Watching the Connections series, I had forgotten the dutch "imperialism" was a business affair, where various small traders banded together to form the Dutch East India Company... huge project, no state involvement., although in time the Dutch govt did get involved... It is analogous to various small businesses getting together and saying "let's cooperate on moon exploration" in 1955. We do not need govts to handle large projects, a oft-cited raison d'etre for govts.
Another point is how trading with the far east led to massive knocking off of superior products with cheap imitations. Except 200 years ago it was cheap Dutch, French and English knocking off superior Chinese workmanship and technology. Famous examples of this of course are Holland ripping of Chinese blue ceramics, the french ripping-off Chinese lacquerware furniture...and making cheap jacquard silk to compete with hand embroiedery from China..... if it were not for western willingness to rip-off Chinese ideas, there would be much in the way of luxury goods we would not have.
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