Spain was flooded with gold

From Charles Murray's Human Accomplishment. A very intriguing and rigorous discussion of what constitutes accomplishment, how do we measure it, and how do we explain it.

I was familiar with the economic history of Spain and the ravages wreaked upon its economy by the discovery and exploitation of the wealth of the New World. Murray fills out the picture by identifying how the economic decline was mirrored by a decline in cultural productivity as well.

Spain supplies the most intriguing connection between economics and accomplishment in the arts. In the decades after Columbus discovered the New World, Cortez conquered the Aztecs, and Pizarro conquered the Incas, Spain was flooded with gold and silver - on the order of 200 tons of gold and 18,000 tons of silver from 1500-1650. It was a fortune of spectacular proportions, and it probably destroyed Spain as a major European power. It needn't have - the windfall could have been used for capital investment in agriculture and industry. But instead it was frittered away on war and luxury. Worse than merely wasted, Spain's temporary riches also inculcated in her people a reluctance to work that spread from the rich through the formerly industrious working class. "The love of luxury and comforts of civilization have overcome them," wrote a Moroccan ambassador to Madrid in 1690-1691, long after the Spanish should have realized it was time to get back to work,

. . . and you will rarely find one of this nation who engages in trade or travels abroad for commerce as do the other Christian nations . . . Similarly the handicrafts practiced by the lower classes and common people are despised by the nation, which regards itself as superior to the other Christian nations. Most of those who practice these crafts in Spain are Frenchmen [who] flock to Spain to look for work . . .[and] in a short time make great fortunes.

Spain used its treasure to invigorate the other European nations while losing its own momentum. By the mid-1600s, Spain had sunk into an economic torpor from which it would not fully recover through the middle of 20C.

Spain's record of significant figures in the arts and sciences parallels its economic roller coaster. Beginning a half century after the discovery of the New World came the artists: painters Zurbaran, Velzquez, and El Greco (an immigrant from Crete); writers Cervantes, Gongora y Argote, Lope de Vega, Quevedo y Vallegas, and Calderon de la Barca; and composer Cabezon. All of these men were major figures, accompanied by another 27 significant figures in the arts inventories. Then, just as abruptly as Spain had begun producing signficant figures, it stopped. Between 1650 and 1850 - during the same two centuries when Britain, France, and Germany were producing hundreds of significant figures and even Italy in its decline produced several dozen - Spain produced a single major figure (Goya) and 11 significant figures.