Towards an Economic Interpretation of Justice? Conflict Settlement, Social Control and Civil Society in Urban Brabant and Mechelen During the Late Middle Ages and the Early Modern Period

Abstract

Jan Luiten van Zanden and Maarten Prak recently reduced the relation between citizens and states in some early modern states to an economic contract. In their opinion, citizens of capital intensive states were prepared to pay high taxes if the government offered them in exchange some useful public services. This economic transaction was favourable for both parties: it allowed the central government to levy taxes and to accumulate large amounts of money, while citizens got access to several public services which were supplied by central institutions. This arrangement lowered the transaction costs for both parties. The conclusions of van Zanden and Prak were not entirely new: other historians had already pointed out before that urban citizens received some advantages when they paid taxes. Indeed, urban citizenship provided access to craft guilds (economic power) and official functions (political rights). As well as this, burghers also enjoyed a privileged status in urban courts. However, van Zanden and Prak were the first to describe this package of rights and duties as an economic agreement between burgher and government. In their opinion, this exchange of rights and duties explains the success of relatively small states, such as the Dutch Republic. The governments of these countries could only establish a centralized state if their citizens were prepared to pay high taxes to pay for warfare and centralization.