How do they explain western dominance in other world regions?

[Urban Ranger]

Originally posted by Ned
debeest, one of the problems in non patent societies is that the underlying know how to make an invention is not published, but rather is kept as a trade secret. Only those who know the secret pass it on.

What are you talking about? Lets just consider writing. Or printing, or paper, or gunpowder, or the compass, or the wheel, or a billion other things that were invented before the idea of "patent" ever came across the mind of somebody.

[debeest]

Originally posted by Urban Ranger


But there was no large scale outbreaks of the bubonic plague in China. This has been further substantiated by the lack of the Delta-32 gene in Chinese population, as opposed to Westen Europe.

This is completely contrary to what McNeill says in "Plagues and Peoples." I'm no expert on plague history, but I would be very surprised if his well referenced discussion of bubonic plague in China was entirely wrong. In fact, he makes specific reference to bubonic plague outbreaks in China in the 1800s or 1900s.

[molly bloom]

Originally posted by debeest


For example, Old World germs destroyed New World populations because humans occupied the Old World far sooner. Germs and populations there had many millennia to adapt to one another so that people could maintain endemic infections without catastrophe. The New World, sparsely inhabited until shortly before the Europeans arrived, and divided by deserts, jungles, the mountainous Central American isthmus, and a very long north-south-north climate axis that all made migration difficult, and with not a single domesticable herd animal, had very little opportunity to develop endemic diseases of its own.

Of course in a way it's futile to discuss whether a culture's success or failure stems from its place in the world or from its own characteristics, just as it's futile to discuss whether we are defined more by our DNA or by our environments -- or which came first, the chicken or the egg. But in some sense, the natural world came first, and produced humans; and long before human culture became important, the natural world had determined where humans would be able to farm successfully, where domesticable flora and fauna would occur most, where humans wouldn't be able to go until millennia later than they went elsewhere, where large populations could grow, and thus where people could specialize in invention and develop endemic diseases deadly to other people.

I guess what I'm saying is, whatever cultural differences there are between modern "Western civilization" and the rest of the world, I think the broad brush of the natural world painted the picture; human culture really just filled in the details.


Regarding what Western Civilization gained by conquering the New World: 16th-century taxes, bullion, potatoes, and all of that are of negligible consequence compared to the simple fact that the entire American continents are part of "Western Civilization." Imagine that the Chinese had skipped across a narrow little ocean and colonized the Americas, and think about what the balance of Western and non-Western civilizations would look like now.

If you think the Americas didn't have endemic diseases, then you are very wrong- they simply had different diseases from the Old World- some of them very unpleasant indeed-

espundia

http://www.hyperdictionary.com/dictionary/espundia

chagas

http://www.who.int/tdr/diseases/chagas/default.htm

and hanta virus, to name but three.

It's thought that chagas may ultimately have been responsible for the death of Charles Darwin.

As for domesticable herd animals- what exactly are llamas and alpacas?

The Old World- including both North and sub-saharan Africa, Arabia, India, China and Central Asia also has desert and semi-desert areas, the highest mountain range in the world, tropical and sub-tropical zones, savannah, steppe, river valleys, swamps and salt flats. Yet somehow, Buddhism reached Tibet, China and Japan and south east Asia from India, not all via sea routes.

The refinements possible in horse breeding allowed Europeans to use the faster, stronger farm horse for ploughing, rather than oxen or buffalo (still used in Asia).

Horse collars helped too. As did crop rotation, letting fields lie fallow, and more efficient ploughs.

The fact that mediaeval Europeans could feed a population not equalled until the industrialized nineteenth century says a great deal for their ingenuity and industry- all this in cultures without maize or the potato.

The recovery of Europe's classical heritage and the ability to utilise algebra and a diverse range of other new mathematical tools, contributed much more to Renaissance ingenuity and invention than the New World.

Yes, Spain had bullion, which went to funding armies, and drained into Chinese and Japanese markets. The King of Spain bankrupted several times, despite his New World wealth, and the epidemics in the New World (not simply amongst the native population but also introduced diseases such as yellow fever, which killed African slaves, Spanish masters and Indian subjects alike) meant that taxation from the New World would never amount to the revenue from the Low Countries.

