Question

Explain the connection between European demand for luxury products and the development of a global economy. Make sure to indicate who benefited from a globally connected economy in the eighteenth century and how they benefited and who did not, and your reasons for answering in this way.

Please answer ASAP, it is for a history class.

Answer 1

The definition of luxury has been synonymous with 'foreignness' from the earliest ages. Throughout ancient and primitive cultures, archaeologists and anthropologists have investigated the connection between luxuries and foreign products and their merchants. In the ancient world, rare and valuable artifacts were the catalyst to long distance trading.

Particular materials were illustrated in Stone Age societies: obsidian and coral, Bronze and Iron Age precious metals. Amber, ivory, incense, pepper and silk were Roman trade top targets.

Eastern or oriental imports became part of the original, western luxury concept. Livy claimed that Rome, imported from Greece and the East, had been polluted with 'Asian' luxuries. The near communication between Europeans and Eastern consumer goods reverted to ancient trade with the East by Constantinople and the Byzantine Empire.

Also during the Roman Empire, trade with China was well developed, through the silk route via Samarkand and sea-borne trade from China to the Indian Ocean. Not only silks but mirrors, cloth, pottery and some porcelain were shipped from the seventh to the tenth centuries into the Persian Gulf.

Concerns about the economic dislocation and the moral threat presented by imported and exotic commodities turned into a more open dialogue about the rewards of commerce and the more cosmopolitan growth of the senses.

Nicholas Barbon, in a classic passage, identified the incentive provided by rare and luxurious commodities.

"The wants of the Mind are infinite, Man naturally Aspires, and as his Mind is elevated, his Senses grow more refined, and more capable of Delight; his Desires are inlarged, and his Wants increase with his Wishes, which is for everything that is rare, can gratifie his Senses, adorn his Body and promote the Ease, Pleasure and Pomp of Life."

Observers have gradually linked the growth of the market of luxury goods with the globalization of finance and investment, as well as modern consumerism among the middle classes.

As symbols of respect, luxury items gained a new meaning. The elite's barbaric forces to enforce consent through force-backed 'looks and movements' were replaced by material acquisitions from coaches to houses. A newly mobile world of goods accompanied the anonymity of business society and city life. Honor and status were given to individuals in the company of strangers according to clothes they wore.

Adam Smith was similarly proud of national industry, arguing that the wealth of a nation lay in its ability to increase the quantity of ‘necessaries and conveniences’ which its labour could produce or exchange relative to its population

The division of labour yielded a ‘multiplication of the productions of all the different arts’, and in ‘a well-governed society’ a ‘universal opulence which extends itself to the lowest ranks of the people’

Luxury goods affected the global economy through 2 channels. The first channel is connected to the resale market: one of the luxury goods economy's intrinsic mechanisms and how goods were acquired and circulated within society.

While influenced by the economic cycle of fashion, the second circuit was largely the product of other influences: it was a consequence of the economy's precariousness under the old system, badly implemented monetarization, work market 'flexibility' and lack of financial institutions.

Luxury goods were circulated not only as themselves, but as an alternate currency – not just for in trouble legitimate (or illegal) merchants, but also most private individuals. This second circuit thus played an important role in the economy of luxury goods and the countries themselves, to whom it gave an invaluable versatility.