Silver mining monopolies and money relations in the ‘Asian age of the world economy’

Abstract

The paper argues that Western silver mining monopolies emerged in the Western world in tandem with the Asian age of the world economy. The flow of silver bullion from Western Europe to Asian markets and especially China, was the ‘sustained breadth’ or the macroeconomic condition that mining needed to trigger bundles of money relations at the local and regional levels in dialectical response to such condition. The paper presents a general discussion of two exemplary cases of silver mining monopolies that confirm this argument. In the first case, a local mining corporation in Trent unleashed money relations that expanded both monopoly power over the mines of the city along with monetary relations. The second case, the colonial mining monopolies of Spanish America, shows how money and debt relations increased the speed of mining along with Western European bullion demand in this period. The paper argues that the relation between mining monopolies and money in world history perspective is an urgent line of inquiry to historians and social scientists interested in understanding the centuries-old, dynamic nexus between mining and capital.