some high profit. The Dutch were derided as "herring-tamers" for shipping huge amounts of fish in barrels. Profitably.
- elcritch 4y ago
  Sounds like a parable many VCS could take to heart.
simonebrunozzi 4y ago
Yes, the Dutch, but don't forget the Republic of Venice, which invented a large chunk of modern financial tools.

111 points by tim_sw 4y ago

> The Dutch councils of state and war always included merchants who had experience of trading and living abroad [...] As eloquently described by Mike Dash in "Batavia's Graveyard" most Dutch explorer ships had merchants, sailors, soldiers and civilians on board — ranked in that order. That is, not the captain but the bean counter would have final say on important matters. https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/128824.Batavia_s_Graveyard https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/128824.Batavia_s_Graveya...

beebeepka 4y ago
I am not ashamed to say that I am jealous of the Dutch. Sometimes I wonder what built the society that is powering this genuinely incredible country. Thanks for the link
- pipo234 4y ago
  The book is in't in Dutch, though. ;-) Incredibly well written, historically accurate (for as far I could tell) and entertaining to read. Warm recommend.
- melvinmelih 4y ago
  > It has been estimated that during the 17th and 18th centuries, 660,000 to 1,135,000 enslaved people in total must have been transported to the territories under control of the Dutch East India Company. I wouldn't necessarily romanticize the exploitative colonialism of European explorers.
  - spyremeown 4y ago
    Even more so when the current economic prosperity of the colonizing countries is still very much derived from their past. Sadly, most people living in said countries today don't realize how set back the colonies really were due to exploitation and slavery.
    - inglor_cz 4y ago
      "Even more so when the current economic prosperity of the colonizing countries is still very much derived from their past." This does not pass the comparison test. Many highly prosperous European countries of today (Scandinavian countries, Northern Italy, Switzerland, Austria, Germany, Slovenia, Ireland) didn't have massive overseas holdings, or only for a short time. Portugal, Spain, Turkey and Russia, four huge empires that existed for centuries (one still extant) are on the poorer side of Europe. PT and ES got only moderately prosperous in the last two generations, after shedding their last colonial possessions.
      - spyremeown 4y ago
        >poorer side of Europe Which is still much, much wealthier than most of colonized nations... except for Russia, due to the extreme political decline after the fall of the USSR. >Many highly prosperous European countries of today didn't have massive overseas holdings, or only for a short time. And I never said "colonies are needed for wealth". What is your point, exactly?
        hahaxdxd123 4y ago
        > And I never said "colonies are needed for wealth". What is your point, exactly? I think the point is that it's not this simple: "Even more so when the current economic prosperity of the colonizing countries is still very much derived from their past." Poor countries that were colonized are definitely held back by it. The colonial powers left extremely extractive institutions that focused on funneling power and profits into small groups of people. When they left, those institutions and that culture stayed. But isn't it difficult to say that Spain or Portugal's "wealth" today derives from colonial holdings years and years back? What did they extract that lasts today? In those 400 years, did they not spend most of their extracted silver and gold on things that are trivialities today (porcelain, tea, etc)? Or waste it buying arms during civil wars and dictatorships? I mean there was mass starvation during Franco's regime. It seems to me likelier that their wealth comes from the things they have in common with prosperous countries that never were colonial powers (Taiwan, South Korea, etc). Educated populace, functioning capital markets, property rights, rule of law, etc.
  - deleted 4y ago
    [deleted]
  - beebeepka 4y ago
    I am not disputing past atrocities or still ongoing exploitation. However, reducing everything to "they exploited others for X years" strikes me as dishonest. Some are born into wealth and don't accomplish anything. With others it's the exact opposite (but harder, duh). Could be just luck but I am not convinced. Take a look our neighboring Russia just across the Black Sea. By far the biggest country in the world, and yet their society sucks. I would like to know what drives these things
- mtalantikite 4y ago
  There was quite a lot of genocide that it was built upon: https://foreignpolicy.com/2020/08/10/dutch-colonial-history-indonesia-villains-victims/ https://foreignpolicy.com/2020/08/10/dutch-colonial-history-...
  - jacquesm 4y ago
    Yes, there was a lot of that. Our colonial history is nothing to be proud of. But Dutch engineering prowess is something to be proud of. The whole country is essentially a giant machine and if we collectively stopped maintaining it within a surprisingly short time large chunks of it would cease to exist.
    - dekhn 4y ago
      I've told lots of people the US should get prepared to pay the dutch to build the Great Atlantic and Pacific Seawalls. We should probably get started soon...
      - jacquesm 4y ago
        A decade ago or so... it's going to get terribly interesting in the next 20 years.
  - boplicity 4y ago
    Interesting that the article, subtitled "A refusal to confront colonial atrocities persists in the Netherlands," lead to you getting downvotes. Coincidence? I think not. The so-called "civilizing mission" continues to this day, with glorification of Dutch ideas and ideals, even though those ideals indeed led to mass atrocities. Such atrocities were often cited as "necessary," in order to impose "improvement" upon the victims society. This "civilizing mission" is often seen as worth it -- it includes many good ideas, after all. Even to this day, the respect for "civlizing" ideas remains, while the acknowledging of mass atrocities is often ignored, or covered up. Even worse, many of the people who committed atrocities are thought of as heroes.
