Why the Industrial Revolution Didn’t Happen in China(washingtonpost.com)
washingtonpost.com
Why the Industrial Revolution Didn’t Happen in China
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2016/10/28/why-the-industrial-revolution-didnt-happen-in-china/
178 comments
Among the arguments I have seen is that Roman numerals made arithmetic very hard. Switch to Indo-Arabic numerals and arithmetic becomes conveniently algorithmic. And wherever this number system was adopted, intellectual pursuit involving numbers increased. Then the pursuit and related thought developed in these endeavours becomes one of the ingredients for an industrial revolution.
So then the question is why didn't it happen in the Arab world? The 12th century Arabic world certain had very smart inventors/engineers/builders. See, for example Ismail al-Jazari: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ismail_al-Jazari
Because the Islamic golden age ended when their cities were razed by the mongols to the ground.
The mongols offered them to annex them peacefully, if they agreed to pay tributes and taxes, as well as put their armies to their service, but they refused and the mongol response was incredibly violent.
This resulted in a massive setback from which they could not recover for some significant time.
Their cultural legacy however survived temporarily in Islamic Spain (Al-Andalus), which was later lost to europeans in the Spanish Reconquista. The knowledge collected by the Islamic civilization was assimilated by europeans through the Toledo School of Translators, which translated all arabic/greek/hebrew/etc... into latin, and then disseminated to the early Universities and scholar centres such as Oxford. During the crusades, anything arabic was destroyed/burned and the latin versions remained.
This would be the real origin of the Reinassance, which is not a popular historic view due to the revisionism fueled by the crusades.
The mongols offered them to annex them peacefully, if they agreed to pay tributes and taxes, as well as put their armies to their service, but they refused and the mongol response was incredibly violent.
This resulted in a massive setback from which they could not recover for some significant time.
Their cultural legacy however survived temporarily in Islamic Spain (Al-Andalus), which was later lost to europeans in the Spanish Reconquista. The knowledge collected by the Islamic civilization was assimilated by europeans through the Toledo School of Translators, which translated all arabic/greek/hebrew/etc... into latin, and then disseminated to the early Universities and scholar centres such as Oxford. During the crusades, anything arabic was destroyed/burned and the latin versions remained.
This would be the real origin of the Reinassance, which is not a popular historic view due to the revisionism fueled by the crusades.
> Because the Islamic golden age ended when their cities were razed by the mongols to the ground.
That was certainly part of it, but it was also because they managed to burn through the cultural & intellectual capital they had captured from Persia, Byzantium & North Africa. They Islamic Golden Age was much the same as the golden year one might experience if one stopped saving and burnt through all of one's savings in 12 months.
I don't know what Crusade-fuelled revisionism you might be referring to; I think that in the Middle Ages folks gave credit to the Dar al-Islam for the classical learning it captured from Persia, Byzantium & North Africa.
That was certainly part of it, but it was also because they managed to burn through the cultural & intellectual capital they had captured from Persia, Byzantium & North Africa. They Islamic Golden Age was much the same as the golden year one might experience if one stopped saving and burnt through all of one's savings in 12 months.
I don't know what Crusade-fuelled revisionism you might be referring to; I think that in the Middle Ages folks gave credit to the Dar al-Islam for the classical learning it captured from Persia, Byzantium & North Africa.
The mongols destroyed the grand library of Baghdad after the siege of Baghdad led by Halagu Khan, then looted all libraries and killed a large number of scholars, and important infrastructure such as canals used for irrigation.
Is not that they destroyed themselves.
Then, they did have scientific and cultural achievements of their own and this is reflected in their buildings that you can now visit in Spain.
Is not that they destroyed themselves.
Then, they did have scientific and cultural achievements of their own and this is reflected in their buildings that you can now visit in Spain.
While what you're saying is largely true, the way you're stating it isn't particularly charitable. Address the facts, let the personalities and biases take care of themselves.
> Address the facts, let the personalities and biases take care of themselves.
Sounds reasonable. But you are addressing my personality and bias now.
Sounds reasonable. But you are addressing my personality and bias now.
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Dude: As I said at the beginning, I actually find your factual statements correct.
Your mode of expressing them is getting in the way of your message. How you address this is your own concern. You seem quite bent on extracting personal battles from any discussion. I find that tedious.
That said: it seems unlikely you'll change in the near term. I've merely tried to help. I'm out.
Your mode of expressing them is getting in the way of your message. How you address this is your own concern. You seem quite bent on extracting personal battles from any discussion. I find that tedious.
That said: it seems unlikely you'll change in the near term. I've merely tried to help. I'm out.
How exactly does one "burn through" intellectual capital?
Knowledge isn't consumed in the knowing. It can be forgotten.
Knowledge isn't consumed in the knowing. It can be forgotten.
I can see this now being downvoted. Sadly, we still have some medieval revisionists also in 2016!
Please take some time to read more on the subject rather than to just say "this never happened" just because you don't like it (i.e: revisionism).
What I posted was a way to challenge the western view of "we figured it all out ourselves", where in reality, we borrowed inspiration from many cultures and then erased the ones we didn't like from history.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Latin_translations_of_the_12th...
Crediting the right people for their achievements is fundamental for being a real meritocracy. A racist theocentric revisionist view of the world is not a meritocracy.
Please take some time to read more on the subject rather than to just say "this never happened" just because you don't like it (i.e: revisionism).
What I posted was a way to challenge the western view of "we figured it all out ourselves", where in reality, we borrowed inspiration from many cultures and then erased the ones we didn't like from history.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Latin_translations_of_the_12th...
Crediting the right people for their achievements is fundamental for being a real meritocracy. A racist theocentric revisionist view of the world is not a meritocracy.
Yeah, it's crazy that this was downvoted. I learned about the Toledo School in an undergrad Western Civ course. This hasn't been controversial for decades:
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toledo_School_of_Translators
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toledo_School_of_Translators
I think this is a little bit of oversimplification.
Even if the Romans had that technology... which was preceded by many others like hot blast furnaces... they would have been stopped by other challenges.
A rudimentary steam engine was invented in 1 AD in... Roman Egypt. But it wasn't until after the discovery of atmospheric pressure and other pressure related discoveries when it could be turned into a workable technology, and even then, it required further innovations such as the present in Watt's reciprocating engine.
The romans also knew about a predecessor of railroads: wagonways. e.g: the Diolkos wagonway, and wagonways through the Roman Empire. But in this case wagons were pulled or pushed by animals or people respectively.
But now the problem is: How do you level vast portions of terrain in the first place, in a scalable way? blasting through TNT and such. Which wasn't discovered either.
So I am afraid that romans on trains could not be a thing.
Even if the Romans had that technology... which was preceded by many others like hot blast furnaces... they would have been stopped by other challenges.
A rudimentary steam engine was invented in 1 AD in... Roman Egypt. But it wasn't until after the discovery of atmospheric pressure and other pressure related discoveries when it could be turned into a workable technology, and even then, it required further innovations such as the present in Watt's reciprocating engine.
The romans also knew about a predecessor of railroads: wagonways. e.g: the Diolkos wagonway, and wagonways through the Roman Empire. But in this case wagons were pulled or pushed by animals or people respectively.
But now the problem is: How do you level vast portions of terrain in the first place, in a scalable way? blasting through TNT and such. Which wasn't discovered either.
So I am afraid that romans on trains could not be a thing.
It's worth keeping in mind that the first European fixed-track transports were also human or animal-powered. Most were in mines or associated with moving ore relatively short distances.
The railroad was a generalisation of tracked road, wheeled cart, and prime mover.
The railroad was a generalisation of tracked road, wheeled cart, and prime mover.
Which is exactly what I meant by the term "wagonways", which date back to ancient Greece.
>But now the problem is: How do you level vast portions of terrain in the first place, in a scalable way? blasting through TNT and such. Which wasn't discovered either.
Wouldn't slave labor solve that issue?
Wouldn't slave labor solve that issue?
Maybe. But the industrial revolution was all about amplifying human production capability through machines. If it's a zero-sum game then it's not worth it.
It's not either or though is it? Think modern assembly lines in Asia that are a combination of near slave labor conditions and hi tech production.
Well, people are still required to operate machines, or assembling and packaging a finished product.
Especially in the beginning of the industrial revolution when there were as many alternatives for automation as today.
Especially in the beginning of the industrial revolution when there were as many alternatives for automation as today.
I don't think the economic drawback to slavery is about the labor conditions, I think it's the lack of ability to improve you position. Chattel slavery puts about as wide a gap between two human's interests as anything I can think of, with war being a possible exception. The suggestions that slavery grew out of organized warfare explain a lot, I believe.
So even if you had similar working conditions, I think you would have dramatically different social pressures and interests.
So even if you had similar working conditions, I think you would have dramatically different social pressures and interests.
A better question: "why didn't the industrial
revolution happen in ancient Greece"? The ancient Greeks were
scientifically much more advanced than ancient Rome, had steam
engines, electricity, sophisticated automata, calculus etc. But for some reason, not understood, their civilisation collapsed before an industrial revolution could take place.
It is important to realize however that simply powering something with steam doesn't make it a possible candidate for an industrial revolution. The crucial breakthroughs in the industrial revolution was making sufficiently powerful and efficient steam engines. This was no possible without precision machining, with stuff like lathes and drills. In this regard Greece was far away from any industrial revolution. That ability in ancient greek to make precise machine parts did not exist remotely.
Secondly to create en impetus for industrialization you need sufficient level of specialization and large enough markets. Long before steam engines, canals were dug, and specialized production was done in large warehouses in Britain. Before that in the Netherlands. You had nothing like that happening n Greece.
I think too often the economic aspects of technology is forgotten. Thomas Edison didn't make the first light bulb. Nor did Steve Jobs make the first smart phone. But they both made enough improvements on their respective products that they could gain mass appeal.
Secondly to create en impetus for industrialization you need sufficient level of specialization and large enough markets. Long before steam engines, canals were dug, and specialized production was done in large warehouses in Britain. Before that in the Netherlands. You had nothing like that happening n Greece.
I think too often the economic aspects of technology is forgotten. Thomas Edison didn't make the first light bulb. Nor did Steve Jobs make the first smart phone. But they both made enough improvements on their respective products that they could gain mass appeal.
The level of precision at the beginning of the steam engine was very low. One of Watt's original steam engines had a spec that the cylinder should fit the piston closely enough that a shilling coin could not be slipped between them. This is a very low standard of precision. Despite this, they sold, in small numbers.
John "Iron-Mad" Wilkinson, who had a cannon factory, had figured out how to bore smooth holes accurately. He got a Watt engine for his cannon works and re-bored the cylinder to a reasonable tolerance. Efficiency went up by a factor of 3. Then he cut a deal with Boulton and Watt to make cylinders, and steam engines started to really work. That was all it took.
The early railroad era used few machine tools. Boring and turning were about it. Parts were rough-cast or forged, with minimal finish machining. Lots of hot forging and hammering. Primitive lathes, more like wood lathes than a modern lathe with a slide rest and precision screws. Look at any pre-1900 steam locomotive and notice that all steel and iron surfaces are either round, flat, or cast. The ability to machine arbitrary surfaces only came in around 1930. It's amazing how much was accomplished with such basic tools.
John "Iron-Mad" Wilkinson, who had a cannon factory, had figured out how to bore smooth holes accurately. He got a Watt engine for his cannon works and re-bored the cylinder to a reasonable tolerance. Efficiency went up by a factor of 3. Then he cut a deal with Boulton and Watt to make cylinders, and steam engines started to really work. That was all it took.
The early railroad era used few machine tools. Boring and turning were about it. Parts were rough-cast or forged, with minimal finish machining. Lots of hot forging and hammering. Primitive lathes, more like wood lathes than a modern lathe with a slide rest and precision screws. Look at any pre-1900 steam locomotive and notice that all steel and iron surfaces are either round, flat, or cast. The ability to machine arbitrary surfaces only came in around 1930. It's amazing how much was accomplished with such basic tools.
It helps greatly to understand that early steam engines were vacuum engines -- the power stroke came from condensation, not expansion of the steam.
Watt himself was opposed to both high-pressure and mobile designs, and was able to enforce those reservations through a 25-year extension to his initial patent, at least within England.
His machines typically delivered 5-10 hp, 3.7 - 7.5 kW. Watt's company had delivered just shy of 500 steam engines by 1800, with a total output of 11,200 hp, about 8.4 MW.
One of the aspects of modern metallurgy that's been impressed on me was the improvement in batch control through sensing equipment -- optical temperature measurement and spectroscopic analysis to determine composition, both mostly post-WWII developments.
This is why sensing (and derived from that: control) are so crucial -- with increased manufacturing tolerances, you can do things not previously possible, including several phase-change type thresholds.
Watt himself was opposed to both high-pressure and mobile designs, and was able to enforce those reservations through a 25-year extension to his initial patent, at least within England.
His machines typically delivered 5-10 hp, 3.7 - 7.5 kW. Watt's company had delivered just shy of 500 steam engines by 1800, with a total output of 11,200 hp, about 8.4 MW.
One of the aspects of modern metallurgy that's been impressed on me was the improvement in batch control through sensing equipment -- optical temperature measurement and spectroscopic analysis to determine composition, both mostly post-WWII developments.
