Let me throw a wrench into things with a provocative statement (which I have no intention of citing support for):
The affluence of Western Europe and the US was not built on hard work and ingenuity so much as the exploitation of cheap labor and the sudden access to deep veins of basic resources or economic/industrial efficiencies which were either already extant but inaccessible without a critical mass of capital, or else were inevitable on an imminent timescale given past development.
While I agree with the point you're trying to make, I don't think that's a provocative statement for the rest of the world (or even all of the people living in Western Europe and the US), especially now as increased communication and analytic tools help us to better understand the ways in which massive transfers of wealth are still happening from the rest of the "postcolonial" world.
I suppose an argument could be made that it was built on hard work and ingenuity in much the same way that you can say politicians really are better at something than everyone else. It's just not necessarily the thing you'd want them to be good at. In this case, that would be that the powers we're talking about made some incredible innovations in terms of colonialism and internal methods of quelling the dissent of the aforementioned cheap (or enslaved) labor.
Of course, it's not at all clear to me that this hasn't been the case for every single past (or emerging) empire. But the "self-made civilization" is maybe even more ridiculous a concept than the "self-made man".
I don't think a King George Washington would preside over a young America as affluent as President George Washington did. Tyranny has a way of sequestering innovative spirit.
> The problem was that they did not see other races as people as they saw themselves. They saw their lives and societies and thought of them as savages.
Yes
> religion (which was more unquestionable
No - America was founded as a country on freedom of religion, which is why it ended up with thousands of little groups from a state of polyamorists to some guys who really liked making furniture.
> than say, global warming is today)
Trolling
> extreme version of the modern liberal
Trolling. Also please choose whether Jefferson was an extreme liberal or a conservative prisoner of the prejudices of his time.
> they deserve some credit for their heroic bravery and ideas on liberty
Yes. There was also the question, even at the time, of how well they were going to live up to what they meant on liberty. They wrote "all men are created equal" into the declaration of independence then immediately spent the next 200 years arguing that meant "not all men". Some of the co-signatories were there at the time arguing against slavery, it's just that Jefferson was on the other side of this particular issue.
Yes, Jefferson wrote into the original draft of the constitution outlawed slavery, but the southern states refused to sign on to that. Historical facts and context like that do not invalidate all the good done by the Founding Fathers. That is my point.
I'm not aware you are rebelling against our government for the atrocities which exist in the world today.
The rest of your post is dismissive of not asinine, and even against HN guidelines.
Slaves were not slaves because whites were trying to save them from themselves. They were slaves because they provided cheap labor. Any other argument is just a rationalization, a story for slave owners to tell themselves to make themselves feel better.
Both Washington and Jefferson owned plantations that profited from slave labor. Your comparison with the modern liberal should try to take that fact into account.
I'm obviously not rationalizing slavery. That's absurd. My point is to try to show context of what world those people lived in, I clearly said that.
The parent comment suggests some glaring flaw in their conception of liberty. Was it a glaring flaw? Yes. But it's important to understand that in the context of their belief system.
Do you eat animal products? Have you any idea what kind of abuses take place? Do you consume products produced by people whose lives are defined by insecure access to healthcare, safety or even nutrition? Do you contribute to the horrendous destruction of our environment? Work in sv? How many homeless people do you step over on your way to work?
It would be better if people got off their moral high horses and stopped taking for granted the liberty and prosperiry they have available to them here in America.
And politicians and bureaucrats certainly profit from those very schemes.
> The slave owner like George Washington and Thomas Jefferson was in some ways like an extreme version of the modern liberal -- seeing the person of color as needing an authority to rule over them and provide them with things like welfare, access to education, etc.
You’re being downvoted because you chose to regurgitate alt-right theology to lay history’s problems at the doorstep of “liberal guilt”
The largest group of benificaries of public education? Whites.
The largest group of beneficiaries of welfare? Whites.
Dont worry, you can almost always use versions of reductio ad hitlerum to invalidate any historical context or facts you come across which you dont like.
Your ad hominen attack seems especially ridiculous to me as I've never even visited an alt right website or community in my life with the exception of voat--when reddit started mass waves of censorship and politicking--which I havent even since returned to in years.
Take the Russian communist revolution of 1917. Had Lenin been an American and the coup/revolution been american... Do you think that by the late 20th century, the US and Soviet Union's positions would have been reversed?
I don't think we can really answer that, but to me, "yes" feels like an old fashioned answer. I don't think a founding philosophy or constitution (or anything really) has such a deterministic effect. I'm more in the "one-damned thing after another" camp.