    - 4y ago
- SanderNL 4y ago
  I’m curious. What is so incredible about it?
  - jacquesm 4y ago
    That by rights this country shouldn't exist, and that if we aren't careful soon it will stop to exist.
    - jeremyw 4y ago
      Any recommended material to learn about fragility in the Dutch system? You've made a number of comments in this vein. Do you see it as apart from the cycle of the successful? Wherein we slowly relax the effort is took to make success. And then deny these efforts altogether, and create fantasies of what _really_ brought success.
      - WJW 4y ago
        I think jacquesm means that rising sea levels (due to climate change) is a particular problem for a country where much of the land is below sea level.
        jacquesm 4y ago
        Yep.
      - jacquesm 4y ago
        I'm writing this from ~sea level, and there are large parts of the country around me that are below sea level, some more than just a little bit, think 2 to 3 meters and in extremes more than 6. As the sea level rises the risk of storm surges increases quite a bit. We have essentially barricaded the country against the sea up to a certain point. But beyond that the country would flood much like a bathtub would and even if all those barriers are closed the rivers will pour in water from the other side. Managing all this is tricky in the short term, difficult in the mid term and quite possibly impossible in the longer term if the sea level rise is more than anticipated when these defenses were built. And you can only raise them so much, if rivers no longer flow out then you'll end up flooded anyway.
- nebula8804 4y ago
  Sure they have clean streets, quiet cities and pretty quaint scenery...but have you seen their toilets? They are so freakin tiny. The dutch are skew on the taller side so I don't know how they deal with this. As a 6' 2 in person I hate it. Also the food isn't anything to celebrate. Having lived in both Amsterdam and the US, I greatly prefer the US and our larger houses with proper sized toilets.
  - Aeolun 4y ago
    Wut? What is your beef with Dutch toilets? I’m 6’4” and I can’t say it ever bothered me. The food is ok. It’s just that Dutch people seem to be a bit more utilitarian about food consumption (something I didn’t know until leaving the Netherlands).
    - nebula8804 4y ago
      >Wut? What is your beef with Dutch toilets? I’m 6’4” and I can’t say it ever bothered me. I explained already: they are too tiny. [1]: Dutch toilet: https://i0.wp.com/noplacelikeanywhere.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/09/20160911_133649.jpg https://i0.wp.com/noplacelikeanywhere.com/wp-content/uploads... [2]: American toilet: https://www.amazon.com/American-Standard-211AA-104-222-Toilet-Linen/dp/B006TIEOW2?th=1 https://www.amazon.com/American-Standard-211AA-104-222-Toile... The bathrooms are typically smaller as well. It can often be claustrophobic. (Although the bathrooms in France are the worst, I once couldn't even close the door because my legs were too long) >It’s just that Dutch people seem to be a bit more utilitarian about food consumption (something I didn’t know until leaving the Netherlands). Restaurant quality seemed poor during my time living there. Bitterballen is delicious the first time, afterwards its just grease food. Other than good cheese I can't seem to point to any particular Dutch foods that really stand out.
      - lucumo 4y ago
        > I explained already: they are too tiny. Hard to say without anything for scale. They look about the same size to me. They're different models though. The standing one would be considered a bit old-fashioned here. New toilets don't touch the ground for easier cleaning of the floor. And the flush compartment will be hidden in the wall just because it looks nice.
skrebbel 4y ago
This is because they weren’t explorer ships. They were trading ships first and foremost, owned by a large public for-profit corporation. It’s more like Maersk than like a navy. Exploration, or conquest, was not a goal. If it happened, it was just a means to an end. Thing is, trade is the most profitable when you get monopoly contracts with suppliers, especially when those suppliers are the only (known) suppliers of $THING. How do you get a monopoly contract? You make the supplier an offer they can’t refuse. All that fighting and fort building was only to enforce monopoly contracts, not empire building. Basically, to make sure the Portuguese didn't get their hands on those spices, so the price could stay high. Sometimes suppliers broke those deals and the Dutch took out the guns, and that’s what the soldiers came along for. Eg in the Travancore battles linked in another comment. They lost that one, but often they did not: For example, one day the people of the Banda islands, then the only source of nutmeg in the world, broke the monopoly deal they had made with the Dutch and sold nutmeg to the British too. The Dutch went in fully loaded, killed everybody (the entire archipelago population), and replaced them with Dutch settlers to farm the nutmeg. Problem solved, monopoly restored! No hard feelings, it’s just business. So yes! I concur! There’s just so much to learn from the Dutch East India Company! Who cares about all the genocide, we even have a VC fund[0] named after them, that’s how proud we are. [0] https://voccp.com/ https://voccp.com/
jillesvangurp 4y ago
My home country was a republic at the time. Made for some pragmatic leadership. While the French and the Spanish were basically pyramid schemes where wealth flowed to the top, the Dutch Republic was basically prospering on trade and attracting talent from all over Europe. Basically all the intellectuals and outcasts. Spanish Jews, French Huguenots, various refugees from German warring city states, etc. That made for a potent mix of wealth, trade, science, and relative religious freedom. The UK had their revolution in the 17th century, invited a Dutch king on the throne, and essentially copied all the best parts of Dutch practices. Basically, that's how they bootstrapped the British empire. The bank of England was created around the same time. Meanwhile the Dutch empire prospered for a while but fizzled out. Napoleon put an end to the republic. And after it's defeat, the British turned it into a monarchy.