This is why sensing (and derived from that: control) are so crucial -- with increased manufacturing tolerances, you can do things not previously possible, including several phase-change type thresholds.
Watt himself was opposed to both high-pressure and mobile designs...
They were building steam engines and boilers out of cast iron, which is a terrible material for pressure vessels. Watt was worried about boiler explosions. Steel was 60 years in the future.
One of the aspects of modern metallurgy that's been impressed on me..
We now know that the Titanic's hull steel was below its transition temperature at which it became brittle when it hit the iceberg. Its designers did not know that. Metals are a lot better than they used to be.
They were building steam engines and boilers out of cast iron, which is a terrible material for pressure vessels. Watt was worried about boiler explosions. Steel was 60 years in the future.
One of the aspects of modern metallurgy that's been impressed on me..
We now know that the Titanic's hull steel was below its transition temperature at which it became brittle when it hit the iceberg. Its designers did not know that. Metals are a lot better than they used to be.
I'm only starting to get up to speed with this stuff, but one realisation I've had is what wrought iron is, and why Japanese samurai swords are folded -- it's not the flexibility of the blade, but the physical working out of the carbon within the iron, now steel blade that matters. With the Bessemer process, carbourisation could happen through thermal action (and oxygen injection) rather than mechanical action.
Yes, Watt had his reasons, but even low pressure operation had its benefits, and Watt, and his patent, blocked any exploration of alternatives. Both Smil and Weissenbacher emphasise this strongly (though I suspect Weissenbacher's relying strongly on Smil). Watt also rejected small-scale and mobile steam engines.
Speaking of Titanic, the 1950s telling, A Night to Remember, is on YouTube. Metallurgy aside, the story as one of human hubris, impending doom, and the contrasts between those who realised fully the magnitude of the disaster unfolding and those who were entirely oblivious is profound, and I suspect has been playing on my psyche....
Yes, Watt had his reasons, but even low pressure operation had its benefits, and Watt, and his patent, blocked any exploration of alternatives. Both Smil and Weissenbacher emphasise this strongly (though I suspect Weissenbacher's relying strongly on Smil). Watt also rejected small-scale and mobile steam engines.
Speaking of Titanic, the 1950s telling, A Night to Remember, is on YouTube. Metallurgy aside, the story as one of human hubris, impending doom, and the contrasts between those who realised fully the magnitude of the disaster unfolding and those who were entirely oblivious is profound, and I suspect has been playing on my psyche....
It is unclear how advanced ancient Greek technology was. It is estimated that we currently know about 10% of ancient Greek scientific writing. And there is no reason to believe we have seen the top 10% of their science. For example there is nothing in the currently known ancient Greek scientific writing that prepares us for an automaton as complex as the
Antikythera Mechanism.
The
quality and complexity of the mechanism points to the existence of sophisticated manufacturing processes.
Moreover, given that the Antikythera Mechanism was found on a fairly hum-drum boat, there is no reason to believe it represents the best of ancient automata making.
Then what do you think of the https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antikythera_mechanism regarding precision? Is this an "out of place artefact"? A unique piece of work, only made once, or did they made many more which simply haven´t been discovered by us yet? Seems to require some precision, though not in working with steel.
[deleted]
Well, there are lots of places the Industrial Revolution didn't happen, and times.
And there's the case that when it did finally happen, in England in 1800, it was so utterly compelling that it spread around the world within a few years.
My view increasingly is that threading the industrialisation needle required a pretty specific set of bootstrapping steps, any one of which out-of-sequence could put the kibosh on the whole affair.
I've been looking at the genesis of the industrial revolution (and moreso, its opposite, the potential conclusion of it and general collapse of industrialised technological society) for the past five years. Joel Mokyr's been studying the concept for rather longer, and has been editing a rather attractive series through Princeton University Press on the subject, including books by himself, Gregory Clark (UC Davis, A Farewell to Alms), Robert J. Gordon (Northwestern, The Rise and Fall of American Growth), and others. Recommended.
I've been looking at the dynamics of technological mechanism, and am settling on roughly nine:
1. Fuels, energy storage, and prime movers.
2. Materials, properties, and abundances.
3. Power transmission and transformation.
4. Specific process knowledge (what's conventionally seen as "technological knowlege").
5. General systemic knowledge (what's conventionally seen as "scientific knowledge", to which I add history and geography).
6. Information acquisition, processing, transmission, and storage.
7. Organisational systems: governance, business organisation, financial systems, military organisation, accountancy, courts & laws, religion, ethics, and moral codes.
8. Dendritic systems: Transport networks, communications networks, cities, nations, trade and commercial networks, information systems, knowledge-as-web (see James Burke), social networks.
9. Sinks and unanticipated consequences. What Mokyr calls in another recent piece (WSJ) "bite-back".
Looking at this, Rome had some elements (strong social structures, fairly strong material systems), but was profoundly lacking in others -- Italy has virtually no domestic coal, and had been stripped of much of its native wood (Rome imported wood heavily, and there's a reason for the stone architecture), and the empire lacked a positional numerical system and all the computational capacity that entails.
From some of my recent reading, much of it Vaclav Smil's Energy in History and Manfred Weissenbacher's Sources of Power (which draws heavily on Smil, though also others), a few points become clear:
1. As Mokyr notes, Britain was not subject to successful foreign invasion after 1066 -- in fact World War II was the first time in nearly 900 years that London came under direct attack, and even then there was no actual substantial foreign invasion. Whilst mainland Europe was discovering itself in the 18th and 19th centuries, England was busily inventing commerce and industry.
2. Coal. There are four great coal beds throughout the world, with England sitting atop the remnants of one. That continued through parts of Europe, most especially France, a small portion of northern Spain and Portugal, Germany, and Silesia. The US has an absolutely massive deposit (about 1/4 the global total), actually stemming from the same Carboniferous-era forest system as the North American and European plates were joined some 300 million years ago. The fourth is in China, and smaller deposits are found in Australia and South Africa. Industry required coal. (Mokyr and Clark's comments notwithstanding, from other references in this thread.)
3. Geography. England's island status not only afforded it protection from invaders, but access to trade, both from within the island and from the Continent. With most significant settlements near the coast, goods could generally move throughout the island. This was crucial, as until canals (hard to create) and railroads (required iron, or better, Bessemer steel to avoid split rails, and steam traction), overland transport was not viable (see Smith's Wealth of Nations for a comparison of ship and wagon transport from Scotland to London, and realise that Smith himself travelled on horseback over several weeks when he ventured to London for university).
4. Colonies. England could count on its possessions for raw materials, food, and as an opportunity to export its excess population. Imports included the critical goods of lumber (short in England), food, sugar (dense carbs), tea (whose heating provided purified water), pitch (for sealing ships), Irish grain (which continued to be exported through the Irish Potato Famine of the 1850s, during which the island's population fell by half), and Indian saltpeter (crucial for gunpowder). These proved to be an interlocking set of pegs that provided England with key advantages.
5. A set of strongly self-serving economic principles. A highly illuminating insight to how "free trade" was viewed in 1870s England vs. the United States is provided by way of the highly prescient Wikipedia Edit War of 1874: the British publishers of Chamber's Encyclopaedia included an exceptionally indignant EDITORIAL STATEMENT (busted capslock key included) concerning the "extensive alterations" made by their American printing partners to certain key articles, beginning with Free Trade (either "the most important and fundamental truth in political economy" or "a dogma of modern growth, industriously taught by British manufacturers and their commercial agents". The British view was at odds not only with the American, but also the French and German, nations which followed quite deliberate government policies of industrialisation, similar to China's or Korea's of current times, as expounded by Frederick List's "National System". For more: https://redd.it/4xe2k1
England's lead didn't hold, however. By the late 19th century it was challenged by both France and Germany, which had caught up quickly (thanks in large part to their own native coal endowments), and rapidly began to fall behind the United States, which had not just coal but the lubricant of the second explosion of the Industrial Revolution: oil.
That's another story.
I Rome had succeeded (or China, or Persia, or the Mayans), I suspect one consequence might be we'd be now well into discovering the intracacies of long-term remediation from industrial CO2-induced greenhouse warming of the planet.
And there's the case that when it did finally happen, in England in 1800, it was so utterly compelling that it spread around the world within a few years.
My view increasingly is that threading the industrialisation needle required a pretty specific set of bootstrapping steps, any one of which out-of-sequence could put the kibosh on the whole affair.
I've been looking at the genesis of the industrial revolution (and moreso, its opposite, the potential conclusion of it and general collapse of industrialised technological society) for the past five years. Joel Mokyr's been studying the concept for rather longer, and has been editing a rather attractive series through Princeton University Press on the subject, including books by himself, Gregory Clark (UC Davis, A Farewell to Alms), Robert J. Gordon (Northwestern, The Rise and Fall of American Growth), and others. Recommended.
I've been looking at the dynamics of technological mechanism, and am settling on roughly nine:
1. Fuels, energy storage, and prime movers.
2. Materials, properties, and abundances.
3. Power transmission and transformation.
4. Specific process knowledge (what's conventionally seen as "technological knowlege").
5. General systemic knowledge (what's conventionally seen as "scientific knowledge", to which I add history and geography).
6. Information acquisition, processing, transmission, and storage.
7. Organisational systems: governance, business organisation, financial systems, military organisation, accountancy, courts & laws, religion, ethics, and moral codes.
8. Dendritic systems: Transport networks, communications networks, cities, nations, trade and commercial networks, information systems, knowledge-as-web (see James Burke), social networks.
9. Sinks and unanticipated consequences. What Mokyr calls in another recent piece (WSJ) "bite-back".
Looking at this, Rome had some elements (strong social structures, fairly strong material systems), but was profoundly lacking in others -- Italy has virtually no domestic coal, and had been stripped of much of its native wood (Rome imported wood heavily, and there's a reason for the stone architecture), and the empire lacked a positional numerical system and all the computational capacity that entails.
From some of my recent reading, much of it Vaclav Smil's Energy in History and Manfred Weissenbacher's Sources of Power (which draws heavily on Smil, though also others), a few points become clear:
1. As Mokyr notes, Britain was not subject to successful foreign invasion after 1066 -- in fact World War II was the first time in nearly 900 years that London came under direct attack, and even then there was no actual substantial foreign invasion. Whilst mainland Europe was discovering itself in the 18th and 19th centuries, England was busily inventing commerce and industry.
2. Coal. There are four great coal beds throughout the world, with England sitting atop the remnants of one. That continued through parts of Europe, most especially France, a small portion of northern Spain and Portugal, Germany, and Silesia. The US has an absolutely massive deposit (about 1/4 the global total), actually stemming from the same Carboniferous-era forest system as the North American and European plates were joined some 300 million years ago. The fourth is in China, and smaller deposits are found in Australia and South Africa. Industry required coal. (Mokyr and Clark's comments notwithstanding, from other references in this thread.)
3. Geography. England's island status not only afforded it protection from invaders, but access to trade, both from within the island and from the Continent. With most significant settlements near the coast, goods could generally move throughout the island. This was crucial, as until canals (hard to create) and railroads (required iron, or better, Bessemer steel to avoid split rails, and steam traction), overland transport was not viable (see Smith's Wealth of Nations for a comparison of ship and wagon transport from Scotland to London, and realise that Smith himself travelled on horseback over several weeks when he ventured to London for university).
4. Colonies. England could count on its possessions for raw materials, food, and as an opportunity to export its excess population. Imports included the critical goods of lumber (short in England), food, sugar (dense carbs), tea (whose heating provided purified water), pitch (for sealing ships), Irish grain (which continued to be exported through the Irish Potato Famine of the 1850s, during which the island's population fell by half), and Indian saltpeter (crucial for gunpowder). These proved to be an interlocking set of pegs that provided England with key advantages.
5. A set of strongly self-serving economic principles. A highly illuminating insight to how "free trade" was viewed in 1870s England vs. the United States is provided by way of the highly prescient Wikipedia Edit War of 1874: the British publishers of Chamber's Encyclopaedia included an exceptionally indignant EDITORIAL STATEMENT (busted capslock key included) concerning the "extensive alterations" made by their American printing partners to certain key articles, beginning with Free Trade (either "the most important and fundamental truth in political economy" or "a dogma of modern growth, industriously taught by British manufacturers and their commercial agents". The British view was at odds not only with the American, but also the French and German, nations which followed quite deliberate government policies of industrialisation, similar to China's or Korea's of current times, as expounded by Frederick List's "National System". For more: https://redd.it/4xe2k1
England's lead didn't hold, however. By the late 19th century it was challenged by both France and Germany, which had caught up quickly (thanks in large part to their own native coal endowments), and rapidly began to fall behind the United States, which had not just coal but the lubricant of the second explosion of the Industrial Revolution: oil.
That's another story.
I Rome had succeeded (or China, or Persia, or the Mayans), I suspect one consequence might be we'd be now well into discovering the intracacies of long-term remediation from industrial CO2-induced greenhouse warming of the planet.
Good points. There are only a few places in the world which have coal and iron near each other. That's needed to get an iron and steel culture going. Once it's going, you have rails, ships and steam to move raw materials long distances, but to get started, they have to be close.
Thank you. I just spent 30 minutes reading some of your past comments, as well as stuff on the subreddit on your profile. Must have been the best 30 minutes I've spent in a long time.
