5 ms·

The high standard of living of Europe and the US is a very recent achievement. If you look at the last 3000 years, India and China had the technological edge fo

by forinti 15y ago

The high standard of living of Europe and the US is a very recent achievement. If you look at the last 3000 years, India and China had the technological edge for most of that period. Looking at the future, China will probably get back to the first position. Latin America seems to be finding its own model and will soon reach a pretty decent standard of living. So I think it was too narrow a period of time that was analysed to reach such grand conclusions.

iwwr 15y ago
For most of human history (and before that), the norm is not growth, but stagnation. Centralized empires tend to strangle economic development. The ascendancy of Europe was not a fluke, but rather a condition where a free market philosophy could take hold in a decentralized political system. Had Europe been ruled by a monolithic empire, it would have been very easy to snuff out the industrial revolution before it had a chance to be entrenched.
- Symmetry 15y ago
  Yes and no. Too much centralization can be bad, but then again it took until around 1600 or so for Europe to finally catch up with China in terms of general wealth and technology. So clearly the fact that China was a centralized empire at peace with itself had something to do with it having developed such a large lead. I suspect that the actual situation is far more complex than either "centralization is good" or "centralization is bad", and that different ways of being centralized or decentralized are better or worse, and that different stages of technological development might have different ideal conditions.
  - iwwr 15y ago
    The point about decentralization is to ensure development can continue unhindered by political factors. With an empire it's very easy for the ruling aristocracy (or autocrat) to kill development. Yes, you can have enlightened rulers, but then the system hinges precariously on just a few people. For that matter, it's much more devastating when an uncontested empire falls, rather than when one of many powers may fail.
    - Symmetry 15y ago
      Yes, that's one of the mechanisms by which centralized empires can inhibit development. But on the other hand the lack of them can mean too many wars which destroy advances people are trying to build, and a lack of trade that prevents regional specialization.
shingen 15y ago
China has zero chance of competing for a high national standard of living. The math will never allow it. They have 600 million people living on less than $2 / day. Unless you can figure out a way to increase global consumption by ten fold, and figure out where all the raw materials will come from, and where you're going to put all the factories, and how you'd power ten times as many factories, and how that wouldn't result in an extreme ecological disaster that would wipe out their standard of living gains. So if you figure all of that out, you might get those bottom 600 million up to a standard of living on par with Estonia today.
rory096 15y ago
>Looking at the future, China will probably get back to the first position. What basis do you have for that? Sure, China will undoubtedly take the distinction of largest economy in the world, but that's attributable to its outsize population. In terms of per capita income, what advantages does China have that you think it will surpass the West?

by forinti 15y ago

iwwr 15y ago

For most of human history (and before that), the norm is not growth, but stagnation. Centralized empires tend to strangle economic development. The ascendancy of Europe was not a fluke, but rather a condition where a free market philosophy could take hold in a decentralized political system. Had Europe been ruled by a monolithic empire, it would have been very easy to snuff out the industrial revolution before it had a chance to be entrenched.

Symmetry 15y ago
Yes and no. Too much centralization can be bad, but then again it took until around 1600 or so for Europe to finally catch up with China in terms of general wealth and technology. So clearly the fact that China was a centralized empire at peace with itself had something to do with it having developed such a large lead. I suspect that the actual situation is far more complex than either "centralization is good" or "centralization is bad", and that different ways of being centralized or decentralized are better or worse, and that different stages of technological development might have different ideal conditions.
- iwwr 15y ago
  The point about decentralization is to ensure development can continue unhindered by political factors. With an empire it's very easy for the ruling aristocracy (or autocrat) to kill development. Yes, you can have enlightened rulers, but then the system hinges precariously on just a few people. For that matter, it's much more devastating when an uncontested empire falls, rather than when one of many powers may fail.
  - Symmetry 15y ago
    Yes, that's one of the mechanisms by which centralized empires can inhibit development. But on the other hand the lack of them can mean too many wars which destroy advances people are trying to build, and a lack of trade that prevents regional specialization.

shingen 15y ago

China has zero chance of competing for a high national standard of living. The math will never allow it. They have 600 million people living on less than $2 / day. Unless you can figure out a way to increase global consumption by ten fold, and figure out where all the raw materials will come from, and where you're going to put all the factories, and how you'd power ten times as many factories, and how that wouldn't result in an extreme ecological disaster that would wipe out their standard of living gains. So if you figure all of that out, you might get those bottom 600 million up to a standard of living on par with Estonia today.

rory096 15y ago

>Looking at the future, China will probably get back to the first position. What basis do you have for that? Sure, China will undoubtedly take the distinction of largest economy in the world, but that's attributable to its outsize population. In terms of per capita income, what advantages does China have that you think it will surpass the West?