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Titre Concurrence et collaboration dans le monde du livre vénitien, 1469-début du XVIe siècle
Auteur Catherine Kikuchi
Mir@bel Revue Annales. Histoire, Sciences Sociales
Numéro vol. 73, no 1, janvier-mars 2018 Micro-analyse et histoire globale - Travail et société
Rubrique / Thématique
Travail et société
Page 185-212
Résumé anglais The early history of printing in Europe is one of great economic and commercial success, but also of significant risks taken by those involved. The supply of paper, essential to the functioning of a press, could cause conflicts and required constantly available capital: the profitability of the book industry depended on the growth of the market. In Venice, anyone could set up as a printer, creating competition that was strongly criticized by printers and booksellers in the late fifteenth and early sixteenth century. This prompted them to formulate the economic risks they faced in supplica addressed to the Venetian authorities, and to conceptualize the realities of their situation, especially in terms of competition. This word, always used in a pejorative sense, is nevertheless rare in both theoretical and practical documents of the time. However competitive this economic milieu was, it was counterbalanced by the necessity of collaboration, a phenomenon that can be studied through Social Network Analysis. Trust was restored through the constitution of dense collaborative networks, in which competitors became partners. Yet this also enabled some actors to establish strong consortia, leading to the kind of oligopolistic economy typical of industries without state regulation.
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