Simon_Jester wrote:I will not attempt to defend his argument on this issue. I can see, and will expand, on why it makes sense to me in theory. But I cannot prove that it was a problem and would not presume to dispute scholarly papers which assert that deflation was not a problem in the colonial economy.
But by continuing to argue for it you are defending his argument and you are disputing scholarly papers. From where does the disonance come from. You could have just put in a "I'll continue this for fun" or similar. You don't instead you are trying to convey that you are not doing exactly what it is that you are doing?
I don't get it.
Do it for the fun of it instead, or just to show that that jerk of a Spoonist was talking out of his ass, or something.
Simon_Jester wrote:You see what I do know is that the whole british empire was chronically inflicted by a lack of specie as was the french but to a lesser degree, so it was not an american thing but a universal thing. Only Spain had enough for the extreme growth of trade. For them not to take that into account would mean that we would have seen similar stuff all over the commonwealth. Something which we don't.
A chronic, universal lack of specie would tend to strike with disproportionate force in places where imperial policy was draining specie
away from the economy the fastest. If everyone is short on silver, and the government policy is to remove silver from the colonies and concentrate it in the homeland, the colonies will suffer greater, more rapid deflation than the homeland.
Do you have proof or underlying data? Or is it just hearsay? Where is this famous lack of specie?
The colonies did not see themselves as lacking in specie. How could they, that was how it was everywhere in the commonwealth. Instead they had lots of schemes on how to remedy the situation with banks of all sorts. It was rather the regulation or abolishment of those banks/schemes that they saw as heavy handed.
Here is another source for you:
http://eh.net/encyclopedia/article/baac ... tionary.us
Of all the potential options available for funding the new standing army in the west, why did the British decide to tax their American colonies? The answer is fairly straightforward. First of all, the victory over the French in the Seven Years' War had come at a high price. Domestic taxes had been raised substantially during the war and total government debt had increased nearly twofold (Brewer, 1989). In addition, taxes were significantly higher in Britain than in the colonies. One estimate suggests the per capita tax burden in the colonies ranged from two to four percent of that in Britain (Palmer, 1959). And finally, the voting constituencies of the members of parliament were in Britain not the colonies. All things considered, Parliament viewed taxing the colonies as the obvious choice.
It turned out that making a case for the avoidance of British taxes as a major incentive for independence proved difficult. The reason was that many of the taxes imposed were later repealed. The actual level of taxation appeared to be relatively modest. After all, the Americans soon after adopting the Constitution taxed themselves at far higher rates than the British had prior to the Revolution (Perkins, 1988).
The outcome of his analysis was that the Navigation Acts imposed a net burden of less than one percent of colonial per capita income. From this he concluded the Acts were an unlikely cause of the Revolution. A long series of subsequent works questioned various parts of his analysis but not his general conclusion (Walton, 1971). The work of Thomas also appeared to be consistent with the observation that the First Continental Congress had not demanded in its list of grievances the repeal of either the Navigation Acts or the Sugar Act.
Care to point out why those quotes above would be wrong to suit your lack of silver theory?
Simon_Jester wrote:So I don't buy it. It can only be seen as an extra burden by afterthought, not while it was happening. I continue below but if you spot any errors or oversimplifications please let me know, I'm always interested in correcting any false views I have.
It occurs to me that a province does not need to know
why imperial policy is causing a famine to revolt because of the famine. If the colonial economy is in chaos (for any reason) and the imperial government continues to draw taxes from the colony, a revolt becomes quite likely.
Huh? The colonial economy was not in chaos. It was quite stable and improving after the war. The only starvation that you could possibly be refering to was in the aftermath of the first British troops actions. Which is assbackwards because you can not blaim the effects for the cause.
Simon_Jester wrote:I think you misunderstand my point. It's not about "should taxes be paid?" it's about "can we keep paying these taxes without gutting the economy?" Or "will my business be able to pay these taxes and still run enough of a profit that I can keep paying my debts to the Bank of England?"
Again, nope. Didn't misunderstand your point but I feel the inverse to be true.
