BEGIN:VCALENDAR
VERSION:2.0
PRODID:-//pretalx//pretalx.com//wha-annual-meeting-korea-2026//speaker//JAT
 PG3
BEGIN:VTIMEZONE
TZID:KST
BEGIN:STANDARD
DTSTART:20000101T000000
RRULE:FREQ=YEARLY;BYMONTH=1
TZNAME:KST
TZOFFSETFROM:+0900
TZOFFSETTO:+0900
END:STANDARD
END:VTIMEZONE
BEGIN:VEVENT
UID:pretalx-wha-annual-meeting-korea-2026-FML9TY@pretalx.com
DTSTART;TZID=KST:20260625T085000
DTEND;TZID=KST:20260625T091000
DESCRIPTION:This paper reconsiders the making of the modern global economy 
 by shifting analytical focus from production to intermediation. Rather tha
 n treating globalisation as an unmediated outcome of technological progres
 s or market integration\, it argues that global connections were historica
 lly structured through commissions\, logistics\, finance\, and communicati
 on infrastructures. From the fifteenth century to the early twentieth cent
 ury\, European expansion depended less on manufacturing capacity than on t
 he ability to organise circulation across vast distances.\nThe paper intro
 duces the concept of commission capitalism to capture this structural logi
 c. In the early modern period\, diasporic merchant communities—most nota
 bly Armenians in Eurasia and Sephardic Jews in the Atlantic—functioned a
 s mobile intermediaries (Homo mobilis)\, linking producers and consumers a
 cross political and cultural boundaries. Their activities demonstrate how 
 global connections could flourish even in the absence of territorial sover
 eignty. During the nineteenth century\, however\, these intermediary funct
 ions were progressively internalised by the British Empire. Through mariti
 me supremacy\, marine insurance\, financial clearing in London\, and above
  all the global telegraph network\, Britain transformed dispersed mercanti
 le intermediation into an imperial infrastructure.\nBy controlling shippin
 g routes\, insurance markets\, and information flows\, Britain extracted c
 ommissions from the global circulation of goods\, capital\, and knowledge
 —even as industrial leadership shifted to Germany and the United States.
  Globalisation\, therefore\, was not a neutral or borderless process\, but
  one mediated by imperial infrastructures that redistributed economic retu
 rns  asymmetrically. The paper situates nineteenth-century globalisation a
 s an infrastructural and informational order rather than a simple expansio
 n of trade.\nBy foregrounding intermediation and infrastructure\, this stu
 dy invites a rethinking of global history\, which places mobility\, commun
 ication\, and commissions at the centre of world economic transformation. 
 It invites a rethinking of global history that places mobility\, communica
 tion\, and commissions at the centre of world economic transformation.
DTSTAMP:20260412T123936Z
LOCATION:Room 208 (Seats 40)
SUMMARY:Commission Capitalism and Global Connections: Intermediation\, Infr
 astructure\, and the Making of the Modern World Economy - Toshiaki Tamaki
URL:https://pretalx.com/wha-annual-meeting-korea-2026/talk/FML9TY/
END:VEVENT
END:VCALENDAR