Some iron and a large copper deposit. Both were significant, but compared to what the other countries in the region had, pretty useless.
I think you are rather understating things. Only Norway is arguably better off in that regard than Sweden. Finland was Swedish and I'm not sure what resources Finland had.
Compared to Denmark? You must be joking. Sweden managed to *acquire* a good position, but that was the ends, not the means.
Sweden is close to Russia, the Baltic and Poland and has good trade routes to that area, while Denmark has good trade routes with the west.
The actions of Sweden, suggested a great deal of importance with the trade around that area, for instance Swedens expansion into the Baltic at one point.
You are simply wrong in this. Sweden did not have a large amount of wealth to be taxed: Indeed, taxes were usually higher than in most other places. For the simple reason that they had to be. And these taxes were collected using the heavily centralized swedish beaureaucracy, one of the more effective in Europe.
The king of Denmark, for instance, had, via the Sound Due, access to wealth that would dwarf anything the swedes could put out until the mid-1600's.
If Sweden was as poor as you say it was (which I very much doubt), then charging higher taxes via your centralised and efficiant taxation system is likely to harm the economy even more, expecially if it's being spent on guns and warships rather than re-invested into the economy. The sums don't add up.
From the standpoint of a dirt poor country, establishing an efficiant beurocracy with taxes that are higher than in wealthier countries, is likely to be the worst thing you can do.
Remember that Denmark and Sweden are not directly comparable. Denmark while it benefits from transit trade, is poor in the key raw materials or iron, copper and wood.
It gets those from Norway.
Now look where Norway is located, it is located on the West Side of Denmark, which means that whilst the traders can import to Denmark, if they are to go East, then they must pay the Sound Toll, and of course the distances are greater.
This adds to the price of Norweigian (and thus Danish) Iron and Wood and Oil.
Now let's take our Swedes, they can outdo the Norweigian trade in the Baltic and Russia, beacause of shorter distances involved and the lack of the Sound Due to pay.
Sweden and Norway (it's main competitor) and thus not starting off on an even footing. Sweden is actually in a better position than Norway. The Sound Due upon which the Danes got rich, actually ultimately created a perfect economic enviroment for Sweden's rise beacause it weakened Norways eastern trade prospects.
Mainly by virtue of not being worth the hassle. They were completely unable to exert any kind of power outside of Switzerland.
And why would they want to exert power outside of Switzerland? They were stable, happy and rich where they were. Why would they want to risk their lives to take over other places? Switzerland was not crippled, just sane.
Not neccessarily. Because in a decentralized state you might have to hold conferences and local assemblies, rather than just sending orders.
However by having such conferences and assemblies, you have to consider in more detail your decisions and alternatives courses of actions are aired. The danger of just "giving orders" is that people are often closeminded and do not consider alternatives, or even know them.
Secondly, local rulers, councils or whatever, usually have a greater understanding of local problems, that one man that often lives 100s of miles away, only recieving information through several layers of beurocrats.
And in a decentralized system there is no one to police the local notables.
On the local level things could quickly develop into mafia-type situations.
This is actually more likely to happen in a centralised system, in areas where goverment control is weak.
A de-centralised system, as long as you make sure that the whole nation is covered and there aren't two many large 'cracks', where no-one officially holds power.
A local chief, ruler, council or whatever usually has a far greater understanding of affairs in the local area. Corruption and Crime are themselves local problems for the most part.
Good bi-Lateral communications are needed, the worst situation you can get into with such a situation, is where relations between regions get so poor than corrupt elements can escape justice in one just by running into another area.
Assuming that they are not simply trying to enrich themselves. I fear you are vastly overestimating the dedication to the common good for the average 17th century nobleman.
Correct. However a centralised state goverment would hardely be any more devoted to the 'common good' than a de-centralised one.
However in a de-centralised system, the looting grounds for each individual are so much smaller, if they kill their area, then this will harm their prospects for self-enrichment, while a kleptocratic central goverment, has far more to steal. Thus if they are to enrich themselves, they must ensure the strength of their small area, beacause by so doing they can ensure a reliable source of income for themselves. The problem is that this can in some cases lead to active support of piracy and crime directed at other areas, beacause they seek to enrich their small area and thus themselves at the expense of the others.
