VOC Management and the Indonesian market in the 17th century

ABSTRACT VOC which can also be called Vereenigde Oostindische Compagnie is the largest multinational company in the world in the 17th century, Vereenigde Oostindische Compagnie or which in the next sentence will be called alternately with VOC and or multinational companies directly or indirectly change the shape of the system trade, the financial system and even the political system in the archipelago. The VOC trading system in question was the use of a monopoly system, which clearly helped the VOC because the VOC could control centralized commodities to side with it. It was from this monopoly practice that the VOC pattern was created to control prices according to what it wanted because there was no trade competition following what had been agreed upon or following agreements made and approved by local authorities in the archipelago. The VOC carried out many strategies to gain many advantages, one of which greatly influenced the success of the VOC in its political system. VOC has policies in the political field, among others. With the arrival of the VOC in Indonesia, it greatly influenced the trading system in Indonesia which in the end was dominated by Dutch traders within a decade who had many privileges over their trade. This privilege was obtained by the VOC from the Dutch government so that the VOC could carry out its trade and the Dutch government could focus on the development of the country. Among the privileges possessed by the VOC were Octroi Rights, such as 1. Doing a trade monopoly 2. Forming your own army 3. Declare war or peace 4. Make an agreement with the king or local leaders 5. Issue or print your own money 6. Appointing or dismissing employees 7. Ruling in the colonies 8. Build a fortress With these rights it was easier for the VOC to carry out its trading strategy. With this Octroi right or privilege, the author feels that the theme related to the VOC is very interesting. The author wants to find out more about how the VOC managed the existing conditions so that they got a lot of profit in trading and what were the impacts that occurred after or when the VOC was still in Indonesia and how the relationship between the VOC and officials in Indonesia was in the 17th century. The research method used by the author is a qualitative historical method, namely research by collecting data followed by methods of heuristics, criticism/verification, interpretation/explanation, and historiography/historical writing. Referring to the above, the researcher seeks and finds the required data sources about the history of the VOC, and after data collection will go through a critical or verification stage where this stage is carried out to test the validity of the sources and historical data taken. The next stage is interpretation which is used to process and interpret the data that has been collected. And the last is the stage of historiography or writing historical research. The advantage gained by the VOC with octroi rights granted by the Dutch government made it free to conduct trade in Indonesia. The implementation of the rights obtained by the VOC produced more and more profits and expanded the monopoly area and was able to make competitors fall after the war broke out. Many agreements occurred within 100 years of the founding of the VOC which made the kings in Indonesia increasingly concerned about the reduction of their own territory. More and more hostilities emerged that occurred and wars that occurred after the politics of pitting one against the other was implemented by the VOC. And on that occasion the VOC also helped one of the groups which it felt would be profitable and had the potential to win.