Reasons for Ottoman economic decline and problems of ME

[Dodo]

Hey there people. I am working on a thesis now with no exact clear research question which sucks.
But my question to you, as a fellow Marxist is how would you describe the reasons for Ottoman Empire's decline? I doubt people here have a lot of empirical data and most of you would probably like to view things in a stagist way, I'd still like to hear your opinions.
Why is it that Ottoman Empire declined after being an economically dominating force? If it is because capitalism did not arise, WHY was it that it did not arise here? And why does middle east which have inherited this legacy, mainly Turkey still is backwards in relations to Europe?

[ComradeOm]

Economic decline? I don't have any figures on hand but I'm not sure I'd go that far. There were economic crises to be sure, a permanent hazard of agrarian economies, but overall the Ottoman decline was a relative one; stagnation not collapse. Which opens up the much bigger question of not why the Ottomans 'declined' but why they failed to keep up with with Europe.

Some key factors in this would be the overwhelming political absolutism (and instability), increasing defence burden, decay in provincial administration and repeated military failures. Or to sum up: not being in that relatively small corner of the world (ie Western Europe) that ultimately developed capitalism.

[Dodo]

Economic decline? I don't have any figures on hand but I'm not sure I'd go that far. There were economic crises to be sure, a permanent hazard of agrarian economies, but overall the Ottoman decline was a relative one; stagnation not collapse. Which opens up the much bigger question of not why the Ottomans 'declined' but why they failed to keep up with with Europe.
Thats actually a very good point.


Some key factors in this would be the overwhelming political absolutism (and instability), increasing defence burden, decay in provincial administration and repeated military failures. Or to sum up: not being in that relatively small corner of the world (ie Western Europe) that ultimately developed capitalism.
The thing is, I am trying to get down to more micro stuff rather than political aspects. What happens with the production relations, handling of productive forces and why capitalism had not came out despite the existance of conditions such as massive trade networks, large markets with big populations, sophisticated manufacturing with specialization...etc

[ComradeOm]

The thing is, I am trying to get down to more micro stuff rather than political aspects. What happens with the production relations, handling of productive forces and why capitalism had not came out despite the existance of conditions such as massive trade networks, large markets with big populations, sophisticated manufacturing with specialization...etcWhich will be a challenge given that there were few pre-modern societies in which the political structure was so stifling as the Ottoman Empire. The French Bourbons would have been green with envy at the scale of Ottoman autocracy. Instability at the top, inability to transition from earlier political-military forms and the increasing weakness of provincial government, etc, all conspired to create an environment that was hostile to the emergence of capitalism.

Basically, in my view, the pre-modern Ottoman political superstructure suffocated the independent economic actors that capitalism's develop required. The rest was a feudal (for lack of better term) state that sponsored very limited manufactures but no broader encouragement for the development of the capitalist mode of production. Which, let's not forget, was the same in Asia as well. It was only where the pre-modern state was weakest (eg Europe) that capitalism took-off.

For what it's worth, Colin Imber's The Ottoman Empire goes into some more detail on the various weaknesses of the 17th C decline.

[Dodo]

But would you not say the French absolutism was quiet a strong state system as well? And we see a bottom-up dynamic of change there which has never reached the same scale in the case of Ottomans.

There indeed is an ensemble of relations but I am trying to fit into an historical materialist framework. So far, one of the best explanation imo comes from new institutional economics, mainly Timur Kuran and his dealing islamic inheritance laws as capital accumulation breakers, weak organizational forms, more individualist rather than private corporations and finally the waqf concept that drains the capital as an area of investment. Charity rather than capital accumulating activities, lack of an institutional framework for capitalism.

Additionally, I feel close to Brenner-E.M Wood(both marxists) who says capitalism is a unique product of Britain and as it expanded its internalization in different societies happened differently. So in a sense, the class relations in Ottoman empire and the way land tenure was did not give birth to capitalism. Because there was no exodus of workforce that converted them into wage-laborers. Though this becames tricky with Ottomans since there was a large market and landless peasantry as well as a form of "enclosure".
Its really tricky.
Thanks for the input though.