The two situations really aren't comparable as it's more likely that the entirety of the Americas would've been pulled into a unified communist state like the Russian revolutionaries were hoping would happen with the European communist uprisings that were happening at the same time (and quelled by fascist backlash in Germany, Italy, and Spain). At the same time, it's entirely possible that the Axis would've conquered most of Europe and something equivalent to the Molotov-Ribbentrop pact would've held without the ideological conflict there. It is possible the anti-Slavic racism would've still pushed Hitler to try to exterminate large parts of Germany, but it may have been a harder sell to the German public than it was when coupled with the threat of communism.
If you're asking the broader question of whither the (self-proclaimed) state capitalist countries that came out of the retrenchment when those revolutions failed, I think there's still an answer there. They developed differently, used their resources, and prioritized different things than more liberal capitalist ones in ways that you can make some broad claims about. But they did so in a context, as did the liberal and non-aligned/miscellaneous blocs.
I think the causality goes the other way around. If the Aztecs could have conquered the world, they would have. It's not as if they were a particularly nice people.
Anyway, this is an argument people will still be having 200 years in the future.
Other nations such as China or Russia have comparable or arguably better cheap labor stocks or natural resources. Then Japan has almost zero natural resources and nearly had a shot at taking over the world...
Japanese industry, during the height of its growth phase (say 1980) was very good, and the trend (projected indefinitely, a mistake we always make) implied crazy things.
Several other empires exploited resources and used "free" labor, but only recently they invented industries/mass production, contributed to scientific progress and improved their quality of life with it.
Slavery had a very high human cost and it was also something that prevented the evolution of better options.
Compare the evolution of the big empires of the past with the evolution in the last 500 years or even the last 250 years.
The Roman Empire had a water system and concrete to make the Coliseum. Relied on slave labour up until the end. Made a plant that was used as contraception extinct.
Given the time they stood, I'd say their scientific/mathematical progress was nimble.
Egyptian empire: invented geometry, still had slaves pushing stones up to form pyramids.
The Portuguese and the Spanish conquered half the world, but still relied on manual labour and got behind when the English started using machine labour.
Have you ever seen Connections[0]? Do watch it if you haven't[1]. They communicate well what's IMO a crucial point: almost never a single person had invented the "whole solution". The story of civilization is one of individual inventions being made over time, and then coming together to click into place and create something pushing us forward even further. It did happen in the past like it is happening today; both then and now it seems to work better under a stable governance - hence big empires do in fact contribute to scientific progress by their very existence. It's happening faster today than it was then because we're further along the exponential curve - but it's the same curve, the same process, we've been following for thousands of years.
Like it often is with wealth, we're not special - our current empires just had richer parents and bigger accumulated base of inventions. We can build cooler stuff now than our ancestors - but let's never forget that "what makes one step a giant leap is all the steps before"[2].
[1] - I think I've seen them on dailymotion; of course I don't encourage copyright infringement, it's very important to keep our most important works unaccessible until everyone who might be interested in them dies off and only archaeologists will care.
> Like it often is with wealth, we're not special - our current empires just had richer parents and bigger accumulated base of inventions. We can build cooler stuff now than our ancestors
Yes, totally agree. But what I'm saying is that those old empires didn't have technological evolution as a goal (maybe the latter ones) hence they didn't really think of it.
Sure, evolution and ideas take time, but it seems it took much less time once the right mindset was in place.
> Sure, evolution and ideas take time, but it seems it took much less time once the right mindset was in place.
Right. But come to think of it, that mindset is, too, a technology. It took a while to develop, and its evolution seems to be intertwined with the inventions humans made over time, and the shape societies took.
I don't think it's just values. Knowledge and technology plays into this too.
I don't have a fully fleshed out model in my head just yet, but I imagine it like this: humans seem to have a pretty fixed emotional and cognitive makeup. What changes is the landscape in which we operate - what technologies are available, what customs exist in our times, what are the core "cultural memes". Kind of like water flowing downhill - a simple process in itself, but where it goes and what shape it takes depends on the landscape it's flowing through, and the flow itself shapes that landscape over time.
Another way of viewing this: we humans are like somewhat fixed neurons, but it's the connections we make with each other that change. Connections both to our contemporaries through complex social structures, as well as to the past, through knowledge accumulated in books and traditions, and other artifacts of past cultures.
Interesting. I've been thinking along similar lines, though not yet incorporating mindset or worldview, instead focusing more on technological mechanisms:
"and got behind when the English started using machine labour"
What do you mean by machine labour here?
