Our Man in Genoa

Like most American historians, I know little of the city of Genoa save that it was the birthplace of Christopher Columbus and that it is located in northern Italy. Some years ago a Marxist author piqued my interest in the early-modern Genoese by suggesting that one ought really to call the Spanish conquest of the New World an Italian mercantile-capitalist project. A bit of research I recently undertook to enliven a stale lecture on Columbus has persuaded me that there is a lot of truth to this sweeping statement. 

Genoa's days of military glory were behind it by the 1400s, but its era of commercial expansion was still very much underway in Columbus's day. In the thirteenth century a series of armed conflicts with Venice had ended (1281) in Genoa's exclusion from the Adriatic, and in the city-states' tacit admission that their wars with one another had grown too expensive to prosecute. Thereafter, Venice used its geographic advantage to dominate trade in the eastern Mediterranean, particularly the spice and cotton trade with Egypt and the Levant. (It helped that Venetian sailors had access to the compass, which allowed them to sail in the open sea during the overcast winter months, and thus to take advantage of favorable seasonal winds.) (Fernand Braudel, The Perspective of the World [1984], 33-34, 118-119; Daniel Boorstin, The Discoverers [1985], 221-222.)

The displaced Genoese, however, merely took their capital and expertise and transferred them to the western Mediterranean and the eastern Atlantic Ocean. Genoese ships had opened direct oceanic trade with Bruges in 1277, and around the same time Genoese merchants established trading colonies in Seville, a recent conquest of the Kingdom of Castile, and Aragon, whose king they helped conquer Sicily in 1282. These merchants intermarried with local traders and gentry and became part of the Spanish elite. Seville became the base for Genoese voyages to the Canary Islands in the fourteenth century, while Genoese mercantile colonies in Morocco and Lisbon dominated those regions' provisions trade in the fifteenth century. (Richard Fletcher, Moorish Spain [1992], 143; Alfred Crosby, Ecological Imperialism [1986], 71, 79-80; Braudel, op. cit., 110, 141-142, 164; John Kicza, "Patterns in Early Spanish Overseas Expansion," William and Mary Quarterly, Third Series, 49 [1992]: 229-53, esp. 230, 237.)

Genoese merchants did not remain content to act as shipping agents and bankers. Their city, whose hinterland consisted of a great many mountains, could not feed or clothe itself without trade, and Genoa's merchants therefore took direct control of vital resources whenever they could. Genoa financed Aragon's conquest of Sicily in exchange for many of the island's grain plantations and control of its silk exports. Genoese merchants also established sugar plantations in Sicily, bringing to the western Mediterranean the crop that would play such an important role in the history of the Atlantic World. Gradually they expanded sugar cultivation into Spain, Portugal, Morocco, the Madeiras, and the Canaries. (These were generally small plantations, with only a few fields and slaves, but they provided the Genoese with experience they applied to the larger farms of the New World). In the sixteenth century, after a Genoese navigator opened the Atlantic to Spanish navigation, merchants from Columbus's home city sent agents to Hispaniola to market the island's gold exports, and Genoese artisans came from the Canaries to introduce sugar cultivation. Genoese bankers financed some of the entradas that extended Spanish rule to the mainland, including Cortes's conquest of the Aztec Empire in 1519-21, and Genoese bankers in Seville provided the capital for the fleets that subsequently sailed between Mexico and Spain. Indeed, financing the Spanish Crown and marketing Spanish American bullion became Genoese merchants' principal pastime by the late sixteenth century, and remained so until the Spanish government's finances collapsed in 1627. (Braudel, 142, 157, 159-161, 163-168; Kicza, "Patterns," 231, 242; David Graeber, Debt: The First 5,000 Years [2011], 318-319.)

So was the conquest of the Americas merely part of the expansion of Genoese capital? The "merely" in that question gives away the answer. Christopher Columbus may have come from Genoa, but the Genoese did not finance his first voyage; that took a more adventurous investor, namely a national government. Moreover, Spain provided the personnel and arsenal for the conquest of the West Indies, Mexico, and Peru, and its conquistadors and administrators didn't regard themselves as the employees of bankers - they fought for Church, king, and country. What the Genoese did was provide the financial infrastructure for the empire that the Spanish built so quickly. Those of us amazed at the speed with which Spain conquered the New World need to consider not only the impact of disease and metal weapons on Native Americans, and not merely the expertise of Spanish sailors and navigators, but also the large amount of money and technical know-how that Genoa injected into the process. The bankers weren't necessarily calling the shots in Spanish America, but they certainly became an important motive force behind this burst of expansion that transformed Spain into a global empire in just three quarters of a century.

