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Societal wealth is more delicate than you'd expect. For example, China has gone from the richest, most capable nation on earth to one of the poorest multiple ti

Societal wealth is more delicate than you'd expect. For example, China has gone from the richest, most capable nation on earth to one of the poorest multiple times in its long history. I think it takes a special reason for a region to not be subject to the boom/bust cycle.

estaseuropano 5y ago
Note that was china the region and the reason was most of the time war - either internal between different kingdoms or with the various steppe people and ultimately the Europeans.
ethbr0 5y ago
The reasons given seem fairly compelling: (1) multiple, competitive peer states, (2) freedom of travel for intellectuals, and (3) a shared intellectual tradition creating a marketplace of ideas, propelled by high literacy and the printing press. My read would be that pre-Enlightenment examples are fundamentally different in that the Enlightenment wasn't a momentary advancement, as previous regional jostlings were, but a growth hack. It permanently increased the growth rate of knowledge in Europe, which then outscaled everyone else. I'd be curious about opinions more knowledgeable than mine opining on the above conditions vis certain periods in Chinese and Middle Eastern history. They would seem to equally qualify. And if they were equally possessed there, then the conditions must be incorrect or incomplete.
- Gareth321 5y ago
  I fully agree. It seems self evident that Enlightenment principles are superior to the alternatives. Free speech, democracy, the right to dissent and disagree, separation of religion and state. These principles keep the West prosperous as compared to competing ideologies. Totalitarianism, communism, monarchy, etc.; these do not maximise the wellbeing of the population - demonstrably. It astounds me when I encounter people decrying Western values. Have they not travelled the world? Do they not understand how much worse it can be? No one argues that Enlightenment values are perfect; just that they’re the best we’ve found so far.
  - LBJsPNS 5y ago
    Those who decry Western values have their own agenda to keep people controlled...
  - dotancohen 5y ago
    > It astounds me when I encounter people decrying Western values. It astounds me when I encounter Westerners decrying other cultures' values. Just recently HN had a nice flamewar concerning polygamy. Some cultures are different from Western cultures, that does not make them worse, or better. But different. In culture like software like genetics, monocultures can be dangerous.
    - refurb 5y ago
      Sure some cultures are different but we can also make judgement calls on whether it’s worse or better. A country that deprives women of agency, for example, is different, sure, but one can also make the judgement call that’s it’s a worse culture.
      - erenyeager 5y ago
        Your measure of better or worse is subjective. If so called agency of women results in economic gains, but at the same time puts costs on social cohesion, children growing up a good childhood, and the value of family (or so on), then you could also say it is worse.
        refurb 5y ago
        Only if one ignores core liberal ideas of human rights. By your logic we couldn’t say slavery was bad if society was better off when it existed. This is false. Slavery is objectively bad.
        erenyeager 5y ago
        I believe the word Presentism comes to mind. The idea of human rights is constantly in flux. It is subjectively understood and applied. For example, is internet access now a human right? It is not clear what interpretation of human rights should prevail. Not to mention that ‘liberal ideas of human rights’ is a very Eurocentric framing which denies important contributions from other civilizations. Even interpretation of historical events relative to the present can be subjected to a flux in understanding. If slavery was codified to protect the rights of slave owners and slaves, while also providing for both parties, then this arrangement could be considered better than the economic servitude many laborers find themselves in today. In fact, most slavery in history was not like the brutality of so called American chattel slavery.
- karpierz 5y ago
  > (1) multiple, competitive peer states, (2) freedom of travel for intellectuals, and (3) a shared intellectual tradition creating a marketplace of ideas, propelled by high literacy and the printing press. How would this fail to apply to the area we now call China? It consistent of a bunch of different states which regularly went to war with each other, conquered each other and broke apart again, not unlike the various European states. It had a thousand year tradition of the Confucian exam system. It had block printing a thousand years before Europe.
  - throw0101a 5y ago
    > It had a thousand year tradition of the Confucian exam system. It had block printing a thousand years before Europe. It had a rigid top-down bureaucracy where any innovation was probably stifled. The telescope was invented in 1608 and revolutionized Europe. The Jesuits brought it to Imperial China and it basically did nothing because the government didn't want anything to do with it, and so ordered the technology to ignore. The Chinese still thought the Earth was flat until the Jesuits arrived: * https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flat_Earth#Ming_Dynasty_in_China https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flat_Earth#Ming_Dynasty_in_Chi...
    - karpierz 5y ago
      Sure, but now we're not saying "Europe had an intellectual tradition, thus it succeeded", but "Europe didn't have a centralized bureaucracy, thus it succeeded". It wasn't an issue of nourishing intellectuals, which China had been doing for centuries, and it wasn't an issue of regular war against peer armies, which again, had been happening in China for centuries. So now the question is: why did Europe care about telescopes, and China didn't? My intuition is that telescopes didn't solve any problems for Chinese emperors/subjects, and so they didn't care about their invention. Similarly, if it were important for China to know that the Earth was round, they would've figured it out. > The Chinese still thought the Earth was flat until the Jesuits arrived: I think this might add some nuance to what "thinking the Earth was flat" meant: https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/7ug0yf/copernicus_and_heliocentrism_met_with_a_lot_of/ https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/7ug0yf/coper...
AniseAbyss 5y ago
My own European country has had its shares of booms and busts over the last 500 years. In fact if you read history books the blissful decadence and degeneracy we enjoy now must not be taken for granted.
bigbillheck 5y ago
> multiple times The only one I can think of is the decline that started under the Qing.