If you're referring to steam engines I think you're drawing a causal link that isn't justified.
The dates at best line up to early steam engines. They were massively inefficient and used for pumping out mines, they weren't exactly transformative to the nation.
Tin and copper in Cornish mines, was the main driver early on.
That isn't really the point, yes it was the 'age of steam' but in reality it made a few marginal mines profitable. There were no steam trains, no steam ships, no wide spread mechanisation.
Britain wasn't some backwater that was propelled ahead of spain due to accidentally discovering steam power. It was already a power in it own right, with trading networks and markets for these raw materials, that was the impetus for the development of steam.
Coal mining was a thosand times greater than metal mining by the late 18th / early 19th century:
Coal was so abundant in Britain that the supply could be stepped up to meet the rapidly rising demand. About 1770-1780 the annual output of coal was some 6.25 million long tons.
Versus:
Despite the collapse of the copper mining industry in 1866, the tin industry was still riding high producing 10,000 tons of tin a year - about half the world's production.
"Newcomen's great achievement was his steam engine, developed around 1712; combining the ideas of Thomas Savery and Denis Papin, he created a steam engine for the purpose of lifting water out of a tin mine." [1]
Plus that's 700,000 tons of copper, copper ore typically contains 2%? Copper, so your 700,000 tons of copper represents 35 million tons of ore. I'm undecided whether relative weight is even a good comparator. Sure value of output would be the best comparison?
You seem to be referencing Savery engines that weren't successful, whereas I'm referencing Newcomen engines that were. Can we agree that unsuccessful engines weren't a factor in Britain overtaking Spain?
My point is and remains that when England leapt ahead of Spain, one primary driver was a tremendous increase in availability of primary energy. Coal replaced other scarce fuels, largely wood and charcoal, rare in both Spain and Britain, and steam engines themselves bootstrapped that process.
The immediate applications of coal may not have been yet more steam power (that waited for Watt in ~1770 and more especially expiry of his patents in 1800), but it was applied to space heat and cooking, glassmaking, and smelting of various metals, though most especially iron. It also freed up limited domestic and importe lumber for shipbuilding.
This at a time when other factors such as Spain's plunder of New World gold an silver were leading to rampant inflation and an early example of what's now called "Dutch Disease". Spain itself has comparatively little coal (mostly in the north), whilst the major industrial powers of 19th century Europe, France, Germany, Austria-Hungary, all had major domestic coal deposits, crucially: located near coasts or rivers. At a time when cargo moved almost exclusively by water, this was absolutely essential.
By comparison, in the US, despite vastly greater coal deposits, wood (generally locally available) remained the primary fuel until the development of railroads (and high-strength steel rather than iron rails, to handle heavily loaded coal cars without splitting, also dependant on coked coal fuel), in the 1880s.
For further references, see Vaclav Smil (Energy in World History, Energy and Civilization, also Making the modern world : materials and dematerialization, on material use), Manfred Weissenbacher (Sources of Power), and Gregory Clark (A Farewell to Alms).
Regards copper ores: as of the 18th century, English copper mines averaged 12% concentration, with high-yield mine typically higher. It's modern ores which are of far lower concentration (though 2% would now be considered high). So cut your overburden estimates by a factor of at least six. And yes, mining costs increase directly with the inverse of ore grade. That overburden doesn't move itself.
The references I'm familiar with all hugely emphasise the use of steam-driven pumps in coal mining, particularly for coastal and subsea coal mines. Though other applications existed. And quantities of energy resource mining tend to be prodigious relative to materials mining. Only water exceeds present-day energy minerals in quantity, followed by rock, sand, and gravel (Smil, Making).
"When Philip IV succeeded his father in 1621, Spain was clearly in economic and political decline, a source of consternation."
"The Spain that the sickly young Charles II (1661-1700) inherited was clearly in decline and there were more losses immediately." [1]
These are both from before the steam engine was invented. I don't think its reasonable blame steam power for the downfall of Spain. The dates just don't really line up, especially not when you look when steam became a major driving force.
Now I agree with your point that the availability of coal was a huge factor in the industrial revolution.
Ps looking up copper ore concentrations, I got the same 12% figure, I thought it questionable as its so far higher than other concentrations. Apparently modern ore has 0.6% copper.
There are, of course, multiple factors. And Spain was in decine, for multiple reasons, as the Industrial Revolution was starting to cook off in the 18th century -- whether you put the start date at the beginning, middle, or end of that period doen't much matter: Spain missed the starting gun, and never really got back in the game until the 20th century.