Niall Ferguson is still spinning the dross of his rage and vanity into a bigger pile of dross

Fans of Niall "Saucypants" Ferguson will take pleasure in learning that after a fairly quiet summer, the Sexiest Scotsman has come roaring back into public view with a scathing indictment of Paul Krugman, a three-part essay cheekily titled "Krugtron the Invincible" (the link will take you to Part Three). In it, Our Man Niall reveals the prize-winning economist for the charlatan and character assassin he is. Professor Ferguson so thoroughly undermines Krugman's credibility that the well-whipped cur has subsequently announced plans to resign his professorship, return his Nobel Prize, and take up a new career as a flagellant and leper. And then we wake up.

Returning to reality for a moment, we may note that Ferguson's new essay, which appeared in the Huffington Post, is a fairly typical display of Niall Campbell Douglas Elizabeth Ferguson's favorite subject: his own vanity. He expends much effort trying to prove that Krugman is consistently wrong about important subjects, like the imminent break-up of the Euro, and closes by labeling Krugtron a crude, anti-intellectual bully, unworthy of the important public position (columnist for the New York Times) he now holds. We must not forget, Ferguson exclaims, "the importance of humility and civility in public as well as academic discourse." As The Krugman has repeatedly flouted these standards, it is up to Professor Niall, the defender of decency in our public discourse, to call him out and cut him down.

The evidence that Professor F. piles up against Mssr. Krugman seems damning. As I lack the expertise to judge which of the two men is correct, I leave it to members of Krugman's "claque" of "crass" and "crank"ish economist friends to refute Ferguson's allegations. Dean Baker, for instance, notes that Ferguson's characterization of the 2007-08 crash as a "financial crisis" is incorrect; the banking industry did undergo a dramatic meltdown in the fall of 2008, but both the meltdown and the recession resulted from a burst housing bubble, which destroyed several trillion dollars' worth of household wealth. This may seem a merely semantic point, but Ferguson's interpretation of the causes of the current recession underlies the policies, namely fiscal austerity and tight money, that he believes will cure it. Joe Wiesenthal, an honorary KrugClaque member, observed last spring that Ferguson had been making consistently inaccurate economic predictions for years, all stemming from his distaste for Barack Obama's 2009 economic stimulus bill and the Federal Reserve's quantitative easing policy. Brad Delong reported earlier this month that Ferguson either made an appalling mistake or flat-out lied about interest payments on the national debt, which he claimed were 8 percent of GDP (they are 1.3%) and likely to rise to 40 percent over the next six decades (they will almost certainly do nothing of the kind).

If Ferguson was trying to benefit the public by offering a more accurate view of economic reality than Paul Krugman's, he didn't do a good job. I conclude that what drove Ferg to waste electrons on this screed was less an effusion of public spirit than A) a desire to prove he is actually better at economics than the Krugster, B) envy of Krugman's position at the Times, C) his own desire to preen, evidenced by Ferguson's repeated self-identification as a "historian" and his posturing as a martial hero in the "Scottish regimental" mode, and D) an inability to accept negative criticism from anyone, particularly if it comes from those Ferg considers beneath his dignity, whether they be unwashed economists from a vulgar school like Princeton or "mediocre" authors and book reviewers

This latter trait was conspicuously evident two years ago, when Ferg responded to an unfavorable review in the London Review of Books by insulting the reviewer, demanding an apology, and threatening a lawsuit when the reviewer offered a correction ("Ferguson is not a racist") but declined to grovel. Ferg also displayed it in a non-apology he issued last spring, after he remarked in a public address that John Maynard Keynes's homosexuality made him a bad economist. Ferguson began his May 7 "Open Letter to the Harvard Community" by admitting that his remarks were stupid. He then walked back his contrition, asserting that he was right to draw attention to Keynes' sexuality because it was relevant to "historical understanding of the man," attacking his critics for their intellectual laziness and unwarranted hatefulness, and arguing that while he occasionally said "stupid things" so did "most professors and – let's face it…most students." In closing, he demanded that the public forgive him.

