A Rent SeekersÆ Paradise, or Why There Was No Revolution in Fifteenth- to Eighteenth-Century Nuremberg

Sibylle Lehmann-Hasemeyer

Homo Oeconomicus, 2004, vol. 21, 41-58

Abstract: This paper, which concerns the political economy of late medieval and early modern Nuremberg, is motivated by discontent with the dominant explanation of the cityÆs outstanding economic position at that time, which stresses the importance of the wisdom and goodwill of the ruling oligarchy. This traditional explanation seems to be supported by the fact that the political situation in Nuremberg was exceptionally stable, the rule of the mercantile council being accepted by the members of other social groups. Lehmann analyses two hypotheses: The first is that the policy pursued by the council was consistently designed in the interest of the ruling merchant oligarchy, the decisive points being the preservation of power and the capturing of rents. Her second hypothesis is that social groups like the craftsmen disadvantaged by this policy did not try to change NurembergÆs distribution of power because of the experiences thy had made in 1348, when a coup which they had attempted had failed. Assuming that the council would be able to put down any further attempts, too, it would be more profitable for the craftsmen to accept the given political situation.

Date: 2004
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

There are no downloads for this item, see the EconPapers FAQ for hints about obtaining it.

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:hom:homoec:v:21:y:2004:p:41-58

Access Statistics for this article

More articles in Homo Oeconomicus from Institute of SocioEconomics Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by ().