rajandatta 4y ago

Points 2, 3, 4, 6 .. 13 seem like an excellent set of principles and fundamentals for a society or country even today. Verg well said. Also helps that the author contrasts them with England. Most countries would not meet these standards even today.

sn41 4y ago

A little known fact of history: there was an Indian kingdom, Travancore, which defeated the Dutch in a naval battle in 1741 [1]. (This might be the only major naval victory of an Asian kingdom over European navies until the Russo-Japanese war of 1905.) The Dutch never recovered, and did not colonize India. The king of Travancore then used the captured Dutch commander, Eustachius De Lannoy, to modernize the armed forces [2]. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Colachel https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Colachel [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eustachius_De_Lannoy https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eustachius_De_Lannoy

bobthepanda 4y ago
Fun fact, the De Lannoys share their surname with the Delanos, as in Franklin Delano Roosevelt (although not the only presidents related to that family, and the original Delano is not related to the nobility)
- azepoi 4y ago
  Delannoy is a relatively common name from northern France, Lannoy is a commune, or more commonly a place (modern french l'aulnaie) planted with aulnes (Alders). Same meaning, different graphy, for Delaunay, as in Delaunay triangulation.
Someone 4y ago
Are you sure that was a naval battle? Reading Wikipedia (“The Mukkuvars Played a major role in defeating the Dutch East India company entering into colachal port”, “As the Dutch approached the shore, the Travancore army had made a retreat, and the locals fled the area. It was not enough for the Dutch to bombard a place and then barge in. To continue the war they required fortifications, trenches, and make-shift sheds and storerooms.”, “On 5 August, a cannonball fired by the Travancore army fell into a barrel of gunpowder inside the Dutch garrison”), it looks like a failed invasion.
- umeshunni 4y ago
  Yeah - most sources (e.g. https://books.google.com/books?id=oNekDAAAQBAJ&pg=PT183#v=onepage&q&f=false https://books.google.com/books?id=oNekDAAAQBAJ&pg=PT183#v=on...) state it simply as a battle and the victory as a 'decisive victory' rather than a 'naval victory'.

__MatrixMan__ 4y ago

> Encouragement for inventors of new products, techniques, and import trades, who received rewards from the state, and not just temporary monopoly patents. I think we should explore this one. It's better to solve a problem permanently than to create an industry around solving it temporarily. I'd happily pay into a fund that rewards people for doing so if it meant fewer subscription-type relationships and more now-I'll-never-have-that-problem-ever-again moments.

contingencies 4y ago
We've tried using the state and other authorities as the arbiter of value. It hasn't turned out so well.
- ClumsyPilot 4y ago
  It hasn't? Who decides where to build highways? The state does. How do they decide? By judging where they provide value.
  - contingencies 4y ago
    Yeah, straight toward Crimea.

steele 4y ago

A little known fact of going Dutch history: splitting the bill several ways should merit extraordinary tips in places where tipping is a necessary component to service worker income.

