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.
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.
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.)
> 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 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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
> 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 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.
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.
This guy is an absolute douchebag. He's a disrespectful piece of shit and anyone involved with Soylent in any capacity ought to be ashamed with his antics. For those who don't know, Lincoln Heights is a working class neighborhood, that as of the last 2-3 years is undergoing rapid gentrification.
You're being downvoted, probably for the forcefulness of your opinion. But sometimes there just isn't a "nice" way of stating things like this. FWIW I agree with you.
This guy isn't yet anywhere near the level of douchebag that, say, Martin Shkreli is. But he's well on his way.
Easy to laugh at jokes, it's hard to watch real racism first hand.
Next time you experience racism in the real world, saying something - experience first hand what it's like in the real world to confront it, then reflect on why it's wrong to make choices based on race.
Please, cut it out with the bullshit. This guy played a negligible role in the Arab Spring. The only reason he received the media attention he did was because he held a prominent position at an American company.
Calling him the Arab Spring's instigator is an insult to Egyptian activists and organizers, not to mention the revolutionaries in Tunisia.
Fuck a prominent position. He doesn't have a prominent position, and every single large exec would open their mouth when their entire country is being destroyed.
Fuckin' hell HN. As an Arab, I'm severely disappointed that everyone forgot the reason the Arab Spring started was because a 26 year old burned himself alive because he couldn't afford to live. Not some social media savvy guy from google.
So whats the lesson? To me it's pretty simple. You want change learn to do it the right way. Gandhi, MLK and Mandela didn't burn themselves and get change over night. And guess what, being media savvy is how you make change happen. There are to this day people who will call those three characters the most media savvy men of their time.
If marketing can sell Coke, Donald Trump and Kim Kardashian it can be used to sell other things too. Positive things. Constructive things. To pretend without media savvy your message will get out and have influence is highly misguided in this day and age.
What fucking media and marketing are you even talking about? I am a Tunisian citizen and I have never heard of this guy until these last couple of days.
Give it up. I left out an important part in my original post: this guy only got media attention in America. No media attention in the Arab world, because being a Google employee didn't make his sacrifice any more significant. The European media had enough sense to not focus on this guy either. Only the insufferable mainstream American media is self-centered enough to push the narrative that an employee of an American company was instrumental in the Arab Spring.
This mentality was necessary for national survival given their history. From being doped up and murdered by imperialist westerners during the opium wars to being occupied and raped by imperial japan.
A unite and take on the world mentality is what allowed China to win sovereignty, and given how far they've come, I'd say the "us against the world" mentality has worked wonders for them so far.
The comparison is apropos. I've lived in Hollywood most of my life and have to spend time in SF for work. The entertainment people get a bad rap for being superficial douchebags and chronic bullshitters, but it doesn't even compare to the SF scene. At least in Hollywood, if someone thinks they're hot shit, you can go on imdb and see if they're really as self-important as they think they are. In SF everyone is the best programmer, is working at the most important non-profit, is building the next huge app, and it's very difficult to tell if they're full of shit (hint: 99% of them are).
Is there really that much celebrity status thumping for programmers in SF? Maybe in particular circles, but I want to believe that SF has more diversity in tech than that.
First of all, the "slaves" were actually kidnapped Africans. They had yet to do a day of forced labor and had not yet undergone the years of conditioning it took to turn a free man into a slave.
Second, the "free men" were actually slave traders. Yes, there was a ban on slave trading at the time, but that didn't stop them.
If you're interested in learning about what happens when kidnapped Africans and free men come into contact, study what happens when slave ships came into contact with pirate ships. As a general rule, pirate ships were egalitarian, as it helped preserve social harmony on the ship. And the composition of the crew was usually multiracial. Over 60% of Blackbeard's crew was black. Oftentimes, when the pirates took control of a slave ship, they would take the goods they wanted, free and arm the kidnapped Africans, and let the ship go on its way.
Well, if you want to get into misnomers, calling all the "free men" slavers may be going a bit far. The vessel was not nominally a slave ship, it was a side business of the captain, and speculating on whether the other crew and/or passengers that signed on to a ship sailing in seas where slave trading was banned knew that slaves would later be brought on board at a separate port is hard to do accurately without a lot more information.
No, not at all. Freedom does not occur in isolation.
Commemorating the end of WW2, German president Joachim Gauck said, "On May 8, 1945, we were liberated — by the people of the Soviet Union." The crew on the slave ship were not "free men," even if they were well-meaning.
Ignorance is a defense against aiding and abetting. You can't abet something if you don't know about it. You can unknowingly aid it, but any legal system that prosecutes people for their role crimes they had no knowledge of is not a just system.
Some non-enslaved/kidnapped people of the ship may have had no knowledge of the cargo, or if they did, may not yet have had an opportunity to notify authorities at a port after learning. Calling them slave traders before they've had an opportunity to show their side one way or another is no different than calling the kidnapped people slaves before they've been actually put into slavery.
To be clear, I believe most the people on the ship probably would not raise any alarm over the situation, at least not enough to cause legal trouble, but if you are going to be pedantic about terminology in this way, it only makes sense to do the same in all cases brought forth, unless you are using terminology to manipulate the perspective (this is not an accusation).
Notice the "Also" in my original comment. It is meant to be read as 2 distinct sentences.
I am not a lawyer but I do know that people are held responsible for the personal belongings they carry, say on a plane. I know that I cannot carry a prohibited item on a plane and claim that I didn't know how it got there. Which is probably why they make you say that your bag was not touched by any strangers before you board your flight.
