[How About This Book] Middlemen, People and People... Connecting History and Civilization

Phoenicians Who Grew the Mediterranean
Developed Alphabet Characters for Trade
'Great Influence' on Today's Human Civilization

With the British Empire's Predecessor Technology Development
Alibaba and Amazon.com Were Born
Causing Today's IT Industry Wealth Gap

$251.4 billion (approximately 330 trillion won) and $200.6 billion (approximately 264 trillion won). These are the market capitalizations of the world's two largest e-commerce companies, Alibaba and Amazon.com, as of the 27th (local time). Alibaba's market capitalization is larger than the Gross Domestic Product (GDP) of New Zealand, as calculated by the International Monetary Fund (IMF) based on last year's data. With the advancement of the information technology (IT) industry, the value of these companies, which enabled transactions of goods by connecting people online, has rapidly increased in a short period.

According to "The World History of Merchants," written by Professor Doshiyaki Damaki of the Department of Economics at Kyoto Sangyo University, Alibaba and Amazon.com can be considered legacies of the British Empire. This is because the telegraph technology commercialized by the British Empire evolved over time, eventually giving birth to today's Alibaba and Amazon.com. "The World History of Merchants" highlights the middlemen who changed the course of human history. The telegraph was a crucial technology that transformed the history of middlemen.

Before the development of the telegraph, people, goods, information, and money moved together. Just as the ancient Greek soldier Pheidippides ran 42.195 km to announce Greece's victory in the war against Persia, before the telegraph was developed, the means of information transmission was the movement of people. However, after the telegraph was developed, money and information were separated from the movement of people and goods.

In 1837, British inventors William Cooke and Charles Wheatstone successfully commercialized the telegraph, and based on telegraph technology, Britain earned enormous commission income by providing information transmission and payment methods. Professor Damaki defines the British Empire as the architect of "commission capitalism." He evaluates the telegraph as the core of commission capitalism created by Britain and as a symbol of British capitalism. Thus, as telegraph technology evolved, "digital middlemen" like Alibaba and Amazon.com emerged today.

Professor Damaki defines middlemen as people who connect civilizations to civilizations and humans to humans. The history of middlemen begins with the dawn of civilization. Among the world's four great civilizations, the earliest was the Mesopotamian civilization. About 8,000 years ago in the Mesopotamian region, humanity began farming and pastoral life, and the first merchants appeared. The Mesopotamian civilization originated in the area of present-day Iraq, where natural resources were scarce and self-sufficiency was impossible, making middlemen essential for supplying necessary goods.

[How About This Book] Middlemen, People and People... Connecting History and Civilization

The Mediterranean has been the center of European trade since ancient times. The pioneers who developed the Mediterranean trade routes were the Phoenicians. Carthage, which dominated the Mediterranean before Rome and fought three Punic Wars with Rome for Mediterranean supremacy, was one of the colonial cities established by the Phoenicians. The original homeland of the Phoenicians was the area of present-day Lebanon. After losing the Lebanon region to Alexander the Great of Macedonia, the Phoenicians largely moved to Carthage and developed it into the central city of the Mediterranean.

The Phoenicians also created the prototype of the alphabet used today. To conduct trade, a writing system for record-keeping was necessary, and the Phoenicians developed characters that became the prototype of the alphabet. Professor Damaki explains that the widespread use of the alphabet today reflects the extensive range of Phoenician activities. The example of the alphabet is a clear demonstration of the impact middlemen have had on human civilization.

The main actors who mediated Silk Road trade and facilitated the exchange of Eastern and Western civilizations were the Sogdians of Iranian descent. The Sogdians introduced Zoroastrianism and Manichaeism to China and transmitted Chinese silk to the Eastern Roman Empire. Rome imported Chinese silk via the Silk Road from the 1st century, but after the establishment of the Sassanid Persian Empire, silk distribution was controlled. In response, Emperor Justinian I of the Eastern Roman Empire opened new trade routes through direct contact with the Sogdians. Armenians played a key role in spreading cotton textile manufacturing methods, which laid the foundation for the British Industrial Revolution, to Europeans. Armenians accumulated rich knowledge and experience related to cotton textile manufacturing through trade with India. Europeans learned dyeing industries from Armenians and established dyeing factories throughout Europe.

Professor Damaki also explains that modern tax havens are legacies of the British Empire. As mentioned earlier, Britain greatly increased commission income by utilizing the telegraph and built an empire on which the sun never set. Small islands among the colonies Britain established worldwide were used as smuggling bases. These small islands, once used as smuggling bases, have developed into today's tax havens. The Isle of Man near Britain, the Cayman Islands, and the Virgin Islands are representative examples.

Professor Damaki argues that tax havens today should be considered already established during the period when Britain prospered by building a commission capitalism system. While Britain was increasing commission income such as taxes, schemes to avoid taxes were also being developed. He pointed out that many of today's tax havens exploit their status as British Crown dependencies or overseas territories of the British Empire.

Furthermore, Professor Damaki defines tax havens as a joint product of the British Empire and IT technology. Generally, people do not pay much attention to the commission rates when trading on platforms like Amazon, allowing IT companies to earn enormous profits, which are also connected to tax havens. He concludes by pointing out that modern society is experiencing an increasing wealth gap due to middlemen in the IT industry.