Henry Hudson's discovery of high quality furs in New Netherlands, in the early 1600's, directly influenced merchants' ideals of capitalism in North America. Following Adrian Block's, the commander of the Tijger, disclosure of the land and the quality furs discovered, a charter was issued to merchants to begin trading, and a settlement was planned around the commerce of furs (Marsden, unit 6). The significance of this can be seen through understanding that a relationship exists between socio-economic development and bureaucratic capitalism. Essentially, this relationship is a main factor behind the powering of modernism. .
Modernism describes the process whereby which societies progress through time, due to increases in the complexity of technology and social organization (Streeter, 2009). Many theorists would attest that economic modernism has progressed though theses stages of development: the hunter-gatherer stage, the agricultural or agrarian stage, the feudal stage and the then the industrial capitalist stage (Streeter, 2009). The factors influencing modernism change through the stages; however, what is significant about this is that these factors differ amongst groups of people. For merchants, the privatization of social, communal property and the commodification of people and their means of living, power modernism, such as, the development of the globe and maps as geo-political tools (Marsden, unit 6). For most other people, customers basically, the benefits of diversified consumerism, such as the availability of more products and services at decreasing prices, as well as increased employment opportunities, powers modernism such as the development of technology. Essentially, the significance behind the presence of theses differing influencing factors, lies in the way modernism produces what is known as the "Victorian Hyperreality"; a deceptive depth within an apparent reality (Marsden, unit 5).