As to what country took title -- I'd have to check an authoritative source, possibly Maddison's data if it has sufficient granularity, but my money would be on France or the Netherlands, rather than England, at least through about 1755 (Seven Years War).
And by the 19th century, it was previously unorganised states such as Germany who'd utterly surpassed Spain, whilst the (now United) Britain benefitted hugely by avoiding the revolutions and wars that wracked Europe through 1848 (and somewhat beyond), as well as control of India (providing saltpetre for gunpowder) and China (general trade, once the Brits discovered the balance-of-trade leveling properties of opium), Canada, and Australia.
Even modest shifting of fuels away from wood gave compelling advantages. Smil credits Dutch use of peat for prt of that nation's success. Transport systems, ag productivity, attitudes toward invention and discovery (Catholic Spain vs Anglican England & Protestant Holland), canal building, political divisions, domestic resource access, colonial access, etc., etc., all played roles.
But after 1800, ability to access an utilise fossil fuels came to dominate, frequently a self-reinforcing process.
Smil, Weissenbacher, et al, make for fascinating reading (see previous).
In other words, anyone could build a prosperous society on the back of slaves if they have some natural resources to exploit. It's not even a great feat or accomplishment. The legacy of that is still what drives a lot of the economy in the US even today.
In other words, anyone could build a prosperous society on the back of slaves if they have some natural resources to exploit.
But that ceases to be competitive past a certain level of technology and value-add. Even slaves in the American South got paid extra for work requiring exceptional skill and attention to detail. It turns out you can't whip people into producing quality past a very basic level.
The legacy of that is still what drives a lot of the economy in the US even today.
No. That's a propaganda fiction used by the Far Left to bring down the current order.
Are you saying that black people aren't suffering today due to slavery and Jim Crow? How do you explain that the median white household wealth is sixteen times that of black households? Or is that a leftist conspiracy also?
https://www.forbes.com/sites/laurashin/2015/03/26/the-racial...
You should check a general reference on slavery across the world (including slavery of Europeans during the late middle ages). There seems to be not a single country whose citizens have not enslaved someone or other at sometime throughout history. I am not as rich as Jeff Bezos or indeed hundreds of thousands of other folk. Now how can you explain that? Answer to your question: yes, a leftist conspiracy.
If you really want some explanations for the lower relative wealth of black households, try reading Thomas Sowell.
Coincidentally, most countries that have had a historically-disadvantaged population still see large socioeconomic disparities between they and the average, even when the populations concerned are racially homogeneous collectivists with a conservative political bent (looking at you, Japan).
Coincidentally, of course. (OR, The phrase "opportunity hoarding" comes to mind.)
Are you saying that black people aren't suffering today due to slavery and Jim Crow?
No to the first. The causation from slavery doesn't reach the current day. There were tremendous gains in literacy rates and per capita wealth of black people after slavery. Then there were later reversals in literacy rates and rates of out of wedlock births which date to the mid 20th century.
"If we wanted to be serious about evidence, we might compare where blacks stood a hundred years after the end of slavery with where they stood after 30 years of the liberal welfare state. In other words, we could compare hard evidence on "the legacy of slavery" with hard evidence on the legacy of liberals."
As for Jim Crow, some really bad things happened under that, it's true. Those laws were overturned by the civil rights movement.
Incidentally, my family name indicates that my ancestors were also essentially slaves. That form of slavery persisted into the 1800's. No one in my family talks about suffering as a result of that. The notion would just be seen as silly.
It wasn’t nice but subjugating and enslaving populations definitely was made possible by what I’d call ingenuity or inventiveness in the realm of technology. See Guns, Germs, and Steel.
Externalities do, such as colonies or environment or mines or resources.
Efficiency is not a one way street. You need people with will and knowledge to operate the machinery or further research.
Otherwise you will inevitably be eclipsed.
Recent lessons happened to Great Britain (colonies), Europe (know how and funding, war devastation), Ming China (complacency and bureaucracy), Japanese tech dominance (population got old and crammed in), Soviets (political pressure and mismanagement).
It is happening to USA right now.
The affluence of Western Europe and the US was not built on hard work and ingenuity so much as the exploitation of cheap labor and the sudden access to deep veins of basic resources or economic/industrial efficiencies which were either already extant but inaccessible without a critical mass of capital, or else were inevitable on an imminent timescale given past development.
Have at it.