Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Posting-Version: version B 2.10.2 9/18/84; site dciem.UUCP Path: utzoo!dciem!mmt From: mmt@dciem.UUCP (Martin Taylor) Newsgroups: can.politics Subject: Re: egg/chicken chicken/egg chigg/eckin Message-ID: <1587@dciem.UUCP> Date: Sat, 22-Jun-85 13:31:03 EDT Article-I.D.: dciem.1587 Posted: Sat Jun 22 13:31:03 1985 Date-Received: Sat, 22-Jun-85 16:08:27 EDT References: <893@mnetor.UUCP> <5642@utzoo.UUCP> <896@mnetor.UUCP> <5710@utzoo.UUCP> <704@utcs.UUCP> Reply-To: mmt@dciem.UUCP (Martin Taylor) Organization: D.C.I.E.M., Toronto, Canada Lines: 41 Summary: I have sent the following to Henry Spencer: Henry, Although I don't agree with everything you have said in this discussion, I want to applaud you for a valuable and sensible set of contributions. You might even convince me to agree with you after a few more submissions! One point of disagreement: colonialism. You seemed to argue as if it was 19th century colonialism that was claimed to start the great rise of European prosperity, and you rightly put down the notion. But it is less clear that 15th -18th century colonialism (which was more of the trading variety than of the imperial raj variety) did not contribute greatly (too many negatives in there; what I mean is that a lot of Western European wealth in those centuries came from foreign and unequal trade -- Spain and Portugal with the Americas, Netherlands with the Spice Islands, England with India and all sorts of places, everybody with W. African slaves). I think colonialism of this kind provided much of the wealth that permitted the later expansion of the Industrial Revolution, which in turn gave Europe a huge technological advantage over the people of the areas they chose to colonize. Where I might be convinced is that Europe already had a technological advantage by the 14th century, and the Italian Renaissance has no colonial roots that I know of, but created lots of wealth. There really IS a chicken/egg situation here. Why didn't it occur when China had the technological advantage? Probably because of their rigid bureaucratic structure. Why did it not occur much earlier in Europe? Probably because of the almost anarchic conditions and lack of an adequate state bureaucracy. As you have pointed out, good management is essential to the exploitation of the innovation that freedom permits. Both too much and too little management is fatal to economic success, whether the management is within a company or is part of the government. -- Martin Taylor {allegra,linus,ihnp4,floyd,ubc-vision}!utzoo!dciem!mmt {uw-beaver,qucis,watmath}!utcsri!dciem!mmt