class 5 - When and why did Europe become hegemonic - the great divergence Flashcards
Malthusian trap
= aka resource bottleneck ecological impasse
Thomas Malthus = one of founders classical pol.eco., essay on the principle of populations
population when unchecked increases in a geometrical ration, and food only in a arithmetical ratio
human population grows exponentially, food only lineair growth -> starvation as check on population (inevitable)
resource constraints population growth
escaping the Malthusian trap
1820-1870 = dramatic increase population growth (mainly in Western Europe and Offshoots)
1800 one billion world population
how? that’s the debate
the great divergence
= separation between the west and the rest (~1650-1850)
(term coined by Huntington; clash of civilizations)
explanations (late 1990s)
- cultural (reflect imperialist propaganda, e.g. Huntington)
- technological (the wealth and poverty of nations: Landes, focus on Britain)
- technological and demographic (Diamond; guns, germs and steel)
other theories of European modernity
- Europe had uniquely favorable environment
- diverse domesticable plants and animals
- population more immune to diseases (Diamond)
- higher density -> growth of city-states, more advanced bureaucracy, higher productivity (Braudel: civilization and capitalism) - Europe had uniquely favorable laws and politics
- strong property rights and economic institutions (Acemogly & Robinson: why nations fall)
- liberal democratic revolutions late C17-C18
the term ‘Europe’
'’Europe’’ = western Europe, Protestant Europe (England and Holland), or even just England
in general: there is more to Europe: has cores and peripheries (e.g Holland vs Poland)
'’Europe’’ was always a construct, never a natural political unit, economic unit or even geographical unit (e.g. does Russia belong to Europe?)
Pomeranz
- The Great Divergence: China, Europe and the Making of the Modern World Economy
important work
global capital growth in a hockey stick curve (in all regions in the world), divergence western europe and offshoots and the rest of the world
- Europe&co grows faster
When did the great divergence happen?
- C16-C18 European Miracle (Eric Jones)
- 1750-1800 The Great Divergence
before or during the industrial revolution (1750s-early C19)?
- traditional = before (e.g. Eric Jones)
- revisionist view California school (Pomeranz): around 1800, during the revo. + rested on achievements of other civilisations
two classic theories of European modernity
- Europe was culturally superior
- rationality, science, secularization, technological inventions (enlightenment, scientific revo C17-C18)
- e.g. Francis Bacon believed in European superiority
- Weber: it was less the secular character Europe, it was calvinism/christianity -> capitalism (has been debunked)
- ideas of freedom, rule of law, democracy = Whig history of progress (Europe as vanguard of historical progress) - Europe stole from the rest of the world
- accumulation by colonial dispossession, expropriation (Eric William: capitalism and slavery)
- advantage preserved by force
crux of the debate
- was it a long-term inevitability/destiny?
- was it a contingent development (an accident)?
(could there have been another unipolar, could the system have remained multipolar)
California school
Great divergence as recent (1800) + sudden + rested on achievements other civilisations + Europe was behind, catched up only in 1800 + Asia and Middle East were world leaders culture/eco until ~1500
- major critique of Eurocentrism
- based partly on reappraisal of early modern China (esp. Qing dynasty and Yangtze Delta region)
*reason: more access to info - some disagreements within California school: Pomeranz’s Eurasian similarity thesis vs Gunder Frank’s European backwardness thesis (i.e. climbing on Asian shoulders)
the European Miracle
other term great divergence, but a bit earlier
C16-C18
Eric Jones: Europe had dev. further than other parts : argument based on family structure : Asian regions produced less people (is more sustainable)*has been debunked
The Pomeranz thesis
why did the great divergence happen? - revisionist position
main points
- Europe’s internally driven growth was vital (industrialization etc.)
- similar processes of internal growth occurred elsewhere until almost 1800 (esp. parts of East Asia)
- Great Divergence possible due to Europe’s privileged access to overseas resources, incl. exploitation non-European labor and dispossession of non-European land
methods =
- integrative approach rather than traditionally comparative (he acknowledges things don’t happen in isolation -> comparisons in global context, finding constitutive links between cases, e.g. tax systems China sustained by Spain selling silver)????or other way around?????
- reciprocal comparison of regions rather than nation-states (England (not UK) and Yangtze Delta region)
theses:
- the ‘‘Eurasian similarity’’ thesis
Eurasian similarity thesis
+ criticism
Pomeranz
why great divergence?
similarities agricultural, commercial, proto-industrial dev. among various parts of Eurasia as late as 1750s -> explosion of growth in Europe after 1750s 1800s presents a puzzle to solve
criticisms
- Europe had more human and physical capital by C17 and C18
*Pomeranz: Eurasian regions similar birth rates, life expectancy, rising living standards - Europe had special institutions
*Pomeranz: industrial capitalism only C18 and C19 + limited outside Britain until at least 1860
-> an alternative explanation: GD not because of forms of property, not accounting practices, not political institutions made Europe more productive and sustainable growing
GD because of imperial power overseas
- joint-stock companies and licensed monopolies had unique advantages in armed long-distance trade and the creation of export-oriented colonies
'’core-peripheral complementarity’’
Empires already existed, but Europeans created new type of imperial periphery (for their core):
- ever-growing volume of manufactured exports for ever-growing volume of land-intensive products
this way they escaped the ‘‘resource bottleneck’’/’‘malthusian trap’’: workers/land in the core less for agriculture
*1790s waaaay more trade/import value than in the 1640s and 1750s (e.g. Britain much Sugar, NL much tobacco and coffee)
European periphery = slavery and plantation system
- create colonial market for surplus manufactured goods
- produce large amount of cheap raw materials
- no diversification of imperial system (they couldn’t: it was forced labor) -> complementarity remains
European gains from the Americas
- new supply of precious metals (silver)
- imports of exotic products (sugar, tobacco, cotton, coffee)
- imports of fish, furs, ships, timber and other materials required for shipbuilding (from northern colonies)
- export markets for European manufactures (colonies req. imports to sustain themselves)
- profits from the slave trade
- opportunities for European migration (to continent with greater per capita land availability)
- windfall ecological gains from transfer of indigenous American plants (maize and potatoes), also used to sustain population growth Africa and China
