"Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds"

Nobles, citizens, farmers, mechanics, seamen, footmen, maid servants, even chimney sweeps and old clothes women dabbled in tulips.
Charles MacKay, author of Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds, 1841

The tulips reached their peak in Pennsylvania about a week ago. Tulips are particulary lovely and I am hoping to add a few bulbs to my garden next year. The deer decimated my tulips over the years, and I have been reluctant to indulge in a few bulbs again, only for them to be destroyed. This makes it so hard to understand the Dutch tulip mania of the 17th century. Bulbs that would not flower until the following season sold for $2000 each. And it begs the question for all of us...why are we so influenced by popular culture?

It is hard to say why the Dutch become so feverish about the tulip over the rose or the peony. But by 1634 demand was so great that the whole county seemed to turn to the production of the tulip. Tulips had been introduced at extremely high prices, demand was maniacal, but the market suddenly collapsed, leaving the country's economic system in shambles, and many impoverished.

At the height of the craze, is has been reported by MacKay and others that one man paid $40,000 for 40 tulip bulbs. Another reported to have traded wheat, rye, four fat oxen, eight fat swine, twelve fat sheep, hogshead wine, four tuns beer, two tuns butter, one thousand pounds of cheese, one bed, one suit of clothes, and one silver cup for a total of $1000, all for one root of the Viceroy tulip.

In the end, everybody had tulips and nobody had money.

The dot.com craze, the real estate bubble, zhu-zhu pets... they are all the same in some ways. A quick way to make money? Something we must have to gain our neighbors admiration or envy? Why do we succumb to trends and crazes? Why don't we learn from history, such as the tulip craze? What are the things that we invest in that are not worth their cost to us? What are the ways the popular culture influences us to squander our resouces?

In spite of the painful history, the beauty of the tulip, particularly en mass, can't be denied.


Stay away from the love of money; be satisfied with what you have. For God has said, "I will never fail you. I will never forsake you." Hebrews 13:5