Book contents
- Frontmatter
- CONTENTS
- Acknowledgements
- List of Figures and Tables
- Introduction
- 1 Models for Trade and Globalization
- 2 A Short History of the Diamond Trade
- 3 A Cross-Cultural Diamond Trade Network
- 4 Competition from an Ashkenazi Kinship Network
- 5 The Embeddedness of Merchants in State and Society
- 6 Trade, Global History and Human Agency
- Conclusion
- Notes
- Works Cited
- Index
4 - Competition from an Ashkenazi Kinship Network
- Frontmatter
- CONTENTS
- Acknowledgements
- List of Figures and Tables
- Introduction
- 1 Models for Trade and Globalization
- 2 A Short History of the Diamond Trade
- 3 A Cross-Cultural Diamond Trade Network
- 4 Competition from an Ashkenazi Kinship Network
- 5 The Embeddedness of Merchants in State and Society
- 6 Trade, Global History and Human Agency
- Conclusion
- Notes
- Works Cited
- Index
Summary
The previous chapter introduced a cross-cultural diamond trade network. The merchants who were active in this circuit had chosen to do business together and to that purpose they created privileged relationships with each other. They shared a certain intimacy in commerce and expected a certain level of loyalty from one another. High competition was one of the reasons why long-lasting informal structures were set up between traders, to avoid dealing with different faces for every transaction. It was Dormer who had tried to align himself ever more closely with Salvador in the hope that his commercial circle could gain from Salvador's involvement in the Brazilian monopoly. They were aware of competitive organizations that were active in the diamond trade.
In the course of the eighteenth century, Ashkenazi merchants started to form a serious commercial threat to established diamond merchants. They often relied on kinship networks and it is commonplace to say that the Ashkenazim were a more closed religious community than the Sephardim, who had come to London and Amsterdam earlier. Dormer was involved in a regular correspondence with a number of Ashkenazi firms, with whom he traded in diamonds, bullion and bills of exchange. Although he felt a certain loyalty towards the Salvador firm and others, he also looked out for his own self-interest.
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- Global Trade and Commercial NetworksEighteenth-Century Diamond Merchants, pp. 95 - 122Publisher: Pickering & ChattoFirst published in: 2014