A Networking Society: Commercialization, Tax Farming, and Social Relations

Abstract

In this Empire of everlasting glory, which opens its portals to all Mankind…this empire is unwalled, its gates are open day and night, and anyone may freely enter and exit.…All who desire to purchase or trade are welcome. In the Ottoman Empire in the eighteenth century, two macrohistorical developments, commercialization and tax farming, opened the door to a series of new transactions that led to major social-structural changes. These changes included increased horizontal integration of the periphery with networks of new actors tied to one another, as well as to brokers vertically integrated into the state. Provincial notables emerged strongly out of these twin processes of macroeconomic change, and by the end of the eighteenth century, they had become significant political actors. Their political acumen was the result of their hard-earned financial success and the slow and sustained spread of their regional governance regimes. Throughout the eighteenth century, notables showed ingenuity at transforming social structures, forming networks of interaction, and connecting to other social groups – especially to central elites, merchants, and peasants – in order to protect their interests and their newly formed lifestyles. The notables were the key agents of Ottoman social transformation because they developed social and economic linkages across their territories, perhaps inadvertently reorganizing the basic skeleton of imperial control that had been based on segmentation and vertical integration. They actively participated in politics, either for or against the state.