De Pruikentijd

Throughout the history of the early Netherlands the state has been run by and for Merchant capitalists. The mayors of the cities, the heads of the East India Company and other state companies have all themselves had a background as merchants and would have had both contact and knowledge of the world of trade that would help them make economically beneficial decisions.\nThis is, however, increasingly often not the case. The issuing of state bonds to finance government enterprises has served our country well through the years but a side effect has been that there is now a whole generation of rich and influential rentiers who have little to no practical experience of trade. Critics feel that these Wig-wearers lack ambitions beyond achieving cushy government offices and that their carefulness is in fact passivity. Whether this is true or not we have come a long way from the Merchant Capitalists that used to shape the future of our state.