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"It more and more seems like "traditional", conservative societies are more successful on aggregate." Weren't pretty much all societies on the planet in the 17
by inglor_cz 4y ago
"It more and more seems like "traditional", conservative societies are more successful on aggregate."
Weren't pretty much all societies on the planet in the 1700s and 1800s "traditional and conservative"?
Yet most of them weren't particularly successful against the British, who, on aggregate, weren't that much traditional (superficially, yes, but behind the visible old-school clergy and nobility, ruthless modernization continued apace).
- inawarminister 4y agoWell Germany with it's much more conservative population and petty kings and nobles were able to outgrew liberal Britain and republican France between 1870-1918, and so did Archconservative Russia post-1900 or so. Of course both fell in WW1 but the period just before it was quite interesting to ponder about.
- WastingMyTime89 4y agoI don’t want to rain on your parade but Germany had just been unified and was quickly liberalising and Russia was so conservative the communist party would successfully take control of the state in 1917.
- inglor_cz 4y agoI am not so sure about your claim that Germany in the indicated period was "much more conservative" than Britain. The heart of German economic development was in industrial Prussia, resulting in enormous growth of left-wing politics. Bismarck's anti-socialist laws were repealed in 1890 and the SPD since then got the plurality of votes cast in every election to the Reichstag. Rural Bavaria was much more conservative, yes, but back then it was an economic backwater. Bavaria only started industrializing after 1950.