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128 Competition Between Different Forms of Capitalism Politics and Economy Come Closer Between the end of the seventeenth century and the mid–eighteenth century , the mamluks became more involved in the economy, attempting with variable degrees of success to have a say or to penetrate and at times to control trade and production. Some of them created capitalist networks linking agricultural production, transport, and trade—networks that could sometimes encroach on the artisan entrepreneurs’ activities. The relationship between the linseed oil pressers’ guild and the power structure illustrates the extent and the limits of this control and at the same time the restrictions that this situation created for artisan capitalism as the capitalist networks of the Mamluk ruling class was being formed. In the seventeenth century, the Ibn Uthman family, who had been the heads of leather makers’ guild (taifa al-jalladin) for a few generations, played a prominent role both in collecting hides from the multazims of slaughterhouses or from butchers. One of them, Hasan Ibn Uthman, was in 1093/1682 dealing not only in Cairo, but in other towns in Egypt, making major purchases from these multazims . At one time, the multazim of the Fayum slaughterhouse paid the Treasury for the price of his iltizam with money borrowed from Ibn Uthman. In return for this money, Ibn Uthman was to get the hides from the slaughterhouses at beneficial conditions. Such deals placed him at an advantage in relation to his fellow guildsmen and in relation to his trade. By the mid–eighteenth century, these conditions had changed. The chronicler Ahmad al-Damurdashi notes that in 1166/1752 Emir Ibrahim Katkhuda Mustahfazan al-Qazdughli, who, next to Emir Radwan Katkhuda Azaban Competition Between Different Forms of Capitalism | 129 al-Jalfi, was the most powerful mamluk at the time, ordered that all the hides of beasts slaughtered during feast days all over Egypt had to be sold in one particular wikala. Powerful people such as Emir Ibrahim Katkhuda were in fact implicitly pushing smaller dealers out of the market. His agents set the price for the purchase of the hides below market price. After the hides had been collected, Ibrahim Katkhuda sold them to European merchants.1 The chronicler makes no mention of those whom Ibrahim Katkhuda displaced when he put his hands on the leather business, the small entrepreneurs who had handled a portion of this activity. Leather and hides were key products, produced in very large quantities, and, like sugar and textiles, very much in demand in the export markets.2 It was consequently at the source of the wealth of those involved in the trade. These events illustrate, first, the competition between unequal partners over important resources—a small entrepreneur and a member of the power structure —and the eventual transfer of some of this important trade from a family of tradesmen, the Ibn Uthmans, to Emir Ibrahim Katkhuda al-Qazdughli. Through his agents, the emir could establish his control over the trade. Ibn Uthman was probably one of many such entrepreneurs whose activity was seriously curtailed as the capitalist networks of highly placed mamluks were extended and consolidated. The seventeenth-century court records often have references to the numerous transactions of various members of the Ibn Uthman family, but they are not frequently mentioned subsequently, although they may have stayed in the trade if they were able to maintain a small sector of it for themselves. Second, the example demonstrates this emir’s use of both trade and coercion to establish himself and his network; it illustrates the breadth of this network, which extended to Alexandria, Rashid, Dumyat, and Mahalla in Lower Egypt as well as to Minya, Asyut, and Manfalut in Upper Egypt. Third, it shows how Ibrahim Katkhuda’s revenues were from both taxation and trade. The ultimate goal was to sell the hides to European merchants, which he did with no delay. In doing so, he established a network between the sales in the export market and the sources of the hides in different parts of the country. Finally, this example also illustrates the weak point of the system—namely, the transitory nature of the network. At the death of this emir, when power shifted to another household, this monopoly over hides also came to an end. What happened with the Ibn Uthman family is an example of a trend that was making itself felt among artisan entrepreneurs in the course of the eighteenth [18.118.120.204] Project MUSE (2024-04-26...

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