[Redistribute the Rep]

Hmm I don't know how to look at it from a historical materialist perspective but I do remember from my AP World History class that they lost their monopoly on the spice trade when Portugal found alternative routes to Asia, and they suffered inflation along with the rest of Europe in the 16th century due to the huge influx of silver the Spanish Empire produced as well as the massive population increase.

[ComradeOm]

But would you not say the French absolutism was quiet a strong state system as well? And we see a bottom-up dynamic of change there which has never reached the same scale in the case of Ottomans.Ah, but that's the thing. French absolutism (which was always more aspirational than fact) was never as, well, absolute as Byzantine/Ottoman autocracy. Obviously the latter can be overstated (there were informal checks on the Sultan's power) but there was no real place in the Ottoman Empire for estates, a nobility, bourgeois privileges, parlements, etc, etc. that which did exist was largely a local bureaucracy tasked with funding the Sultan's armies. (Simplifying massively here of course.)

In contrast, Europe had been effectively without effective central state authority for centuries with the result that there was plenty of 'space' for proto-capitalist institutions (most obviously cities as independent economic centres) to grow and develop in. By the time the Sun King was reaching new heights of monarchical grandeur, the roots of capitalism (particularly its commercial tools and bourgeois institutions) were already centuries old.

Which isn't to say that there's not a multitude of factors that influenced the development of capitalism (and there's certainly some specifically Islamic ones) but for me that ability to develop without interference from above (ie the state) was key. I look at the contrast between north Italy (independent city states) and south Italy (an overbearing monarchy that discouraged urban independence) as a great contrast.

(It's worth noting that this 'state non-interference' has nothing to do with markets or other 'free hand' nonsense. Rather, states are generally pretty good at channelling revenue to where they need it. For example, the Ottoman economy really existed to serve the Ottoman army. It's when this dynamic broke down that money could flow elsewhere - into the capitalists and their enterprises.)

[Dodo]

Thats a fair point then. I have mostly read the classical period 1300-1600 of Ottoman economic history but as pave my way up to 19th century I realize that during the period Ottoman decentralization there was actually a lot of capital accumulating "elites" which were not identical to aristocracy in the European sense.
First there was the system of iltizam, then there was a great deal of peasant flights from land which led to landowners "enclosing" a lot of areas and creating large-farms.
Since 1795(or 65 forgot) they swtich to Mâlikane system which pretty much corresponds to European styled landlords.

I have to read details of how these worked though. I know local leaders turned the areas they ruled into hereditary land. But at the more micro level how production was handled I am not so sure.
Ottoman Empire turned out to be more complicated than I have ever thought.

[Sinister Cultural Marxist]

Perhaps another important question is why they failed to industrialize in the late 1800s to any serious extent, especially when other states with extreme centralization, feudal agrarian economies and little modernization like Russia and Japan managed to do so. The fact that this was integral to their inability to counter British, French and Russian territorial ambitions or to survive WWI shows that it was decidedly not in the long-term interests of the Ottoman elite. It also led to instability as those who were aware of the weakness of the Ottoman state like the Young Turks or the rulers of Egypt ended up coming to challenge the Sultanate.

[barbelo]

Discovery of the New World by Portugal and Spain: Ottomans lost the monopoly on the trade goods coming from Asia, the Mediterranean became more irrelevant, they had a massive currency devaluation from all the silver and gold brought from the Americas, etc.

[Dodo]

Perhaps another important question is why they failed to industrialize in the late 1800s to any serious extent, especially when other states with extreme centralization, feudal agrarian economies and little modernization like Russia and Japan managed to do so. The fact that this was integral to their inability to counter British, French and Russian territorial ambitions or to survive WWI shows that it was decidedly not in the long-term interests of the Ottoman elite. It also led to instability as those who were aware of the weakness of the Ottoman state like the Young Turks or the rulers of Egypt ended up coming to challenge the Sultanate.
There actually were significant attempts by the elitesfrom 1850s and onwards to industrialize. Most of the European works on economics were being discussed by the elite throughout the second half. Up to the very late 19th century the dominating paradigm had been liberalism, laissez faire and property and then in the latest period, with the increasing German influence idea of high tariffs, protectionism and state-led industrialization becomes dominating.

