EKIP– Expert Club for Economics and Politics A Different Opinion
The question in the title is too general and a bit misleading, because not all of us hate capitalism. For a large part of the people in Bulgaria, however, the market economy is a necessary evil, which they come to terms with, which they tolerate, but with gnashing of teeth. Some hate capitalism because of nostalgia for the good old days, others because they think that it is inherently bad, stimulating greed and antisocial instincts.
The present text is an attempt to discover some of the deep and persistent ideological roots of distrust and hatred of capitalism in Bulgaria. In the formation of emotions, literature has a much stronger influence than historical reality. The negative perception of capitalism, the critical attitude towards its main actors and mechanisms of functioning is strongly influenced by Aleko Konstantinov and his famous hero - the rose oil merchant Bai Ganyo. Therefore, we will check to what extent Aleko's idea of the rose oil trade is realistic and whether there is any basis for the contempt and ridicule of the capitalist entrepreneurs who practice it. On this basis, the question in the title can be answered.
What is visible at first glance
Aleko Konstantinov is subtle, likable and well-educated. He grows up isolated from Bulgarian reality. He becomes a tragic victim of the brutal political mores of the late 19th century because he is killed "by mistake" during an election campaign. The victim was supposed to be the successful lawyer and future minister Mihail Takev. Bai Ganyo is different and easy to mock and hate. He is persistent, rude, a bearer of vulgarity, greed, weak culture, patriotism, low moral and physical hygiene. Bai Ganyo is a capitalist-entrepreneur, exporter of rose oil, who in the first part of the book of the same name wanders around Europe and becomes a convenient target for ridicule. The Bulgarian capitalist runs after the train while the train is maneuvering, behaves clumsily in the bathroom, at the opera, etc. The stories told by Aleko are not many and are well known.
In short – Bai Ganyo has national specifics, but he is a capitalist pig. And Aleko Konstantinov, indeed comes from a fairly wealthy family, likes and admires modern and dynamic America, but he perceives those characteristics of capitalism that should cause concern and which are the basis of hatred for the market economy. In his famous travelogue “To Chicago and Back” Aleko writes: “Capital in America has reached its most extreme development and has strangled its parent – personal freedom”. The conclusion of a person who spent a short time in the USA, without knowing English, is controversial. From the point of view of Bulgarian distrust of capitalism, it is important that in the USA Aleko Konstantinov also meets the prototype of Bai Ganyo – Ganyo Somov, who was supposedly sent there by “a Constantinople Jew to sell tershe”. Tershe or tershe is obtained from geranium and is a cheap substitute for rose oil. It is a common practice to mix cheap tershe with expensive rose oil.
What is the Bulgarian capitalist-rose oil merchant like?
According to Aleko Konstantinov, the capitalist Bai Ganyo is arrogant, greedy and rude. He does not speak any foreign languages and brutally pursues his cronies, seeking to gain mostly through stinginess, lies and taking advantage of his compatriots abroad. All this is garnished with slight anti-Semitic hints on Aleko's part.
However, literary fiction seems difficult to reconcile with economic reality. Rose oil is a market-oriented product of the Bulgarian lands. Its export began at the beginning of the 19th century. The rose oil market is complex and delicate. Trade in the product brings profit, but only with good organization, availability of information about weather conditions, quantity and quality of production, knowledge of local specifics, trust between partners, compliance with obligations, limitation of risks, application of adequate accounting practices, etc. Before the Liberation from Turkish rule, rose oil was exported by French, German and other companies, but gradually successful Bulgarian companies appeared and established themselves. They are the bearers of modernization in Bulgarian society. The owners and part of the staff of these companies do not at all resemble Bai Ganyo. The Austro-Hungarian scholar Felix Kanitz describes his meeting with them in Kazanlak as follows: "I forgot for a moment that I was in the Orient. Most of the gentlemen knew Leipzig as well as Paris, spoke French as if they had been born there, and answered my questions on various subjects quite clearly."
