Bas van Bavel

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Bas van Bavel (2013)

Bas van Bavel , actually Balthassar Jozef Paul van Bavel , (born June 24, 1964 in Breda ) is a Dutch medieval historian, economic and social historian.

Life

Bas van Bavel studied history at the University of Utrecht with a master's degree in 1988 and a doctorate in 1993. As a post-doctoral student he was at the Universities of Utrecht, Amsterdam and Ghent and was a three-year scholarship from the Netherlands Academy of Sciences. From 2001 he led research projects of the NWO at the University of Utrecht on market organization in Holland in the late Middle Ages (subject of his book Manors and Markets ) and economic growth and stagnation in the pre-industrial era in Iraq (around 500 to 1000), northern Italy (1000 to 1500 ) and the Netherlands from 1100 to 1800 (subject of his book Invisible Hand? ). In 2007 he became professor for economic and social history of the Middle Ages at the University of Utrecht and coordinated the priority program there for the origin and influence of institutions ( Institutions for open societies ). In 2014 he became professor for transition phases in business and society.

research

Manor examined the peculiarities of the wider area of ​​the Netherlands and Belgium in the Middle Ages and early modern times, which led to the great upswing of this region compared to the rest of Europe. According to Bavel, markets for various goods formed at all times, but these were soon dominated by elites who solidified their position so that it came to stagnation and decline. In doing so, he set himself apart from the frequently held image of a linear progressive market economy development. He also drew attention to the importance of factor markets , on which not goods, but factors of production (labor, land, capital) were traded. In later investigations he moved in other areas besides the Netherlands and transferred his findings to later times and to the present. He criticizes the common view that a market economy is an essential prerequisite for prosperity and the rule of law. In 2014 he and others criticized the increasingly unequal distribution of wealth, for example in the Netherlands over the past five years. He also sees the concentration on the gross national product as the wrong measure of value for the development of economies and societies. Other factors (distribution of prosperity, welfare state achievements, resistance to crises and disasters, ecology) would be neglected.

In 2017, he drew comparisons with Marten Scheffer and others between the emergence of social inequality in human societies and in nature. It arises almost automatically in the absence of compensating mechanisms. In both cases, one percent or less of the species dominates over 50 percent of the resources solely through random triggers, when the proceeds and losses increase multiplicatively. Natural enemies act as an antidote to these inequalities, while in societies government measures counteract the unequal distribution of wealth.

In an essay with Oscar Gelderblom, he criticized Simon Schama's thesis that the hygiene and cleanliness in the households of the Netherlands, historically guaranteed by travelers in the 17th and 18th centuries (for which women were primarily responsible), were a consequence of Calvinism, rather it had Roots in the hygiene necessary for the production of cheese and butter, which began in the 14th century before the Reformation. At the beginning of the 16th century, half of rural households and up to a third of urban households produced cheese and butter. The migration of rural populations to the cities and the high consumption of dairy products maintained these customs, even if from the middle of the 17th century there was no longer any direct connection between hygiene practices and production needs.

With his ERC Advanced Grant from 2013, he examined the resilience of Western European societies to disasters and crises. He is behind one of the main research areas of the Netherlands Towards resilient societies .

Memberships and honors

In 2013 he became a member of the Dutch Academy of Sciences . For 2019 he received the Spinoza Prize . In 2001 he received a VIDI research grant from the NWO and in 2006 a VICI grant.

In 2013 he received an ERC Advanced Grant (Project: Coordinating for life. Success and failure of Western European societies in coping with rural hazards and disasters, 1300–1800 ).

Fonts

Books:

  • Manors and Markets: Economy and Society in the Low Countries, 500–1600, Oxford University Press 2010
  • Editor with Richard Hoyle: Rural Economy and Society in North-Western Europe, 500–2000. Social Relations: Property and Power, Brepolis 2010.
  • The Invisible Hand? How Market Economies have Emerged and Declined since ad 500, Oxford University Press 2016

Articles (selection):

  • Land, lease and agriculture: the transition of the rural economy in the Dutch river area from the fourteenth to the sixteenth century, Past & Present, Volume 172, 2001, pp. 3-43
  • People and land: rural population developments and property structures in the Low Countries, c. 1300-c. 1600, Continuity and Change, Volume 17, 2002, pp. 9-37
  • Early proto-industrialization in the Low Countries? The importance and nature of market-oriented non-agricultural activities on the countryside in Flanders and Holland, Revue Belge de Philologie et d'Histoire, Volume 81, 2003, pp. 1109–1165
  • with JL van Zanden: The jump-start of the Holland economy during the late-medieval crisis, c. 1350-c. 1500, The Economic History Review, Volume 57, 2004, pp. 503-532
  • Rural wage labor in the sixteenth-century Low Countries: an assessment of the importance and nature of wage labor in the countryside of Holland, Guelders and Flanders, Continuity and Change, Volume 21, 2005, pp. 37-72
  • The organization and rise of land and lease markets in northwestern Europe and Italy, c. 1000-1800, Continuits and Change, Volume 23, 2008, pp. 13-53
  • The medieval origins of capitalism in the Netherlands, BMGN-Low Countries Historical Review, Volume 125, 2010, pp. 45-79
  • Markets for land, labor, and capital in northern Italy and the Low Countries, twelfth to seventeenth centuries, Journal of Interdisciplineary History, Volume 41, 2011, pp. 503-531
  • with A. Rijpma: How important were formalized charity and social spending before the rise of the welfare state? A long-run analysis of selected western European cases, 1400–1850, The Economic History Review, Volume 69, 2016, pp. 159–187
  • with Ewout Frankema: Wealth Inequality in the Netherlands, c. 1950-2015. The Paradox of a Northern European Welfare State, The Low Countries Journal of Social and Economic History, Volume 14, 2017, pp. 29-62

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ German translated: mansions and markets
  2. ↑ Spinoza Prize for Bas van Bavel, Utrecht University 2019
  3. ↑ Bas van Bavel: Meet eens de lengte van mensen in plaats van de economische groei , Sociale Vraagstuken 2012
  4. ↑ Marten Scheffer, Bas van Bavel, Ingrid A. van de Leemput, Egbert H. van Nes, Inequality in nature and society, Proc. Nat. Acad. USA, Vol. 114, 2017, pp. 13154-13157, online
  5. ↑ Bas van Bavel, Oscar Gelderblom, The Economic Origins Of Cleanliness In The Dutch Golden Age, Past & Present, Volume 205, 2009, pp. 41-69
  6. ^ Review by Frank Hirschmann in the historical journal, Volume 297, 2013, Issue 3, pp. 783f.
  7. ↑ Review by Christoph Jeggle, Hsozkult 2018
  8. ↑ Abstract
personal data
SURNAME Bavel, Bas van
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Bavel, Balthassar Jozef Paul
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Dutch economic historian
DATE OF BIRTH June 24, 1964
PLACE OF BIRTH Breda