In the end it seems like they do not get what they desire. There are tons of reasons of course. One of them I think is the heavy dominance of western corporations and non-Muslims(really difficult perhaps to get into market) whereas Muslims had institutionally accepted their position in tradtional manufacturing styles. This would also explain the harsh treatment of minorities later on by the military-bourgeouisie elite, as in breaking the competition by force.
I have to do more reading on late empire econonmy though.

[ComradeOm]

Perhaps another important question is why they failed to industrialize in the late 1800s to any serious extent, especially when other states with extreme centralization, feudal agrarian economies and little modernization like Russia and Japan managed to do soAt a very high-level I'd suggest a few reasons:


Industrialisation is difficult. Extremely difficult. Of the three empires that you mentioned, only one (Japan) successfully made the transition to an industrial society intact (and that came despite the jarring experience of WWII). Fewer than a dozen countries have independently made the leap to industrial society in the decades since then. I won't go into the reasons why but safe to say that industrialising is not easy.


The Ottoman absolutism began to decay at exactly the wrong time. The degeneration of the bureaucracy, tax farming and local governors (I suspect with weakening intra-empire ties) served as centrifugal forces. The result was the emergence of a series of regional caudillos (most obviously Muhammad Ali in Egypt) who eroded the Empire's central authority.


Ethnic diversity. The shift to modernity opened up a whole series of faultlines in the Empire. This was organised first and foremost on religious lines - being effectively a collection of religious communities. Responsibility for the various religious minorities was essentially farmed out to the relevant religious heads, who served as proxies for the Ottoman state. The 19th C import of Enlightenment ideas (particularly following the French Revolution) completely cut the ground out from under this model. Within the space of a decade or two the authority of the Patriarch of Constantinople collapsed as 'national' churches emerged, based on ethnic backgrounds. Modernity, which was heavily based on the nation-state, was poison to a trans-national religious empire.

Neither Japan nor Russia had to contend with this key factor. Japan for obvious reasons, Russia because the position of the Great Russian population, on which Tsarist autocracy rested, was unassailable.


Finally, there is foreign intervention. For all its woes the Ottoman Empire was a remarkably robust institution that continually disappointed those observers predicting its collapse. It was on the decline, yes, but it took active foreign intervention to both trigger the loss of the Balkans and ultimately the empire itself. In that regard one of the reasons for the failure to industrialise was that it failed to industrialise fast enough.

[MarcusJuniusBrutus]

You first need to ask whether or not the Ottoman Empire declined. While it lost territory during the 19th c., it is not clear at all that the empire itself was in decline. Rather, this appears to be an orientalist construct imposed by western historians like Bernard Lewis. It appears that few if anyone who participated in CUP overthrow of the Sultan had any real idea that the empire would soon end. It was not until the British invaded the Levant during the war that its demise became inevitable.

To degree that the empire was weakened, look to foreign infiltration as a significant cause. Agitation of Christian communities within the empire by Euro-American missionaries and by Russian agents started in the 19th c. and was a constant source of irritation to the Sultanate. While most of their efforts at creating a fifth column within the empire came to naught, the foreign presence did cause state actors and Muslims generally to view Ottoman Christians as a Saidian other. That feeling was one of the causes of ethnic mass violence during and after the war. Economic imperialism also chipped away at Ottoman sovereignty. The British used foreign debt as a pretext to annex Egypt, which had been semi-autonomous since the time of Muhammed 'Ali in the first half of the 19th c. Add to that the fact that the blue water empires of Britain and France had long since shifted the economic focus of Europe (of which the OE was part) from the Mediterranean to the Atlantic, effectively cutting out the Ottomans.