Thanks.
I'm always looking for insights, sources, and more than anything else, criticisms of things which are incorrect, unclear, or don't stand to inspection.
I'm always looking for insights, sources, and more than anything else, criticisms of things which are incorrect, unclear, or don't stand to inspection.
> I Rome had succeeded (or China, or Persia, or the Mayans), I suspect one consequence might be we'd be now well into discovering the intracacies of long-term remediation from industrial CO2-induced greenhouse warming of the planet.
Or the intricacies of surviving in a post-nuclear world!
Or the intricacies of surviving in a post-nuclear world!
This comment should be required reading in this thread. Excellent contribution, thank you.
Excellent comment. I would just add I think that the fact that so many lucky factors had to combine for the industrial revolution to happen gives us, alas, another filter for the Fermi paradox.
That's one perspective. Another is that once the pieces line up, the capabilities are so overwhelming that the transition only happens once. It's a bit like mitochondria and ATP: an energy pathway for life which was so overwhelmingly beneficial that it happened once, and any previous (multicelluar) life simply couldn't compete.
Fermi's Paradox is another fascinating element, and there are a number of other possible choke points and filter which could also come into play: the Cambrian explosion (complex multicellular life), sex, intelligence, ice ages, the Moon, fossil-fuel stores in the first place, arrangements of continents, etc., etc.
But several changes seemed to have emerged fairly widely and across multiple regions. Agriculture in particular arose independently and at roughly the same time (perhaps a few centuries difference) in the Middle East (Mesopotamia), Yangtze River, Mayan civilisation (Yukatan Peninsula), and possibly a few others, within 500 - 1,000 years of each other. *This at a time when there was no communications between the Americas and the African-Eurasian continent.
Fermi's Paradox is another fascinating element, and there are a number of other possible choke points and filter which could also come into play: the Cambrian explosion (complex multicellular life), sex, intelligence, ice ages, the Moon, fossil-fuel stores in the first place, arrangements of continents, etc., etc.
But several changes seemed to have emerged fairly widely and across multiple regions. Agriculture in particular arose independently and at roughly the same time (perhaps a few centuries difference) in the Middle East (Mesopotamia), Yangtze River, Mayan civilisation (Yukatan Peninsula), and possibly a few others, within 500 - 1,000 years of each other. *This at a time when there was no communications between the Americas and the African-Eurasian continent.
Romans, like most societies, were very protective of their social order, and ignored or suppressed most inventions that might threaten it.
Is there any evidence of the Romans engaging in Amish-style quashing of an invention for social stability purposes?
Even aside from "commercial" innovations in eg textiles, something like Newcomen or Watt's steam-driven pump that let them run their gold mines more profitably, or easier manufacture of military metal goods, would have been of intense interest to the state.
Even aside from "commercial" innovations in eg textiles, something like Newcomen or Watt's steam-driven pump that let them run their gold mines more profitably, or easier manufacture of military metal goods, would have been of intense interest to the state.
Amish-style quashing would be putting it too strongly. There are a number of advancements that were discovered and not utilized, or utilized in a very limited and particular manner. http://www.thegreatcourses.com/courses/understanding-greek-a... Is a good starting place for an overview.
Slave revolt or rising lower classes were one of the greatest concerns to Roman elites. Broad social stability seems to have been of greater interest to the state then momentary technical advantage. Organization and discipline were the advantages they tended to rely on.
Slave revolt or rising lower classes were one of the greatest concerns to Roman elites. Broad social stability seems to have been of greater interest to the state then momentary technical advantage. Organization and discipline were the advantages they tended to rely on.
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The Romans were advanced in technology, but they did very little new science. They just studied what the Greeks had discovered and assumed it was all true. I think this was at least in part because Greece had many competing states, and many were democracies,both of which make for free inquiry, but Rome was a single unified empire, rather like China.
This is why I think the EU is a dangerous idea. It has become this truism that we are stronger together. No, we are not. Europe conquered the world, because we were divided. Our strength came from our division not our unity.
Random events always happen. Every country will always experience a random bad leader. It will happen sooner or later. What is best then to have a land area unified into one or split into 10 different countries? One bad leader among 10 occasionally will not pull the whole area down. One bad leader for the whole area can pull the whole area into the dark ages.
Consider the Chinese emperor which banned all Chinese naval exploration and trade? That could never happen in contemporary Europe, because if your country got such a dumb leader your neighbors would quickly outcompete you and it would become very obvious how stupid that decision was within short time.
Being political divided is thus a good insurance against doom. Imagine someone like Hitler rising to power in a unified Europe? There would be no way to counter his madness.
That is why I think that China's rise today will eventually end up being a temporary thing. It will eventually stagnate, because China doesn't have anything to clearly challenge it. I also think this will be America's downfall in the end. We can already see an almost Chinese way of seeing the world in America. Instead of Mandate of Heaven, we got American exceptionalism, which means America is very poor at absorbing ideas from abroad. The thinking is always that America is best and has nothing to learn from the foreigners. Not all that different from the Chinese view when the British came knocking on their door.
What is great about Europe is that we got this big playground for political and society experiments. Different countries try out widely different models for society. I see this among Nordic countries as a microcosmos. Each country try out different ideas and then we copy what works from each other. Many of the policies e.g. enacted in my home country Norway has previously been tried out in Denmark or Sweden.
Random events always happen. Every country will always experience a random bad leader. It will happen sooner or later. What is best then to have a land area unified into one or split into 10 different countries? One bad leader among 10 occasionally will not pull the whole area down. One bad leader for the whole area can pull the whole area into the dark ages.
Consider the Chinese emperor which banned all Chinese naval exploration and trade? That could never happen in contemporary Europe, because if your country got such a dumb leader your neighbors would quickly outcompete you and it would become very obvious how stupid that decision was within short time.
Being political divided is thus a good insurance against doom. Imagine someone like Hitler rising to power in a unified Europe? There would be no way to counter his madness.
That is why I think that China's rise today will eventually end up being a temporary thing. It will eventually stagnate, because China doesn't have anything to clearly challenge it. I also think this will be America's downfall in the end. We can already see an almost Chinese way of seeing the world in America. Instead of Mandate of Heaven, we got American exceptionalism, which means America is very poor at absorbing ideas from abroad. The thinking is always that America is best and has nothing to learn from the foreigners. Not all that different from the Chinese view when the British came knocking on their door.
What is great about Europe is that we got this big playground for political and society experiments. Different countries try out widely different models for society. I see this among Nordic countries as a microcosmos. Each country try out different ideas and then we copy what works from each other. Many of the policies e.g. enacted in my home country Norway has previously been tried out in Denmark or Sweden.
This is a good point, but I am fairly sure there is a balance to reach here. The EU is currently politically extremely weak, with national veto powers widespread: see how Wallonia, only a part of a small country, was able to significantly delay CETA ratification, and could probably have cancelled it; how large EU economies (Germany, France, semi-formerly the UK, and probably Italy and the Netherlands) all have veto power in practice; how some countries (Poland and Hungary come to mind) pretty much ignore some rules with little being done against it.
What would it even mean, in the current state of the EU, for "a Hitler to rise to power in it"? First, he would have to be supported by a large number of member states (in which case it would be likely that even without the existence of the EU, that sort of leader would have become widespread in Europe), and then, he would be president of the European Parliament? Of the European Commission? I doubt he would be very harmful there, except possibly to the EU as an institution.
I believe the EU can (and probably should) integrate quite a bit further before the problems you raise can realistically happen. I think member states should be given lots of freedom in non-foreign-policy, non-budgetary choices (as they currently are), which leaves a lot of room for the experimentation you describe, and less power to individually veto negotiations that are much more effective when Europe acts as a block. No-one wants to have to certify their cars or get an insurance license 27 times to service 20 million people on average each time.
As a last resort against utterly stupid decisions or policies, of course, member states are always free to leave.
What would it even mean, in the current state of the EU, for "a Hitler to rise to power in it"? First, he would have to be supported by a large number of member states (in which case it would be likely that even without the existence of the EU, that sort of leader would have become widespread in Europe), and then, he would be president of the European Parliament? Of the European Commission? I doubt he would be very harmful there, except possibly to the EU as an institution.
I believe the EU can (and probably should) integrate quite a bit further before the problems you raise can realistically happen. I think member states should be given lots of freedom in non-foreign-policy, non-budgetary choices (as they currently are), which leaves a lot of room for the experimentation you describe, and less power to individually veto negotiations that are much more effective when Europe acts as a block. No-one wants to have to certify their cars or get an insurance license 27 times to service 20 million people on average each time.
As a last resort against utterly stupid decisions or policies, of course, member states are always free to leave.
Actually, I think that a great deal of America's success is because member states are NOT free to leave. Otherwise, they can abandon each other when it becomes convenient.
Edit since I can't reply. It's hard to imagine, but it wasn't always so, and rich states always have a net tax outflow to poorer states. It's the political equivalent of burning your ships; you have to make it work, for no other course is survivable. Slavery and economics forced the question, but the American Civil War was first and foremost to answer the question: can a state leave?
Note this is only about your last sentence, I agree with all the rest.
Edit since I can't reply. It's hard to imagine, but it wasn't always so, and rich states always have a net tax outflow to poorer states. It's the political equivalent of burning your ships; you have to make it work, for no other course is survivable. Slavery and economics forced the question, but the American Civil War was first and foremost to answer the question: can a state leave?
Note this is only about your last sentence, I agree with all the rest.
I agree to some extent, but how many US states would take the option to leave the union if they could? They benefit from being part of the US so immensely that it is hard to imagine conditions where they would actually leave.
If the EU integrates more, and is sufficiently uncooperative with quitters, leaving really would be a last-resort option. I would argue that the UK is a special case, since its ties with the EU were lighter than basically all other members, but even then Brexit will quite possibly hurt it. From Germany to Estonia, member states have a strong incentive to remain.
If the EU integrates more, and is sufficiently uncooperative with quitters, leaving really would be a last-resort option. I would argue that the UK is a special case, since its ties with the EU were lighter than basically all other members, but even then Brexit will quite possibly hurt it. From Germany to Estonia, member states have a strong incentive to remain.
> Actually, I think that a great deal of America's success is because member states are NOT free to leave.
The Tenth Amendment to the Constitution of the United States reads, 'The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.'
No Article nor Amendment of the Constitution delegates authority over secession to the United States, and thus that power is retained by the several States, or to the people thereof. Thus it's pretty obvious that member states are free to leave any time they choose; it's the only reading of the supreme law of the land which makes any sense.
The Tenth Amendment to the Constitution of the United States reads, 'The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.'
No Article nor Amendment of the Constitution delegates authority over secession to the United States, and thus that power is retained by the several States, or to the people thereof. Thus it's pretty obvious that member states are free to leave any time they choose; it's the only reading of the supreme law of the land which makes any sense.
Thus it's pretty obvious that member states are free to leave any time they choose
On this subject the late, great Antonin Scalia supposedly said, more or less: "we settled that issue 150 years ago".
it's the only reading of the supreme law of the land which makes any sense
Much to the frequent lament of Scalia, the supreme law of the land is no more and no less than what a majority of the Supreme Court chooses to believe at that particular time.
On this subject the late, great Antonin Scalia supposedly said, more or less: "we settled that issue 150 years ago".
it's the only reading of the supreme law of the land which makes any sense
Much to the frequent lament of Scalia, the supreme law of the land is no more and no less than what a majority of the Supreme Court chooses to believe at that particular time.
> Much to the frequent lament of Scalia, the supreme law of the land is no more and no less than what a majority of the Supreme Court chooses to believe at that particular time.
Unfortunately that's true (and Justice Scalia was complicit in that: when he was right, he was typically really right, but when he was wrong he was rally wrong); that's why I've always respected Justice Thomas, who really does seem to attempt to consider what the Constitution actually says, requires and is silent on.
The one saving grace is that the Supreme Court is not, despite what folks think, a super-legislature: it only has the power to rule in specific cases. There's nothing which prevents litigants bringing a similar case as one already decided, and the Court is free to ignore a previous, erroneous ruling. So there is some little hope that with the right justices it might ignore bad precedent.
Unfortunately that's true (and Justice Scalia was complicit in that: when he was right, he was typically really right, but when he was wrong he was rally wrong); that's why I've always respected Justice Thomas, who really does seem to attempt to consider what the Constitution actually says, requires and is silent on.
The one saving grace is that the Supreme Court is not, despite what folks think, a super-legislature: it only has the power to rule in specific cases. There's nothing which prevents litigants bringing a similar case as one already decided, and the Court is free to ignore a previous, erroneous ruling. So there is some little hope that with the right justices it might ignore bad precedent.
This is really tangential to what the parent said.
Parent states that a lot of good comes from plurality, because it gives us practical examples and empirical knowledge of all different kinds of political policies, ways of organizing public services, taxation etc. Out of this, states can choose to mirror other's ways of approaching a problem. People can also vote with their feet, a principle without there simply can't be democracy (Loyalty, Voice, Exit). In short, it allows for social evolution.
In contrast, a single state EU has none of this and seems at risk of stagnating and putting in place destructive policies.
Your comment doesn't touch any of this. You just opine that the EU is too weak and should integrate more. As if it was an end in itself.