WJW 4y ago
We pay our waiting staff a normal salary, tipping is not a major thing here.
tremon 4y ago
"where tipping is a necessary component to service worker income" is not part of Dutch history FAFAIK.
- tabtab 4y ago
  Something else the Dutch did right.
Etheryte 4y ago
Tipping is not a thing in the Netherlands, where are you getting this idea from? By and large the people who tip are tourists who are not familiar with the local customs.
- jtwaleson 4y ago
  I always tip 10%-15%. Lived here all my life :')
  - Aeolun 4y ago
    Are you Dutch? What area of the country is this? Can’t say I’ve ever done this in Amsterdam area.
    - jtwaleson 4y ago
      Yep, all over but mostly in the randstad. It’s absolutely not ingrained in the culture or suggested on your receipt like in the US. But staff know how to handle it and I believe it’s quite common.

sirpilade 4y ago

we might see a similar situation with cryptocurrency-friendly countries in the near future

tabtab 4y ago
Sometimes deregulation is a great recipe for short-term growth, but catastrophic crashes. You can surf chaos for profit for only so long.
- sirpilade 4y ago
  I agree and actually think that countries that will regulate first the use of these tools will have and advantage. Switzerland is setting up many cryptofriendly places (Zug, Lugano) where Btc and Tether are used for small payments and cashback points, and Hong Kong is also planning next moves in this direction. Ethiopia is planning to use blockchain for education records and might expand its use in other directions. All these applications require identification and are a step towards regulation
crote 4y ago
You should probably read up on the Tulip Mania, just to stay on topic about the effect of a relevant Dutch invention.
- sirpilade 4y ago
  https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/there-never-was-real-tulip-fever-180964915/ https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/there-never-was-real-...
DonHopkins 4y ago
Hey wait, haven't you crypto shills all switched to shilling AI now instead? Didn't you get the memo? At least with ChatGPT you all sound so much more literate and well punctuated.

d_burfoot 4y ago

The modern equivalent of the Netherlands is Singapore. SG has better public policies, in every area, than any Western country. As a result they are much richer, have far less crime, better education, incomparably better infrastructure, better health care, etc, etc. Countries by PPP per capita (131K vs 75K for US): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_GDP_(PPP)_per_capita https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_GDP_(PPP)... Countries by homicide rate (0.2 vs 6.5 in US): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_intentional_homicide_rate https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_intention... PISA rankings by country (SG tops all categories, far above US): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Programme_for_International_Student_Assessment https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Programme_for_International_St... Life expectancy by country (83 yrs vs 77 for US): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_life_expectancy https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_life_expe... Countries ranked by infrastructure quality (SG tops): https://www.statista.com/statistics/264753/ranking-of-countries-according-to-the-general-quality-of-infrastructure/ https://www.statista.com/statistics/264753/ranking-of-countr...

axlee 4y ago
Singapore is a city, let's not pretend we can compare it with countries proper. If you compare it with affluent cities, it's great but not as great as the stats would say. And when it comes to governance, let's not forget that Singapore is a dictatorship.
- warning26 4y ago
  A benevolent dictatorship is, while it lasts, arguably the ideal form of government. The problem is that they tend to descend into malevolent dictatorships given enough time.
  - axlee 4y ago
    A benevolent dictatorship isn’t a form of government: it is only a dictatorship, but with a leader that is somehow deemed less bad for his people than most dictatorships out there.

jahantaila 4y ago

[flagged]

hyperthesis 4y ago

The Dutch seemed really advanced, controlling the spice islands (modern day Indonesia), and all the qualities listed in the article... so... how did England get ahead? (I guess, via the Industrial Revolution, which is what the blog is about.) Also: today's semiconductor fabs rely on Dutch equipment. Surely, they get a large share of the profits of biggest industry of recent times. I am curious: was the investment that made this possible somehow facilitated by the profitability of the Dutch East Indies Company? The past extends into the future...

tinco 4y ago
Yes, of course. Philips (the Dutch company that initially invested in both TSMC and ASML) was founded on old tobacco money. But that's like saying Microsoft has to thank William Gates Sr. profitable lawyer career for their success. It's technically true that without that career the circumstances would likely not have facilitated the founding of Microsoft. But it's just one of the great many factors in their story. After being founded on Tobacco money, Philips was successful in producing high quality lightbulbs. I think they're also comparable to companies like Sony/Samsung that started out as a place where cheap labor was available, and that gradually grew into more and more high tech and intellectual property. I think that's also an interesting side note. Despite the Dutch as a country becoming super wealthy, historically the people in The Netherlands have always been poor, there always was a very large wealth gap. I'm not a historian but I think the closing of this wealth gap (in terms of living standards, not money per se) is something that started after WW2, could be wrong.

Animats 4y ago

The Dutch traders pioneered dull, boring, profitable sea commerce in commodities. Most of the other sea powers were thinking "ventures", where someone funded a ship to go someplace and maybe make some high profit. The Dutch were derided as "herring-tamers" for shipping huge amounts of fish in barrels. Profitably.

elcritch 4y ago
Sounds like a parable many VCS could take to heart.

simonebrunozzi 4y ago

Yes, the Dutch, but don't forget the Republic of Venice, which invented a large chunk of modern financial tools.