It was not a problem. The americas was rich. The economy was blooming. With peace trade could only pick up. The tax rate was not gutting the economy or destroying businesses. That's plain false. Do you have anything to back that up? Because the sources I read says the opposite.
What was a driving force was the trade restrictions being enforced. Because that would cut into profits for the rich and influential.
Simon_Jester wrote:Parliament then proceeded to legislate the land banks away, as you say. This left the colonial economy in bad shape- again, hamhanded enforcement of policies that originated from people who had relatively little detailed knowledge of the realities on the ground in the colonies. Which is just a practical concern: when the colony is three months' travel from home, you're not going to have intimate detailed knowledge of what's going on there.
Bad shape? Hamhanded? Little knowledge? You have a clear bias that is just not easy to address properly.
Compared to england true poverty was almost non-existant.
The colonies paid very little in taxes to the crown compared to other brits. What the dissent was about was that the colonies wanted to collect its own taxes and use them locally as they saw fit without interference of england. They didn't want to pay taxes to pay for troops from england being stationed in the colonies, instead they wanted the same taxes to be handled locally and thus have raised those troops themselves under their control. Etc.
It was a powerstruggle on who gets to decide what. Never about tax rates or how to pay those taxes, heck the source above states that taxes was higher in 'free' US than under british rule.
Simon_Jester wrote:Simon_Jester wrote:This was a pre-industrial society; taxes from the colonies were collected in specie: gold and silver currency, because the British treasury couldn't very well collect grain or chickens from scattered colonists three thousand miles away.
I believe this to be flawed. It could not collect what didn't exist. If what your friend says is true the colonies would not just be short on specie they wouldn't have any at all plus being seriously in debt and attacked by crown tax collectors. Since that didnt happen it must have been solved in another way. Probably by IOUs between trading companies etc.
My 'friend' is
Dr. Terry Bouton, of the University of Maryland Baltimore County, where I took a 400-level course on the history of the American Revolution. Not a place where you'd
expect to see "lies to children," especially since in the same course Bouton was rather brutal about dismantling the myth of the Founding Fathers as ideal disinterested heroes, pointing out that the colonial upper class had very real, concrete interests at stake, which they did everything in their power to promote in the Revolutionary and post-Revolutionary era.
So instead of arguing the point you show the credentials of your old proff? Why?
Simon_Jester wrote:Moreover, it is a gross misunderstanding of my position to read it as "there was NO specie in the colonies."
Uhm, that was me. I said that if all taxes was paid in coin then the colonies wouldn't be short they would have none.
Simon_Jester wrote:But the British policy, under mercantilism, was to keep the colonies as a market for manufactured goods while trying to drain them of gold and silver.
Not because of mercantilism. The specie in the colonies were not decreasing before/during the war with france+natives. Instead its only when the Brit bank needed to repay the wardebt that we see them demanding payment in specie.
Something which the colonies were willing to do, up until the brit bank got parliament to abolish the paper money in the colonies. So the colonies didn't mind lowering levels of specie. They minded not being allowed to print their own money. Because the local currency was much more effecient for the governers et al than specie.
Simon_Jester wrote:It should not come as a surprise that this left the colonies short of specie relative to Britain proper, leading to deflation in the colonial economy so long as only specie-based currency was legal.
Which was my point in my first response. The colonies didn't mind the taxes or the deflux of specie. They minded not getting to print their own money.
Simon_Jester wrote:Mercantilism worked so good elsewhere that they built a global empire around the concept (and the spanish/french/dutch/etc). I fail to see the relevance of repeating how it works.
All of the famous eastindia companies worked on the same principle.
Yes, and the East India Companies were
bad for the economies of the remote colonial areas they controlled. The Dutch and British East India Companies were engines for transferring wealth from the "Indies" to the Netherlands and to Britain, respectively.
Please show this was true for the american colonies. All the sources I've read says the american colonies were growing richer faster than britain proper. So pray tell me how did all those americans get rich if they were being sucked dry by the mercantile system?