The rise of the Dutch Republic (from a very low population base in the Middle Ages, in an area where malaria was rife) owed very little to the New World, and Dutch ingenuity and industry flourished despite the opposition of Spian and Louis XIV'S France.

Yes, North and South America and the Caribbean are now part of Western Civilization, but even after the Renaissance, Europeans were still more interested in India, the Safavid Empire, China and Japan, than they were the Americas. The reason China didn't 'discover' or colonize the Americas has more to do with human idiosyncrasy than geography. Had it been an expansionist Manchu emperor directing Zheng He/Cheng Ho's voyages, it's entirely possible the Wild West might have been under the mandate of heaven- and equally possible it would have been subjugated by Western European powers.

[debeest]

Of course the Americas had some endemic diseases. Yes, leishmaniasis, chagas disease, and hantavirus are quite deadly. My point is that Old World diseases devastated New World populations, while the New World had no diseases that devastated the Old World in return (syphilis being the only possible exception that I know of). Hantavirus is quite rare and so of little concern. Leishmaniasis occurs in both the Old World and the New World; I don't know where it originated, but it had no selective impact on one versus the other. Chagas disease is a New World disease, and widespread, but did not enter the Old World at all, I think. Yes, there were local diseases that took very large tolls of the invaders, but it was the New World populations that were reduced by as much as 90% in a century, not the Old World populations. That's the point I'm trying to make about the geographic impact of disease, and I don't think you will disagree.

Yes, my mistake, llamas and alpacas are domesticable herd animals. They're relatively hard to get along with, and they only lived in South America, and only in fairly limited areas of South America, and they're not all that big, and I think they don't tend to live in the large herds which makes it easy for a herd animal to develop its own endemic diseases to spread to humans. Compare that to horses, all manner of cows and buffalo, pigs, goats, sheep, elephants.... Old Worlders had a far greater supply of meat animals, milk animals, labor animals, and large-herd disease-breeding animals. The basis for that difference lay, not in human differences, but in "geographical" natural-world differences. I don't think you'll disagree with that.

Of course, there are geographical barriers in the Old World too. But there was no way around the difficult barriers of the Sonoran desert and the mountain jungles of the narrow Central American isthmus. New Worlders did manage to cross those barriers, but it remained extremely difficult to cross them and thus they remained more effective barriers to the spread of diseases and innovations. Perhaps you'll quibble with this point, but it's not fundamental to my geographical natural world argument.

"The rise of the Dutch Republic (from a very low population base in the Middle Ages, in an area where malaria was rife)"

Malaria was rife in the Netherlands?

molly bloom, you're just about the only person I think has had much useful to say in this thread. But even you haven't answered the question I posed a while ago: aside from differences that can be attributed to geography and ecology, what explains modern Western dominance? Is it that Westerners are somehow superior? Is it that Western culture is somehow superior? If so, then take one further step: how did Westerners or Western culture come to be superior?

[Ned]

Originally posted by Urban Ranger


What are you talking about? Lets just consider writing. Or printing, or paper, or gunpowder, or the compass, or the wheel, or a billion other things that were invented before the idea of "patent" ever came across the mind of somebody.

Alright, know it all.

Tell me the formula for coke.

Tell me how to make a nuclear weapon.

Do you even know what a trade secret is?

[Ned]

debeest, you simply do not accept the development of law as a contributing factor, do you.

[molly bloom]

Originally posted by debeest




"The rise of the Dutch Republic (from a very low population base in the Middle Ages, in an area where malaria was rife)"

Malaria was rife in the Netherlands?

molly bloom, you're just about the only person I think has had much useful to say in this thread. But even you haven't answered the question I posed a while ago: aside from differences that can be attributed to geography and ecology, what explains modern Western dominance? Is it that Westerners are somehow superior? Is it that Western culture is somehow superior? If so, then take one further step: how did Westerners or Western culture come to be superior?

Malaria was common in the Netherlands, in south east England, and Italy- hence the name, bad air. As late as the Napoleonic Wars, malaria and typhoid carried off a great number of troops in a British expeditionary force to the Walcheren. Durer is also meant to have been killed by a malarial disease contracted whilst sketching the corpse of a whale in the swampy region of the Netherlands. Diseases currently thought of as being tropical were actually much more widespread- cholera in London, and New York, yellow fever and malaria wrought havoc with the armies in the American War of Independence, places such as Seville could lose 60 000 of their population thanks to recurrent outbreaks of such diseases.