[MarcusJuniusBrutus]

Which will be a challenge given that there were few pre-modern societies in which the political structure was so stifling as the Ottoman Empire.

Um, no, this is orientalist nonsense and is in fact a better description for the Byzantine government that the Ottomans replaced. Early modern OE was no worse off and in some ways a lot better off than its Western European counterparts. Ottoman governance was problematic, but no more so than say Tudor England. The Ottomans relied heavily on local control and on customary law. It was not feasible for the central authority to rule or micromanage local communities by force, so they did not. Like all late medieval/early modern empires and kingdoms, rulers relied on a great network of personal and familial connections to held it all together. History is always contingent and never inevitable. It was never inevitable that the OE had to industrialize or modernize, which is inevitably defined by Euro-centric standards. There was corruption, of course, but there was corruption all over the Mediterranean world. Much of the idea that the Ottomans were in a decline comes from genre literature of Ottoman administrators who wistfully described the imaginary ideal of a strong-man Sultan who ruled personally and decisively. In fact, the Sultans left day-to-day management their Grand Viziers--rather like prime ministers--and the nominally servile members of the imperial household, specifically the women who managed the harem.

When the state decided it had to modernize--again whatever that might mean--it did so out of fear of encroaching foreign influences and the superiority of Russian, British, and French military equipment and training. It also needed new schools to compete with orientalist missionary schools from foreign empires, including the USA. The Tanzimat was an effort to reform the empire along western lines and it met with mixed results.

[ComradeOm]

Rather, this appears to be an orientalist construct imposed by western historians like Bernard LewisAnd the many Ottoman officials and writers who produced increasing numbers of nasîhatnâme texts bemoaning the Empire's decay. I suppose that they were "Orientalist" as well? I'll come onto them in a minute but whatever about the absolute nature of the Empire's decline (which it unquestionably was in the 17th C and 19th C it was) but it was certainly relative.


Um, no, this is orientalist nonsense and is in fact a better description for the Byzantine government that the Ottomans replaced. Early modern OE was no worse off and in some ways a lot better off than its Western European counterparts. Ottoman governance was problematic, but no more so than say Tudor England. The Ottomans relied heavily on local control and on customary law. It was not feasible for the central authority to rule or micromanage local communities by force, so they did not. Like all late medieval/early modern empires and kingdoms, rulers relied on a great network of personal and familial connections to held it all togetherYet, to return to my point, the Ottoman political structure, like the Byzantine one it succeeded, left little room for independent political or economic centres to emerge. Until the 17th C there was little room for local landowners or notables to act autonomously within the state - a luxury enjoyed by their Western counterparts for centuries.

That was to the advantage of the local peasantry, who were spared a parasitic nobility, but it doesn't make it any more amenable to the development of capitalism. There were, to borrow a phrase, few pores in state-led Ottoman economy in which capitalism could incubate.


Much of the idea that the Ottomans were in a decline comes from genre literature of Ottoman administrators who wistfully described the imaginary ideal of a strong-man Sultan who ruled personally and decisively. In fact, the Sultans left day-to-day management their Grand Viziers--rather like prime ministers--and the nominally servile members of the imperial household, specifically the women who managed the harem.The latter is not relevant, not entirely at least. The importance of nasîhatnâme was not the solutions that they prescribed (although it would be a mistake to simply dismiss their 'myth-figure' of the Prince) but that they were in response to observable problems within Ottoman society. Their "wistful" remedies were in response to real issues. Hence the relevance that they were written in increasing numbers from the 17th C onwards.

And so what if the shock that ultimately shook the Empire came from abroad? The Ottoman Empire was an expansionist military power that came into contact, and was ultimately bested by, other expansionist military powers. It was from its very inception in competition with Christian (in lieu of 'Western') powers and it was born of military campaigns that gave the Empire its vast territorial reach. Hence the Ottomans had to modernise, had to stay competitive with their rival powers. Just as they had once applied their technological edge to the art of war.

As an institution the Ottoman Empire was obviously a lot more robust than most gave it credit for. Maybe in glorious isolation it could have continued indefinitely. But if the Ottomans had never had contact with Europe (or Africa) then they never would have had an empire in the first place.

