Superficial article that comes up with the only answer the author knows: "competition". I'm as pro free market as the next (liberal) economist but competition

Superficial article that comes up with the only answer the author knows: "competition". I'm as pro free market as the next (liberal) economist but competition had little to do with why the IR didn't happen in China. One obvious counter example to the article: Europe had centuries of bloody competition before IR, so why did the IR take so long to come about? And the simple answer is that what enabled the IR to happen was the Enlightenment and the core of the Enlightenment is essentially, value pluralism. Before the Enlightenment, God or his representative on Earth, the monarch, was the sole source of truth. Science, or any other sources of truth were squashed. The Enlightenment broke that link, most obviously with Locke's argument for the separation of church and state. The lack of value pluralism also explains the lack of innovation and progress in other cultures through history. A footnote: Machiavelli is misunderstood in the popular culture. The reason he is so important is not because he was the originator of the idea that there are different moral frameworks for princes (rulers) and the ruled, but that it a necessary, indeed a good thing that there are different moral frameworks. Machiavelli wrote in the 16th century, and was one of the early value pluralists.