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The kernel of his thesis is The best way to create social mobility for smart people is to create a massive, irreparable cleavage in the elite. In 1540, i
by oinksoft 14y ago
The kernel of his thesis is
The best way to create social mobility for smart people is
to create a massive, irreparable cleavage in the elite. In
1540, it was the Protestant Reformation, leading to
exploration and trade and new theories about politics,
culminating in rational government and modern capitalism.
That is entirely backward and has little grounding in history.
The points you make are sound and accurate, and had they been his, I would have had no reason to criticize.
- michaelochurch 14y agoThe way I might be wrong is in the assertion that the Protestant Reformation was responsible for creating cleavages within the European elites that might have formed in other ways and for other reasons. Did society need the Protestant Reformation, at that specific point in time, to get those advances? Possibly not. Did we need a Cold War with the Soviet Union, rather than some other kind of conflict, to get the Internet? Again, no. It's not specific conflicts that humanity has needed to advance, insofar as history could have played out in a million of other different ways. However, it has been the case throughout most of humanity's history that social health (rather than slow degeneracy due to a parasitic elite) requires some kind of intractable enmity to exist within the elite.
- afterburner 14y agoI think the general theory that conflict creates progress has some merit though, even if his choice of examples turns up flawed. There is the general example/theory of several countries in Europe with good defensive terrain protecting them being able to compete with each other for a sustained period, without one power control the entire area as in other parts of the world (ancient China, say, or ancient Persia). It's interesting.