East vs West
It seems as if this theme has been around for ages. But if you look at the maps and the histories, it's always been about the selective pressures that drove western Eurasian survivors, wave after wave, into a bunch of offshore islands. There, they would fight the previous wave, get smarter, and plot to take over the world.
And they've managed it, by a mixture of good fortune, opportunism, savagery, and public relations.
Up till perhaps 1800, the most powerful country, with the largest economy, and the highest production levels, was China. China's iron output in 1078 was about 125,000 tonnes; Britain would only hit 76,000 tonnes in 1788 — about 700 years later. Japan was pretty close; up to 1850, the standard of living in the offshore islands on the eastern Eurasian coast was higher than that in the offshore islands on the western Eurasian coast — in fact, the agricultural efficiency of Japanese farmers has never been beaten.
Other research has shown that India outproduced the West in quantity and quality of steel, cloth, and wood products before it became, and even when it was, part of the British Empire. In fact, 80% of the Empire's GDP was from the subcontinent. India made better guns, produced more iron and better steel — it was India that supplied the raw materials for the legendary Damascus steels.
So what went wrong?
John Hobson, in his 2004 book The Eastern Origins of Western Civilisation, makes the point that Western civilisation would have been impossible without the multipolar globalization that took place between 500 and 1800 AD. The major players were Africans, Middle Eastern Arabs, Persians, Indians, Chinese, Southeast Asians and Japanese.
Walter Russell Mead, in his 2006 God and Gold: Britain, America, and the Making of the Modern World, tries to justify the present world situation by saying that the Anglo-American West had certain advantages. He attributes their success to a balance between respect for three things: tradition, revelation and reason. I think all he's saying is that these are Anglo-American traits; whether they are winning traits is to confuse causation and correlation.
Perhaps nothing went wrong. What we have seen is a brief oscillation of the globalization pendulum. China was the dominant power in most of the last millennium; it may yet be the dominant power for most of this millennium. A future footnote to the Anglo-American dominion might read: "A global empire, dominant from late 20th to early 21st century; not much remains."
And they've managed it, by a mixture of good fortune, opportunism, savagery, and public relations.
Up till perhaps 1800, the most powerful country, with the largest economy, and the highest production levels, was China. China's iron output in 1078 was about 125,000 tonnes; Britain would only hit 76,000 tonnes in 1788 — about 700 years later. Japan was pretty close; up to 1850, the standard of living in the offshore islands on the eastern Eurasian coast was higher than that in the offshore islands on the western Eurasian coast — in fact, the agricultural efficiency of Japanese farmers has never been beaten.
Other research has shown that India outproduced the West in quantity and quality of steel, cloth, and wood products before it became, and even when it was, part of the British Empire. In fact, 80% of the Empire's GDP was from the subcontinent. India made better guns, produced more iron and better steel — it was India that supplied the raw materials for the legendary Damascus steels.
So what went wrong?
John Hobson, in his 2004 book The Eastern Origins of Western Civilisation, makes the point that Western civilisation would have been impossible without the multipolar globalization that took place between 500 and 1800 AD. The major players were Africans, Middle Eastern Arabs, Persians, Indians, Chinese, Southeast Asians and Japanese.
Walter Russell Mead, in his 2006 God and Gold: Britain, America, and the Making of the Modern World, tries to justify the present world situation by saying that the Anglo-American West had certain advantages. He attributes their success to a balance between respect for three things: tradition, revelation and reason. I think all he's saying is that these are Anglo-American traits; whether they are winning traits is to confuse causation and correlation.
Perhaps nothing went wrong. What we have seen is a brief oscillation of the globalization pendulum. China was the dominant power in most of the last millennium; it may yet be the dominant power for most of this millennium. A future footnote to the Anglo-American dominion might read: "A global empire, dominant from late 20th to early 21st century; not much remains."
etched with acid at 10:27:00 am
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