I'm asking in the context of the last say, 400 years or so, since that's when Europe (and the US eventually) really started to take off.
In part I'm also asking, did imperialism give western nations a head start, or was it other factors such as economic freedom, trade, culture, etc.?
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Marko:The real question is really why it was that Western Europe emerged as the most economically free part of the world? I think one important factor was a coincidence of geography. It is surrounded by sea on three sides thus far less likely to be invaded by some menacing aliens. Less invasions in turn mean less destruction of wealth but more importantly less wars of necessity, thus the state is given less of a lifeline to expand and to maintain itself.
I believe thats only partly correct. Britain did have a geographical advantage over the Continent, but continential Europe did not have any advantages over mainland China.
Thomas Woods has pointed to envy as the answer. Envy was in antiquity treated nonchalantly, but in Christian Europe during the Middle Ages and Enlightenment envy was considered a vice, a deadly sin. It was during this time that Europe made the majority of its progress. Today envy has shifted from a vice to a virtue. The desire to control what belongs to others is now considered among the most noble of social virtues, and Europe shall continue to decline until respect for property returns.
JonBostwick: I believe thats only partly correct. Britain did have a geographical advantage over the Continent, but continential Europe did not have any advantages over mainland China.
But taking human history as a whole China spent more time as the more advanced and prosperous of the two.I can`t claim to know much about China`s history but after the definite end of the Great Migrations period (with the Christianisation of the Magyars) Western Europe might as well had been an island. You will note that after that time in European history invasions of Eastern Europe into Western Europe are virtualy unheard of while the invasions in the opposite direction are common (eg the sack of Constantinople). Christian East was threatened from further East and South (threats to which it irreversably lost the Near East and Asia Minor) and was therefore in no position to pick fights with the Christian West even in times when it was stil the more prosperous of the two. So Western Europe was safe even from the one direction it is geographicaly exposed in.
As far as the IQ aspect: northeast Asians have a slightly higher mean IQ but significantly lower verbal IQ than Europeans. I came across one study showing that Asians are over represented in high visuospatial IQ professions like engineering, but significantly under represented in verbal IQ professions like lawyers. This jumped out at me immediately; perhaps Western legal traditions developed as they did in the West instead of Asia due to the verbal IQ disparity.
Another thing to consider is the collectivism of the East-- could it have a genetic component? Some studies show Europeans have a slightly higher standard deviation in IQ than Asians (15 vs 13). Having more variance in IQ and thus more brilliant people as well as dullards could lead to a less collectivist culture.
Byzantine: Because they were populated by Western European peoples, among other factors.
Because they were populated by Western European peoples, among other factors.
Which begs the question. Why are there such differences?
Great topic!
The myriad proposals are individually topic-seeds.
One of the elements relating to the progressive 'success' of western nations - and. which I believe has been underrated, relatively unexplored, and often mis-represented - is the impact of the Reformation on the idea of liberty.
Specifically concerning the Reformation is a thesis of liberty in GRACE.
We have, in most (visible) churches and religions as well as in secular life, a rational basis for MERCY.
MERCY as a rational conception is cooperation; an extension of the division of labor; a (peaceful) means of dealing with strife, in particular, debt. Mercy acknowledges debt and substitutes a condition of reduced or no obligation for non-payment.
GRACE, however, is not rational to man. GRACE is similar to MERCY in that it is a (peaceful) means of dealing with strife/debt. GRACE differs from MERCY in the (rationally in-conceivable) sense of replacing strife/debt for a condition AS IF THE STRIFE/DEBT NEVER OCCURRED.
The condition of GRACE is a condition of pure liberty. A NEW condition embodied in the life and work of Christ Jesus.
Martin Luther re-introduced this new condition - GRACE - to the oppressed visible church and to society.
I know that such an approach is not popular amongst secular acadamia. Revealed liberty vs. evolved liberty. It is not a rational basis therefore it is discredited.
There is, however, no substitute under either oppression or liberty for a thankful heart - rational or not.
"Oh, I wish I could pray the way this dog looks at the meat" - Martin Luther
Ansury: I'm asking in the context of the last say, 400 years or so, since that's when Europe (and the US eventually) really started to take off. In part I'm also asking, did imperialism give western nations a head start, or was it other factors such as economic freedom, trade, culture, etc.?
Imperialism and colonialism RUINED western nations. It did not benefit them.
Britain at one point of time was an importer nation that lived off foreign investment. Unlike France, it did not put restrictions on these things. As a nation that allowed the conduct of business relatively more freely than others, it managed to benefit.
When it was large enough to set up trading companies across the world, the British exchequer BEGGED the crown not to fund companies which intended to colonise or set themselves up abroad. He saw that it caused the wealth of their nation to run down, when it was used for investment in colonies in remote parts of the world with less return on investment. He also saw that the initial costs of setting up there were very difficult to recover, and they had to forcefully adopt a pro-export policy in order to get back that money, which ruined the wealth of their nation even further.
Their colonies may have had much misery to endure from being under British rule, but once British tried to put use protectionist means to forcefully export to them, the populations of those countries quadrupled. It's as if they benefitted a little bit more than the British did. It also increased the size of British bureaucracy, and forced them to divert funds that could have developed their own country.
I am sorry, but western hegemony is not explained by imperialism.
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