Dear Colleagues,(posted 8751 days ago)In reply to Alan Taylor's comment on Frank.
(1) Yes, explaining the great bifurcation is the key issue (2) Frank, Pommeranz, and others now make it difficult if not impossible to see the roots of the great bifurcation in long-term structural changes c. 1000-1700. The "action" is in the last few centuries. (3) I agree with Taylor that Frank's explanation of the bifurcation may be weak. Where Frank sees a slowdown in Asia due to population/resource imbalances, I would suggest instead a sudden "leap forward" in England, due to (a) new institutions developed post-1689; (b) new technology developed post-1689; and (c) a new religiously tolerant, scientifically empirical, culture of inquiry, experiment, and innovation that developed in England post-1689. (4) If this seems to pivot everything on the Glorious Revolution, that's right. North and Weingast pointed to this period as crucial for emergence of the Bank of England, but I think that is but one minor element in the story. If James II had triumphed, he likely would have suppressed the Royal Society or limited its inquiries (see the work of Margaret Jacob); and if England became Catholicized, and Protestantism was suppressed, the Huegenots would also have been (at about the same time, with the Revocation of the Edict of Nantes in 1685) completely lost. The mechanics' libraries and Dissenting academies might have been subordinate to the Churchmen, as on the continent. The Dissenters who provided the bulk of the entrepreneurial energy of the IR in England might simply not have made their contribution, and perhaps modern science and industry as we know it might never have developed in the west. Recall that even when modern technology was available, the Ottomans, and counter-reformation Spain and Italy ignored or discouraged it, as they had ignored then discouraged Galileo. One cannot assume that because modernity had advantages, anyone would seek or seize them. (5) In short, I think what needs to be explained is not a "long-term, inevitable" process that leads to industrialization, but a rare, one-off, developmental anomaly or "sport" that leads England on what is, by world standards, a "peculiar path." Once explored, others can follow this path (as the French began to obsess about "english pumps" and smuggle in English workmen in the late 18th century), but I see no reason why it should have "naturally" developed. (6) Alan, Brad, and others, I am glad you are impressed with the work of Ken Pommeranz, and intrigued by the work of Andre Gunder Frank. I also recommend the work of R. Bin Wong, and my own article "The Problem of the 'Early Modern' World" forthcoming in the JOURNAL OF THE SOCIAL AND ECONOMIC HISTORY OF THE ORIENT (and available by email if anyone wishes it).
In closing, let me not try to settle any argument, but to better frame the terms of debate. On the one hand, there is what I would call the North/Landes/Jones view (as given in Doug North and Robert Thomas' key article, David Landes recent book, and Eric Jones' THE EUROPEAN MIRACLE) that Europe had decisive advantages stretching back to the Middle Ages that provided a cumulating advantage in capital, living standards, consumerism, technology, exploration, etc. that produced a gradual but persistent increase in economic growth and culminated in a marked advantage over other parts of the world by the late 18th century. There is some difference among these authors over whether they key advantages were in institutions, livestock/ecology, or mechanical skills, or culture, but all agree the differences were long-standing and produced a long-term change. Moreover, it was European expansion and dynamism that was the long-term driver of global economic history, and changed the world.
Against this view, there is emerging what I like to call the "California" school or interpretation of global economic history. This has been developed in good part by scholars in California, and holds that there were NO significant long-term advantages enjoyed by Europe over the main centers of civilization in Asia; that the level of technology, science, agriculture, and living standards were similar in these regions from 1000 to 1800 AD, with Europe lagging if anything until nearly the end of this period; and that even the dynamics of political and social structures and conflicts in Asia and Europe were essentially similar from 1500 to 1850. Moreover, it was China's demand for silver, and production of advanced/luxury consumer goods (silks, ceramics, exotic woods and spices), that drove world trading patterns, and provided a global trading system on which Europe "piggybacked" its development; and it was only after 1750 that Europe suddenly began to gain an advantage in growth, technology, and power over its Eurasian rivals. Thus some sharp change must have occurred in Europe in the late 17th/early 18th centuries to create this "bifurcation." Some of the major scholars in this "California" school are R.Bin Wong and Ken Pommeranz at UC-Irvine, key work on the comparative development of China and Europe Philip Huang (UCLA) and Robert Marks (Whittier) on long-term economic history of key regions in China James Lee at Caltech on China's long-term demographic history, demonstrating that it was NOT in a Malthusian high-pressure trap. Dennis Flynn and Arturo Giraldez at U. of Pacific, and Gunder Frank (at Toronto, but whose new work is published by U. of California Press) who have documented the extensive silver flows into China across the Pacific as well as the Atlantic, and have shown how central China was to global trade and economic activity from 1500 to 1750 My own work on the parallels between Asian and European rebellions and revolutions 1500-1850, and on the role of culture in possibly leading to some differences between materially similar economies in China and western Europe. Certainly there are other scholars who have made major contributions to this emerging view, but the above group certainly have been in touch and read and influenced each other enough to form a "school" of sorts. Of course, within the "california school" there are major differences on precisely how and why the bifurcation occurred, and on the importance of global vs. domestic developments in that change. But on the main point -- that the bifurcation was late, began in basically similar societies c. 1750, and began in a world in which China played a dominant economic role, there is strong agreement.
Let the debates begin!
All the best, jack