At the beginning of the 20th century, Todor Shipkov, one of the major exporters of rose oil, noted that in Bulgaria, and in the Orient in general, there is a completely wrong idea of trade as mutual deception. In reality, according to him, the essence of commercial activity is completely different. At its foundation, again according to Shipkov, lies "absolute honesty." His words can be taken as self-aggrandizement, but it is a fact that honesty is an asset. Shipkov's trading house enjoys an extremely high reputation on international markets. The capital of honesty and mutual trust between the Bulgarian exporter of rose oil and his counterparties in Western Europe is so valuable that even when his partners are offered cheaper rose oil, they continue to buy from Shipkov because they believe that he sells them his goods without lying to them.
How is rose oil traded?
Aleko Konstantinov's character is presented as a small exporter. He carries the rose oil in his saddlebags, and sometimes he stuffs it in his belt for security. In Prague he tries to find random buyers for his goods or resorts to the mediation of Bulgarian merchants established in various European cities. Bai Ganyo hypocritically complains about foreign competitors who mix pure rose oil with cheap teresh and thus undermine the market for Bulgarian production.
The rose oil market does not function exactly as Aleko describes it. Large rose trading companies build a streamlined system for purchasing rose oil from small local producers and then exporting the finished product to Western Europe. There is a lack of sufficient information about small exporters like Bai Ganyo, who have minimal quantities of rose oil, have no established partners on foreign markets, carry their production stuffed in their belts or saddlebags and rely on casual sales by convincing potential customers of the advantages of their goods without even knowing the language of the country they are going to. In the 1890s, there were several sporadic attempts to export rose oil on a retail basis, but the people who did it did not travel around Europe and quickly went bankrupt. They can hardly be considered a mass practice. Bai Ganyo could not be their generalizing image, because they were a fleeting economic and social phenomenon. Even the prototype of Bai Ganyo – the aforementioned Ganyo Somov – is more likely not a merchant. One well-founded hypothesis about him points to him as a gavazin (security guard) in the pavilion of the Kazanlak rose merchants during the exhibition in Chicago.
The export of rose oil also does not take place in the way described by Aleko. For the description of this process, we can again turn to Felix Kanitz, who writes: "Rose oil is transported in round hermetically sealed tin containers with 50 muskals in cases made of thick, excellently protective cloth". The round tin containers are called konkumi and can be larger than those described by Kanitz. Some collect more, others less rose oil. Muskals are glass containers, they collect approximately 5 grams of rose oil. The practice is not to carry them in saddlebags or stuffed in the belt, but to seal them in an appropriate way to protect them from breakage. In addition to sealing with cloth, Bulgarian merchants put the muskals in wooden casings, and the muskals themselves are arranged in crates suitable for transportation.
The issue of the so-called adulteration of rose oil with teresh again does not stand exactly as Aleko presents it. Rose oil is mixed with teresh by small producers, by exporters, and by traders who sell it at retail in European countries. However, mixing rose oil with teresh does not at all mean that the oil is adulterated in order to deceive the end consumer. Skilled traders in Europe and their Bulgarian suppliers realize that the needs and capabilities of consumers are different, so they offer them different qualities of rose oil, which also have different prices. The sale of only pure rose oil is defined by Western European traders as an expression of ignorance of the peculiarities of the market and commercial activity in general.
And how exactly did we hate capitalism?
The characteristics of Bai Ganyo, regardless of whether they are national or social, undoubtedly deserve ridicule. Aleko Konstantinov chooses as their carrier a capitalist exporter of rose oil. The talented feuilletonist does not know the social characteristics and the modernization role of this export trade, does not know its organization and the functioning of the market. This does not prevent him from despising or at least presenting and commenting on the rose oil merchant with the sad feeling of intellectual and spiritual superiority. Apparently, hatred of capitalism appears on the basis of an untruth born of misunderstanding.
The rose oil exporters are not angels, there are certainly all kinds of people among them. However, trade has the potential, through contacts with the economic and spiritual culture of advanced market economies, to contribute to overcoming the vulgarity, arrogance and fatuous attitude towards people. Ridiculing the capitalist trader actually contributes to the contempt for capitalism, without really helping to overcome the Baiganiyevshchina. And it is still with us.
