Constraining the Rich in the Dutch Republic
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Abstract
In his excellent book As Gods Among Men, Alfani underlines how the rich not only exploit the rest of society, but at times also support their less affluent fellow citizens, or projects that benefit other classes in society than their own. With the help of data relating to the ruling class in Dutch towns during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, this article further develops this argument, by demonstrating how these ruling families were constrained in a variety of ways. These constraints served to both avoid elite in-fighting and excessive exploitation of the rest of society. They were acceptable to the elites, because they understood that such constraints served their long-term interests.
Keywords: History of the Ideas of Wealth, Constrained Social Behaviour, Civic Militias in the Dutch Republic, Craft Guilds in the Dutch Republic, Charity in the Dutch Republic
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