doesn't it have to be China? higher the highs the lower the lows. A century of humiliation visited on a small country would be one thing (and poland or lithuania would qualify for that), but the very largest and most populous country is a much more tragic affair.. to say nothing of the other great calamities china has experienced
To further your point, Europe was actually a backwater compared to the vastly more prosperous civilizations of China and India right up until Capitalism happened in England. The reason Spain was burning through slaves mining silver in the Americas is so they could trade it to China for their much better and cheaper goods.
England evolving the right conditions for Capitalist social relations to take hold in the countryside is a world-historical freak accident that was anything but inevitable. Is it an L for everyone else that it just happened to go right for them?
doesn't it have to be China? higher the highs the lower the lows. A century of humiliation visited on a small country would be one thing (and poland or lithuania would qualify for that), but the very largest and most populous country is a much more tragic affair.. to say nothing of the other great calamities china has experienced
That puts India in the running as well. The region was quite rich in the 1700s
To further your point, Europe was actually a backwater compared to the vastly more prosperous civilizations of China and India right up until Capitalism happened in England. The reason Spain was burning through slaves mining silver in the Americas is so they could trade it to China for their much better and cheaper goods.
England evolving the right conditions for Capitalist social relations to take hold in the countryside is a world-historical freak accident that was anything but inevitable. Is it an L for everyone else that it just happened to go right for them?