Week 2 Blog: Pedro Navarro

When I think of France, fine cheese, historic wines, and nice people come to mind. A good friend on mine recently visited Paris and according to him, embracing the luxurious stereotype was easy. Yes, luxury in Paris still remains, and this can be credited to two people, King Louis XIV and minister of finance, Jean- Baptiste Colbert. Together, they created the first economy driven by fashion and taste (DeJean, 7). Louis XIV wanted France to convey an elegant and tasteful image, and in doing so, he pushed France onto modernity. Colbert, in a way, was Louis XIV right hand man. Colbert believed that nothing would advance sales as much as a rigid enforcement of codes and regulations (Usher, 239), that of which every section of the industrial field was subjected to (Usher, 240). That said, France remade itself by selling their people an image, an image of luxury that the King seemed to be obsessed over. Quality at any cost, appears to have been the King’s motto. According to Whiteman however, Controller General Calonne was convinced that the fiscal and economic structures of the Old Regime hurt France’s economic progress (173). The high cost of internal commerce made the competitiveness of French exports difficult (Whiteman, 175). Perhaps lowering the cost of internal commerce would have made such competitiveness less difficult, and therefore, maybe achieve maximum national aesthetic status.

As discussed in class, France sold people things they didn’t need, but that people wanted, and they wanted it so bad, that it would essentially become a need. I guess I am a good example of this. I buy expensive stuff that I don’t need, even if it means jeopardizing being able to pay my bills at the end of the month. Would a fashion and taste driven economy, similar to King Louis XIV France, be possible within a capitalism structure?  

Image: http://forum.alexanderpalace.org/index.php?topic=3985.75

Usher, A. P. “Colbert and Governmental Control of Industry in Seventeenth Century France”. The Review of Economics and Statistics 16.11 (1934): 237–240. Web. 08 Jan. 2016.

Whiteman, J.J. “Trade and the Regeneration of France, 1789-91: Liberalism, Protectionism and the Commercial Policy of the National Constituent Assembly”. European History Quarterly 31. 2. (2001): 171- 204. Web. 08 Jan. 2016.