Parent states that a lot of good comes from plurality, because it gives us practical examples and empirical knowledge of all different kinds of political policies, ways of organizing public services, taxation etc. Out of this, states can choose to mirror other's ways of approaching a problem. People can also vote with their feet, a principle without there simply can't be democracy (Loyalty, Voice, Exit). In short, it allows for social evolution.
In contrast, a single state EU has none of this and seems at risk of stagnating and putting in place destructive policies.
Your comment doesn't touch any of this. You just opine that the EU is too weak and should integrate more. As if it was an end in itself.
I felt like I was addressing this but it may not have been very clear. I understand, and agree with, the point about diversity. My argument is that the EU is still far from preventing political diversity since member states have a large amount of leeway. I also argue that this leeway can be reduced further still without seriously harming this diversity, and that it should be, since there are things to be gained from it.
I'm not sure why you think America is bad at absorbing foreign ideas. Roughly 10% of the population is foreign born; successfully absorbing people and ideas is what America is all about. I'd say it's the driver of American exceptionalism, not limited by it.
World War 2 was one of the last major conflicts involving most of Europe. What happened after World War 2?
Europe became dominated by the US and the Soviet Union. They ceased to be truly independent. Through the United Nations, the US made wars of aggression illegal. This is mostly to avoid another world war.
You can read more here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aftermath_of_World_War_II
Europe became dominated by the US and the Soviet Union. They ceased to be truly independent. Through the United Nations, the US made wars of aggression illegal. This is mostly to avoid another world war.
You can read more here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aftermath_of_World_War_II
The whole point of the EU is piece among the European nations. That's hardly a “dangerous idea”.
I don't think peace and competition have to be at odds. We can still have relatively independent states with different ideals and cultures, without having to actually start killing each other by the millions.
And if that's impossible, well, I'll move to the United States, or possibly Mars.
I don't think peace and competition have to be at odds. We can still have relatively independent states with different ideals and cultures, without having to actually start killing each other by the millions.
And if that's impossible, well, I'll move to the United States, or possibly Mars.
Worth thinking about: Corporations.
in my mind, that gives every national union (EU included) the "strength through division" you are talking about, but without all that other geopolitical risk.
in my mind, that gives every national union (EU included) the "strength through division" you are talking about, but without all that other geopolitical risk.
Amid all the gloomy U.S. Presidential campaign rhetoric, this made me smile:
There's a debate about the extent to which everything that can be invented has been invented. Have we picked all the low hanging fruit, can we continue to grow the way we did? I take a very optimistic view. I think if you want to summarize the future of technology, the short summary is, "You ain’t seen nothing yet."
There's a debate about the extent to which everything that can be invented has been invented. Have we picked all the low hanging fruit, can we continue to grow the way we did? I take a very optimistic view. I think if you want to summarize the future of technology, the short summary is, "You ain’t seen nothing yet."
It did, it just took a hundred years to kick off, by all reasonable comparisons, China is in the middle of its part of the industrial revolution and there are signs that its about to slide out of it into the next phase of development.
If you consider that the "real" Industrial Revolution took about 60-80 years to run through in the West, and the West was starting pretty much from scratch, and if we pick a date of some sort, say 1976 (end of the Cultural Revolution), China has been at it for about 40 years. In 20 years (about the same length of time as the West's) it looks like huge parts of China will have been elevated to standards of living that probably exceeded those in the West when we came out of our own Industrial Revolution and will be entering into the next major developmental stage.
If anything a better and more interesting argument is how China was able to reproduce the Industrial Revolution in modern times as a model for economic growth.
If you consider that the "real" Industrial Revolution took about 60-80 years to run through in the West, and the West was starting pretty much from scratch, and if we pick a date of some sort, say 1976 (end of the Cultural Revolution), China has been at it for about 40 years. In 20 years (about the same length of time as the West's) it looks like huge parts of China will have been elevated to standards of living that probably exceeded those in the West when we came out of our own Industrial Revolution and will be entering into the next major developmental stage.
If anything a better and more interesting argument is how China was able to reproduce the Industrial Revolution in modern times as a model for economic growth.
China could industrialize much faster because all the needed science and industrial inventions had already been developed by the West. The real question for China is whether its present form of government can sustain development over the long term.
Yeah, China's situation is a bit different:
- There's already a well developed, wealthy, stable of markets that will buy the output of production along with the domestic development.
- The technology to kick off the development has largely already been developed, China just had to import it and get people to run the equipment and work on the assembly lines.
What's just as interesting is the ways in which it's the same:
- Powered by Coal - just like Britain, America and Wallonia
- Rapid urbanization triggered by the rise of manufacturing jobs
- There's already a well developed, wealthy, stable of markets that will buy the output of production along with the domestic development.
- The technology to kick off the development has largely already been developed, China just had to import it and get people to run the equipment and work on the assembly lines.
What's just as interesting is the ways in which it's the same:
- Powered by Coal - just like Britain, America and Wallonia
- Rapid urbanization triggered by the rise of manufacturing jobs
I think this theory "fits the facts" as we know them but for me it fails for me on South America. South America was much more like early Europe in that it has both a diversity of groups, geographic features that make it hard to conquer, and competition. So what was missing that left the empire of Brazil falling behind when Europe was racing ahead?
In cold, deforestation-ridden England, coal hit like crack. They switched to fossil fuels not because they could, they did so because they had to. Contrast this with the abundance of biological resources in Brazil: if you want growth, you simply cut down some more forest. Much easier, much more predictable, negative long term effects are only starting to be fully understood today and the understanding is still not sufficient to make it stop. It does not scale though, like the once-in-a-planet's-lifetime escalation of productivity that the switch to fossil caused in Europe. But they did not know that there either. If England had not grown out of the limited biological resources of their island, the industrialization might have never happened.
Quick googling led me to this scan of an article from 1977: https://nature.berkeley.edu/er100/readings/Nef_1977.pdf "An Early Energy Crisis and Its Consequences", looks like a very interesting read.
Quick googling led me to this scan of an article from 1977: https://nature.berkeley.edu/er100/readings/Nef_1977.pdf "An Early Energy Crisis and Its Consequences", looks like a very interesting read.
In Guns, Germs and Steel Jared Diamond claims that a large contributor to the disparity between Europe and the indigenous New World was due to the North-South aligned axis of the Americas versus the East-West major axis of Eurasia. Crops can often grow at different longitudes as long as their along the same latitude but the converse is not true.
Thus the crops in the Americas were more specialized regionally because the folks who cultivated them and potential adopters had little reason to make any effort to spread the crops and reach the widespread diversity of foodstuffs available in the Eurasian continent.
Obviously he lays out his other argued sources but this seemed to be a big one as far as something that encourages trade and interaction between civilizations.
Thus the crops in the Americas were more specialized regionally because the folks who cultivated them and potential adopters had little reason to make any effort to spread the crops and reach the widespread diversity of foodstuffs available in the Eurasian continent.
Obviously he lays out his other argued sources but this seemed to be a big one as far as something that encourages trade and interaction between civilizations.
Wouldn't a variety of crops also encourage trade? Get your winter yams here, in exchange for summer squash (or whatever.)
I recall there being a mention made of the fact that South America doesn't have very many domesticatable animals.
I recall there being a mention made of the fact that South America doesn't have very many domesticatable animals.
Particularly none that were really suitable for transport. Good luck trading along the Andes with your turkey-carts.
Another thing I seem to remember from that book is that we do have occasional evidence of various discoveries of the wheel in the Americas, it just never caught on due to lack of cart-pulling beasts. (skimmed the book: evidence of wheels in Mexico, but no Llamas north of the Darien gap)
Besides, preindustrial transport did not happen anywhere on the scale required to transport bulk goods like base nutrients over the distance between latitudes of different biomes. Luxuries and spices, sure, but not basic foodstuff with low value per unit. Even the roman empire never really left their comfort zone of wheat-producing regions.
Another thing I seem to remember from that book is that we do have occasional evidence of various discoveries of the wheel in the Americas, it just never caught on due to lack of cart-pulling beasts. (skimmed the book: evidence of wheels in Mexico, but no Llamas north of the Darien gap)
Besides, preindustrial transport did not happen anywhere on the scale required to transport bulk goods like base nutrients over the distance between latitudes of different biomes. Luxuries and spices, sure, but not basic foodstuff with low value per unit. Even the roman empire never really left their comfort zone of wheat-producing regions.
The other issue is the bottle-neck of the Isthmus of Panama. _All_ trade between North and South Americas would have needed to transit this corridor, unless some more complex system involving Caribbean island-hopping was developed.
Supposedly, the animals available in South America aren't great candidates for domestication.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wOmjnioNulo
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JEYh5WACqEk
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wOmjnioNulo
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JEYh5WACqEk
I'd say climate played a factor in Brazil and South America's economic progress. This article mentions nothing about climate, Europe during the winter months would be the perfect time to sit by a fireplace and solve hard problems. Notice how much of the countries and people living near the equator fail to have built great civilizations, humans just aren't as productive in the heat.
> Notice how much of the countries and people living near the equator fail to have built great civilizations, humans just aren't as productive in the heat.
I think Iraq, Egypt, Iran and India were all as hot as they are now and they all had some of the greatest civilizations. Historically these "countries" spread beyond current political borders which more or less encompasses a continuous stretch of land and I am talking in that sense.
I think Iraq, Egypt, Iran and India were all as hot as they are now and they all had some of the greatest civilizations. Historically these "countries" spread beyond current political borders which more or less encompasses a continuous stretch of land and I am talking in that sense.
"I think Iraq, Egypt, Iran and India were all as hot as they are now."
Not really, we are talking 3000 to 4000 years ago and certainly climate was colder then.
When we talk about Egypt we know there were very fertile land and cities then that are desert now. In Mesopotamia there were terrible deforestation done by humans that is recorded on documents and salinization of fertile lands that are now also desert but at the time supported millions of people.
We also know there has been at least two terrible changes in climate that lasted at least years that made the Earth cold and dark linked to volcanic eruptions.
Not really, we are talking 3000 to 4000 years ago and certainly climate was colder then.
When we talk about Egypt we know there were very fertile land and cities then that are desert now. In Mesopotamia there were terrible deforestation done by humans that is recorded on documents and salinization of fertile lands that are now also desert but at the time supported millions of people.
We also know there has been at least two terrible changes in climate that lasted at least years that made the Earth cold and dark linked to volcanic eruptions.
Not to mention things like disease that spread more in equatorial areas. How many Einsteins died of something like malaria?
This is an interesting question. For some reason, the European scientific culture to question everything and preferring “useful knowledge” apparently did not transfer to Brazil with the Portugese.
Here's an excerpt from Surely You’re Joking, Mr. Feynman!, discussing education in Brazil which I think is relevant: http://v.cx/2010/04/feynman-brazil-education
Here's an excerpt from Surely You’re Joking, Mr. Feynman!, discussing education in Brazil which I think is relevant: http://v.cx/2010/04/feynman-brazil-education
Thanks for that excerpt. It was an entertaining read!
I remember that section from decades ago, mostly because of Feynman writing:
“When you take a lump of sugar and crush it with a pair of pliers in the dark, you can see a bluish flash. Some other crystals do that too. Nobody knows why. The phenomenon is called "triboluminescence.'".
Reading that, I thought "could it be lasing?". A laser is two parallel mirrors around a medium with electrons in an excited state. Squeezing a crystal will produce electrical energy by piezoelectricity. Crushing a crystal will produce parallel planes, at least momentarily. So the preconditions for lasing exist.
This is still an open question today. Lasing of crystals under pressure may have been observed in some exotic materials.[1] But it doesn't seem to be the main light-emission mechanism in triboluminescence.
[1] http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2002ApPhL..81..460R
Reading that, I thought "could it be lasing?". A laser is two parallel mirrors around a medium with electrons in an excited state. Squeezing a crystal will produce electrical energy by piezoelectricity. Crushing a crystal will produce parallel planes, at least momentarily. So the preconditions for lasing exist.
This is still an open question today. Lasing of crystals under pressure may have been observed in some exotic materials.[1] But it doesn't seem to be the main light-emission mechanism in triboluminescence.
[1] http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2002ApPhL..81..460R
A very long time ago, I read about this and experimented in a dark toilet after sunset. I did get the flash, but it wasn't terribly easy to get a flash with the small sugar crystals available to me at the time. The next day, there were ants after all that sugar on the toilet floor (also featured in Feynman's book), leading to further experiments ferrying ants :)
As a Portuguese, what would surprise me is if they were able to overcome the dysfunctional culture we left them and race ahead. Remember that the guy who proclaimed independence was himself a Portuguese, and his son ruled as emperor until almost the 20th century, when his authority was so weak that it barely needed a push to fall.
I believe is climate. I have lived in Germany and in Brazil.
Living in Germany is like living in Boston, Chicago or New York, but probably worse: There is winter and you die if you are not prepared. As hard as it sounds, this is a reality that forges the German culture, it puts you in your toes every year.
I was born in Spain, and Spain is cold in winter, but cold being minus two or three Celsius degrees. Having to live with minus 30 degrees Celsius and everything covered by snow, and almost no sunlight is completely different.
But living in Brazil is a shock because their winter is even less winter than in Spain, only Argentina and Chile has a similar winter to Spain and no part of the South hemisphere but New Zealand and Antarctica has something similar to Canada, Russia of North of North America.
