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This sounds like little more than pure speculation. Based on the exact same factors the article very selectively chooses to highlight, you could just as well c

This sounds like little more than pure speculation. Based on the exact same factors the article very selectively chooses to highlight, you could just as well claim that it wasn't competition but a very high degree of integration that has made Europe so successful and that all the competition and war between states has just obscured this fact. You could then go on and invoke the example of the United States to show that even deeper integration without too much internal warfare resulted in an even better outcome in terms of wealth. This is nothing but fluff. You could pick and choose your variables to prove anything and its exact opposite based on that sort of reasoning. What's the empirical basis for any of this? Why should we believe this theory and not some other theory? I don't see it.

hodgesrm 10y ago
History is like that sometimes. The root causes are tangled and we have to do the best with what we have. That said, I don't think this article is framing the question well. If you focus just on one part of the wealth, namely industrialization, it's clear that different countries have done this in different ways. For example if you compare England (first mover) vs. Japan (catch up driven in large part by defense) the outcome was still quite similar in that both countries successfully mastered mass production with corresponding economic benefits to the country as a whole. Yet the details of the societies at the start could hardly be more different. It's hard to escape the conclusion that many regions would sooner or later would have met the conditions for rapid economic growth. The question of why it happened in Europe is not necessarily the most interesting one.