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Well, as the article says: > Per the statement, the large vessels were made to sail north from the Netherlands, around Denmark and toward the Baltic Sea. [...]
by twic 9mo ago
Well, as the article says:
> Per the statement, the large vessels were made to sail north from the Netherlands, around Denmark and toward the Baltic Sea. [...] Uldum adds that shipbuilders made the cogs as large as possible to transport bulky cargo, like timber
Once you've built one cog, you've got the ideal tool to fetch Polish timber to build more!
- nickpinkston 9mo agoYea, this is like the early railroads making steel cheaper via cheaper transport of bulk ore/coal, that made cheaper railroads, that then ship more products made of steel to larger markets opened by the extended rail networks, etc. This happened with tin all the way back in the Bronze Age, where a lot of it was shipped as ingots from industrial-scale mines / smelters in Cornwall all the way to the Mediterranean empires to mix with copper to make Bronze. A cog-based auto-catalytic wood industry is super interesting.
- monero-xmr 9mo agoAlso this stuff never happens by design. Some entrepreneur notices things and the costs, make a decision, suddenly more products exist, organic trading routes appear. There is no need for computers or grand design or hyper-managerial government. The market solves the problem
- nickpinkston 9mo agoIn the US context that's largely true, with the government providing useful regulations after the fact (allowing national corporations, railroad right-of-way law, etc.). The exception being guys like JP Morgan who organized industry cartels that acted as private "central planners", part of which turned into the current Federal Reserve Bank. But for countries like China and many others in Asia with strong state capacity, industrial policy was planned top-down for the "commanding heights" of industry like: roads, rail, shipping, airlines, telecom, steel, energy, etc., and that actually worked very well, faster than private markets alone, with the benefit of existing tech and models to follow.
- monero-xmr 9mo agoWe are talking about a sophisticated international trading system that happened 600 years ago. Clearly you don’t need anything like that to make it happen. Let alone Ancient Rome, Greece, Assyria, Sumer…
- justinclift 9mo agoIn your above comment you said: > There is no need for computers or grand design or hyper-managerial government. The response above is just pointing out that although you don't need a grand design or hyper-managerial government, it can be done using that approach too.
- monero-xmr 9mo agoI posit it’s actually far more efficient to just let the market do its magic. No need for absurd Chinese state intrusions
- nerdponx 9mo agoThis is speculation tinged with economics dogma.
- pseudohadamard 9mo ago>Once you've built one cog, you've got the ideal tool to fetch Polish timber to build more! It's cogs all the way down!
- twic 9mo agoInfinite cog glitch!