I think that you'd be surprised just how common hanta virus is in the United States- if the documentary I watched a few years' ago is any guide, don't stay in any cheap motels in Baltimore- rats and mice act as zoonotic reservoirs for the disease, and inhaling aerosolized rodent urine is one way of getting it.

I also seem to recall reading about old North American trading routes, which stretched from Pacific coastal regions to desert areas, and from Atlantic coastal regions to the Ohio and Mississippi. If memory serves, before the European foundation and settlement of Philadelphia, the largest concentration of buildings in North America was Cahokia, an estimated 100 000 people living in and around the site. I suspect lack of draught or herd animals in North America may have something to do with the smaller sized cities, and also with the lack of diseases such as smallpox, measles, and so on. Constant human interaction with farm and domesticated animals means susceptibility to diseases such as foot and mouth, anthrax, smallpox, and even leprosy. Oddly, measles also kills the guinea pig, and armadilloes can contract leprosy. It has even been surmised that the epidemic of gonorrhoea that struck the Roman Empire may have been to a disease that crossed the species barrier, thanks to decadent Roman sexual practices.

Why did Europe succeed? Well, for a variety of reasons, as I've outlined- some luck, or chance, some design. Islam in a way defined Latin, Roman Catholic Western Europe through interaction in the Iberian peninsula, through conflict and trade of goods, ideas and services.
Judaism played a great part in that- Jewish doctors were greatly sought after by Frankish kings, the glassmaking trade in Spain was almost wholly carried out by Jews, and Jews could lend at interest to Muslims and Christians, or they could use Jews as intermediaries to loan money to fellow Christians or Muslims.

Access to a variety of goods (spices, ivory, gold, slaves, cloth, steel, leather) stimulated trade, and after the end of the nomadic invasions, trade in mediaeval Europe grew virtually exponentially.

The Black Death made a part of European society vastly richer than it had been before the pandemic- and it had already been very wealthy by modern standards. It happened at a time when paper and printing made possible an information revolution the equivalent of the Internet in late mediaeval and Renaissance times. The expansion of the university system happened along with this, meaning that hotbeds of dissent flourished under the care of more independent minded princes (such as Luther's aristocratic protector), keen to preserve intellectual independence.

Modern accounting and banking practices began in northern Italy and southern Germany and the Low Countries, areas that profited immensely from the trade with the Islamic world and beyond- dividends of over 1000 per cent on a shipment of spice, silk and pepper to Venice, with the canny Venetians raking in a further 100 per cent in customs dues.

The intellectual ferment, the questioning of long accepted Aristotelian and Galenic and Ptolemaic orthodoxies meant that along with the new mathematics, the growth of vernacular literature and the explosion in printing and printed artefacts, that scientists and inventors were free to explore to the limits of their abilities, in societies awash with money, patrons and opportunities for experimentation.

With support from monarchs such as Charles II in Great Britain, the Royal Society could feature an array of minds that any modern university would be proud to have, and the French academy played a similar role. The scientific revolution in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries placed Europe technologically well ahead of any other culture, and at a time when relatively small nations with low populations (such as the Netherlands, and Great Britain) could establish lucrative trade empires in Indonesia, the Indian sub-continent and the Caribbean.

Why the western, Atlantic nations? They no longer had to face Islam- the Ottomans were still a threat to Austria, Russia, and Poland, and sporadic raids by Barbary pirates and Sale rovers were a nuisance rather than a threat to territorial integrity. No Muslims had to be repelled from the gates of London or Paris in the seventeenth century.

[Patroklos]

I would not simply blame it on the luck of the Europeans, but also some very bad luck in other areas. China had so many chances to end their downward spiral that it is ludacris that they didn't suceed. The fall of China is every bit as interesting as the rise of Europe.

Same thing with the Islamic world. Some very preventable civil wars and the like could have been avoided, and if anyone was in a perfect position to benefit from the spice trade it was them.

But the flutter of a butterflies wings.....

[Ned]

Originally posted by Patroklos
I would not simply blame it on the luck of the Europeans, but also some very bad luck in other areas. China had so many chances to end their downward spiral that it is ludacris that they didn't suceed. The fall of China is every bit as interesting as the rise of Europe.

