(^398) THE WEALTH AND POVERTY OF NATIONS
the fateful events of all time, one that changed history in ways that are
still being worked out five hundred years later. Witness the fighting and
the outrages of so-called ethnic cleansing in today's Bosnia.
The Ottoman empire was a typical despotism, only more warlike.
The rulers took the surplus, though at first they apparentiy squeezed
the masses less, or less effectively, than in Moghul India.* Perhaps this
was because the Ottomans were too busy fighting. Every year brought
its campaign, its forays into neighboring areas. So long as these incur
sions paid off, one could keep the rayas, the human catde, on a loose
leash. Besides, the Turks were eager to encourage commercial and in
dustrial enterprise by minority communities—Christians (Greeks and
Armenians, but also an increasing number of Levantines) and Jews. In
effect they built their society on an ethnic division of labor, a sign of
their own distaste for and superiority to trade and crafts. This seg
mentation opened enterprise to a few, but impeded its extension. In
despotisms, it is dangerous to be rich without power. So in Turkey:
capital accumulation proved an attractive nuisance. It aroused cupid
ity and invited seizure.
Over time, the size of the Ottoman empire grew to cover all the
Muslim Middle East (including Syria and Iraq), all of North Africa
(including Egypt, Tunis, and Algiers), and a large chunk of southeast
Europe plus lands around the Black Sea. This congeries of oppor
tunistic acquisitions could not be administered uniformly. Some closely
governed pieces paid taxes; others were bound by ties of fealty and paid
tribute. Others went in and out of Ottoman control with the fortunes
of war and diplomacy. Sovereignty was often suzerainty, and power
was as much virtual as real; that is, the Ottoman court ruled as much
by what it could and might do if challenged, as by what it did.
In the beginning, such bonds could be strong; the Ottoman empire
had a number of able leaders. In the long run, however, autocracies,
like all hereditary monarchies only more so, suffer from two intrinsic
weaknesses: the accidents of heredity and the problem of succession;
and the two are connected. The first shortcoming is unavoidable: even
a brilliant family will regress to the mean, and ordinary families will os-
- Not everyone would agree with this comparison. Eric Jones, European Miracle, for
example, thinks Moghul India was easier, largely on the basis of population (survival)
records. But these are incomplete, and it may well be that Ottoman subjects were less
docile and squeezable. In any event, it is not easy to distinguish between oppressions.
I think the Moghuls were worse; it may well have been the Ottomans.