In fact, the Brazilians form South(colder) are totally different form the people of the North. More serious, less party going.
Living in Germany is like living in Boston, Chicago or New York, but probably worse: There is winter and you die if you are not prepared. As hard as it sounds, this is a reality that forges the German culture, it puts you in your toes every year.
I was born in Spain, and Spain is cold in winter, but cold being minus two or three Celsius degrees. Having to live with minus 30 degrees Celsius and everything covered by snow, and almost no sunlight is completely different.
But living in Brazil is a shock because their winter is even less winter than in Spain, only Argentina and Chile has a similar winter to Spain and no part of the South hemisphere but New Zealand and Antarctica has something similar to Canada, Russia of North of North America.
In fact, the Brazilians form South(colder) are totally different form the people of the North. More serious, less party going.
While it's not quite Industrial Revolution the late 19th C saw China & South America get hit by El Nino floods. & drought.
> Late Victorian Holocausts: El Niño Famines and the Making of the Third World is a book by Mike Davis about the connection between political economy and global climate patterns, particularly El Niño-Southern Oscillation (ENSO).
50m Chinese & Indian starved to death from drought.
25m South Americans got wiped out by floods.
"All we had left was our slaves", one Brazilian wrote.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Late_Victorian_Holocausts
> Late Victorian Holocausts: El Niño Famines and the Making of the Third World is a book by Mike Davis about the connection between political economy and global climate patterns, particularly El Niño-Southern Oscillation (ENSO).
50m Chinese & Indian starved to death from drought.
25m South Americans got wiped out by floods.
"All we had left was our slaves", one Brazilian wrote.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Late_Victorian_Holocausts
Brazil was recovering from being colonized by Portugal, no? Arguably the whole of South America still is, along with all of the interference of communists and the CIA.
I suspect tropical disease may also have been important.
I suspect tropical disease may also have been important.
A documentary I saw on TV (can't remember the name) explained it in terms of land ownership. South America was run essentially by feudal lords. There was little opportunity for regular people to acquire land and operate it.
But in North America, settlers were offered land that they could own if they worked it. This produced an environment of many, many small businesses (farmers), forming the basis of a free market and the resulting dynamism.
But in North America, settlers were offered land that they could own if they worked it. This produced an environment of many, many small businesses (farmers), forming the basis of a free market and the resulting dynamism.
Although in Europe land ownership was by feudal lords as well. So not a strong argument for or against. I'm following up on the energy crisis lead, that seems promising.
I don't suppose it is lost on people that if the land provides your needs, it seems you don't develop a lot of knowledge, and if it doesn't you do[1]. And that correlates at least loosely with myths about losing access to the garden of eden by eating from the tree of knowledge.
[1] Sort of a variation on the maxim, "Success makes you complacent, failure makes you smarter."
I don't suppose it is lost on people that if the land provides your needs, it seems you don't develop a lot of knowledge, and if it doesn't you do[1]. And that correlates at least loosely with myths about losing access to the garden of eden by eating from the tree of knowledge.
[1] Sort of a variation on the maxim, "Success makes you complacent, failure makes you smarter."
Not entirely true. Both the British and e.g. Dutch had land divided up in a more market oriented fashion and farmers produced and sold for a market.
The bad luck for South America was that they inherited the Portuguese and Spanish structures of society. Europe was not a homogenous mass of countries. Success within Europe varied widely and South America copied the institutions and land laws of the most backwards countries in Europe.
Portugal and Spain could maintain an illusion of success based on all the wealth they got from their plunder and exploitation.
The bad luck for South America was that they inherited the Portuguese and Spanish structures of society. Europe was not a homogenous mass of countries. Success within Europe varied widely and South America copied the institutions and land laws of the most backwards countries in Europe.
Portugal and Spain could maintain an illusion of success based on all the wealth they got from their plunder and exploitation.
Backward countries in Europe referred to Spain and Portugal in 15 century is completely nuts.
In that century Spain and Portugal were way more advanced that England or any other part of Europe. For example, Cadiz or Cordoba were way richer than most cities in Europe.
Spain forbid slavery in 1512 and declared all native people equal to Europeans. England by contrast only forbid slavery in 18XX, and only because they used it as an excuse to occupy and colonize Africa.
You could not compare the West conquest of the US(and the extermination of the native population) at the end of 19th century, start of 20th century, with things like rail roads to the Spanish colonization that ended before industrialization.
I only expect you not to be American, first because if you are you are probably over some land stolen and plundered from some native people, and second because it is the country that currently plunders and exploits other countries like Iraq, Afghanistan or Libya.
You could say the same thing about the US today if you remove the illusion of success that means the petrodollar and the exploitation of the rest of the world that it represents.
In that century Spain and Portugal were way more advanced that England or any other part of Europe. For example, Cadiz or Cordoba were way richer than most cities in Europe.
Spain forbid slavery in 1512 and declared all native people equal to Europeans. England by contrast only forbid slavery in 18XX, and only because they used it as an excuse to occupy and colonize Africa.
You could not compare the West conquest of the US(and the extermination of the native population) at the end of 19th century, start of 20th century, with things like rail roads to the Spanish colonization that ended before industrialization.
I only expect you not to be American, first because if you are you are probably over some land stolen and plundered from some native people, and second because it is the country that currently plunders and exploits other countries like Iraq, Afghanistan or Libya.
You could say the same thing about the US today if you remove the illusion of success that means the petrodollar and the exploitation of the rest of the world that it represents.
"You could not compare the West conquest of the US(and the extermination of the native population)"
Somewhere around 90% of the indigenous population of North America had succumbed to disease before the United States even existed.
Somewhere around 90% of the indigenous population of North America had succumbed to disease before the United States even existed.
That documentary was probably the third episode, "Property", of Niall Ferguson's "Civilization: is the West history?":
http://www.channel4.com/programmes/civilization-is-the-west-...
I suggest reading Adam Smiths wealth of nations from 1760s. It is rather ironic that such an old book actually describes these things very well. Adam Smith accurately predicted that South American would develop poorly compared to North America.
What is good about Smith's description is that he includes the factors mentioned here as well as a number of others which together give a very good explanation for why the industrial revolution had to happen in Europe and England in particular.
1) As mentioned the fragmentation of Europe gave competition of ideas, and avoided the intellectual stagnation of the great arab and eastern empires.
2) Coast line and river relative to landmass is crucial. You thin land e.g. given more relative coastline than circular. Hence America, Africa and China are poor fits. You also want many rivers criss crossing and not just a few going one direction. WHY? Because before railroads, transport by water will be crucial. Massive amounts of specialization is needed for industrialization. That requires being able to ship products out to as many people as possible cheaply. You can only achieve that with lots of easily available water transport combined with high population density. There is no country fitting that description that Britain in the 1700s. No country had as high population density and high density of rivers and coastline relative to landmass as them.
In fact the country starting a sort of earlier industrial revolution was the Netherlands which had a similar advantage. Due to being under the sea level, digging canals was very easy. So they could dig a lot of them and transport goods cheaply. The Netherlands had nothing else of important resources, they just had high population density combined with an extensive canal network. That made the Netherlands the richest country in the world per capita in the 1600s.
3) Institutions. Adam Smith compares these extensively between the North and South of America. The Portuguese and Spanish possessions had very unfavorable institutions and social structures for economic development. Unlike North America they let a few elites take all the land. It ended up like a sort of feudal system were people worked at the local castle and village for their "lord". In contrast North America was divided into lots of small patches of land with competing farmers selling their products in a free market. North America inherited British rule of law, rather than rule of men, so businessmen in North America could feel safe lending money or investing in ventures with more powerful individuals. In the south you could never know if you'd get your money back from some well connected individual, because written laws mattered little, but connections was everything.
In short I think the receipt for industrialization is many small competing states, lots of rivers and coastline with dense population combined with strong institutions. By strong institutions one might instead say that rule of law is observed combined with some form of democratic or power sharing traditions.
What is good about Smith's description is that he includes the factors mentioned here as well as a number of others which together give a very good explanation for why the industrial revolution had to happen in Europe and England in particular.
1) As mentioned the fragmentation of Europe gave competition of ideas, and avoided the intellectual stagnation of the great arab and eastern empires.
2) Coast line and river relative to landmass is crucial. You thin land e.g. given more relative coastline than circular. Hence America, Africa and China are poor fits. You also want many rivers criss crossing and not just a few going one direction. WHY? Because before railroads, transport by water will be crucial. Massive amounts of specialization is needed for industrialization. That requires being able to ship products out to as many people as possible cheaply. You can only achieve that with lots of easily available water transport combined with high population density. There is no country fitting that description that Britain in the 1700s. No country had as high population density and high density of rivers and coastline relative to landmass as them.
In fact the country starting a sort of earlier industrial revolution was the Netherlands which had a similar advantage. Due to being under the sea level, digging canals was very easy. So they could dig a lot of them and transport goods cheaply. The Netherlands had nothing else of important resources, they just had high population density combined with an extensive canal network. That made the Netherlands the richest country in the world per capita in the 1600s.
3) Institutions. Adam Smith compares these extensively between the North and South of America. The Portuguese and Spanish possessions had very unfavorable institutions and social structures for economic development. Unlike North America they let a few elites take all the land. It ended up like a sort of feudal system were people worked at the local castle and village for their "lord". In contrast North America was divided into lots of small patches of land with competing farmers selling their products in a free market. North America inherited British rule of law, rather than rule of men, so businessmen in North America could feel safe lending money or investing in ventures with more powerful individuals. In the south you could never know if you'd get your money back from some well connected individual, because written laws mattered little, but connections was everything.
In short I think the receipt for industrialization is many small competing states, lots of rivers and coastline with dense population combined with strong institutions. By strong institutions one might instead say that rule of law is observed combined with some form of democratic or power sharing traditions.
Obviously the number 1 thing is having an empire.
Netherlands and Portugal had an empire in Africa and Asia. The commerce with them and north of Europe(via the Hanseatic League) is what made Netherlands the richest country per capita.
North America was created under totally different circumstances than South America.
For instance, Spanish and French went to Louisiana but could not control the Mississippi river. It was a very hard place to live filled with Mosquitoes that transmitted illnesses that killed most people.
France exchanged that for a small piece of land(Guyane), and it was a good deal at the time.
That this place could later become one of the most fertile places on Earth is only possible because of lots of scientific discoveries that happened later in time, like the combustion engine making possible moving enormous amount of land(creating dykes), DDT killing the mosquitoes, railroads for transporting the grain and the capital generated being reinvested in further development.
We could not extract political narratives for comparing 20th century empires to 15th.
Most people used in the West conquest to native population came from rail roads. Rail roads did not exist before 1850, way later to Spain and Portugal starting to lose territories in America.
Netherlands and Portugal had an empire in Africa and Asia. The commerce with them and north of Europe(via the Hanseatic League) is what made Netherlands the richest country per capita.
North America was created under totally different circumstances than South America.
For instance, Spanish and French went to Louisiana but could not control the Mississippi river. It was a very hard place to live filled with Mosquitoes that transmitted illnesses that killed most people.
France exchanged that for a small piece of land(Guyane), and it was a good deal at the time.
That this place could later become one of the most fertile places on Earth is only possible because of lots of scientific discoveries that happened later in time, like the combustion engine making possible moving enormous amount of land(creating dykes), DDT killing the mosquitoes, railroads for transporting the grain and the capital generated being reinvested in further development.
We could not extract political narratives for comparing 20th century empires to 15th.
Most people used in the West conquest to native population came from rail roads. Rail roads did not exist before 1850, way later to Spain and Portugal starting to lose territories in America.
Some nice insights but I think you downplayed the catalytic role the development of banking and finance had during the 18-19th century, in both Britain and the Netherlands.
e.g.: Empire: How Britain Made the Modern World -- N. Ferguson
e.g.: Empire: How Britain Made the Modern World -- N. Ferguson
As Paul Kennedy explains in The Rise and Fall of the Great Powers, one consequence of the unending warfare in Europe was the development of better financial institutions such as central banks. The problem is that warfare is very expensive, so states were always going broke, and the one that won a war tended to be the one that ran out of funds last. As a result there was a lot of innovation in matters like national budgeting and financial regulations.
By coincidence, I am reading Alfred Zimmern's The Greek Commonwealth, which has extensive discussion of the economics of classical Athens. The government there had no budget, just a bunch of containers for funds for different purposes, and new expenses were just voted on, along with how the money would be raised, as they came up.
By coincidence, I am reading Alfred Zimmern's The Greek Commonwealth, which has extensive discussion of the economics of classical Athens. The government there had no budget, just a bunch of containers for funds for different purposes, and new expenses were just voted on, along with how the money would be raised, as they came up.
As a follow on, one could ask the question: what where the circumstances that led to China being unified and Europe not.
Something to do with culture? Something to do with population levels? Something to do with the crops being grown?
Something to do with culture? Something to do with population levels? Something to do with the crops being grown?
One "explanation" you hear a lot is geography. China's central plain is... a plain. It's easy to conquer and hold a plain. Europe has got mountains in the middle, plus various odd bodies of water getting in the way. That makes it much more difficult (given ancient/medieval modes of transport and warfare) to unify politically. Hence the conditions of perpetual competition that the article mentions.