There is something almost pitiful in a man so paranoid and self-aggrandizing that he cannot even make a proper apology, but must instead use the occasion of apologizing to assert that his sin was actually intellectual heroism, and to trash his enemies, real and imagined. The more recent subjects of Niall's ire, namely Paul Krugman's "claque" of bloggers, have been happy to repay Ferguson in kind, with one predicting that "Ferguson will teach us the importance of humility…in the same manner that Lindsey Lohan can teach us the importance of sobriety." One, however, intensified the pathos that clings to Professor Ferg by reminding readers that Our Man Niall was once a halfway-decent historian, whose innovative study of World War One, The Pity of War, sounds so appealing that I might just go read it myself. Since then Ferguson has squandered his talents, such as they were, in the service of the plutocrats who pay his lavish speaking fees, whose interests Niall-o cheerfully defends and to whose prejudices he routinely caters. The Sexiest Scotsman's solicitude for the ruling class has brought him wealth, fame, and prestige, but it hasn't brought him the level of respect he feels he deserves, and I think that really means it hasn't properly substituted for the self-respect Ferg forfeited when he sold out. "The wealthiest person," a wise man once said, "is a pauper at times / Compared to the man / With a satisfied mind."

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(My thanks to John Craig Hammond for his editorial assistance.  Any errors left herein remain the responsibility of the author.)

Containing College Costs (Continued)

(Continued from September 17th):

Students:  There are constant complaints that college is horrendously expensive, and yet many of you spend money like water while in college. To outside observers, you often look like you are not serious about your studies and then disappointed when you graduate after four (or six) years (if you graduate), having learned and benefited and profited less than you thought you were going to.

            First, if you don’t feel ready to go to college, don’t go! No matter how much your parents or friends or high school counselor are pushing you, listen to your own inner voice. But, if you don’t go to college, get a real job and live on your own on your wages. Find out what the economic choices really are.

            Second, study what you love and are good at, but be practical about it. The best strategy is a double major (or more) if you have multiple or esoteric interests.

            Third, live frugally. Don’t borrow money, however deferred and low interest the payments are, to live a lifestyle above your family’s means. Take the bus. Have an old phone. Go out only once a week. Have a roommate. You can still have fun, and your 20s will be much more pleasant with lower student loan payments.

            Fourth, be involved on campus.  Your major may give you a credential.  Your work and extra-curricular experiences on campus (or off) and your connections to faculty will help you get a job or into graduate school.

            Fifth, persevere when courses are hard.  Dropping a course seems easy at the time, but adds to your time in college and the amount you ultimately pay.

            Finally, you will get out of college what you put into it.  Do not expect to be forced to do all the things necessary for your education and career preparation.  You will certainly be offered many wonderful opportunities.  It is not your university’s fault if you fail to take advantage of them.

Parents: College for one child is probably the third-most expensive thing you have to fund in your lifetime, the first two being your retirement and house purchase.  If you have multiple kids, then college expenses could rival those others.

            First, and it’s probably too late for you if you are reading this, save, save, save, save.  You have to save for retirement. You have to save for a home, and you get to pay that off over 30 years.

            Second, don’t let your kid go to a college you can’t afford. It is not necessary to go to an expensive school to get a good education.

            Third, help your kid see what is important about a college. Not important: fancy dorms, state of the art workout facilities, gourmet food options, national championship athletic teams. All that is nice, but you should see multiple dollar signs hanging over each of those fancy extras. Important: low faculty-student ratio, good academic support services, effective career services center, vibrant extracurricular, internship, and study abroad programs. If you allow your kid to prioritize choosing all the extras even if it’s too expensive for you, please do not complain later that your kid has a lot of debt and no job. You set the tone by giving the message of choosing fun over substance in college.

Faculty: You just want to teach and do your own research, and not have to worry about things outside your job description like whether students actually finish college. It is the case that most faculty are working harder. And faculty see that their pay is rising more slowly than the cost of everything else on campus. Still, you are the backbone of the institution. Students need you.

            So, first, do notice what is going on with your students. It is not coddling to notice when students are struggling or absent, and to provide support, a gentle nudge or a kick in the pants.

            Second, realize that many students have much more serious issues to contend with than may have been the case during your college years. Practice compassionate rigor.          

            Third, it is easier to say “yes” to students. Yes, you can drop that class. Yes, you can change your major. Yes, you can take that difficult requirement during summer school or online at another university. But try saying “no,” or better yet, “why” to the students asking to do those potentially problematic, expensive, education-extending things.

            Fourth, don’t put unnecessary obstacles in the path of students working sincerely to finish a class, a major or a degree. Maintaining standards is crucial, but so is facilitating student success.

Administrators:  Your numbers and cost have been growing faster than anything else in the university except possibly health insurance. Any serious attempt to address the cost of college will take a long, hard look at each administrative position.

