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Establishment Attitudes toward Futures Markets and Short Selling: The Source of the Pamphlets
In his history of the Dutch Golden Age, Schama (1987) discusses the forces that led to the successful development of the Dutch economy in the seventeenth century.7 He structures his description around a perceived tension in the ruling oligarchy between “speculation” and safe “investment.” The oligarchy and its magistrates sought a balance between “safe” and “unsafe” areas of economic activity, knowing that sustained economic well-being depended on secure enterprises while growth depended on a willingness to undertake risky new ventures. Safe areas of economic and financial activity were those regulated by public authorities such as the City Chamber of Marine Insurance, the Wisselbank, and the trade in commodities through the Baltic Sea, which the Dutch effectively monopolized. Riskier though still vital areas of economic activity were the more distant trades in the hands of the Dutch East India Company and the Dutch West India Company. The East India Company