China has mountains around the edges, and had a hell of a time conquering the little kingdoms that were in them. In most cases, the best they managed was tribute, and never really established real administrative control.
China has mountains around the edges, and had a hell of a time conquering the little kingdoms that were in them. In most cases, the best they managed was tribute, and never really established real administrative control.
The mountains are hit quickly. Take a train from Beijing to Guangzhou, and you are in mountains from Hubei on down (and even Hebei is mountainous in the north). In fact, this is China's major problem: it has too many mountains and not enough arable land (of course, they can and do terrace the mountains to grow things on).
Geography alone doesn't really explain China's early unification, since they had more barriers than Europe to deal with. My hunch is that it is more of a fluke in history that could have happened in Europe also (and did with the Romans).
Geography alone doesn't really explain China's early unification, since they had more barriers than Europe to deal with. My hunch is that it is more of a fluke in history that could have happened in Europe also (and did with the Romans).
If you look on the wikipedia page, a "true" unification of China as people identified as Chinese didn't occur until about the revolution in China, where it was necessary for a strong centralized government to control all of China. Beforehand it was more considered like warring states, each culture very distinct. Some of it still remains today.
If that's the case, then China still isn't unified. The emperor was a strong central government, but, which is true even today, often "tian gao, haungdi yuan."
Warring state periods did occur during history, but stable and strong political unions were the norm in most of the dynasties.
Warring state periods did occur during history, but stable and strong political unions were the norm in most of the dynasties.
Sure, I don't think it's a silver-bullet explanation, just one that you hear frequently. I still think it holds water, to a certain extent -- the central plains have continually been the cradle and heart of Chinese civilization. And one of China's most culturally fruitful periods, Warring States, occurred when even the central plain was fragmented, which would seem to uphold the theory of the article.
I think spread out over enough time, these pervasive environmental factors do have a real influence. You could see the unity of the Roman Empire as being Europe's fluke, and the disunity of the Warring States as being China's.
But again, it's really all speculative.
I think spread out over enough time, these pervasive environmental factors do have a real influence. You could see the unity of the Roman Empire as being Europe's fluke, and the disunity of the Warring States as being China's.
But again, it's really all speculative.
But the Romans did manage to unify much of Europe for hundreds of years. Why wasn't that feat ever replicated again?
That's an interesting question I've thought a lot about in the past (the rise of the great empires in general, to be honest).
My best guess is that they were able to do this thanks to the advancement required to face off the threads before their eventual rise. There wasn't anybody who could really compete with what they had after those wars were won. The Pax Romana held relative peace in Europe because of that strength.
I'd love someone with more knowledge on the subject to come and answer this - really fascinating subject.
My best guess is that they were able to do this thanks to the advancement required to face off the threads before their eventual rise. There wasn't anybody who could really compete with what they had after those wars were won. The Pax Romana held relative peace in Europe because of that strength.
I'd love someone with more knowledge on the subject to come and answer this - really fascinating subject.
A lot of Roman strength was organizational. In conquering, they spread that knowledge. It would probably have been hard to do it again with the same technique.
The Roman Empire was only stable on the parts bordering the Mediterranean, where you could quickly and (fairly safely) sail. Gaul, the Balkans, Brittania, etc were constantly rebelling or getting invaded.
Lots of modern europe was never touched by the Roman Empire because it was too far from the water.
Lots of modern europe was never touched by the Roman Empire because it was too far from the water.
I am not a historian, but the Romans seem to have grown at the expense of weaker and more disorganized foes, who either didn't have any form of centralized leadership prior to contact with the Romans (like the Gauls and Iberians) or who were pitched against eachother in civil war (like the Egyptians). When fighting against similarly sized centralized states, like Parthia (or Carthage, in the early republic), they had a much harder time winning anything out of them. I think they mainly exploited a preexisting assymetry.
Xinjiang interestingly wasn't conquered until the 17th century, I think?
China's borders fluctuated a lot over the last 2000 years. Parts of Northern Xinjiang were part of the Han (2nd) dynasty.
Which seems to be the justification for claiming large parts of territory for the PRC.
The Tibetan Empire used to control large parts of Xinjiang and western China, but you don't see the Dalai Lama making any claims :).
There are very valid reasons for China wanting that territory in their country (security, resources, etc...) and its not like the west + Russia were playing a "Great Game" there just a century ago. China gets the territory because they took it and were able to hold it, plain and simple, it doesn't need a flaky moralistic reason.
There are very valid reasons for China wanting that territory in their country (security, resources, etc...) and its not like the west + Russia were playing a "Great Game" there just a century ago. China gets the territory because they took it and were able to hold it, plain and simple, it doesn't need a flaky moralistic reason.
> The Tibetan Empire used to control large parts of Xinjiang and western China, but you don't see the Dalai Lama making any claims :)
Many Tibetan exiles are rather fond of "minority in our own homeland" claims which are true only if you define the homeland as covering areas not ruled over by Tibetans for centuries though :)
Many Tibetan exiles are rather fond of "minority in our own homeland" claims which are true only if you define the homeland as covering areas not ruled over by Tibetans for centuries though :)
"There are very valid reasons for China wanting that territory in their country" Or so the Chinese say. One person's security buffer is another person's colonization.
Right, but it makes sense for them, even if it doesn't necessarily make sense for whoever was there before. This is repeated time and time again, none of the major powers have very clean hands, mandated self determination is a pipe dream.
"If you lack the ability to inflict agony and death, you will forever be at the mercy of those who do not."
Or
"Power without morality is an abomination.
Morality without power is worthless."
To the best of my knowledge, there has never been a regime that live up to such lofty standards. Ok, maybe the Swiss.
The Roman Empire was a unification of sorts. 27 BC to 476 AD in the west and 1453 AD in the east.
That overlooks the fact that the actual Western Empire was pretty small towards the end, and that Byzantine power really declined significantly after both the Arab conquests and esp after the later highpoint of Basil II.The territory they "unified" was more than often small rather than large.
I have read that one important factor that kept Europe fragmented was England. Thanks to the English channel, it is very difficult to invade. However, it could be if some country took over the whole of Europe.
The English realized this, so whenever some country like Spain or France threatened to conquer the rest of Europe, England would put its military strength on the other side to prevent this from happening.
The English realized this, so whenever some country like Spain or France threatened to conquer the rest of Europe, England would put its military strength on the other side to prevent this from happening.
"Among Celtic and Germanic peoples, the predominant custom during ancient times seems to have been to divide the land in equal parts for each of the sons." (1)
Which also applied to countries and why Western Europe kept going from a unified empire to a bunch of countries. The last time this happen was in 843 "When Louis the Pious died in 840, his eldest son, Lothair I, claimed overlordship over the whole of his father's kingdom .../... Lothair's brother Louis the German and his half-brother Charles the Bald refused to acknowledge Lothair's suzerainty and went to war against him. .../... after which Lothair became willing to negotiate a settlement." (2).
1: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Historical_inheritance_systems...
2: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Treaty_of_Verdun
Which also applied to countries and why Western Europe kept going from a unified empire to a bunch of countries. The last time this happen was in 843 "When Louis the Pious died in 840, his eldest son, Lothair I, claimed overlordship over the whole of his father's kingdom .../... Lothair's brother Louis the German and his half-brother Charles the Bald refused to acknowledge Lothair's suzerainty and went to war against him. .../... after which Lothair became willing to negotiate a settlement." (2).
1: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Historical_inheritance_systems...
2: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Treaty_of_Verdun
IIRC from Jared Diamond, China is a huge flat field with a couple of rivers to help navigate.
Europe, especially preindustrial, was forests and Alps and Pyrenees. A lot of trees in Germany. Italy is hilly.
Also, China is unified by language. At least the written kind that lets you run a bureaucracy. The med had a bunch, Latin, Greek and Arabic, and was multiple "countries" for a good long time.
About the crops being grown, there's ideas about the difference between rice and the middle eastern crops. Something to do with the fact that rice requires constant attention whereas med crops are intensive only during harvest. Not too familiar with that line of thought.
Europe, especially preindustrial, was forests and Alps and Pyrenees. A lot of trees in Germany. Italy is hilly.
Also, China is unified by language. At least the written kind that lets you run a bureaucracy. The med had a bunch, Latin, Greek and Arabic, and was multiple "countries" for a good long time.
About the crops being grown, there's ideas about the difference between rice and the middle eastern crops. Something to do with the fact that rice requires constant attention whereas med crops are intensive only during harvest. Not too familiar with that line of thought.
I you look at world geography you can see that large tracts of plains seem to support large empires. E.g. consider the Russian Empire, the Mongolia and various Arab empires. They also support strong central governments.
In contrast Europe has a lot of rivers, mountains and forrest dividing the lands naturally.
E.g. you can see this replay itself at every level, e.g. within Scandinavia, flat Denmark had a stronger central government than Sweden early on. While e.g. my home country Norway full of fjords, rivers and forests always had very weak central power. Nobody could easily hold such a country.
I think the good part of that though is that such a situation foster democracy. These large plain countries always seem to end up strong but autocratic. I don't think there is any accident that Russia lagged behind the rest of Europe in freedom and development of democracy.
Switzerland is another example of a mountain country with strong democracy traditions and also historically very hard to keep control over by central powers.
Now China does of course have lots of maintains as well, but it matters how they are distributed. They still got quite large plains. I think there was a simulation ran, which simulated the creation of empires just based on geography and China was far more likely to produce empire's with its geography than Europe.
In contrast Europe has a lot of rivers, mountains and forrest dividing the lands naturally.
E.g. you can see this replay itself at every level, e.g. within Scandinavia, flat Denmark had a stronger central government than Sweden early on. While e.g. my home country Norway full of fjords, rivers and forests always had very weak central power. Nobody could easily hold such a country.
I think the good part of that though is that such a situation foster democracy. These large plain countries always seem to end up strong but autocratic. I don't think there is any accident that Russia lagged behind the rest of Europe in freedom and development of democracy.
Switzerland is another example of a mountain country with strong democracy traditions and also historically very hard to keep control over by central powers.
Now China does of course have lots of maintains as well, but it matters how they are distributed. They still got quite large plains. I think there was a simulation ran, which simulated the creation of empires just based on geography and China was far more likely to produce empire's with its geography than Europe.
Geographic reasons aside, there is the cultural factor of the Mandate of Heaven, which spread throughout China in its early days. The Mandate held that Heaven wants things to be a certain way, culturally, aesthetically, etc., and this is how everyone should be. This created a sort of religious unity over a large geographical area where maintaining certain cultural practices was considered to be a necessity. As a result, when kingdoms fragmented or were conquered by other peoples, their cultures didn't change much and they continued to be similar to one another, making future reunification much easier.
The West had divine right and the Catholic Church. The pope literally crowned kings in the Holy Roman Empire for hundreds of years.
However, the principle of splitting the inheritance (including huge tracts of land) among sons is a big cultural difference that makes countries more fragmented.
I don't know much about Chinese history but it seems to me that some sort of China as a unified entity existed for 1000s of years. In Europe on the other hand, borders were much more combated due to expansions of this or that empire (Rome, Turkey, France, Germany etc.) E.g. modern Germany wasn't unified as a nation until after the Napoleon wars in the 19th century. In that sense, the EU is a rather courageous project of countries that were enemies not so long ago.
One explanation could be the big rivers and reliance on dams, dikes and irrigation.
I think it really just takes one emperor winning and no rebellions that won.
bloodyshovel.wordpress.com is pretty excellent on this and related issues.
To describe China as "unified" ignores their dozens of civil wars and conquests by external groups. They kind of have an at best metastable "tough shell / gooey center" dynamic, and I would not be surprised if their proportional deaths by strife were greater than the European number over most timeframes.
Europe was settled and civilised relatively lately (at least by h. sapiens), and saw constant assault from various quarters. The critical region was the Mediterranian, which saw the Levant, Mesopotamia, Egypt, Cretian and Minoan civilisations, the maritime culture of the Phoenecians (and perhaps an earlier one, I'm a tad rusty), Greece, Macedonia, Persia, the Romans, Gauls, Huns, Carthage, Moors, Norsemen / Normans, Anglos and Saxons, etc., etc. There was no cultural or linguistic unity among most of those.
European territory made external travel (around the coastline) quite easy (good for invaders, hard for defenders to move to where the attackers are).
China's geography had a much smaller coastline (relative to landmass), and a far superior interior river network, augmented early (~1,000 BCE IIRC) with manmade canals, making internal movement of forces far easier. China also wasn't surrounded by capable enemies -- India was the nearest significant civilisation. The Mongols managed to invade, yes, but they were a fluke and also managed to occupy nearly all the Eurasian landmass, from the Pacific to central Europe and India. (The Mughal Empire was the result of Mongol invaders of India.)
China did see internal strife, but those splits resolved with a resumption of the previous Chinese bureaucracy rather than a replacement of it, as seemed more typical of Europe.
European territory made external travel (around the coastline) quite easy (good for invaders, hard for defenders to move to where the attackers are).