[Dodo]

There is a bunch of new literature that distinguishes significantly between political decline and socio-economic development. 17-18th centuries are generally viewed as beginnings of stagnation and loss of central authority which is followed by 19th century "almost colonization" situation.

From a political perspective, and given the early nationalist anti-imperialist literature these seem to miss a lot of aspects of Ottoman society.
Nowadays, new scholars argue that empire was very fragmanted and there were centres of development even long after the shift of trade to atlantic.

As Comradeom mentioned, a crucial problem seems to be dependence of almost ALL classes on state and the active policy of balance enforced by the regime. IMO, the only class that gained significant priviledges enough to enforce its will was the urban guilds which combined their power with janissaries and prevented shiteloads of things to change. This of course protected the conditions of urban masses but prevented rural world as well as merchants from making a transformatory change.
Nonetheless, there had been slow "penetrations" of the existing balance and the state was actively trying to adapt to conditions of modern world from 17th century and onwards.

I am working on a paper to make a connection from this to Turkey's role as a middle-men economy in the world at least until 1980s and wave of globalization which changed the capitalism's functioning quite a bit.

Ottomans were quiet adaptive and have actually absorbed a lot of the needs of "modernization" that was defined by west of the time, just under wrong conditions. Late Ottoman Empire and early Republic changed the conditions of industry and structural problems and re-threw Turkey into world economy. This I argue is the reason Turkey had been a semi-periphery economy.
It was never colonized nor became a central metropol because of the adaptive institutions and insistance of state as a soveregin regime which adapted to "modern" needs.

I really have to chop off things from this argument though as it feels to abstract.
I'd welcome anyone else's ideas as well.

I view 17-18th centuries as laying the basis for peripherilization, but Ottoman economy here still worked in its own dynamics. It was in the 19th century that things radically changed and economy became peripheralized. But at the same time, within the exact same century, roots of breaking peripheralization was also laid thanks to powerful state-bureucracy that modernized the country and carried it into modern-Turkey.
The changes in late Ottoman empire and early Turkey turned the tide of perihpheralization and placed Turkey as a semi-periphery when it re-integrated in 1950s which have significantly enjoyed the benefits of post-war growth.

[Leo]

Check this out (scroll down to the bottom): http://tr.internationalism.org/category/tags/osmanli-sol-kanat

In English: http://en.internationalism.org/internationalreview/2013/6411/february/left-wing-turkish-communist-party

[synthesis]

I haven't read this whole thread yet but how it was explained to me in a history class I took when I was trying to get my Master's was that the decline of the Ottoman Empire began with the landing of the Spanish at Hispaniola in 1492. Basically, the huge amount of gold plundered from the New World went to Europe and made its way east, where it caused outrageous inflation in the Ottoman territories, and it was that wealth that enabled Western Europe to begin to challenge the Ottomans militarily after centuries of failed Crusading.

[Dodo]

I haven't read this whole thread yet but how it was explained to me in a history class I took when I was trying to get my Master's was that the decline of the Ottoman Empire began with the landing of the Spanish at Hispaniola in 1492. Basically, the huge amount of gold plundered from the New World went to Europe and made its way east, where it caused outrageous inflation in the Ottoman territories, and it was that wealth that enabled Western Europe to begin to challenge the Ottomans militarily after centuries of failed Crusading.

Ottomans had a trade surplus with Europeans for a long time and a trade deficit with East(Iran&India) throughout these times. The price revolution in 16th century is viewed as a bad hit to Ottomans, even worse for them since they could not produce silver coins after a while and had to rely on western currency. This gave a powerfull edge to European merchants since now they could buy Ottoman goods for far cheaper.
It is however too far to say that this is a fundemental reason since Ottoman economy was self-sufficient and not relied on external trade for the centuries to follow.
It was rather more beneficial to west than it was damaging to Ottomans but research suggests that with this price rev, Ottoman manufactures indeed started to decline.