The captain of a ship should be held responsible for the ship and it's cargo.
> "I do know that people are held responsible for the personal belongings they carry"
Actually there's strong legal precedent in the opposite direction. From page 14 of [0], "a defendant cannot knowingly acquire or possess that which he or she does not know exists". This sentiment is common in US law -- you can claim to not know how something got into your possession, and if that claim is reasonably credible, you'll typically be let off the hook.
>"a defendant cannot knowingly acquire or possess that which he or she does not know exists"
I read the above line several times carefully.
Here is the meaning I made out of that sentence, one cannot claim that they knew exactly how they got a certain object and then say at a later time that they did not even know such an object exists.
This is a different scenario than accepting responsibility for your personal belongings (say while flying) and then claiming that you don't know how it got there.
In the former case there is evidence that you got that object.
To summarize, my understanding of in flight carry on rules are you are aware of the things you are carrying and would be held responsible if you are later caught with a prohibited item.
> "one cannot claim that they knew exactly how they got a certain object and then say at a later time that they did not even know such an object exists"
But it can happen in the opposite order. I recall at least one professional athlete [0] getting caught with drugs in his bag at the airport, and having the charges dismissed because (supposedly) his friend had used his bag and left the drugs in it, without his knowledge. The claim "I didn't know that existed" (ie, drugs in the bag -- knowing drugs exist in general is not the same as knowing drugs exist within your bag) is compatible with the later claim "given that it does exist, I'm certain as to where it came from" (knowing someone else had used that bag during the prior week).
In the context of this thread, it's quite possible for (some of) the crew of a ship to be in the dark as to what cargo might be onboard, and therefore to not knowingly possess contraband or be involved in slave trading. "Ignorance of the law is no defense; ignorance of crime is one." [1] As kbenson rightly pointed out, it's not "aiding and abetting" if you don't know crime is happening; it's only "aiding and abetting" if you're trying to help someone commit a crime. As the link you yourself posted says, "It is necessary to show that the defendant has wilfully associated himself with the crime being committed" -- not merely that he helped someone who happened to have committed a crime, but that he intentionally, knowingly, chose to participate in crime.
> "nowhere it says that the drug possession charges were dismissed"
Type "Carmelo Anthony drug charges dropped" into google [0].
Your statement is mostly correct, but the ways in which it's wrong are significant and relevant for this thread. As kbenson and I have both pointed out, ignorance is a valid defense in US law, and was a valid defense in many legal traditions of the past. You may have heard the phrase "harboring a known fugitive" -- someone who provides shelter to someone they know is running from the law can be held culpable for aiding and abetting, while someone who provides shelter to somebody who happens to be running from the law (unknown to them) is treated as a victim. The generalization holds -- a person who knowingly helps someone pull off a crime is culpable, while a person who happens to help someone but didn't know they were helping a criminal is innocent.
Without more detail, we don't know how much of the crew of the ship in question might fall into either category.
Age of Sail pirates were fascinating in many ways. Some of them had workers' comp, equal pay and voting rights for blacks and other minorities, constitutions designed to limit autocratic power on the ship (unlike legitimate merchant ships), and fairly flat payouts of booty (one documented ship gave the Captain two shares while the lowest crew members got one share).
Right, and many of the pirates become pirates because they were fleeing the autocracy of legitimate merchant ships.
And the newfound freedom of pirates was a direct threat to the state. It's no wonder that in a span of 50 years, as mercantilism developed, pirates went from being knighted (Francis Drake), to being the worst kind of criminals (Blackbeard).
Obviously I don't know about this crew but lots of slave ships were crewed by press ganged seamen who were themselves kidnapped from English ports and forced to serve for three years. It was the desperate rise of press ganging that was behind the anti-slave trade movement in England.
Yea sure, those terms were used by Westerners in 1761. I bet the Africans would have seen it differently.
Nevertheless, it is our duty to correct the terms they used to better reflect the reality. And this is common practice. If it weren't, Socrates would be remembered as a corrupter of the youth and Galileo as a heretic.
> Yea sure, those terms were used by Westerners in 1761. I bet the Africans would have seen it differently.
Why do you suppose the Africans would see it differently? They were in fact confined to belowdecks in anticipation of being sold into slavery by white men. Do you think they weren't cognizant of this? Do you think they would have rejected the institution of slavery on the basis that they were getting the short end of the stick? Slavery exists to this day and is generally recognized where it is seen. Attitudes towards it vary, but it's not a matter of belief or conjecture.
> Nevertheless, it is our duty to correct the terms they used to better reflect the reality. And this is common practice. If it weren't, Socrates would be remembered as a corrupter of the youth and Galileo as a heretic.
Socrates is remembered as an instigator of rebellion, and Galileo as a heretic in the eyes of the church. As it so happens, predominant Western culture cares much more about Socrates' other contributions to culture than his relationship with Athenian politics, and regards heresy as something of an unreasonable charge.
I really fail to see what the big deal is. Certainly attitudes towards slavery have changed dramatically over the years. Much as attitudes towards many historical facts of life have changed. That doesn't make them cease to be facts. Are you objecting to the article's use of "free men" and "slaves" as primary identifiers? The point of the article appears to be primarily about race and the institution of slavery, when in isolation shipwrecked on an island. The labels are not false, neither are they inappropriate in a historical context.
For a more (leftist) perspective on the motley composition of pirate crews, The Many-Headed Hydra by Linebaugh and Rediker has an entire section on pirating, as well as discussions of other slaving ship wrecks and anti-slavery mutinies.
This isn't a problem tech can solve. It's a problem only politics can solve.