Same thing with the Islamic world. Some very preventable civil wars and the like could have been avoided, and if anyone was in a perfect position to benefit from the spice trade it was them.

But the flutter of a butterflies wings.....

Islam, like Christianity at one time, held/holds that interest on loans is a sin. Such a doctrine has to hurt the development of private businesses, which is the foundation of Western wealth.

China could not succeed because society was stratefied. Ordinary people could not invest in new businesses and technology and rise above his station in life.

[chequita guevara]

Originally posted by Ned
Islam, like Christianity at one time, held/holds that interest on loans is a sin. Such a doctrine has to hurt the development of private businesses, which is the foundation of Western wealth.

Which only became possible with the breakup of Chrisitanity into warring factions. Jews could charge interest, but it hardly helped them.

China could not succeed because society was stratefied. Ordinary people could not invest in new businesses and technology and rise above his station in life.

Ordinary people couldn't rise above their station in Europe either, until very recently. Not without the permission of their lord and priest.

[Ned]

Originally posted by chegitz guevara
[Q] Originally posted by Ned

China could not succeed because society was stratefied. Ordinary people could not invest in new businesses and technology and rise above his station in life.

Ordinary people couldn't rise above their station in Europe either, until very recently. Not without the permission of their lord and priest.

I don't think this is true, Che. There were some very rich Jews in Europe prior to modern times who got that way through banking and trade.

[molly bloom]

Originally posted by chegitz guevara
[Q] Originally posted by Ned


Ordinary people couldn't rise above their station in Europe either, until very recently. Not without the permission of their lord and priest.

Err, that is, if you consider the late Middle Ages recent.

The Queen Mother of France during one of the Huguenot-Catholic wars was a Medici- a 'nouveau riche' commercial family from Italy- not even a French woman, mon dieu, nom d'un chien, ma foi!!!!!.

One of the popes was a 'nouveau riche' Spaniard, the Borgia pope who did so much to bring the Vatican and the Church into disrepute.

Then as now, some members of the aristocracy were prestige rich, and money poor, so advantageous marriages to commoners or the lower gentry were a necessity.

At various times, sumptuary laws relating to clothes or food were enacted so as to preserve the outward distinctions of class, but were frequently observed only in the breach. The decline of serfdom in the Western Latin states meant an acceleration in social mobility that had already begun in places such as northern Italy and the Low Countries. The Black Death was the petrol on the flames of social struggle- the various peasant uprisings in its wake (the English Peasants' Revolt, the Jacquerie in France, the Flemish weavers' revolt) were manifestations not of abject poverty, but of newly well off peasants (the mediaeval kulaks, if you like) rejecting yet another poll tax, or gabelle, or princely imposition.

What Ned says about European jewry is quite true- one of the bankers for William the Silent was a Jewish converso refugee from the Spanish regime. As I mentioned, the glass manufacturing industry in Spain was almost wholly within the hands of Jews, until forcible conversions and expulsions meant that Spain had to import Venetian and Islamic glassware. Also, the special position of Jews with regard to the lending of money at interest gave them a special relationship to both Muslim leaders in the Islamic world and Christians in the West and Eastern Europe.

[Urban Ranger]

Originally posted by Ned
Alright, know it all.

Tell me the formula for coke.

Tell me how to make a nuclear weapon.

Do you even know what a trade secret is?

Eh, Ned, I used those examples to show your assertion of "the lack of patents would result in inventions becoming trade secrets" wrong.

The existence of trade secrets do not validate your assertion. In fact, Coca-cola chose not to take out a patent on its formula since they didn't want it to become public property when the patent expired. How is the construction of nuclear weapons a patent or trade secret? Did the US government took one out?

[Urban Ranger]

Originally posted by debeest
This is completely contrary to what McNeill says in "Plagues and Peoples." I'm no expert on plague history, but I would be very surprised if his well referenced discussion of bubonic plague in China was entirely wrong. In fact, he makes specific reference to bubonic plague outbreaks in China in the 1800s or 1900s.

I never disputed the presence of outbreaks -- I merely disputed the scale of them.

[Tingkai]

Originally posted by Ned
China could not succeed because society was stratefied. Ordinary people could not invest in new businesses and technology and rise above his station in life.

Uhm, no. China's civil service exams allowed people to move up to high ranks.