Economics and Capitalism in the Ottoman Empire / Edition 1

by Deniz Kilinçoglu

Overview

Is it possible to generate "capitalist spirit" in a society, where cultural, economic and political conditions did not unfold into an industrial revolution, and consequently into an advanced industrial-capitalist formation? This is exactly what'some prominent public intellectuals in the late Ottoman Empire tried to achieve as a developmental strategy; long before Max Weber defined the notion of capitalist spirit as the main motive behind the development of capitalism.

This book demonstrates how and why Ottoman reformists adapted (English and French) economic theory to the Ottoman institutional setting and popularized it to cultivate bourgeois values in the public sphere as a developmental strategy. It also reveals the imminent results of these efforts by presenting examples of how bourgeois values permeated into all spheres of socio-cultural life, from family life to literature, in the late Ottoman Empire.

The text examines how the interplay between Western European economic theories and the traditional Muslim economic cultural setting paved the way for a new synthesis of a Muslim-capitalist value system; shedding light on the emergence of capitalism—as a cultural and an economic system—and the social transformation it created in a non-Western, and more specifically, in the Muslim Middle Eastern institutional setting. This book will be of great interest to scholars of modern Middle Eastern history, economic history, and the history of economic thought.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780367872441
Publisher:	Taylor & Francis
Publication date:	12/12/2019
Series:	Routledge Studies in the History of Economics
Pages:	248
Product dimensions:	6.12(w) x 9.19(h) x (d)

About the Author

Deniz T. Kılınçoğlu received his Ph.D. from Princeton University in 2012. He currently teaches economics and history at the Middle East Technical University-Northern Cyprus Campus, Cyprus.

Table of Contents

Acknowledgments xix

Note on translation, transliteration, and dates xxi

List of abbreviations xxii

Introduction: "an unending dialogue between the present and the past" 1

Economics and modernization 1

Modernity, capitalist modernity, modernization, modernist: a note on the conceptual framework 3

Approach, methods, and sources 4

Outline of the study 8

1 Ottoman society, economy, and economics in the nineteenth century 12

Ottoman economy and economic mind before the birth of economics 13

The challenge of capitalist modernity and economic reform 17

Economics in the Ottoman Empire 21

Conclusion 32

2 Ottomanization of economics 42

The political and economic atmosphere 43

Sakizh Ohannes and the birth of Ottoman economic liberalism 45

Ahmed Midhat and Ottoman economic protectionism 47

Following the first steps: the 1880s and early 1890s 53

Books on public finance 60

Protectionism vs. liberalism debate revisited: Akyigitzade Musa and Mehmed Cavid 65

Ottoman popular economics: Maurice Block and Ahmed Muhtar 70

Conclusion 71

3 The economic idea of society and social change for development 85

World upside-down: the age of revolutions, economics and a new perception of the world 86

What is to be done? Building a modern Ottoman society 95

Conclusion 115

4 Imperialism, nationalism, and economic development 127

The question of economic development and the early industrialization attempts 129

The roots of Ottoman-Turkish economic nationalism: the Young Ottomans 132

The rise of nations and nationalisms 136

The questions of foreign exploitation and the capitulations 139

The economy according to the sultan 146

Conclusion 153

5 Changing hearts and minds: economic thought in late Ottoman fiction 160

Modernization and the Ottoman novel 161

Hâce-i Evvel and storytelling as an instrument of development 163

An early Young Turk manifesto-novel: Turfanda mi, Turfa mi? 175

Conclusion 184

Conclusion 192

The question of identity and the notion of economic society 192

Economic nationalism, protectionism, and mercantilism 195

Storytelling for economic development 196

Ottoman "Islamic" economics 196

Ottoman pragmatist reformism 197

Bibliography 199

Index 220