- cross-posted to:
- history
Really tired of "Historians" talking about the growth of wealth in europe and fail to even mention the extreme exploitation of working people at home and mass genocides and robbery abroad.
What is colonialism? How come india “didn’t experience this enrichment”? What happened between 1500 -1800? :meow-tableflip: :meow-tableflip: :meow-tableflip:
Not like India went from having ~25% of the worlds GDP in 1800 to 3% by 1957.
Or how the British caused repeated massive famines in India via exporting grain for resale in droughts. Or how they would use tax money extracted from Indian farmers to buy Indian goods and then resell them to Indians for a profit. Victorian India is like nazi shit tbqh.
It was rather what is known as a classical emergent property, a complex and unintended outcome of simpler interactions on the whole. The modern European economic miracle was the result of contingent institutional outcomes. It was neither designed nor planned. But it happened, and once it began, it generated a self-reinforcing dynamic of economic progress that made knowledge-driven growth both possible and sustainable.
:doubt:
In brief, Europe’s political fragmentation spurred productive competition.
I used to think that Europe got its wealth by exploiting the global south and genociding its detractors, but now this guy made it clear that it really was competition amongst states that allowed them to thrive. From his conclusion, I fully support the balkanization of America into thousands of states to encourage more innovation or whatever.
More often than not I find myself wishing that the Mongols had taken the whole continent.