            First, then, you serve the institution and students best if every act of administration makes it easier for students to learn and faculty to teach. In practical terms, this means having an attitude of facilitation rather than setting mandates and issuing directives.

            Second, the act of teaching and process of learning does not always unfold with business-like efficiency. Administration should. See how much you can do with the fewest possible resources. The trend has been administrative bloat and cuts to faculty lines. This suggests that high level administrators believe the university’s mission is administration, not teaching.

            Third, vow that no assistant or associate dean, let alone other administrator without an academic title, will make more than the average full professor salary in your institution, calculated on the basis only of regular (not endowed chair) salaries. Send a message that your institution values education more highly than management.

- Anne Foster

  Anne.Foster@indstate.edu

Containing College Costs (without MOOCing Things Up)

The rapidly rising cost of American college education – tuition jumped 500% over the past 28 years, according to MSN Money – became a matter of national concern last year, when President Obama announced several mild proposals addressing the problem.  Other stakeholders in the debate, mainly state legislators, college administrators, and well-intentioned but clueless gadflies like Tom Friedman have advocated more radical reforms, like increasing faculty teaching loads or relying on Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs).  I have not given the matter much thought here, except to note in passing that Americans have collectively decided A) to make college education almost universally necessary for employment, and B) to force students to pay for it themselves, with loans now collectively valued at 1 trillion dollars

Rather than curse the darkness and the many predators who lurk in it, some thoughtful faculty members have offered intelligent and nuanced suggestions about how to get college costs under control.  One, I am proud to say, is my colleague Anne Foster, who kindly took time off from her busy schedule as a professor and co-editor of Diplomatic History to share her thoughts on the subject. Her suggestions will appear here in two parts, one today and the other this Friday. Comments are welcome, either here or by direct communication with Prof. Foster (Anne.Foster@indstate.edu).

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On college affordability, view from the trenches

Anne Foster

            President Barack Obama has weighed in on the college affordability conversation, touting a program to incentivize colleges and universities to keep their costs down. He wants to make college more affordable, student loans less onerous, and higher education more accessible. All worthy goals, none likely to be achieved by President Obama’s plans. From my vantage point as a faculty member with six years of teaching experience in a small, private liberal arts college and ten in a public university, I offer the view from the trenches, and some advice to those whose choices make a difference in the cost of college.

Federal government:  I start with the feds only because President Obama has suggested the federal government will use its power to enforce a particular vision of how to make college affordable. His vision is based on the notion that knowledge will lead to more rational choices. Students and parents already have access to a lot of information about which colleges are more affordable and graduate their students, at the College Navigator website run by the U.S. Department of Education. Some other federal government efforts would be more helpful.

            First, make it easier for students attending college part time to access federal financial aid.  Too many students with modest economic resources or demanding personal situations attempt to attend college full time while working full time or caring for family members. Why do they take on this heavy burden? Because only full time students are eligible for most forms of financial aid. And because financial aid is not tied to number of credit hours attempted, but to number of semesters attended. This one-size-fits-all approach ill serves the students who most need and deserve assistance with attending college.

            Second, make sure Pell Grant amounts keep up with inflation. Self-explanatory. The grant for those students whose families have the fewest financial resources need to hold their value.

            Third, make student loans able to be discharged in the bankruptcy process, and lower the interest rate. Student loans should be harder to get and cheaper to have.

State governments:  State universities have seen their net cost rise more quickly than private in most cases, in large measure because most state governments have cut appropriations. Many state colleges and universities have also been asked to teach more students with these fewer resources, and to meet an increasing number of mandates from the state government.

            First, decide whether you want to keep cutting taxes or have inexpensive higher education.  You can’t do both.

            Second, don’t micromanage state colleges and universities. Legislate educational goals; let universities figure out how to implement them. The faculty, administration and students know how to manage their own institutions far better than you do.

            Third, do cultivate better relationships with faculty and students at the state universities. Most state legislators speak only to lobbyists and high level administration officials. Important though they are, they are the least important people in the educational process. If you want to know what is happening, work to get to know those who are teaching and those who are learning.

            Fourth, education is difficult, for learners and teachers. The path is not always smooth and swift, and people will make mistakes along the way and then learn from them. Focusing solely on the goal of graduation may miss the broader goal of education.

            Fifth, education is expensive and state budgets are limited. If state appropriations to colleges and universities must be cut, don’t be surprised if those schools go after other revenue sources (tuition hikes and out of state students). Don’t be surprised when the schools think that if the state provides less money it should have less control as well.

(To be continued.)