China's geography had a much smaller coastline (relative to landmass), and a far superior interior river network, augmented early (~1,000 BCE IIRC) with manmade canals, making internal movement of forces far easier. China also wasn't surrounded by capable enemies -- India was the nearest significant civilisation. The Mongols managed to invade, yes, but they were a fluke and also managed to occupy nearly all the Eurasian landmass, from the Pacific to central Europe and India. (The Mughal Empire was the result of Mongol invaders of India.)
China did see internal strife, but those splits resolved with a resumption of the previous Chinese bureaucracy rather than a replacement of it, as seemed more typical of Europe.
I can't wait to find out what the revolution that was possible in our time but that we failed to see is. We have computers. We have spaceships. We have fish farms. We have sequenced DNA and cloned sheep. Seems sort of like you should be able to put all of that together to make... SOMETHING. Oh well, I guess 1000 years from now we are going to look sort of primitive by comparison. I would like to officially note, for the historians among us, that I am not culturally opposed to any technological innovations in the production of Computerized Spaceship Fishfarm Clones. Not sure what's stopping me from innovating here.
Yes, talking about the industrial revolution happening in Rome or China in the distance past is sort of like that in my opinion.
Yes, talking about the industrial revolution happening in Rome or China in the distance past is sort of like that in my opinion.
Me too, although I'll point out we are searching both harder and more efficiently than at any point in the past.
IMO, the author is being unfairly generous to the intentions of Europeans. He has it right when he says it's about competition, but then he goes on to credit Europeans for being more interested in progress and general welfare than the Chinese. That interest in progress and public welfare did eventually show up in the 19th century, but until then I'd say it was more about competition for money and power. The elites of the European nation states simply wanted anything that would give them a leg up on their neighbors. Anything that could either benefit their military or create a trade surplus was especially prized.
The Enlightenment has its roots in Europe in the late 17th and 18th centuries. The enormous progress of American capitalism in the 19th century sprang out of the preceding European intellectual movement.
Europe had competition between states but it also had stability. The key seems to be balance between competition, that forces states to innovate and gives freedom to inventors, and stability, that brings wealth and allows academic/engineering traditions to take hold. Persia had many scientific discoveries and technological innovations during the so called Islamic golden age but whole cities have been destroyed including there libraries during the Mongol invasions that spared Europe. Meanwhile, Paris, London, and many Germanic cities had centuries without suffering from catastrophic destruction.
Also, I think that the focus should be on a technical level more than on a cultural level. "Then one day, Europeans build a vacuum pump. [...] In 1573, a Danish astronomer called Tycho Brahe observes a supernova." I would rather know more about how they came up with pumps and telescopes than read a long dissertation on how Chinese elites were too conservative or on how Aristotle has been trashed. Why did Europeans came up with pumps and telescopes and not China? I feel that the answer has more to do with demands (from demographic growth), concentration of wealth and skilled craftsmen than with political systems. Did China also had available materials, skilled workers and demand for efficient production?
Superficial article that comes up with the only answer the author knows: "competition".
I'm as pro free market as the next (liberal) economist but competition had little to do with why the IR didn't happen in China.
One obvious counter example to the article: Europe had centuries of bloody competition before IR, so why did the IR take so long to come about?
And the simple answer is that what enabled the IR to happen was the Enlightenment and the core of the Enlightenment is essentially, value pluralism. Before the Enlightenment, God or his representative on Earth, the monarch, was the sole source of truth. Science, or any other sources of truth were squashed. The Enlightenment broke that link, most obviously with Locke's argument for the separation of church and state.
The lack of value pluralism also explains the lack of innovation and progress in other cultures through history.
A footnote: Machiavelli is misunderstood in the popular culture. The reason he is so important is not because he was the originator of the idea that there are different moral frameworks for princes (rulers) and the ruled, but that it a necessary, indeed a good thing that there are different moral frameworks. Machiavelli wrote in the 16th century, and was one of the early value pluralists.
I'm as pro free market as the next (liberal) economist but competition had little to do with why the IR didn't happen in China.
One obvious counter example to the article: Europe had centuries of bloody competition before IR, so why did the IR take so long to come about?
And the simple answer is that what enabled the IR to happen was the Enlightenment and the core of the Enlightenment is essentially, value pluralism. Before the Enlightenment, God or his representative on Earth, the monarch, was the sole source of truth. Science, or any other sources of truth were squashed. The Enlightenment broke that link, most obviously with Locke's argument for the separation of church and state.
The lack of value pluralism also explains the lack of innovation and progress in other cultures through history.
A footnote: Machiavelli is misunderstood in the popular culture. The reason he is so important is not because he was the originator of the idea that there are different moral frameworks for princes (rulers) and the ruled, but that it a necessary, indeed a good thing that there are different moral frameworks. Machiavelli wrote in the 16th century, and was one of the early value pluralists.
One element of the Industrial Revolution was the military power necessary to secure resources and land to develop it. Given a wood-fuel powered industry, this meant a lot of wood.
I've been meaning to run the calculations as to how much a full first rate ship's fire would equate to in wood equivalents. I'm basing this off of the HMS Victory, a 104 gun first-rate ship of the line of the Royal Navy.
Armament consisted of 30 x 32#, 28 * 24#, 30 * 12#, and 2 each 12# and 68# forecastle guns.
A single round from all guns (unlikely -- a broadside would be half the armament) would then unleash 1.1 tons of iron shot.
From Vaclav Smil, iron smelting requires an 80:1 ratio of source fuelwood to output iron, with the fuelwood first being converted to charcoal, a 4:1 reduction itself.
Firing all guns of the Victory expends the smelting power of 92 tons of fuelwood -- about 30 cords.
Canon could manage perhaps 2 rounds in a minute, with sustained rates of 20-40 rounds in an hour. At the upper bound, we're looking at 3,600 tons of wood in shot consumption.
The Victory herself required 6,000 trees in construction, was refurbished after her first major engagement at a cost greater than her initial construction, but perhaps in compensation, remains to this day as the oldest commissioned warship, having first launched in 1768.
I haven't done the calculation of gunpowder usage, though I've got a reference for 6# charge for a 24# gun. If that's proportionate to all guns, then a full round would be 1/3 ton of powder.
If anyone has a source for UK or US arms manufacture (guns, shot, powder) for the 17th - 19th centuries, I'd be quite interested. -18th centuries, I'd be interested.
I've been meaning to run the calculations as to how much a full first rate ship's fire would equate to in wood equivalents. I'm basing this off of the HMS Victory, a 104 gun first-rate ship of the line of the Royal Navy.
Armament consisted of 30 x 32#, 28 * 24#, 30 * 12#, and 2 each 12# and 68# forecastle guns.
A single round from all guns (unlikely -- a broadside would be half the armament) would then unleash 1.1 tons of iron shot.
From Vaclav Smil, iron smelting requires an 80:1 ratio of source fuelwood to output iron, with the fuelwood first being converted to charcoal, a 4:1 reduction itself.
Firing all guns of the Victory expends the smelting power of 92 tons of fuelwood -- about 30 cords.
Canon could manage perhaps 2 rounds in a minute, with sustained rates of 20-40 rounds in an hour. At the upper bound, we're looking at 3,600 tons of wood in shot consumption.
The Victory herself required 6,000 trees in construction, was refurbished after her first major engagement at a cost greater than her initial construction, but perhaps in compensation, remains to this day as the oldest commissioned warship, having first launched in 1768.
I haven't done the calculation of gunpowder usage, though I've got a reference for 6# charge for a 24# gun. If that's proportionate to all guns, then a full round would be 1/3 ton of powder.
If anyone has a source for UK or US arms manufacture (guns, shot, powder) for the 17th - 19th centuries, I'd be quite interested. -18th centuries, I'd be interested.
If I understand the historian's viewpoint, the industrial revolution happened in Europe because it wasn't too dogmatic. I wonder if research today has become too dogmatic -- most big labs are run by older professors pushing their ideas onto the next generation.
In the West we had glass - glasses to see with and therefore people able to read/write into old age. This was an important advantage, we could learn from the writings of our elders and our old folk could still learn and research even if they had poor eyesight. Meanwhile, in China, they had 'china' instead of glass to make stuff with.
The China that existed before the Communists took over had this absurd foot binding practice that took 50% of the working population off the 'job market'. Meanwhile, in the West, women did most of the harder work, with their children in cottage industries that pre-dated the full on Industrial Revolution.
Selling opium to China probably didn't help with their economic development either.
The China that existed before the Communists took over had this absurd foot binding practice that took 50% of the working population off the 'job market'. Meanwhile, in the West, women did most of the harder work, with their children in cottage industries that pre-dated the full on Industrial Revolution.
Selling opium to China probably didn't help with their economic development either.
I have yet to read all of it, but I have liked what I have read of the following overview article:
Why did the Industrial Revolution Start in Britain?
https://orbi.ulg.ac.be/bitstream/2268/188592/1/Why%20Did%20t...
It actually discusses several diverging schools of thought.
Why did the Industrial Revolution Start in Britain?
https://orbi.ulg.ac.be/bitstream/2268/188592/1/Why%20Did%20t...
It actually discusses several diverging schools of thought.
Including Mokyr's earlier work. He's been tackling this since the 1970s.
The industrial revolution did happen in Japan though... and without any of the key factors explained in the article.
They had outside pressure driving it, though. I'd probably go so far as to say that no society voluntarily chooses an industrial revolution, they have it forced upon them by a variety of pressures.
The term "industrial revolution" refers to what happened in the West. Japan industrialized, but the gigantic set of scientific discoveries and technological inventions and economic and governmental innovations that allowed Japan to industrialize were borrowed from the West. The link is about why this all happened there and not in China.
The correct question to ask is why did it happen when and where it did. I believe that the common and correct answer is that the necessary confluence of ideas and social structures and incentives and wherewithal came together.
Fukuyama's "The origin of political order" and "political order and political decay" I would recommend to anybody interested in this topic. They are, however, quite ... extensive.
"Why the West rules for now" has an interesting take on this
"The first of the unprovable premises on which science has been based is the belief that the world is real and the human mind is capable of knowing its real nature. The second and best-known postulate underlying the structure of scientific knowledge is that of cause and effect. The third basic scientific premise is that nature is unified."[1]
The above describes the Christian world view which was prevalent in Europe.
1. Henry M. Morris, Biblical Basis for Modern Science (Baker, 1991), p. 30.
The above describes the Christian world view which was prevalent in Europe.
1. Henry M. Morris, Biblical Basis for Modern Science (Baker, 1991), p. 30.
This is a distinctively white Christian thing? Surely there have been, since ancient times, people in every corner of the world who believe the world is real (whatever it amounts to to believe this as opposed to not believing it) and recognize cause and effect (again, I can't even fathom what it would amount to to be a civilization which did not acknowledge cause and effect).
ETA: Looked up Henry M. Morris. Ah; he's a young Earth creationist, and "the father of modern creation science". I see.
ETA: Looked up Henry M. Morris. Ah; he's a young Earth creationist, and "the father of modern creation science". I see.
You seem to think that bringing race into this is somehow acceptable. It's not.
If you have something specific against the quote other than innuendo, I'm sure there are less offensive ways to make your point.
Looking at other world views prevalent at the time, the metaphysical was inextricably tied up in the physical. Christianity asserts that the world is real, and that it is worth studying.
If you have something specific against the quote other than innuendo, I'm sure there are less offensive ways to make your point.
Looking at other world views prevalent at the time, the metaphysical was inextricably tied up in the physical. Christianity asserts that the world is real, and that it is worth studying.
You mean your particular sect of christianity.
Christian Gnosticism and Catharism are just two historical christian sects who denied the reality of sense-perception, and who were purged for that. Not to mention christian mysticism, specially that of Meister Eckhart, or Spinozism, or any Neoplantonist interpretation of christian tradition. Christianity isn't a single theological or even metaphysical tradition, but a multitude of ones pinned to a more or less single oral tradition embodied in the bible. Specially, christianism doesn't entail physicalism.
Furthermore, I don't see what's exceptional about "the world" being "real". Even the Eleatics and the Neoplatonists would've agreed to that, granted that "the world" be their "One", even though they asserted that sense-perception is illusory. If these words are taken in their most general sense, then this proposition becomes a platitude. You might as well say that "whatever is, is". And no one has ever seriously argued that nothing exists (Gorgias of Leontini did only in jest).
Christian Gnosticism and Catharism are just two historical christian sects who denied the reality of sense-perception, and who were purged for that. Not to mention christian mysticism, specially that of Meister Eckhart, or Spinozism, or any Neoplantonist interpretation of christian tradition. Christianity isn't a single theological or even metaphysical tradition, but a multitude of ones pinned to a more or less single oral tradition embodied in the bible. Specially, christianism doesn't entail physicalism.
Furthermore, I don't see what's exceptional about "the world" being "real". Even the Eleatics and the Neoplatonists would've agreed to that, granted that "the world" be their "One", even though they asserted that sense-perception is illusory. If these words are taken in their most general sense, then this proposition becomes a platitude. You might as well say that "whatever is, is". And no one has ever seriously argued that nothing exists (Gorgias of Leontini did only in jest).
If you get into the quantum realm cause and effect start to get really blurry. Nevertheless quantum theroy is an exact description of nature. Maybe cause and effect is just a very good model of our daily experienced macro world and therefore hardcoded in our brains.
"The above describes the Christian world view which was prevalent in Europe."