Actually for the most part trying to empower themselves, is more a concern of nobles than enriching themselves, since for the most part they are already rich. Thus there is a drive towards centralisation on the part of the higher ranks, eventually all the way up to the King.
While Sweden did have an advantage in the large forests (which, btw. were heavily protected by the state, for exactly the reasons you mentioned: IE: They would have been useless without the centralized state anyway....) the iron-produce was probably less important: The 17th century simply isn't the 19th, and while iron (and copper) where crucial products they could always be imported.
So the guns and ships and pots and pans and ploughs and whatever are made of thin air? I don't think so. The demand for iron and copper, wasn't invented in the 19th century.
You've got the idea though. Sweden was the exporter of those things, not the importer. The Danish Sound Toll would have created a nice little advantage over Norway which I mentioned above, creating a whole market.
As a result it is cheaper for them to produce armies and ships, than for the others who need to import those things, increasing the cost.
And this means less tax-paying citizens, less money, which means a smaller army....
However, for reasons mentioned above, armies would be cheaper for Sweden than for other nations, save perhaps Denmark, which explains why Denmark was such a deadly enemy for Sweden.
In general the problem is not raising manpower but arming it and supporting it with ammunition and supplies.
The problem is that if you give the local governors too much power they have a tendency to stop listening to the demands for gold and troops, having better (in their mind) uses for them.
Well, unless you are really, really de-centralised you can then threaten to depose them if they don't cough up. If you are working on a 'fuedal understanding', the vassals 'buy' their autonomy by paying their tribute.
If you are dealing with a state so de-centralised that things don't work that way, then really you are in a Swiss type confederation.
In that case, it a question of what you are using to gold and the troops for. If that is the case they probably aren't prepared to cough up troops or gold for the purposes of fighting some war of mindless agression you've just dreamt up.
Hence explaining why Switzerland has been so peaceful and isolationist, for it's entire history. Nobody has ever managed to convince the cantons to give up gold or troops for some war that doesn't concern them in any way.
Of course the Cantons have faught eachother a fair deal, so I don't think a World Switzerland would really bring world peace
.
Sweden did not import grain in significant quantities at this time. The really significant import was salt.
Okay, that makes sense.
Of course, that makes sense beacause the main rival of Sweden is Norway,
Okay. Now it's official: You have no idea what you are talking about.
LOL, I mean that the same resources that Sweden produces, are also produced in Norway, so Norway (and thus Denmark) would be economically a trade rival to Sweden.
Denmark/Norway were unified, so in effect Norway really means Denmark.
Until the 18th century Norway produced negliglible amounts of income for the danish Crown (mostly from fisheries) taxes on the danes themselves and of course the Sound Due were the main sources of income.
Correct, but this is not the Danish Crown we are talking about here. We are talking about the production of Iron, Copper, Wood, Oil, Fish etc, goods which Sweden itself produces.
Also, Denmark is provided with those resources by Norway, even if the Crown doesn't get a great deal of income, indirectly this means that Norway does fund them, beacause this stops them from having to buy the resources from Sweden or further afield.
It's a relatively short boat trip from Norway to Denmark, meaning that it's fairly cheap to import the goods from Norway. Which reduces the price of the goods, meaning that the price of weapons and ships goes down, which actually funds the goverment.
He touched both (interestingly, while Gustav was very much an economic interventionist he was not a mercantilist per se, his objective was to secure stores of resources that could be consumed in times of need, which meant he stimulated import and tried to prevent exports, in many ways he was an anti-mercantilist)
Not really, the whole thing looks like ultimate mercantalists dream. Reducing exports, has the neat effect of increasing price, which assuming Sweden has a captured market, means that they can earn just as much from doing less work.
This frees up more of the population to do other things than mine iron ore and cut down trees, which creates a more varied economy and more importantly for Gustav, to serve in the army.
The kind of goods Sweden produces, are militerily very useful, so all in all the combination of the factors is mercantalism for the purposes of not only economic but militery strength.
Lastly, by reducing exports while still making more money (beacause again the cost of shipping all those resources costs money) thus actually making Sweden richer, Sweden also makes everyone elses armies and fleets more expensive, which again magnifies Swedens militery advantage.
All in all, a very clever mercantalist strategy to ensure both wealth and militery strength for Sweden.