estaseuropano 5y ago

Note that was china the region and the reason was most of the time war - either internal between different kingdoms or with the various steppe people and ultimately the Europeans.

ethbr0 5y ago

The reasons given seem fairly compelling: (1) multiple, competitive peer states, (2) freedom of travel for intellectuals, and (3) a shared intellectual tradition creating a marketplace of ideas, propelled by high literacy and the printing press. My read would be that pre-Enlightenment examples are fundamentally different in that the Enlightenment wasn't a momentary advancement, as previous regional jostlings were, but a growth hack. It permanently increased the growth rate of knowledge in Europe, which then outscaled everyone else. I'd be curious about opinions more knowledgeable than mine opining on the above conditions vis certain periods in Chinese and Middle Eastern history. They would seem to equally qualify. And if they were equally possessed there, then the conditions must be incorrect or incomplete.

Gareth321 5y ago
I fully agree. It seems self evident that Enlightenment principles are superior to the alternatives. Free speech, democracy, the right to dissent and disagree, separation of religion and state. These principles keep the West prosperous as compared to competing ideologies. Totalitarianism, communism, monarchy, etc.; these do not maximise the wellbeing of the population - demonstrably. It astounds me when I encounter people decrying Western values. Have they not travelled the world? Do they not understand how much worse it can be? No one argues that Enlightenment values are perfect; just that they’re the best we’ve found so far.
- LBJsPNS 5y ago
  Those who decry Western values have their own agenda to keep people controlled...
- dotancohen 5y ago
  > It astounds me when I encounter people decrying Western values. It astounds me when I encounter Westerners decrying other cultures' values. Just recently HN had a nice flamewar concerning polygamy. Some cultures are different from Western cultures, that does not make them worse, or better. But different. In culture like software like genetics, monocultures can be dangerous.
  - refurb 5y ago
    Sure some cultures are different but we can also make judgement calls on whether it’s worse or better. A country that deprives women of agency, for example, is different, sure, but one can also make the judgement call that’s it’s a worse culture.
    - erenyeager 5y ago
      Your measure of better or worse is subjective. If so called agency of women results in economic gains, but at the same time puts costs on social cohesion, children growing up a good childhood, and the value of family (or so on), then you could also say it is worse.
      - refurb 5y ago
        Only if one ignores core liberal ideas of human rights. By your logic we couldn’t say slavery was bad if society was better off when it existed. This is false. Slavery is objectively bad.
        erenyeager 5y ago
        I believe the word Presentism comes to mind. The idea of human rights is constantly in flux. It is subjectively understood and applied. For example, is internet access now a human right? It is not clear what interpretation of human rights should prevail. Not to mention that ‘liberal ideas of human rights’ is a very Eurocentric framing which denies important contributions from other civilizations. Even interpretation of historical events relative to the present can be subjected to a flux in understanding. If slavery was codified to protect the rights of slave owners and slaves, while also providing for both parties, then this arrangement could be considered better than the economic servitude many laborers find themselves in today. In fact, most slavery in history was not like the brutality of so called American chattel slavery.
karpierz 5y ago
> (1) multiple, competitive peer states, (2) freedom of travel for intellectuals, and (3) a shared intellectual tradition creating a marketplace of ideas, propelled by high literacy and the printing press. How would this fail to apply to the area we now call China? It consistent of a bunch of different states which regularly went to war with each other, conquered each other and broke apart again, not unlike the various European states. It had a thousand year tradition of the Confucian exam system. It had block printing a thousand years before Europe.
- throw0101a 5y ago
  > It had a thousand year tradition of the Confucian exam system. It had block printing a thousand years before Europe. It had a rigid top-down bureaucracy where any innovation was probably stifled. The telescope was invented in 1608 and revolutionized Europe. The Jesuits brought it to Imperial China and it basically did nothing because the government didn't want anything to do with it, and so ordered the technology to ignore. The Chinese still thought the Earth was flat until the Jesuits arrived: * https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flat_Earth#Ming_Dynasty_in_China https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flat_Earth#Ming_Dynasty_in_Chi...
  - karpierz 5y ago
    Sure, but now we're not saying "Europe had an intellectual tradition, thus it succeeded", but "Europe didn't have a centralized bureaucracy, thus it succeeded". It wasn't an issue of nourishing intellectuals, which China had been doing for centuries, and it wasn't an issue of regular war against peer armies, which again, had been happening in China for centuries. So now the question is: why did Europe care about telescopes, and China didn't? My intuition is that telescopes didn't solve any problems for Chinese emperors/subjects, and so they didn't care about their invention. Similarly, if it were important for China to know that the Earth was round, they would've figured it out. > The Chinese still thought the Earth was flat until the Jesuits arrived: I think this might add some nuance to what "thinking the Earth was flat" meant: https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/7ug0yf/copernicus_and_heliocentrism_met_with_a_lot_of/ https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/7ug0yf/coper...

AniseAbyss 5y ago

My own European country has had its shares of booms and busts over the last 500 years. In fact if you read history books the blissful decadence and degeneracy we enjoy now must not be taken for granted.

bigbillheck 5y ago

> multiple times The only one I can think of is the decline that started under the Qing.