Which pretty much originates in greek philosophy. So, is the root cause of science and industrial revolution a bunch of greek getting scholarly competetive two millenia ago to outwit eachothers?
Which pretty much originates in greek philosophy. So, is the root cause of science and industrial revolution a bunch of greek getting scholarly competetive two millenia ago to outwit eachothers?
"Triumph of the West" by Roberts describes it as the western view is that the rules that govern the world are discoverable and applicable, i.e. one can conduct experiments with models and apply results elsewhere. The eastern view is that everything has its own rules, and so experiments could not uncover general principles.
(I read TotW decades ago, I might misremember it.)
(I read TotW decades ago, I might misremember it.)
The ideas were developed in ancient Greece, and modern science owes far more to the Greeks than to the Bible. However, the fact that Christians, or at least some of them, also believed them aided in their adoption in the West starting in the late Middle Ages.
"The Triumph of the West" by Roberts goes into considerable detail explaining it.
One reason the Industrial Revolution happened in northern England is manor lords began seizing the land that belonged in common to the peasants and enclosing it. Newly impoverished peasants would then become cheap labor for industrial factories. This is similar to what Deng Xiaoping and his successors did in China over the past few decades.
The Enclosure acts and Poor Laws. Discussed in Smith. Possibly also Toynbe's Lectures on the Industrial Revolution, though I'd need to confirm.
What is also fun is what Richard Duncan is calling "creditism", which technically actually started with Japan beating US. Before this there was the gold standard.
This article ignores decades of scholarship about the roots of the industrial revolution and capitalism.
The short answer is that the Europeans (maybe for some of the reasons given in this article), were greedier than the Chinese.
It's likely that the Chinese empire reached the New World before Columbus. http://www.economist.com/node/5381851. But the thought of enslaving an entire population and stealing all their natural resources didn't even occur to the Chinese explorers. Whereas the Chinese expeditions were financed by the empire, the Europeans expeditions were financed by debt, so the men needed to arrive on land and quickly acquire wealth for themselves at all costs, or else they would return to Europe broke or never return at all. And this led them to commit the horrendous acts in the New World we know so much about.
Western Europe, now full of gold and silver stolen from the New World had levels of wealth it had never experienced. This led to increased demands for certain goods (like English wool), which forced the population off of the land and into urban centers, thus creating the landless working class. This process was called The Enclosure https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enclosure. An urban, landless working class, was a necessary condition for the industrial revolution. The extraordinary wealth ready to be invested in industry, a product of colonialism and the slave trade, was another necessary condition for the industrial revolution.
The short answer is that the Europeans (maybe for some of the reasons given in this article), were greedier than the Chinese.
It's likely that the Chinese empire reached the New World before Columbus. http://www.economist.com/node/5381851. But the thought of enslaving an entire population and stealing all their natural resources didn't even occur to the Chinese explorers. Whereas the Chinese expeditions were financed by the empire, the Europeans expeditions were financed by debt, so the men needed to arrive on land and quickly acquire wealth for themselves at all costs, or else they would return to Europe broke or never return at all. And this led them to commit the horrendous acts in the New World we know so much about.
Western Europe, now full of gold and silver stolen from the New World had levels of wealth it had never experienced. This led to increased demands for certain goods (like English wool), which forced the population off of the land and into urban centers, thus creating the landless working class. This process was called The Enclosure https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enclosure. An urban, landless working class, was a necessary condition for the industrial revolution. The extraordinary wealth ready to be invested in industry, a product of colonialism and the slave trade, was another necessary condition for the industrial revolution.
This doesn't explain at all why industrialization happened in the US and not in South America.
The answer is free markets. The industrial revolution happened in free market countries.
BTW, gold and silver extracted from the New World doesn't explain it.
1. Gold and silver are not economic wealth - Spain (the main recipient of it) experienced inflation.
2. Spain did not become the dominant power in Europe, though it should have if exploiting the New World was the key.
3. The IR happpened in the US starting around 1800. The US was not extracting gold/silver from elsewhere, had no empire, had no banking system to speak of, was a nation of subsistence farmers, had no great cities, etc.
The answer is free markets. The industrial revolution happened in free market countries.
BTW, gold and silver extracted from the New World doesn't explain it.
1. Gold and silver are not economic wealth - Spain (the main recipient of it) experienced inflation.
2. Spain did not become the dominant power in Europe, though it should have if exploiting the New World was the key.
3. The IR happpened in the US starting around 1800. The US was not extracting gold/silver from elsewhere, had no empire, had no banking system to speak of, was a nation of subsistence farmers, had no great cities, etc.
Maybe the answer isn't so much free market as a lack of alternatives. Note that the US did not industrialize equally - notably, consider the part where slavery-based agriculture was profitable, and the resulting civil war.
In a similar vein, I was quite surprised to learn how industrial early 19th century Peru was, until they decided to screw development and just exploit the land.
(Though I think the internal comparison of different parts of the US is more relevant, since they operated under the same political and economic frameworks, yet developed quite differently. Maybe a relatively free market is a necessary condition for industrial revolution, but it sure as hell isn't sufficient.)
In a similar vein, I was quite surprised to learn how industrial early 19th century Peru was, until they decided to screw development and just exploit the land.
(Though I think the internal comparison of different parts of the US is more relevant, since they operated under the same political and economic frameworks, yet developed quite differently. Maybe a relatively free market is a necessary condition for industrial revolution, but it sure as hell isn't sufficient.)
> Note that the US did not industrialize equally - notably, consider the part where slavery-based agriculture was profitable
That's an astute observation. The slave based southern economy did not industrialize. Slavery is not a free market. I do not know of a free market economy that failed to industrialize.
As for slavery being profitable, one of the big drivers of the Civil War was it was becoming unprofitable, and the South needed to protect its inefficient economy. Separating itself from the North meant it could enact protectionist trade barriers (which were not allowed by the Constitution).
Like so many things in human history, the end of slavery came about less because of a moral awakening, and more because it didn't pay anymore.
That's an astute observation. The slave based southern economy did not industrialize. Slavery is not a free market. I do not know of a free market economy that failed to industrialize.
As for slavery being profitable, one of the big drivers of the Civil War was it was becoming unprofitable, and the South needed to protect its inefficient economy. Separating itself from the North meant it could enact protectionist trade barriers (which were not allowed by the Constitution).
Like so many things in human history, the end of slavery came about less because of a moral awakening, and more because it didn't pay anymore.
That's an equally inadequate summary of some revisionist takeaways.
Fundamentally, the Chinese were in a box. Japan was in isolation, and surrounding countries were no threat to the kingdom. China's problems were all internal, which made looking beyond their boundaries for solutions counterproductive.
Fundamentally, the Chinese were in a box. Japan was in isolation, and surrounding countries were no threat to the kingdom. China's problems were all internal, which made looking beyond their boundaries for solutions counterproductive.
Spain from the 15th century onwards is a counter-example to your theory.
Because they had accumulated so much wealth from plundering the New World, they became lazy and dependent for goods on poorer, and more industious nations, (the English for example). On the other hand, the English, which didn't have all that wealth were forced to produce real-value;
Around the 17th century, they overcame Spain to become a dominant power in Europe; The role of colonialism was secondary in the wealth production of modern European nations.
Because they had accumulated so much wealth from plundering the New World, they became lazy and dependent for goods on poorer, and more industious nations, (the English for example). On the other hand, the English, which didn't have all that wealth were forced to produce real-value;
Around the 17th century, they overcame Spain to become a dominant power in Europe; The role of colonialism was secondary in the wealth production of modern European nations.
More industrious nations? In what, in pillage, piracy? slave trade?
Spain not only exploited South America, but also administered it and gave it a lot of wealth and education to those places.
In fact, some places in South America went sour after independence because it was much better administered before. In places like Argentina, genocide to the native population happened after independence, not before.
Once and again people project England situation today to the past, but you have to look at the England of the past, that was certainly not more industrious.
Industry in England is copied and improved from the Netherlands from a political plan like the Meiji period in Japan. Before that it was a very poor country and certainly not harder working than the rest.
Spain not only exploited South America, but also administered it and gave it a lot of wealth and education to those places.
In fact, some places in South America went sour after independence because it was much better administered before. In places like Argentina, genocide to the native population happened after independence, not before.
Once and again people project England situation today to the past, but you have to look at the England of the past, that was certainly not more industrious.
Industry in England is copied and improved from the Netherlands from a political plan like the Meiji period in Japan. Before that it was a very poor country and certainly not harder working than the rest.
"the English, which didn't have all that wealth"
What? The British mastered the slave trade and its Caribbean slave colonies were perhaps the most productive of the era.
What? The British mastered the slave trade and its Caribbean slave colonies were perhaps the most productive of the era.
This comment reflects a worrying trend I keep seeing, which I'll summarize as: the answer to all history is that Europeans are evil. Whatever the question or the circumstance or the evidence, we have to contort them to confirm our pre-determined narrative that Europeans are evil. This, of course, is nonsense. The Chinese were equally as greedy as everyone else at the time. The idea that China didn't capitalize on its expeditions (to any location) for humanitarian reasons is patently absurd and easily disproven. It begs the obvious question - why did they finance expeditions if not for greed? Were the Chinese the pre-TV model for Star Trek - boldly exploring the seas for the benefit of all mankind? Get real. See Lim Hong[1], the 16th century Chinese pirate who ruthlessly slaughtered half of Southeast Asia.
This comment reflects a highly selective and ethnically targeted historical ignorance and misattribution.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lim_Hong_(pirate)
This comment reflects a highly selective and ethnically targeted historical ignorance and misattribution.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lim_Hong_(pirate)
I totally agree with your observation regarding this trend to find Europeans/Americans evil for doing what nearly every other civilization has done and continues to do. I also think the best solution to this trend is to just answer this comments with opposing arguments with evidence just as you have done. And to do my part I will leave this.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mongol_invasion_of_Europe
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mongol_invasion_of_Europe
Don't be so sensitive that any hint of criticism as taken as a condemnation of your culture. I don't see how "opposing arguments" add anything to the conversation. I know very well that the reconquista was just finishing when Columbus set sail and that Spain had been dominated by an Islamic caliphate for centuries. I don't think that excuses his atrocities.
I neither wrote not implied that Europeans are evil -- you assumed that. The fact is that colonialism and the slave trade, despite creating massive amounts of wealth for some, were horrific for its subjects. And Western Europeans were the first to scale both colonialism and the slave trade globally. This isn't debatable, it's plain fact.
Unfortunately, people like the interviewee explain away early western economic domination by referring to Western European intellect and culture, and ignoring the dark side. This has been the case since the beginning of economic history. Adam Smith didn't even bother to discuss slavery in The Wealth of Nations even though he knew how critical it was to the development of capitalism.
It's time to be honest about how we got here. If the ugly truth offends you, I don't know what to tell you.
Unfortunately, people like the interviewee explain away early western economic domination by referring to Western European intellect and culture, and ignoring the dark side. This has been the case since the beginning of economic history. Adam Smith didn't even bother to discuss slavery in The Wealth of Nations even though he knew how critical it was to the development of capitalism.
It's time to be honest about how we got here. If the ugly truth offends you, I don't know what to tell you.
> The short answer is that the Europeans...were greedier than the Chinese. It's likely that the Chinese empire reached the New World before Columbus...But the thought of enslaving an entire population and stealing all their natural resources didn't even occur to the Chinese explorers.
...
> I neither wrote not implied that Europeans are evil
...
> I neither wrote not implied that Europeans are evil
I explained very clearly why the circumstances surrounding the expeditions pushed the Europeans to be more greedy than their Chinese counterparts. The fact is that the Europeans pillaged the New World and the Chinese didn't. I believe mainly economic considerations led this to be the case. I don't know what your explanation is.
Your phrase "the short answer" seems to imply that this is the whole explanation for why the industrial revolution happened in the West and not China. Perhaps that is not what you meant.
It's quite true that the Europeans colonialists were tremendously cruel and greedy, and extracted enormous wealth. The question, which is what the link addressed, is why they didn't just spend this wealth, but, unlike all other civilizations, produced the industrial revolution.
It's hard to study the 30 years war in such a way as to conclude that the movers and shakers of Europe were all angels
I believe his point is that Europeans don't occupy a unique point on the moral spectrum, either positive or negative.
They certainly weren't angels, but neither were the Chinese or Arabs or Africans or Aztecs or any other large group of humans at the time. Though maybe we can grant exceptions to small, isolated groups.
Technologically, the Empire was close in one key way. They had weapons factories turning out steel weapons. They knew steel, and could make it is small quantities. But they never advanced to the Bessemer converter, which made steel in bulk, fast and cheaply.[1] This invention was surprisingly late; it was invented around 1855 and didn't work right for another 20 years. Yet it's not complicated, just non-obvious. The Romans could have built and used a Bessemer converter.
With steel, running carts on rails would have been an obvious next step, what with all the heavy stuff needed in steelmaking. With coal and furnaces and steel, someone would have figured out steam power. Railway mania could have happened in 100AD.
There may have been something like the Bessemer process in 11th century China, but it didn't result in volume production.
The Romans never invented the concept of the corporation. They never developed common carriers or a commercial mail system. There was a huge empire, rich individuals, and guilds, but few if any inter-city operating organizations. So there was nothing in being ready and able to exploit new technology.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bessemer_process