And so will it be for Amsterdam.
The short version is summed up well by wikipedia, in its entry on the VOC - the Dutch East India Company:
It was the first multinational corporation in the world and the first company to issue stock. It was also arguably the world's first megacorporation, possessing quasi-governmental powers, including the ability to wage war, negotiate treaties, coin money, and establish colonies.
The Dutch East India Company remained an important trading concern for almost two centuries, paying an 18% annual dividend for almost 200 years. In its declining years in the late 18th century it was referred to as Vergaan Onder Corruptie (referring to the acronym VOC) which translates as 'Perished By Corruption'. The VOC became bankrupt and was formally dissolved in 1800...
I'd just like to highlight one bit of math in that note: an 18% dividend for 200 years. This is the sort of investment modern traders find in their wet dreams, and makes out modern Berkshire-Hathaway look puny by comparison. If you saved half your earnings at the age of 18 and invested them in the VOC for that one year, you could retire on your 31st birthday. You could live off the interest, and never work another day in your life while still claiming the same salary. That's the sort of wealth the VOC plundered from the East, and that's what built Amsterdam into the beautiful old city it is today.
It's also why when we think of the dutch, our memories are frozen in the 1700s, the time of windmills and wooden shoes, though it was also a time of daring traders and calculating bankers. The modern Amsterdam is as heavily marked by the flower children of the 60's and 70's. Here, the hippies won. And if you've been living under a rock, let me let you in on something: Marijuana is legal here. Psychadelic mushrooms are legal here. And then there is Amsterdam's world famous Red Light District.
Actually, that one may have had its start in the days of the VOC. Sailors are legendary for their needs, and it's a long, lonely sail back from India by wind power.
Dear fundamentalists of assorted religions: Amsterdam is getting along just fine. People still go to work, engineer complicated waterworks, and other objects of beauty. Amsterdam has not fallen into the sea. On the contrary, the Dutch have reclaimed land from the depths and are building out into what was ocean before.
If an angry deity of your choosing is planning on punishing the Dutch, he's demonstrating patience and tolerance first. How very Dutch of him.
In its modern form, Amsterdam is a city of canals and bicycles. It's a relaxed town - boring by the standards of locals, even. One of them asked me why anyone would come here who didn't smoke up. The answer is easy for me: This is a town that is sensible, logical, and yet laid back. It's Berlin, without the frenetic energy. It's Venice, without the corruption and filth. I like it here. Who wouldn't?
